Free Republic

The ELCA Elects its First Openly Gay Bishop 06 Thursday Jun 2013 By Robert Benne Last week at its annual assembly the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) elected its first openly gay Bishop—Guy Erwin, who is a theology professor at California Lutheran University in California Oaks as well as the interim pastor of a nearby ELCA parish. Erwin has been ordained a mere two years because the ELCA has ordained openly gay pastors only since the momentous decisions of its 2009 Churchwide Assembly, which allowed the ordination of partnered gays. He respectfully waited to...

On Monday, former Washington Wizards center Jason Collins revealed to the world that he is gay, prompting a complete media meltdown. Collins appeared on Good Morning America; he made the cover of Sports Illustrated; he became the lead on Huffington Post. The president of the United States congratulated him at a press conference, and the former president of the United States congratulated him via Twitter. So did the first lady, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association and a bevy of pundits and athletes across the spectrum. Which leaves one question: What's the big deal? Tennis star Martina Navratilova, the...

College costs are on the rise–having increased at a rate that outpaces inflation for more than two decades, contributing to record levels of student debt. Nevertheless, Duke University saw fit to raise the cost of its program even more. This week Campus Reform reports that Duke has raised student fees in order to pay for sex change operations for any student who wants one. Administrators say they will cover the cost of the reassignment surgery up to $50,000 that will be covered with a cause a 0.3 percent increase to overall student fees.LGBT advocates on campus immediately celebrated the university’s...

After NBA player Jason Collins broke that barrier this week, the National Football League is making sure it will be ready for any coming out party. Earlier this year, at least three college football players said they had been asked about their sexual orientation during NFL recruitment interviews, sparking calls for the NFL to do more to fight discrimination. Just hours before Collins' coming out statement was published by Sports Illustrated on Tuesday, the NFL - America's most popular sport, with $9 billion a year in revenue - released a ‘workplace conduct statement' regarding sexual orientation.

Racing to stanch a flow of criticism, the president of San Francisco’s annual gay pride celebration said Friday that the U.S. Army private charged in a massive leak of U.S. secrets to the WikiLeaks website will not be an honorary grand marshal after all. SF Pride Board President Lisa Williams said in a statement that an employee of the organization had prematurely notified imprisoned intelligence specialist Bradley Manning this week that he had been selected for the distinction, which recognizes about a dozen celebrities, politicians and community organizations each year for their contributions to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender...

During this all-day event, school officials encourage students to be silent for the entire day as a sign of solidarity with the homosexual activist movement. Students are encouraged to wear special homosexual badges, stickers, and bracelets which are often handed out at the school entrances that day. There are also pro-homosexual posters and handouts, and even workshops. The schools use various psychological methods during the day to attempt to create a strong bond with the homosexual (and now also transgender) movements in the minds of the kids, emphasizing stories of victimhood, pushing messages of fairness, and linking GLBT issues to...

PHILADELPHIA — Take five or 10 minutes, the professor said, and write down things that you love, like, need or enjoy. Now pair up with someone you don’t know and spend 20 minutes introducing yourself. Talk about whatever you want. But don’t mention anything that you wrote down. Try going on for a half-hour without a word about the most important things in life. Imagine a full day. “It might be difficult,” said instructor Robin Brennan. “That’s what this course is about. That is just a glimpse of what it is like for somebody who is LGBT” — lesbian, gay,...

Why is there so much anti-gay prejudice nowadays? For example, Dave Blount at Moonbattery says only “a sick, demented society” would ”facilitate” adoption by same-sex couples. I can’t imagine why anyone would say that, can you? George Harasz and Douglas Wirth, a married couple from Glastonbury, Conn., were arrested in November 2011 following allegations by two of their nine adopted children of sexual abuse. But these are merely allegations! It’s not as if these two guys have shown any unusual interest in young boys, right? The case of a same-sex Connecticut couple accused of repeatedly raping and abusing two of...

The case of a same-sex Connecticut couple accused of repeatedly raping and abusing two of their nine adopted boys is headed for trial. Married couple George Harasz and Douglas Wirth of Glastonbury were supposed to be sentenced Friday in Hartford Superior Court under a plea deal, but instead withdrew from their agreement with prosecutors. The men had already pleaded no contest in January to one felony count each of risk of injury to a minor — a reduction from even more serious charges related to sexual assault. But in a surprise turn, the couple’s attorneys pulled them out of...

OCEANSIDE, NY, April 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Catholic church on Long Island has removed a 47 year-old Long Island man from his role as the parish's confirmation teacher, lector, and altar server after learning he was “married” to another man. Nicholas Coppola joined his partner, David Krespo, in a non-sacramental “wedding ceremony” last October. The service was attended by some of his fellow parishioners at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Oceanside. Bishop William Murphy. Bishop William Murphy. Coppola claims that he had been an open homosexual in his parish for years. Even his pastor, he alleges, knew of his...

Carson Willing to Step Down as Commencement Speaker After Protests 29 Mar 2013 Greg Richter. A pediatric neurosurgeon who has become the darling of conservatives since speaking against nationalized healthcare is now under fire for comments he made about same-sex marriage. Dr. Benjamin Carson told “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Friday that he would be willing to step down as commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine after faculty and students signed petitions asking that he not speak. “I would say this is their day, and the last thing I would want to do is rain on their...

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Organizers of Tuesday's "Celebration of Marriage" at Utah's Capitol Hill got a much larger crowd than they probably expected. The evening was intended to celebrate traditional family. While that did happen, people who attended were surrounded by hundreds gay rights activists. Tuesday's celebration of traditional family marriage had everything: the Osmonds, the Governor, and hundreds of gay rights party crashers. Needless to say it was not what traditional family supporters expected. "Do you think it makes this thing tense?" asked Reporter Brian Carlson. "In some ways yes, in some ways no," said Claus...

Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for about 80 minutes in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which is the lawsuit regarding California's Proposition 8. Two gay couples brought suit on the grounds that the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Since the State of California refuses to defend Proposition 8, opponents of gay marriage sought to enforce it in Hollingsworth v. Perry. Generally, citizens do not have legal standing to enforce laws with which they agree. Several justices expressed doubt that gay marriage...

Why would the Chicago Public School (CPS) system be so presumptuous as to start teaching Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transsexual Sex-Ed to all its students, even five year old kindergarteners? Aside from pure hubris, satisfying Gay political groups is a good guess, but the simple answer is because they can. The Chicago’s public schools are more than 85% Black or Latino and just 8.8% White. A combined 87% of Black and Hispanic Chicagoans live in poverty so they are as dependent upon White liberals as house pets are to their owners. If these numbers were reversed the White ruling class in...

Don’t like having to explain to your six-year-old why two men are kissing across the front page of the newspaper? That’s just too bad, according to the Denver Post, which recently ran a picture of Colorado House Speaker Mark Ferrandino smooching sex partner Greg Wertsch to celebrate the passage of yet another bill promoting homosexuality: The Post ran that photo as its main front-page picture, taking up 20-25 percent of the front page. It isn’t that media apparatchiks like Director of Newsroom Operations Linda Shapley don’t care what readers think. They just don’t care what readers who aren’t on board...

Minnesota state legislators considering a same-sex marriage bill for the state did not have an answer to an 11-year-old girl’s question on which parent is not needed. “Since every child needs a mom and a dad to be born, I don’t think we can change that children need a mom and a dad. I believe God made it that way,” Grace Evans, 11, said before the Minnesota House Committee on Civil Law last week. “I know some disagree, but I want to ask you this question: Which parent do I not need—my mom or my dad?” She paused for eight...

Last week, two state legislators finally introduced the controversial Personal Protection Act, a proposal that would allow citizens to bear a gun, knife or — as ridiculous as it sounds — a billy club in public. The bill’s drafters include every gun-lover’s hero, Sen. Dave Zien, R-Eau Claire, a man with more rifles and shotguns on his office walls than the Madison police, and Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, the Assembly’s alleged hunting expert. Undercutting progressive gun-control initiatives, state politicians around the country have bowed to the NRA-rabid right and their backward “more guns, less crime” rhetoric in their absurd belief...