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Former Vice President Mike Pence didn't parse words when reacting to former President Donald Trump's indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday. In a statement released following Trump's indictment on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Pence accused Trump of putting himself over the Constitution, and said a Trump candidacy would serve as a distraction from President Biden's "disastrous" record. "Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States," Pence said. "I...

<p>The South African Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he will never worship a 'homophobic God' and would rather go to hell than find himself in a 'homophobic heaven'.</p> <p>The retired archbishop said the fight against homophobia in South Africa was similar to the campaign waged against racial apartheid in South Africa.</p>

South Africa’s iconic retired archbishop, Desmond Tutu, said on Friday that if he had his pick, he’d go to hell before heading to a heaven that condemned homosexuality as sin. “I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this,” he said, by way of denouncing religions that discriminate against gays, in Agence France-Presse..

The USA’s first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, has responded to presidential hopeful Rick Perry's anti-gay TV promotion suggesting that "it must break God's heart to see religion used in a political campaign like this." Bishop Robinson of the Episcopal Church showed his distaste in a TV interview with MSNBC and also by writing an opinion piece in the Washington Post newspaper. Perry had stated in his commercial that “You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t...

President Obama has named to his faith-based advisory council a self-professed Christian who holds that the New Testament's teaching that homosexual behavior is unnatural and wrong--which is found in St. Paul's letter to the Romans--“is not true." The appointee, Harry Knox, has also said that Obama's decision to invite the Rev. Rick Warren to say a prayer at the Inauguration "tainted" the ceremony and that Pope Benedict XVI is a "discredited leader." Harry Knox, a professed gay Christian who is director of the religion and faith program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, was named to President...

The Rev. Katherine Ragsdale will soon become the first female president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Openly lesbian, the outgoing chief of a liberal think tank that monitored the Religious Right, and best known for her abortion rights advocacy through the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), Ragsdale maybe the perfect icon for untrammeled liberal Episcopalianism. But a rather vigorous two-year-old abortion sermon by Ragsdale, assertive even by her standards, has overshadowed her recent appointment. "Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done!" she repeatedly exclaimed at a rally in defense of an abortion clinic...

Two issues continue to cloud the American political scene. Gay rights and the protection of life. These two issues are seen as so important that many Americans are willing to ignore all other issues such as poverty, housing, foreign policy and health care to vote according to a candidate’s position on homosexuality and abortion. The right to life, abortion, freedom of choice issue is much the tougher issue and a healthy debate should continue until some sort of understanding is reached and codified into laws that are firmly upheld by our courts. I suspect the most workable solution is not...

Believe it or not, often I can see the other side of an argument. I know that tough gun control laws save lives and make our communities safer, for example, but I also see clarity in the Second Amendment. I support affirmative action, but I realize that providing opportunity to some worthy individuals can mean denying opportunity to others. Thinking about some issues involves discerning among subtly graded shades of gray. On some issues, though, I really don't see anything but black and white. Among them is the "question" of granting full equal rights to gay and lesbian Americans, which...

Well Operation Save America came, they saw, they harassed, and they annoyed; but they did not close the clinic. The clinic stayed open, no patients were turned away, and the doors never closed. We remain victorious. And that victory is a good thing – but, make no mistake, even though OSA has gone home; our work is not done. If we were to leave this park and discover that clinic violence had become a thing of the past, never to plague us again, that would be a very good thing, indeed; but, still, our work would not be done. If...

By JOHN P. CONNOLLY, The Bulletin Monday, April 13, 2009 The University of Notre Dame, which has been criticized in recent weeks for inviting President Barack Obama to this year’s commencement, announced a series of events during Easter week to promote inclusivity of homosexuality. StaND Against Hate Week, announced on Holy Thursday, includes a showing of the film “Prayers for Bobby,” which reportedly blames a mother’s Christian beliefs for her gay son’s suicide. The event will take place from tomorrow through Friday, which is during the Christian celebration of Easter week. The week is co-sponsored by Notre Dame’s Gender Relations...

From The Times April 8, 2009 Tony Blair tells the Pope: you're wrong on homosexuality Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent Tony Blair has challenged the “entrenched” attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to “rethink” his views. Speaking to the gay magazine Attitude, the former Prime Minister, himself now a Roman Catholic, said that he wanted to urge religious figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that in time this would make all religious groups accept gay people as equals. Asked about the Pope’s stance,...

Faith forms a bond for a lesbian priest and a Mormon father of three A documentary film about same-sex marriage and theology leads to friendship, admiration and new understanding. By Duke Helfand February 7, 2009 Who could have foreseen what would happen between the Mormon filmmaker and the lesbian priest? Not Douglas Hunter, even after he took a leap of faith and trained his camera on the Rev. Susan Russell.

Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the only openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, has been asked to give the invocation at the first official inaugural activity, a welcome event with the president-elect on Sunday afternoon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Robinson had been critical of president-elect Barack Obama for asking Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor who encouraged voters to overturn same-sex marriage in California, to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. Episcopal Cafe has an e-mail from Robinson: "I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to...

The Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday that the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men was nothing but a 'legend'. Dr Rowan Williams has claimed there was little evidence that the Magi even existed and there was certainly nothing to prove there were three of them or that they were kings. Dr Williams argued that the traditional Christmas story was nothing but a 'legend' He said the only reference to the wise men from the East was in Matthew's gospel and the details were very vague. Dr Williams said: "Matthew's gospel says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere...

Hillary Clinton is a "moral conservative." Don't believe it? Ask Amy Sullivan. The "Time" editor said so on this evening's "Tucker." Let's just let the dialogue between Tucker Carlson and Sullivan speak for itself. But come back after the transcript to learn some interesting factoids about Ms. Sullivan's background. View video here.

NEW YORK – Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani says God is a very important part of his life. "I believe in God. I pray to God, and I pray to Jesus for guidance, help,” Giuliani said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network. “I have very, very strong views on religion that come about from having wanted to be a priest when I was younger, having studied theology for four years in college.” The former New York mayor said he feels God’s help when “in crisis and under pressure like Sept. 11, when I was dealing with prostate cancer, or...

Clinton is neither secular nor awkward about her faith. She cites her Methodist upbringing as a formative experience, with its emphasis on "preaching and practicing the social gospel." As a teenager in 1962, she heard and met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago -- what would have been a profound experience for a spiritually alert youth -- and was later politically radicalized by his assassination. The likely Democratic nominee participates regularly in small-group Bible studies and is familiar with the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- the theological heroes of mainline Protestantism (and of...

CHICAGO (AP) - Standing before a church congregation that has witnessed inner-city violence firsthand, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Sunday that more must be done to end a social ill that is "sickening the soul of this nation." Obama told churchgoers at the Vernon Park Church of God on Chicago's South Side that too many young lives are being claimed by violence and more must be done to combat the problem. "From South Central L.A. to Newark, New Jersey, there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation," the Illinois senator told the crowd. "The...

AUSTRALIA must beware the rise of the "religious right" in politics, American Christian activist Jim Wallis has told a Melbourne audience. Mr Wallis said religious faith would be the most influential force in Australian politics for the next decade, but the country was in danger of allowing the religious right to dominate. "It is clear from … the abortion debate and the rise of Family First that Australia, like many countries, is witnessing a new religious force that could change the political landscape," he said. Mr Wallis is in Melbourne to launch the Australian edition of his book God's Politics:...

A leading UK newspaper has reported that a senior Anglican bishop has commissioned the first official Church of England service to recognise homosexual relationships and co-habiting heterosexuals. The Sunday Times reported that the Bishop of Lincoln, John Saxbee has given orders to his staff create the liturgy for non-married couples to be able to come and give thanks to God for their relationship. Although the move steers clear of forming a marriage service, it has angered a number of traditional Anglicans. The blessings given unofficially to gay relationships in churches has been increasing this past year, with a 10% rise...