Free Republic

Open House announces cancellation of parade, which was scheduled for August 10, but says other gay pride events will take place as planned. ‘We are determined to fight for our right to march in Jerusalem this year,’ organization’s director says The Open House Organization announced Friday that the World Pride parade, which was scheduled to take place on August 10 in Jerusalem, has been called off due to the war in Lebanon. However, the other gay pride events will take place as scheduled, the group said in a statement.

At a small Catholic church south of Los Angeles, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?Kneeling ''is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin,'' Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, in Huntington Beach, Calif., told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran's anti-kneeling edict.While told by the pastor and the archdiocese to stand during certain parts of the Sunday liturgy, a third of the congregation still kneels.`ACT OF ADORATION'''Kneeling is an act of adoration,'' said Judith M. Clark,...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The largest U.S. Presbyterian Church body approved a measure on Tuesday that would open the way for the ordination of gays and lesbians under certain circumstances. The new policy was approved on a vote of 57-43 percent among 500 church representatives at the biennial meeting of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. It gives local church organizations more leeway in deciding if gays can be ordained as lay deacons and elders as well as clergy, provided they are faithful to the church's core values. "It permits local governing bodies to examine candidates on a wider criterion than sexual...

Danforth: Ban on Gay Marriage a Silly Idea WASHINGTON — Former Sen. John Danforth says a conservative push to ban gay marriage through a constitutional amendment is silly, calling it the latest example of how the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the GOP. Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, made the comments in a speech Saturday night to the Log Cabin Republicans, which support gay rights. He said history has shown that attempts to regulate human behavior with constitutional amendments are misguided. "Once before, the Constitution was amended to try to deal with matters of human...

Over the past few weeks, rioting in Europe and the Middle East has been spawned by cartoons depicting Muhammad in an unpleasant, though possibly accurate, manner. Muslim extremists are outraged by this so-called blasphemous "idolatry" of others through caricatures, even though versions of the cartoons were published in Islamic media as well as those that appeared in the Danish press and in other European newspapers. A few questions immediately come to mind, however. If non-Muslims are "infidels," how can these extremists expect the rest of the world to act as if we were Muslim? How can the non-Muslim world be...

A couple in Ohio claims the image Jesus appeared to them after he whipped up a weekend breakfast of pancakes, according to a Local 6 News report. Mike Thompson said he was making flapjacks for his family over the weekend when an image caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, Thompson noticed what appeared to be the face of Jesus. He showed his wife, who agreed the image appeared to be Jesus. Thompson said he believes the image is a sign from above. The couple is selling the pancake on eBay with an opening bid of $500. Watch Local 6 News...

Cerebral scans for right and wrong "Can you name a scientific discovery that has ever added to our understanding of morality?" asked Discovery Institute senior fellow, Wesley Smith, over dinner after our recent debate with science reporter Chris Mooney in New York City. Fortunately, I could. Anyone who has ever taken an undergraduate course in moral philosophy will remember the moral dilemma posed in the "trolley problem": You are standing next to a switch in a trolley track and you notice that a runaway trolley is about to hit a group of five people who are unaware of their danger....

“Several news stories today are reporting on the decision by Comedy Central to pull a scheduled rerun of the ‘Bloody Mary’ episode that was  shown on ‘South Park’ on December 7-10.  The decision reflects what I asked for in our news release of December 8.  Therefore, I commend Comedy Central for finally making the right decision.  That it aired in the first place, however, does not speak well for the bigots responsible for creating it.   “In our December 8 news release, I also said, ‘Remember, they chose to insult Our Blessed Mother on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, and...

BETHEL — While controversy swirls over a substitute teacher who told first-graders that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, a local dairy farmer and church deacon has put the same message in a very public place. By erecting a sign along the eastbound side of I-78, between the Bethel and Grimes exits, Leonard H. Martin has taken it upon himself to shatter the myth of Santa Claus for any youngster able to read the message from the back seat of a car as their parents drive by. It marks the second consecutive year that Martin has posted what he termed a spiritual...

US celebrities and rights activists have lamented the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams at his funeral. Hundreds of mourners came to the violence-wracked area of Los Angeles where Williams founded the murderous Crips gang three decades ago. Under heavy police presence, a long line of people entered the 1,500-seat Bethel AME Church. Vendors sold T-shirts with Williams' picture, and a large TV set up in the parking lot allowed the overflow crowd to watch the service. Williams was executed on December 13 despite clemency pleas from celebrities and others who said he had rededicated his life to peace. "It's nine-fifteen...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Red stains are seen running from the left eye of a statue of the Virgin Mary at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church in Sacramento, Calif. According to Anthony Nguyen, a deacon at the Church, the stains first appeared more than a week ago, but they were wiped away. The stains reappeared a week later. Visitors have been flocking to the church to see what many call "a miracle." (11/28/05 AP photo)

Posted on Mon, May. 13, 2002 Homosexuals fear `witch hunt' in backlash of abuse scandal rocking Catholic ChurchGays defending faith and selvesSome say they've been `sacrificed' over sexual orientationBy Jim CarneyBeacon Journal staff writer A cloak of fear hangs over a part of the body of the Roman Catholic Church.``They are on a witch hunt,'' said a gay priest who says Mass for a group of gay Catholics called Dignity meeting at a Congregational Church in downtown Columbus two Sunday evenings a month.He has been a priest for 20 years. But he refuses to give his name over the...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Carrying rosary beads and cameras, the faithful have been coming in a steady stream to a church on the outskirts of Sacramento for a glimpse of what some are calling a miracle: A statue of the Virgin Mary they say has begun crying a substance that looks like blood. It was first noticed more than a week ago, when a priest at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church spotted a stain on the statue's face and wiped it away. Before mass on Nov. 20, people again noticed a reddish substance near the eyes of the white concrete statue...

What's the story on this anyone have a link on this?

A Contra Costa County school was educating seventh-graders about Islam, not indoctrinating them, in role-playing sessions in which students used Muslim names and recited language from prayers, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit by two Christian students and their parents, who accused the Byron Union School District of unconstitutionally endorsing a religious practice. "The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns,'' the three-judge panel said, referring to the First Amendment ban on government sanctioning a religion. During the history course at Excelsior School in...

By 1 hour, 10 minutes ago OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - As U.S. gays and lesbians prepare to battle a raft of state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage that will likely be on the ballot next fall, activists are recasting the issue as one that needs to be fought on moral rather than political grounds. That is the message Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the oldest and leading U.S. grass-roots gay and lesbian coalition, has taken to more than 2,500 gay rights organizers at its annual conference held in Oakland this week. "What I...

An Episcopal group has a doomsday plan that calls for ousting conservative bishops and seizing church property if they attempt to break from the denomination over its increasingly liberal position on homosexuality. The so-called "Day After" plan could kick in as early as June, when the Episcopal Church USA holds its General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, according to minutes from a closed steering committee meeting of the group Via Media. Joan Gunderson of Aspinwall, who served as recording secretary for committee meeting in late September, said nothing from the strategy session has been approved by the group's leadership. "The minutes...

Moscow, October 5, Interfax - The russian communists will organize mass protests if authorities go ahead with a decision to bury Lenin and tear down the Mausoleum near the Kremlin wall. "We will hold actions of civic disobedience and will not let such things happen," Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said at a press conference. Zyuganov said that the communists are holding a referendum on the issue and have already gathered 4,5 Mln signatures. Zyuganov said that 26 public organizations back the Communists'' statement against any eventual burial of Lenin''s body. "We have enough wisdom and will to defend our history...

An Ellettsville family whose home is decorated for Halloween contacted police after someone placed on its porch a flier that suggests Halloween praises the devil. Dalene Gully told Indianapolis television station WRTV that she took offense to the flier, which was placed outside her home by the House of Prayer Church of Bloomington. "I started reading it, and I was very, very upset by it. I found it very accusatory and very threatening," Gully said. The church's pastor, Larry Mitchell, said the people who left the flier would have preferred to talk with Gully, but she wasn't there. Mitchell said...

... Whenever I am out with Margaret, I'm conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don't know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent. Imagine. As Margaret bounces through life, especially out here in the land of the perfect body, I see the way people look at her: curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed. I know that most women of childbearing age that we may encounter have judged her and her...