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The 9th annual Taiwan Gay Pride Parade, held on October 29th, 2011, started from Ketagalan Boulevard with a huge rainbow flag held by the 30 people leading the parade. The theme of this year’s parade is “ LGBT Fight Back, Discrimination Get Out!” Just like last year, Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church actively participated in the parade and walked behind the rainbow flag with the troop.Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church also actively took part in the preparation of the parade and was in charge of administrative affairs. To ensure that the flyers containing the idea of appealing for equal rights...

This is no nursery rhyme but rather the cast of characters lining up to appear at the 2012 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh. ACT I: An assault on marriageThe chameleon:  This character will attempt to lead commissioners to see marriage differently than the Church has historically defined it. Separating marriage from the Biblical narrative of creation and the Biblical witness of Jesus' affirmation between one man and one woman, the assembly will be asked to see a "new normal" that is inclusive of gay marriage. Presented plainly, the redefinition of marriage will arrive at the assembly through...

On Saturday, October 8th in Madison, Wisconson, Scott Anderson became the first openly gay ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. This ordination is especially poignant for Anderson who came out to his California congregation when he was in his late thirties, over twenty years ago. He resigned as a result. Nancy Enderle, the interim executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, told The Associated Press that the ordination was a glorious celebration that touched everyone, especially Anderson. “He’s a very dignified and poised person but you could tell he was deeply moved,” she said “The Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the...

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Several dozen people partook in a discussion about same-sex marriage Sunday morning at Westminster Presbyterian Church, settling nothing but sharing their opinions openly. It was a part of the church’s series of adult education forums; one last week focused on interfaith marriage. Always a controversial topic, same-sex marriage has become yet more prominent in New York this year since the Legislature passed a law legalizing it. The Ledyard town clerk objected to that law and declined to sign same-sex marriages licenses on religious grounds, thereby putting herself near the center of a nationwide debate and drawing a write-in election challenge....

A man who left the ministry 21 years ago is looking forward to becoming the first openly gay person ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA. At the ceremony Sunday, Scott Anderson, 56, now executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, will take back the stole he wore as pastor of two Presbyterian congregations in California, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. He had donated it to Shower of Stoles, a project meant to demonstrate what the Presbyterian Church had lost by barring homosexuals from the ministry. Anderson, who grew up in California, said he realized he was gay while he...

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) plans to ordain the first openly gay candidate for ordination since the denomination struck down barriers this year to clergy who have same-gender partners. Scott Anderson will be ordained as a teaching elder on Oct. 8 at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison. The new policy won approval from a majority of the denomination's 173 presbyteries, or regional church bodies, and took effect on July 10.The denomination eliminated language in the church constitution requiring that clergy live "in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." The new...

MILWAUKEE –  A man who left his Presbyterian ministry in California more than 20 years ago after telling his congregation that he is gay was welcomed back into the church leadership on Saturday as its first openly gay ordained minister. In a quavering voice ripe with emotion, 56-year-old Scott Anderson told the hundreds of friends and backers who packed Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin for his ordination ceremony that he never thought the day would come. "To the thousands of Presbyterians who have worked and prayed for almost 40 years for this day, I give thanks," Anderson said. "And...

A Wisconsin man is expected to become the first openly gay candidate ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) since the church opened ordination to gay candidates earlier this year. ...“It’s hard to believe it’s finally happening,” Anderson said in a released statement on Friday. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) officially began allowing the ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates on July 10. n May, Twin Cities Presbyterians cast the historic vote to allow openly gay and lesbian members to be ordained ministers. Presbyterian leaders say the Twin Cities vote was the action needed to end the 2.1 million-member denomination’s national...

The Presbyterian Church USA (PC USA) has accused Caterpillar, HP and Motorola of supporting the Israeli government in a "non-peaceful way." As a result of those claim, the Church has now indicated that it will divest of the companies' stock. The Church has been trying to convince Caterpillar to cease its indirect engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years, a PC USA representative wrote in a statement.Caterpillar, a producer of mining equipment, has “profited from sales of its products to Israeli military and civilian authorities, including its D-9 bulldozers which are used to demolish Palestinian homes and construct settlements and...

Actress Kristin Chenoweth is a self-identifying Christian who has sparked controversy by speaking out about her support of the gay community in an interview with lesbian and gay publication The Advocate. The LBGT publication asked the TV and theater star: "What would you ask people who cite Christianity as their justification for passing laws that discriminate against people?" Chenoweth replied, "I would ask, 'What would Jesus do?' It sounds so cliché and Pollyanna-ish, but I have a feeling if he were on the earth today, he wouldn't be walking around saying, 'You’re going to hell' and 'You're wrong, you're wrong,...

Top leader of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Moderator Cynthia Bolbach, addressed the first national gathering of More Light Presbyterians since the denomination began allowing the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. ...Meeting at Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, September 2-4, Moderator Bolbach encouraged the listeners to be the church by working together. Using the biblical story of the friends who cut a hole in the roof of a house to get a friend to Jesus to be healed of paralysis, the Moderator urged lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their allies to be as...

When Jeannine Oakes answered God's call to become a pastor, it was a moment of both clarity and confusion. Though her heart belonged to the Presbyterian Church, she also hoped one day to give her heart to a woman with whom she would share her life. The Presbyterian Church's ban on openly gay clergy did not allow for both. Eventually, she asked the leadership at Fourth Presbyterian Church to endorse her mission and enrolled at McCormick Theological Seminary to complete the necessary coursework."I need to be fully who I am, and the church needs to accept that," said Oakes, 32....

Presbyterians who support gay rights are prepping sanctuaries this Sunday (July 10) to celebrate the passage of a new church policy that allows gay pastors to serve openly for the first time in the denomination's history. As the new policy for the Presbyterian Church (USA) becomes official that day, several left-leaning churches "will mark the moment with prayer and rejoicing" in their Sunday services, according to a press release from More Light Presbyterians, which advocates for gay rights in the church. "The Presbyterian Church enters a new era of equality on Sunday," said Michael Adee, the group's executive director. "It...

As an out Presbyterian preacher, I'd experienced prejudice before. But nothing like what I faced in North CarolinaI was reading "Home in Henderson" -- the unofficial city website for a small town in North Carolina where I had recently moved to preach -- when I came across the blog entry. It was posted under the pseudonym "Church Reporter." "A friend that attends the First Presbyterian Church told me to do a Google search on their new minister Brett Webb-Mitchell," the entry began. "Having done so, I have only three comments to make on the pastor selection: 1. Who is responsible...