By Sonja Dalton, AFT Research Analyst

Listen for the riches made possible by the holy integration of intimacy and sexuality. When lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folk come out of the shadows, the whole community of faith can begin to embrace holiness. This holiness is a God-given wholeness that embraces both intimacy and erotic love.

That is the introduction to this week’s “Out in Scripture” a new campaign by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s leading homosexual pressure group, to defend homosexual practice using sacred Scripture and religious arguments. Among this week’s Bible selections is Song of Solomon 2:8-13, about which the HRC says:

Love, in this book, is embodied in the longing of lovers for one another… The passage can be read dramatically by two men without changing any pronouns, or by two women by simple pronoun changes. Such a reading becomes a gift to the church, a reminder that our presence as openly LGBT folk in the church raises to consciousness the reality of erotic love and sexuality…

Nothing could be further from the Truth.

Song of Solomon is indeed an erotic love story – between a man and a woman. Like all scripture, it affirms God’s design for human sexuality: one man, one woman, the two being made one in marriage, joined for a lifetime, mirroring the relationship between Christ and the church.

Campaign for Children and Families (CA) PRESS RELEASE

Campaign for Children and Families is shocked and dismayed that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed SB 1441 (Kuehl). Today’s disastrous action by Schwarzenegger means Christian and other faith-based colleges in California will be forced to promote transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality if they accept students with Cal Grants.

“People of conscience are appalled that Arnold Schwarzenegger has trampled religious freedom to satisfy hyperactive sexual activists,” said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), a leading California-based pro-family organization. “SB 1441 will force religious colleges to either abandon their Biblical standards on sexuality, or reject students with state financial aid. Schwarzenegger is doing what Gray Davis did – trample religious freedom at the bidding of liberal activists from San Francisco and West Hollywood.”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger has two faces,” said Thomasson. “He speaks at churches and says he believes in religious freedom and family values, yet he’s stabbing pro-family Californians in the back. People of faith are suffering under Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s not the lesser of two evils, he’s doing evil.”

CCF had informed thousands of Californians about SB 1441, generating thousands of phone calls, faxes, and emails opposing this offensive bill. Last week, the Governor was faxed letters pleading for a veto by Christian colleges, including Westmont College (Santa Barbara), Shasta Bible College (Redding), The King’s College and Seminary (Van Nuys), Vanguard University (Costa Mesa), Life Pacific College (San Dimas), Trinity Law School (Santa Ana), William Jessup University (Rocklin), and Simpson University (Redding).

Supported only by Democrats in the California State Legislature, SB 1441 specifically requires “any program or activity that…receives any financial assistance from the state” to support transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality or lose state funding. SB 1441 contains no exemption for religious colleges and universities that accept students with Cal Grants, or child-care providers that accept CalWORKS vouchers.

Never. (Deuteronomy 22:5)

Excerpted from When is it OK for boys to be girls, and girls to be boys?, by Ilene Lilchuck, published Aug 27, 2006, by The San Francisco Chronicle:

Park Day School is throwing out gender boundaries.

…Park Day’s staff members are among a growing number of educators and parents who are acknowledging gender variance in very young children. Aurora School, another private elementary school in Oakland, also is seeing children who are “gender fluid” and hired a clinical psychologist to conduct staff training.

…”What is new is how parents and educators are addressing it and being open to it at earlier ages,” said Taneika Taylor of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, an organization in Washington, D.C., that is trying to end discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes.

…Gender variance is an especially touchy topic when young children are the subjects. The Traditional Values Coalition calls efforts to accommodate these kids “normalizing the abnormal.”

The group’s executive director, Andrea Lafferty, said gender variance is a Bay Area phenomenon.

“If you talk to your typical person across America, they would be appalled,” she said. “God made us male and female, and God makes no mistakes. To teach a child at an early age self-hatred, and that’s what this gender variance is, is very sad.”

Continue reading in The San Francisco Chronicle…

Excerpted from Women-Only Event Organizers Ban Transgender Women from Attending, by Troy Espera, published Aug 25, 2006, in the pro-homosexuality Edge Boston:

A women-only summer music festival in Michigan is under fire this week for asking transgender women interested in attending the event not to come.

After an openly transgender woman was allowed to purchase a ticket at this summer’s Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Camp Trans organizers released a statement on August 21 celebrating the end of an 15-year old divisive policy that served to police women’s bodies and exclude transwomen from attending the Festival.

Continue reading at Edge Boston…

Excerpted from Wal-Mart Can’t Seem to Win, by Abigail Goldman, published Aug 27, 2006, in The Chicago Tribune:

…Wal-Mart, which will pay the chamber $25,000 annually,
has agreed to conduct workshops for gay and lesbian business owners on how to break into the Wal-Mart supplier ranks, said Justin Nelson, chamber president and co-founder.

Continue reading in The Chicago Tribune…

Excerpted from City Council Shames Itself Over Pride, by Nicholas Owen, published Aug 2006, in San Diego News Notes:

By Nicholas Owen

…The July 29 parade lasted over three hours and included 185 contingents. Many entries featured scantily clad participants, mostly men, gyrating suggestively to loud, throbbing music. Float titles included “In Dmood for Decadence.” Simulated sex acts were performed in several entries, and many advertised gay bars, pornography vendors, and male prostitution businesses. A rider in the Rentboy.com convertible flashed the devil sign with his hand. Handouts to parade spectators included condoms, sexual lubricant samples, and literature promoting a pornographic web site. Numerous trash receptacles bearing the slogan “Got lube?” (advertising an anal sex lubricant) were placed along the parade route and in the festival venue inside Balboa Park.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a drag queen group in outlandish outfits parodying Catholic women religious, carried an “Asylum of the Tortured Heart” banner, mocking Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At the Gay Pride festival, they provided crowd control and received an award for the “most outrageous contingent.”

A woman who was topless except for pasties walked alongside the parade. A man wearing a body thong covering only his genitals roller-skated by parade watchers in defiance of municipal code which prohibits nudity on public lands and defines it as being “devoid of an opaque covering which covers the genitals, pubic hair, buttocks, perineum, anus or anal region of any person, or any portion of the breast at or below the areola thereof of any female person.”

…Several law enforcement and government agencies participated in the parade or had a booth at the festival, including San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender, the San Diego Fire Department, the Chula Vista Police Department, the Oceanside Police Department, the Harbor Police, and the San Diego Regional Airport Authority.

…[S]ponsors included Hewlett-Packard, Wells Fargo Bank, Cox Communications, Viejas Casino, Sparkletts Water, Starbucks Coffee, Verizon, Sirius Satellite Radio Sempra Energy, iSOLD It, Great American Credit Union, Kaiser Permanente, Travelocity, Yahoo, Smirnoff, Bud Light, Avis Car Rentals, Glaceau Vitamin Water, and the Old Globe Theatre.

…Participating churches and synagogues included All Saints Parish and Saint John the Beloved Cathedral of the Catholic Church of America (not affiliated with the true Catholic Church); Dignity, another group using the Catholic label but not sanctioned by the Catholic Church; Christ Chapel of North Park; Saint Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral; Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad; Temple Emanu-El and the Metropolitan Community Church, founded by a homosexual “leatherman.” Participating schools included San Diego State University, UCSD, Cal State University San Marcos, and the San Diego Cooperative Charter School.

Continue reading in San Diego News Notes…

From Point of View Talk Radio:

August 23, 2006 – Wednesday

Topic(s):Homosexual Activism in Public Schools, Beyond The Binary- Gay Activist Toolkit, Programming & Manipulation of our culture, PTA welcomes PFLAG – Nixes PFOX, Christian students’ free speech rights abused, What Parents Can Do to Protect Kids

Guest(s):Anne Paulk, Author, Restoring Sexual Identity; Regina Griggs, Executive Director, PFOX Parents & Friends of ex-Gays; Mike Johnson, Senior Legal Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund

Excerpted from Tragedy Hits Another Party Hosted by Flamboyant Count, by Ben Taylor and Olinka Koster, published Aug 24, 2006, in Daily Mail:

A man has plunged to his death from a riotous gay party in the penthouse flat of a German aristocrat.

The victim, in his 30s, fell 60ft from the roof garden of the Chelsea home of openly homosexual Count Gottfried Alexander von Bismarck.

Twenty years ago, the count was at the centre of a scandal over the squalid death of a Cabinet member’s daughter.

He was the ringleader of a ‘poor little rich set’ and hosted the notorious Oxford party at which Olivia Channon – daughter of Trade Secretary Paul Channon – died of a heroin overdose.

Tragedy returned to haunt 43-year- old von Bismarck after he hosted another hedonistic party – described by police sources as a “riotous all-night gay bash.”

Continue reading at Daily Mail…

UPDATE

Excerpted from Man Dies After Gay Sex Party At Aristocrat’s Home, published Oct 5, 2006, by Associated Press:

Anthony Casey, 38, fell 18 metres from a roof terrace at Count Gottfried von Bismarck’s London apartment Aug. 23 London police concluded that the death was an accident and four people at the party, including Bismarck, have been told they will not face charges.

Dr. Paul Knapman, presiding in Westminster Coroner’s Court, said one room of the apartment contained a “bizarre” assortment of items including a large rubber tarpaulin on the floor, towels, lubricants, bottles of vodka, buckets of sex toys and a TV set up to show pornography.

“In common parlance, in the early hours of the morning, there was a gay orgy going on,” Knapman said.

Continue reading at 365Gay…