Free Republic

Eye of the storm Wednesday, 13 August 2008 By his very existence, the Reverend Gene Robinson – the openly gay Anglican bishop of New Hampshire – is an agent for change in his church, and society at large. He spoke with Peter Hackney. He is friendly, mild-mannered and avuncular. He doesn’t seem like someone who’d tear an entire church apart. Yet Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the history of the Anglican Church, has been accused of doing just that. So controversial is he that at the recent Lambeth Conference, the decennial conference of Anglican bishops from across...

Elderly Jews say they are outraged that Lithuania is pursuing them over their wartime role as anti-Nazi partisans Fania Branstovsky was just 20 when she joined the Jewish partisan movement fighting the Nazis in her home country of Lithuania. In the Vilnius ghetto, she and her fellow partisans carried out attacks against the occupying German forces. By the end of the war, almost her entire family — more than 50 people –— had perished at the hands of the Nazis. Yet now, over 60 years later, she is the one being branded unpatriotic, and is reportedly under investigation by Lithuanian...

Marriage for All at All Saints Church Press Release sent from All Saints Church, Pasadena this afternoon: All Saints Church, Pasadena rector, J. Edwin Bacon, Jr., announced today that the church will treat equally all couples presenting themselves for the rite of marriage. The announcement followed a special meeting of the All Saints Church Vestry, which unanimously adopted a “Resolution on Marriage Equality” [below] in response to the May 15, 2008 ruling of the California Supreme Court. “Today’s decision is consistent with All Saints Church, Pasadena’s identity as a peace and justice church,” said Bacon, following the historic vote. “It...

Four years at Yale costs $180,000. Here is how senior Aliza Shvarts planned to conclude hers: The art major would repeatedly artificially inseminate herself, then induce miscarriages, which she would record on video. She would build a four-foot-wide plastic cube and wrap it in layers of plastic. Between the layers would be Vaseline mixed with blood from the miscarriages. She would hang the cube at an exhibition and project video of the miscarriages onto four of its sides. "This piece," Shvarts wrote in the Yale Daily News, "is meant to call into question the relationship between form and function as...

It is my opinion that we need to pray for our leaders this election. Many Conservative are disappointed with the selection of Senator John S. McCain. But in one sense, he is the true conservative in values -- he has fought for campaign finance reform -- getting big money out of politics. This should allow the little guy (or gal) more voice in what this country is doing. In some religions, it is part of the church service to pray for the leaders of a country (Ukrainian Catholic, for example). We must pray for our leaders and pray that the...

The inside of his ears had been burned with cigarettes. He was forced to drink shampoo. >His caretakers bent two of his toes to the point that an amputation may be necessary, according to reports. When a Westgate Resorts administrative assistant spotted the 7-year-old trying to serve himself cereal at the buffet in their Osceola County sales center earlier this month, the first thing she noticed was his trembling arms. They were too thin. His eyes were sunken."He was really skinny," said Westgate employee Hilda Berrios. "He looked like one of those kids you see on TV." "As I focused,...

Performance artists are known for pushing the bounderies, but one Australian has astonished his contemporaries by having a third ear implanted onto his arm. The Cypriot-born eccentric Stelios Arcadious spent 10 years searching for a surgeon willing to perform the controversial operation. He got his wish after working as a Research Fellow at Nottingham Trent University's Digital Research Unit. The ear was grown in a lab from cells and implanted into the 61-year-olds left forearm in 2006. Mr Arcadious said he thought art "should be more than simply illustrating ideas." Once the ear has fully developed he hopes to get...

OTTAWA, September 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Newly released numbers from Statistics Canada have shown that in the year since "gay marriage" has been a legal reality in Canada, there has been a less than overwhelming level of interest in mimicking natural marriage by actual homosexuals. Statistics Canada's "family portrait" of Canadians examines developments in families, marital status, households and living arrangements in Canada between 2001 and 2006, what StatsCan calls "evolving" family structures. For the first time, the federal census agency lists those in officially recognised "gay marriages". 45,300 homosexual pairings, either formally "married" or common-law, were registered. Of the...

Official tells group to ‘stay out of our schools.' A group that supports people trying to leave homosexuality is “like the KKK but only in the form of religion,” according to a teacher at Montgomery County, Md.’s Thomas S. Wootton High School. “STAY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND LEAVE OUR CHILDREN ALONE!” wrote the teacher, who happens to be the co-sponsor of the high school’s Gay Straight Alliance club. Using a school-issued e-mail account, the teacher sent those messages to PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays), after the organization distributed fliers to students in compliance with school policy....

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans...described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts. ... I mean, you physically could not do an investigation every time a civilian was wounded or killed because it just happens a lot and you'd spend all your time doing that," said Marine Reserve Lieut. Jonathan Morgenstein, 35, of Arlington, Virginia. ... Veterans said...

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human 25.03.07   Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.  Chimera: sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells  He...

In another two weeks, Friday, the 19th of Cheshvan, (November 10th) gays from around the world are scheduled to descend upon Jerusalem for their Abomination parade. It is worthwhile to take a serious look at this week's Torah portion, Noah (Genesis 6:12): "And G-d saw the land and it was corrupt, because all living things had corrupted their ways on the land." The famous Biblical commentator Rashi, emphasizes that the corruption referred to in this verse was moral decadence. Pushing the world into moral confusion and void accelerates its descent into physical confusion and void. That is the rule in...

Israel Complacent - Muslims Seek to Strengthen Hold on Mount 15:11 Oct 12, '06 / 20 Tishrei 5767 by Yechiel Spira Israel is not expressing objections to the construction of a fifth Temple Mount minaret, in line with Jordanian plans. Jordan’s King Abdullah II announced plans this week to construct a fifth minaret on the Temple Mount, a move that would further increase the Islamic occupation of the site, the holiest site to the Jewish People. Ironically, shortly following the liberation of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in the 1967 Six Day War, the Israeli government decided to return the...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Women from around the world are traveling to clinics in various locations that are now offering face lifts and cosmetic surgery using tissue from babies who have been killed by abortions. Pro-life advocates are strongly condemning the practice and saying the taking of human life is never warranted -- especially for such a self-serving purpose. Women like Susan Barrington, a 52-year-old housewife from England, are heading to places such as Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Moscow and Rotterdam to obtain the treatments. She has been given the final go-ahead form a local clinic to travel abroad for...

Public education had indoctrinated every one of us in Enlightenment rationalism. We don’t know any other way to think about the world. We’ve been taught that we have to abstract the essential principle of everything, separating it from all distracting particulars and details. But however useful they may be to discussions, abstracts will mislead us unless we remember that they are merely imaginary categories, and not real. No matter what crazy conclusions result, the modern world plods on, enslaved to “scientific” rationalism. We are slaves to abstractions, to unreal things that do not exist. It is worse than being ruled...

The first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church said Monday that she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender. Katharine Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was interviewed on CNN, one day after she was elected as leader of the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. When asked if it was a sin to be homosexual, she replied: "I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The first openly gay Episcopal bishop said at a packed church hearing Wednesday that he is "not an abomination," as he pleaded with the denomination not to bar gays from the office of bishop, even temporarily, for the sake of Anglican unity. If Episcopalians "see Christ in the faithful lives of our gay and lesbian members," they should have the courage to say so, no matter the potential consequences, said Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. "I am not an abomination before God," he told the Episcopal General Convention. "Please, I beg you, let's say our...

FORT COLLINS (AP) - A Loveland woman is expected to return to court in July for formal sentencing in a case of incestuous child assault. Dawn Rosemary Triggs, 41, agreed to plead guilty last Friday to two felony counts of sexual assault on a child. Six of her nine children told authorities their parents forced them to play strip poker, and engage in sexual acts with each other. Thirty-seven-year-old James Triggs was sentenced last week to 100 years in prison. A plea deal calls for Dawn Triggs to serve four years in prison, three years on parole, and 15 years...

A special commission of the Episcopal Church will recommend that the church slow its acceptance of gays and lesbians as leaders in a report to be published any day, according to church leaders briefed on its contents... "I think one might say this represents a 'go slow' approach for our church," Smith wrote in his e-mail, which he called an "E-pistle." "Without backing away from the decisions we have made, it is nonetheless a clear messages that we will work to conform to the requests of the majority of the Anglican Communion."

TORONTO, Ontario, March 15, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Quebec film celebrating homosexuality swept the Canadian Genie awards on Monday night. C.R.A.Z.Y. is a film about a young gay man growing up with four brothers in a large Catholic family. The story is set in suburban Quebec during the 60’s. Following the trend set by the gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain, C.R.A.Z.Y. was nominated for 12 awards and won ten of them. The film won for best picture, best director and leading actor.The film’s director, Jean-Marc Vallee, describes the story as “a mystical fable about a modern-day Christ-like figure.” Presumably, he...

Two babysitters have been jailed for raping a 12-week-old baby girl and taking pictures of the abuse. Alan Webster, 40, and his girlfriend Tanya French, 19, both from Hatfield in Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to rape and making indecent images. Webster was given a life sentence at St Albans Crown Court; French was jailed for five years. International law enforcers alerted police after Webster downloaded 7,000 indecent images from the internet. The baby's mother was unaware of the abuse until detectives visited her home after finding photographs detailing the abuse at Webster's home. Sentencing Webster, Judge Findlay Baker said the offences...

Arnold Schwarzenegger may be a more convincing actor than people think. In the 1994 film Junior, he played a doctor who tests a fertility drug on himself and becomes pregnant. Now, according to a Discovery Health Channel survey conducted by Decima Research Inc, one in five Canadians believe it will one day be possible for men to give birth. DESIGNER BABIES The survey was commissioned to coincide with the channel's "Medical Mystery Month." November will feature programming that examines mysteries like the possibility of genetic engineering in the future. On this question, just 10% of respondents said they would consider...

If the Catholic Church wants to prevent sexual abuse by priests, several abuse experts said, there are better ways to do it than by trying to bar gay men from the clergy. The church recently began checking American seminaries for ''evidence of homosexuality," and the pope is widely expected to ban actively gay men from taking holy orders. But it will be tricky to cull gays from the priesthood, the abuse experts said this month. And it would be more effective -- and more humane -- to target likely abusers rather than all gays. ''There's no adequate way to screen...

AUSTIN, Texas - Rep. Tom DeLay was indicted for a second time in less than a week by a Texas grand jury looking into campaign contributions, a development the former U.S. House majority leader called "an abomination of justice." The latest indictment, for one count of conspiring to launder money and one count of money laundering, was brought hours after DeLay's lawyers attacked on technical grounds another indictment handed down last week. District Attorney Ronnie Earle did not return repeated phone calls from The Associated Press, but legal experts say the new charges from the Democratic prosecutor were likely filed...

What would seem to be among the safest places in America came under attack Sunday morning at Annunciation of the Lord Catholic Church on Spring Avenue Southwest. After communion at the 11 a.m. Mass, a man and woman came forward, screaming. Then, to the shock and horror of the Rev. Joe Culotta and his congregation, the man turned over the cherished century-old marble altar. It tumbled down the steps and smashed onto the floor, ripping up carpet in front of the first-row pews.

Colombian police have found the bodies of three human foetuses hidden in statues destined for the United States. The discovery was made by officers searching for contraband at Bogota Airport on Tuesday. The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open. Colombian police chief Gen Jord Alirio Varon said the four- to five-month-old foetuses could have been intended for use in Satanic rituals. Gen Varon said the foetuses were found alongside crucifixes and medals. He said officials are trying to find out who sent the packages, which came from Barranquilla in Colombia...

SAN FRANCISCO — Same-sex couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for them if they break up, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.

As well as being extraordinarily popular, the [Harry Potter] books have encouraged millions of children to start reading for the first time.... For those who have a problem with the idea of fantasy and alternative universes alongside ours, we need to recognize that almost all children play imaginative games in their minds starting at a very young age and have no difficulty whatsoever in distinguishing between fantasy and reality.... Additionally, the Harry Potter books send a strong message about moral order. There are beautiful and enjoyable human relationships among the characters, and there is a depth of commitment and service...

Since its founding, in 1997, the Jerusalem Open House (JOH) has operated as a missionary organization, actively promoting homosexuality among Arabs, Christians, and Jews in Israel and all over the world The JOH is no minor player among homosexual advocacy groups. It is well-funded by the New Israel Fund, a left-wing organization that promotes secularism in all areas of Israeli society and is affiliated with the multi-billion dollar Ford Foundation in the United States.

Copenhagen, Denmark: Scientists in the UK have proved that human embryonic stem cells can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that eventually become eggs or sperm. Their work opens up the possibility that eggs and sperm could be grown from stem cells and used for assisted reproduction, therapeutic cloning and the creation of more stem cells for further research and for the improved treatments for patients suffering from a range of diseases. Behrouz Aflatoonian will tell the 21st annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday 20 June) that the research...

On a recent morning, Lura Stiller sat in a sunny cottage in Cambridge, Mass., helping Cary Friedman and his partner, Rick Wellisch, calm their daughter, a 3-month-old in a pink T-shirt. Stiller, 34, a homemaker from the Dallas suburbs, likes to say that the number of gay people in her acquaintance before she met Friedman, a psychiatrist, and Wellisch, an internist, amounted to zero. "Everything I knew about gay people I knew from TV," she said. In December, Stiller gave birth to the baby, named Samantha, for Friedman and Wellisch, conceived with a donor egg and the sperm from one...

The Rev Debbie Gaston and Elaine Cook are among three couples set to have same sex "weddings" in Brighton on December 21. They will "marry" a second after midnight on the first day the Civil Partnership Bill legalises same sex weddings. The Rev Gaston, 46, of the Metropolitan Community Church, and Elaine, 53, have been together for 16 years and they have two children. She said: "As a vicar I obviously believe whole-heartedly in the concept of marriage and I have married more than 30 couples myself. "Elaine and I have waited many years to be able to make...

ENUGU, Nigeria – Ejike Mbaka is telling a story. The 20,000 Nigerians gathered around him in the red-dust lot have gone quiet. "Last week, there was a man who was mad, insane," he begins, standing on a rickety stage. "For years, the doctors attempted to heal him. But the infirmity continued. He came to me for help. "I gave him some healing water" – and here, some in the audience hold up the small plastic packages of water he sells, 45 cents each – "and told him to pour it in his ear on Sunday. Then pour it in his...

Webster's Dictionary defines famous as "widely known," but also "honored for achievement," while infamous is defined as "having a reputation of the worst kind," a synonym for "disgraceful." In the big business of celebrity journalism today, there is no discernible difference between fame and infamy. Today's celebrity journalism is only interested in that which is interesting , no matter how vile the atrocity. It will make all kinds of excuses for the infamous if they can be milked for Nielsen ratings points. Worse yet, it will pay the infamous for the privilege of wallowing in their vomit-inducing lives. Some of...

Seattle -- Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade student were married Friday night in a tightly guarded ceremony, nearly a year after she was released from prison for raping him. Letourneau, 43, and Vili Fualaau, 22, have been in the spotlight since she was imprisoned in 1997. But when she was released last August, the couple — who have two daughters together — reunited. Since then, details of their wedding have been closely guarded — except for a series of interviews by "Entertainment Tonight" and its sister TV show, "The Insider." The shows have exclusive rights to the nuptials....

THE screen's first official gay bar," as it was labeled by the film historian Vito Russo, appeared in the 1962 political potboiler "Advise and Consent." Its most prominent visitor was a conservative United States senator. As sheer coincidence would have it, Otto Preminger's adaptation of Allen Drury's best seller about a brutal confirmation fight was released on a sparkling new DVD last week just as the John Bolton nomination was coming to its committee vote. Like Hollywood's other riveting political movie of 1962, "The Manchurian Candidate," "Advise and Consent" is fallout from the McCarthy era: the controversial nominee for secretary...

--- College Gay Rape Caught on Tape! Hello, As a fellow concerned Christian who also attends a private Lutheran college, I just wanted to bring an issue to your attention involving a homosexual rape on our campus that was video taped by the rapest. What disturbs me the most about this case is that the man who was raped was a heterosexual and probably drugged, and the gay college student that raped him claimed that he was "curious about his sexuality" and "wanted to experiment on someone." It seemed as if he was trying to use his supposed orientation to...

Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop of his denomination, has angered traditionalist Anglicans by suggesting that Jesus Christ might have been homosexual. Robinson, who left his wife – and mother of his two daughters – to cohabit with his male lover, Mark, made his inflammatory remarks during an address titled, "Homosexuality and the Body of Christ: Is There a New Way?" at Christ Church of Hamilton and Wenham, Massachusetts. The bishop was asked by a congregant how Christians could both accept homosexuality and the Bible's emphasis on redemption for sins.

Catholic University hosts sacrilegious display against the Blessed Mother, offending students, faculty and Catholics nationwide Something extremely alarming and shameful occurred at the University of Dayton, where Our Blessed Mother was depicted in an exhibit amid pictures of prostitutes and pornography.1 The sacrilegious display, "Heartlands," by Derek A. Cracco, an assistant professor of art at the University of Alabama, was on public display in the Rike Center Gallery of the University of Dayton from February 22 to March 11. Ranking among the ten largest Catholic universities in the country, the University of Dayton, founded by the Society of Mary in...

ROME - As throngs of pilgrims converged on St. Peter's Square this Holy Week, a smaller number sought out a chapel in the city's center for a service very different from the pomp and ceremony of the Vatican. Inside the 17th century Oratory of St. Francis Xavier, at Via Caravita 7, American Jesuit priests conduct Masses that seem straight out of the Vatican II era of reforms.

(CNSNews.com) - Gov. Jeb Bush is being compared to Pontius Pilate as he comes under intensive pressure from religious and pro-life groups to do whatever it takes to save Terri Schiavo's life. The groups that are pressuring Gov. Bush commend him for all he has done so far on Terri's behalf. But it hasn't worked -- and they say there is more that he can do. Dr. D. James Kennedy, the president of Coral Ridge Ministries, said that as governor, Jeb Bush is the only legal authority who can stop Terri from starving. "He must act and he must act...

it is worth remembering that the excruciating slowness of the execution here, the incremental-ness of death, is designed by its champions to inure us to it. After the first hour, the second passes with far less fanfare, and the third less still. I've been following this closely, and I needed to remind myself today how many hours Terri Schiavo has actually been without sustenance by counting the days since Friday afternoon and multiplying by 24. How much more easily the time passes, and the world around us changes, for those following only fleetingly, or not at all. Why should we...

Shameful! There's really no other word to describe what is now both the Terri Schiavo ``case'' and the Terri Schiavo ``law.'' Before there was a ``case'' or a ``law,'' Terri Schiavo was just a 26-year-old woman, wife to Michael Schiavo, daughter of Bob and Mary Schindler. Then in 1990 a heart attack, likely resulting from an eating disorder, cut the oxygen to her brain, putting her in what doctors describe as ``a persistent vegetative state.'' Since then Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers have played dysfunctional family - neither willing to relent on who should have the last word on Terri...

Shameful! There's really no other word to describe what is now both the Terri Schiavo ``case" and the Terri Schiavo ``law." Before there was a ``case" or a ``law," Terri Schiavo was just a 26-year-old woman, wife to Michael Schiavo, daughter of Bob and Mary Schindler. Then in 1990 a heart attack, likely resulting from an eating disorder, cut the oxygen to her brain, putting her in what doctors describe as ``a persistent vegetative state." Since then Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers have played dysfunctional family - neither willing to relent on who should have the last word on Terri...

Hundreds of sexual abuse claims targeting the Roman Catholic Church in California have converged into one of the most complex civil litigation cases the state's judicial system has ever faced. More than 850 alleged victims are suing dioceses throughout the state, with millions of dollars in potential settlements at stake in a legal battle that involves more than 300 attorneys and dozens of church insurers. The scope is so vast that the lawsuits have been lumped geographically into three consolidated cases, known simply as Clergy I, Clergy II and Clergy III. After nearly two years, the pace of the complicated...

The founding chairman of a panel formed by San Francisco's Roman Catholic Archdiocese to look into allegations of priestly child abuse has resigned from the board, accusing church leaders of "deception, manipulation and control'' for refusing to release the investigation's results. James Jenkins, one of six members of the Independent Review Board and its chairman until last December, said Archbishop William Levada has blocked the release of the panel's findings on sexual-abuse allegations involving 40 priests. At least nine of those priests have agreed to refrain from "public ministry," the archdiocese said Thursday without identifying them. "There has been no...

In a recent Viewpoints column, Rod Dreher asked why Catholic laypersons aren't doing more to fight the sex-abuse crisis inside the church. Here's what our Catholic family has done. We recently launched a Web site – www.VictimPower.org – that makes it possible for victims of abuse or harassment to remain anonymous while communicating back and forth with authorities. VictimPower enables crime victims to create a totally Safe Place – a private account on the Web site that only the victim can access, like a post office box. From the Safe Place, the victim can report what happened and ask VictimPower...

House panel clears way for language on same-sex marriage. By MARTIN DeAGOSTINO Tribune Staff Writer INDIANAPOLIS -- Shouting "shame," gay-rights activists marched through the Statehouse Monday after a House committee vote that clears the way for strict constitutional language barring same-sex marriage. The shouts began when two Democrats joined majority Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee in voting for the measure, and continued as a final vote of 9-3 concluded. "Father, forgive them," someone cried during the vote, an outburst that led to the peaceful ejection of two people from the meeting. Still chanting, scores of protesters gathered outside Gov....

Bishop Lynch to FDLC: "Enough already" "I wonder when and where the current movement backward in liturgy will end and lead", said Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg in his speech to the national meeting of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) held in Orlando, Florida, in October. Bishop Lynch, who worked at the US bishops' conference from the early 1970s, and was associate and general secretary of conference from 1984 until 1995 when he became bishop of St. Petersburg, recalled the "courage and resolve" of liturgical reformers working in the conference, who "courageously fought for proper liturgical implementation...