Be sure to read AFT’s response to the “Out in Scripture” Sept 3 commentary.

Excerpted from Human Rights Campaign provides gay Bible insights, published Aug 29, 2006, by the pro-homosexuality PinkNews.co.uk:

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has announced the launch of Out In Scripture, a free weekly online resource for clergy and lay people.

The website will provide distinct insights into the Bible, week after week, from a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and straight-supportive perspective.

The debut of the site marks the first and only major online preaching resource devoted to assisting clergy in planning their sermons and spiritual discussion groups.

…”The Bible should not be used to beat up our community, but as a tool to lift us all up. Inside the Hebrew and Christian texts there are messages of liberation and justice. We hope Out In Scripture provides inspiration and insight to a broad array of people and will help change the conversation we’ve been having in our churches on Sunday morning about GLBT people,” said Harry Knox, HRC’s director of the religion and faith programme.

Continue reading at PinkNews…

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.

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…

Excerpted from Why Liberals Are Crushing Dissent, by Kevin McCullough, published Aug 25, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…[T]his week in one of the boldest moves yet by a sitting liberal, Democrat California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez proclaimed, “The real purpose of SB 1437 is to outlaw traditional perspectives on marriage and family in the state school system.”

…And Nunez’s viewpoint is one that pervades liberals in his party and in the nation. That is why Nunez and his fellow Democrats in the California State Assembly voted in unison to pass four bills that are all designed to punish people who disagree with them. To incarcerate someone for daring to criticize a different point of view – over a purely behavioral issue.

The bills in question have passed both houses and await Gov. Schwarzenegger’s signature or veto. The bills were unanimously embraced by the Democrats and universally denounced by the Republicans.

What do they say?

Excerpted from Gays Must Change, Says Archbishop, by Jonathan Wynne-Hughes, published Aug 27, 2006, in The Telegraph:

The archbishop of Canterbury has told homosexuals that they need to change their behaviour if they are to be welcomed into the church…

…The Rev Rod Thomas, a spokesman for the evangelical pressure group Reform, said: “There is no doubt that he is distancing himself from the views that he has previously expressed. He’s right to want to see people converted. The fact that he’s saying this is a hugely welcome development.”

The revelations came in a newspaper interview last week in which the archbishop denied that it was time for the church to accept homosexual relationships, suggesting that it should be welcoming rather than inclusive. “I don’t believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don’t say ‘Come in and we ask no questions’. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions,” he told a Dutch journalist.

“Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics.”

…The archbishop said that he was determined to preserve the unity of the church from being destroyed by the warring factions in the gay crisis. He said he has backed a resolution which says that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.

Excerpted from Catholic Agency Finds Way Out of Adoption Ban, by Elizabeth Fernandez, published Aug 27, 2006, in The San Francisco Chronicle:

…Next month, the collaboration formally begins between Catholic Charities CYO and California Kids Connection, a statewide adoption exchange run by the Oakland-based nonprofit Family Builders by Adoption. The two agencies will work in conjunction with the state Department of Social Services, which oversees about 82,000 foster children.

“Many, many more children will now find permanent homes,” said Jill Jacobs, executive director of Family Builders. “When Catholic Charities first approached us, I was very hesitant. My organization has a long history of serving the gay, lesbian and transgender community. It was really ironic — I had to make sure that our integrity and values were not compromised.”

Continue reading in The San Francisco Chronicle…

Excerpted from Ontario Catholic Teachers Run Far Left Conference Promoting Gay Activism, by Hilary White, published Aug 22, 2006, by LifeSite News:

The most prominent dissident Catholic academic in the country, former priest Gregory Baum, will be the star attraction at a conference scheduled August 24-26 by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA). The conference features a line-up of speakers and workshops promoting feminism, “eco-theology,” courses in turning students into political agitators and economic ideas from the hard left of the political spectrum.

Although there is in fact a wide range of political opinions among Catholic teachers and the union’s own statement of principles includes promotion of “Catholic values”, the line-up of speakers and workshops emphasizes a notably one-sided socialist, anti-Catholic perspective. That of course alarms parents who realize this agenda is what their children are being indoctrinated in by many teachers in their “Catholic” schools.

Conference workshops and speakers include a full roster of favourite socialist issues from key concepts in the new globalist agenda, to eco-theology. One workshop will give teachers tips on how to inculcate students into activism in the labour movement and for “issues of race, class, gender, ability/disability and sexual orientation.”

From Virtue Online:

We know what’s happened in the UCC, Episcopal, PCA, and ECLA denominations. But have a look at this article.

Also, be aware of this group, Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests,which is also noted on our RESOURCE page.