Free Republic

The left-leaning protestant denomination United Church of Christ announced that it will sponsor the sporting event "Gay Games 9" in August as the first mainline denomination to provide major financial support. The event, which takes place every four years and attracts LGBT athletes, will be hosted in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the UCC's national headquarters, where church leaders will help organize events for 30,000 participants in an effort to embrace the LBGT community. "Serving as a major sponsor of Gay Games 9 is a perfect fit because of the UCC's longstanding commitment to social justice issues," said the Rev. Dr....

Marriott International launched its #LoveTravels marketing campaign on June 2, targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender customers—as well as pro-LGBT consumers—with a campaign designed to “convey the company’s commitment to make everyone feel comfortable being who they are.” The campaign already has its own dedicated website (two of them, actually); hotel-mounted billboards in Washington DC; and is spreading in social and LGBT media. Shot by the photographer Braden Summers, it features the recently out-of-the-closet basketball player Jason Collins and the transgender model Geena Rocero, and invites people to share their stories of travel on social media with the hashtag #LoveTravels....

A bill introduced June 12 by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), would establish a special envoy at the State Department to coordinate America’s “global response” on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues and allow LGBT individuals “who have a well-founded fear of persecution...to seek protection in the United States.” The International Human Rights Defense Act of 2014 would reinforce the Obama administration’s already established foreign policy position on LGBT rights, including the public funding of overseas LGBT groups. In addition, the bill would require annual congressional briefings on “the status of the human rights of LGBT people internationally” and institute...

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s highest governing body voted Thursday to allow ministers to perform same-sex marriages. Presbyterian clergy can now marry gay and lesbian couples wherever same-sex marriage is legal. The Presbyterian Lay Committee released a statement repudiating the action of the PCUSA General Assembly. "The Presbyterian Lay Committee mourns these actions and calls on all Presbyterians to resist and protest them ... God will not be mocked and those who substitute their own felt desires for God's unchangeable Truth will not be found guiltless before a holy God." The PCUSA's 221st General Assembly, which is meeting in Detroit this...

"Celebrate Pride Month with the St. Ignatius Community!" "As members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, we are called to celebrate and share the gifts of diversity of sexuality in our church today. Our organization, Embracing God's Gifts, has been formed as an instrument for recognizing these gifts and incorporating their goodness and use into the life of our parish."

Boston’s annual homosexual “Pride” Parade — which will occur this Saturday, June 14th — is a cauldron of depravity. It is characterized by lewd behavior, immodest dress, and lurid displays of exhibitionism and sadomasochism. The message of the parade, and that of the festival which follows it in City Hall Plaza, is one of radical rejection of Christian morality, of pride in mortal sin. Incredibly, this year it will actually be worse. The marshals of the 2014 parade will be the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a grotesque group of transvestites whose members costume themselves as Catholic nuns. They have a...

I can't cut and paste from the device I'm using, but this article is an interview with the father of Matthew Vines, the author of "God and the Gay Chrisitan." Monte Vines says when his son told him he was "gay" a few years ago, they studied the Bible together and discovered things like the often-cited bad argument that both homosexuality and eating shellfish were abominations in the Old Testament (and on that, God says to the Israelites about things like shellfish that they "shall be abomination for you" - meaning the Jews). So the father changed his mind since...

Does the Bible really teach that premarital sex is wrong? (Of course it does! But with Sola Scriptura, that might be unclear!) http://youtube.com/watch?v=PsHMNPyI7iI(Alternate link, via Vimeo.) “Follow” me on Twitter, “Like” Answering Protestants and Catholic Analysis on Facebook, Add Answering Protestants and Catholic Analysis to your Circles on Google+, and “Subscribe” to my YouTube videos. TRANSCRIPT ———————- Does the Bible really teach that premarital sex is wrong? Well, as a Catholic, I know that it does. So, I suppose the real question should be: can a Protestant reasonably think that premarital sex is okay? I think that they can. And...

The Catholics United Education Fund, a Democrat-leaning advocacy group which began criticizing Church opposition to same-sex “marriage” in 2012, received most of its operational budget that year from a gay activist foundation run by influential multi-millionaire Tim Gill. “I would say it is very obvious that Mr. Gill does not agree with the Catholic Church and Her teachings on the issues of homosexuality and marriage,” Jennifer Kraska, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, told CNA May 29. “His attitude toward the Church on these issues is definitely one of extreme disagreement.” Tax forms show the Colorado-based Gill Foundation made...

Calling slain civil rights hero Harvey Milk a “predator” on its website this week, the fundamentalist Christian group American Family Association (AFA) urged members to refuse any mail postmarked with a recently-released commemorative stamp featuring the late San Francisco supervisor. “Harvey Milk was a very disreputable man and used his charm and power to prey on young boys with emotional problems and drug addiction,” reads the AFA’s press release. “He is the last person we should be featuring on a stamp.”

WASHINGTON (RNS) – Americans are showing more tolerance for a range of behaviors, with sex between unmarried adults, medical research on stem cells from human embryos, and doctor-assisted suicide all showing record highs and increases in “moral acceptability” from last year. The Gallup poll’s annual “moral acceptability” scale has been conducted since 2001 and charts shifting cultural attitudes on a number of hot-button social issues. In the 2014 list released Friday (May 30), Gallup researchers said 12 of the 19 categories reflected “levels of moral acceptance that are as high or higher than in the past.” “Americans largely agree about...

If you want to teach at a Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, regardless of your religion, you must be willing to sign a detailed morality clause that critics say focuses on "pelvic issues." The revised contracts forbid teachers from -- among other things -- living together or having sex outside of marriage, using in-vitro fertilization, a gay "lifestyle," or publicly supporting any of those things. The system's 2,200 current teachers must sign the agreement to stay on the job. "It is an embarrassment and a scandal, and will drive even more Catholics away from an institution so out...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Canada On Verge of Banning Christians from Professional LifePosted By Lea Singh On May 30, 2014 @ 12:15 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments An intense struggle is happening in the realm of professional licensing in Canada. The religious freedom of Christians and others is colliding on a grand scale with the “equality rights” of the LGBTQ identity group, and as the tide turns in favor of equality rights, we are starting to witness socially accepted ostracism of Christians by professional bodies.On April 24th, the law society of Canada’s largest province voted against...

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, delivered a letter to the Vatican on behalf of 9 teachers who have lost their jobs at Catholics Schools for either being LGBT, or supporting an LGBT family member. Last month, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati took anti-LGBT to a new level, calling not only for the firing of gay and lesbian school employees, but also citing support of the “homosexual lifestyle” as grounds for dismissal. More than 2,200 educators at 94 parochial schools in the archdiocese have been affected by this new contract....

WaterBrook Multnomah, which has published numerous evangelical bestsellers, has resigned from the National Religious Broadcasters over Matthew Vines' controversial book God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. The move comes after it was learned that Christian staff of WaterBrook Multnomah worked on Vines' book, which was published by its imprint, Convergent Books. A number of conservative commentators have spoken out strongly against Convergent Books' decision to publish the book. It "is the first step in a larger effort to fundamentally recast long-held, universally acknowledged norms pertaining to sexual ethics," Andrew Walker, director of Policy...

ST. CHARLES, MO, May 8, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Parents in Missouri are outraged at school district officials for allowing an e-book with images of people engaging in sexual intercourse in school libraries. Francis Howell School District is facing a backlash for placing "It's Perfectly Normal," a book that includes images of naked people, intercourse, and other pornographic material, in its libraries. One parent told a local reporter that most parents "were shocked" when he "showed this to" them, and that "their next reaction was outrage."

At the Brookings Institute, a center-left think tank, Washington Post contributor E.J. Dionne, theological professor Gary Dorrien, and Columbia University professor Dorian Warren discussed the future of religious progressives in American society and how it could influence community organizing. “The Romney coalition is actually made up, a religious make-up that is even more white and Christian of Americans over 65 years old” while the “Obama coalition [has] more religiously unaffiliated [voters] …[a] higher proportion of non-white Christians…much closer to the younger cohort.” He claimed, “The Obama coalition is much more diverse.” Yet, Dionne admitted, “Only 13% of Democrats are religious...

Throughout history, religion has sanctioned and fueled the persecution of homosexuality. That dynamic may be drawing to an end. Polls, clerics, and denominations are shifting. Theology is adapting. Resistance to same-sex marriage is dwindling, and there’s no end in sight. For 15 years, the Ethics and Public Policy Center has hosted the Faith Angle Forum, a regular conference on religion and public life. Several weeks ago, the group met again to discuss current issues. Transcripts of the conference have just been posted on EPPC’s website. They underscore the extent of the anti-gay collapse. The first session, led by papal biographer...

Gene Robinson made headlines in 2003 as the first openly gay Anglican bishop. Eleven years later, the Episcopalian has announced that he is filing for divorce from his partner of 25 years. In a post published by the Daily Beast, Robinson explained the situation. Recently, my partner and husband of 25-plus years and I decided to get divorced. While the details of our situation will remain appropriately private, I am seeking to be as open and honest in the midst of this decision as I have been in other dramatic moments of my life—coming out in 1986, falling in love,...

A short time ago I learned of a church building in our neighborhood that was for sale. For years now Grace Fellowship Church has been looking for a building of our own, so we thought we should go and give it a look. This had once been a thriving congregation. Faithful Christians had given sacrificially to construct that building. They had consecrated it to the Lord and had worshipped there for many years. Yet now that building was deserted, decaying, and up for sale. What happened? How did that church go from thriving to dying? How did it slide from...