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Berwyn, IL — After years of declining membership, two Lutheran churches in Berwyn recently were forced to merge. While the new church faces many issues as it struggles to adapt to modern society, no one seems to have any qualms about the new pastor, the Rev. Julie Boleyn, who was ordained Jan. 14. Calm, charismatic and serene in the strength of her faith, Boleyn also is the first lesbian to be ordained in the Greater Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For several years, both the United Berwyn Lutheran Church and the First Lutheran Church of...

BOSTON, January 19, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After news broke this week that the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) was seeking to force a mentally ill woman to abort her child, the state agency has dug in its heels in the face of widespread outrage, defending its decision in a statement to the Boston Herald this week. The DMH had filed a petition to have the parents of a 32-year-old mentally ill woman appointed as the woman’s temporary guardians for the purpose of forcing her to have an abortion. The woman, who is identified in court documents under the pseudonym...

Shepard Smith looks like he's going down hill very quickly. Has anyone heard anything about his status? I don't mean to make light of it or wish him ill but it looks like something is going on.

Michael Hastings’ new book, The Operators, jabs at what could be a vulnerable spot for the Obama Administration, the president’s relationship with the troops. The book describes a visit to Baghdad: After the talk, out of earshot from the soldiers and diplomats, he starts to complain. He starts to act very un-Obamalike, according to a U.S. embassy official who helped organize the trip in Baghdad. He’s asked to go out to take a few more pictures with soldiers and embassy staffers. He’s asked to sign copies of his book. “He didn’t want to take pictures with any more soldiers; he...

(CNSNews.com) – On Jan. 1, the California Department of Education started implementing a new law that requires all children in the state’s public schools to study the “role and contributions” of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans” to the “development of California and the United States of America.” This law, according to the pro-family group SaveCalifornia.com, will require the schools to promote “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans as role models” and mandate that “children as young as kindergarten must be taught to admire persons who engage in homosexuality.”

At least 10 doctors not previously disciplined by the state signed sick notes for Madison School District employees that the district considered fraudulent, according to a State Journal analysis of the notes submitted amid Capitol protests earlier this year. The newspaper also found that about 570 district employees submitted sick notes for at least one of the four days in February when teacher absences forced a school shutdown. The number presents, for the first time, a clearer picture of how many Madison employees sought an excused absence. The documents - obtained by the newspaper Friday as part of a settlement...

Normally, when people confront her on gay rights, Michele Bachmann has a response ready.

San Antonio, TX – A young woman was fired from a Macy’s department store for refusing to violate her religious beliefs by permitting a young man dressed as a woman from entering the women’s dressing room. Natalie Johnson claims she saw the young man walk out of the women’s fitting room and politely told him that he could not go back in because it was for women only. The cross-dressing young man claimed that he is a “female.” Johnson said that he was wearing make-up and girl’s clothing, but clearly he was a male. The cross-dresser was accompanied by five...

Pelosi Calls Catholic Bishops ‘Lobbyists’—With Whom She Has ‘Some Areas of Disagreement’ By Edwin Mora December 1, 2011 (CNSNews.com) -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) on Thursday described America’s Roman Catholic bishops as “lobbyists in Washington, D.C.” in their efforts to persuade the Department of Health and Human Service to rescind a proposed regulation under the new health-care law that would require all health care plans to cover sterilizations and all-FDA approved contraceptives, including abortifacients. The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them. CNSNews.com asked Pelosi...

For release: November 28, 2011 MOVIE WAITS FOR OBAMA TO SNEEZE (Los Angeles) Barack Obama coughs or sneezes and you win. It's a new promotion for the movie SICK & SICKER: ObamaCare Canadian Style. SICK & SICKER shows what happens when politicians play doctor by taking over the health care sector of a nation. So today, Logan Darrow Clements, the producer of SICK & SICKER announced he will let average Americans play doctor by observing President Obama and reporting if he looks sick. Starting in January 2012 the first person to email Clements a link to a video of Obama...

PHILADELPHIA — The landlord of the apartment building at first thought a circuit breaker had tripped when he went to the basement Saturday and found all the lights were out. Then he realized all six bulbs had been removed, and he heard dogs barking inside a boiler room, its door chained shut. He removed the chain, stepped into the dank, foul-smelling room and lifted a pile of blankets. Several sets of human eyes stared back at him. Turgut Gozleveli had stumbled upon four mentally disabled adults, all weak and malnourished, and one chained to the boiler. He may have also...

An Alberta judge has let a woman who strangled her newborn son walk free by arguing that Canada’s absence of a law on abortion signals that Canadians “sympathize” with the mother. “We live in a country where there is no protection for children in the womb right up until birth and now this judge has extended the protection for the perpetrator rather than the victim, even though the child is born and as such should be protected by the court,” said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition. Katrina Effert of Wetaskiwin, Alberta gave birth secretly in her parents’...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A 67-year-old man was arrested after police said he left vulgar and sexually explicit notes on several telephone poles. Police arrested Kenneth Downs, and they said the victim was his 15-year-old neighbor. Over the course of a week, investigators said Downs wrote several vulgar notes on telephone poles near her house. One of them was right in front of her home, which prompted her father to call police. The rest of the notes were found along the route she walks to catch the bus. The victim and her father told police they're worried Downs is a danger...

Sinead O'Connor is "in desperate need of a very sweet sex-starved man" and she wants everyone to know it. The Irish singer has taken to her blog and Twitter to snare a potential suitor and to lament the current lack of romance in her life. "My sh---uation sexually/affectionately speaking is so dire that inanimate objects are starting to look good as are inappropriate and/or unavailable men and/or inappropriate and/or unavailable fruits and vegetables. I tell you yams are looking like the winners," she writes. "Needless to say what I do for a living makes it hard for me to find...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Warrants have been issued and rewards are being offered in connection with three cases of animal cruelty in Louisville. All three cases happened this month. The only connection is that each involves what the director of Metro Animal Services calls "heinous" abuses. Kelly Stice, 30, is wanted on three felony warrants for animal cruelty. On Aug. 19, officers found three dead dogs locked inside a home on Manslick Road where Metro Animal Services said Stice lived until a month and a half ago. "They had been dead for a long period of time," said MAS Director Justin...

Darrell McHargue Charged In Connection With Boy's Rape SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. -- A 48-year-old Shepherdsville man is accused of raping a 12-year-old boy in the woods a few miles from his home. The rape took place Saturday night, police said. The suspect was arrested and charged with first-degree rape just hours later, but he has since posted bond and been released to house arrest, leaving the young victim's mother outraged. "My son calls my husband, his dad answers the phone and he says, 'Dad, I've been raped, get down here,'" said the victim's mother, who asked that WLKY not reveal her...

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. -- According to police, a central Indiana man said he was helping his wife commit suicide, but is facing not only a murder charge but also a charge of cruelty to animals after police found the woman and her pet cat strangled in a Kentucky hotel. Over the weekend, Lonnie Daughtery was found in bed with his wife. Police said they both had multiple injuries but his wife had been strangled. Elizabethtown police said the couple was supposed to check out of the Holiday Inn Express on Saturday, but when they didn't, that's when police discovered the crime...

Americas: If anyone out there still thinks Venezuela is a democracy, the silence and secrecy of Hugo Chavez's long absence for an undisclosed ailment ends that idea. It's the act of a dictator. How about treating him like one? Photos of the Venezuelan strongman have shown him looking out of sorts for months — withering weight, reddening complexion, a broken knee, all of which had been dismissed by his secretive presidential ministry as nothing serious. Now that he's in a full-blown health crisis, convalescing in a Cuban hospital for the past 20 days, there's little doubt he's got bigger problems...

Top gay rights leader: kids of religious families are ‘target demographic’ of anti-‘gay bullying’ ad by Kathleen Gilbert Fri Jun 10 7:18 PM EST June 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After the broadcast of a homosexualist advertisement during the family-friendly Fox show American Idol prompted outrage, the founder of the ad campaign has confirmed that such advertisements are intended to promote the message of the gay rights lobby to young children in households that normally wouldn’t support it. One conservative leader has now demanded that Google, Fox, and Disney-Pixar sever their ties with the campaign. Peggy Nance of Concerned Women...

A newborn baby is recovering in Brooklyn Hospital after he was reportedly thrown down a trash compactor Sunday morning. The Daily News reports police received a call at about 9:20 a.m. for a baby found in a plastic trash bag inside the Walt Whitman House, a housing project in Brooklyn. The building's superintendent had heard the baby's cries coming from inside the trash bag attached to the compactor chute, according to the Daily News. It wasn't clear how many floors the baby fell.

After decades of debate, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Tuesday struck down a barrier to ordaining gays, ratifying a proposal that removes the celibacy requirement for unmarried clergy, in the latest mainline Protestant move toward accepting gay relationships... Differences over the Bible and homosexuality have split Protestant groups nationally and worldwide for years. Within the Presbyterian Church, about 100 of the 11,000 congregations had already broken away ahead of the vote, but a group of large theologically conservative congregations, which calls itself Fellowship, has decided to remain in the denomination for now. Top Presbyterian executives issued a statement to the...

I would like prayer for my elderly mother. She's very ill and I'm not sure how long she has. She's bounced back before but, this time it's pretty bad. Long story short she had a bad fall, ended up with a head injury and broken wrist. She is just not getting better, losing weight, feels nauseated, won't eat, weak and down right miserable. The fall was 4 weeks ago. Tonight I talked to her and she said she had a burning in her chest. The doctor thinks it might have something to do with her aorta, which felt a bit...

This is some sick stuff. Far left teachers are now teaching first graders the “Boycott Big Business” song for

Late Tuesday night the Hudson Board of Education meted out punishment for teachers who called in sick in protest against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill, causing school to be closed on Feb. 18. Board president Barb VanLoenen read a resolution that included several categories ranging from one-day unpaid suspensions up to 15 days. All categories included letters of reprimand and warning in the teachers’ personnel files. The suspensions went up based on actions a teacher was believed to have taken. The longer suspensions were for teachers who encouraged colleagues to call in sick and who conducted or discussed union...

One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover - wearing a burkha. Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby's for Save The Children. More than 500 Barbies went on show yesterday at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy

Staff at the state Department of Regulation and Licensing have begun to review roughly 300 e-mail complaints about doctors issuing excuse notes for protesters at the state Capitol over the weekend, officials said Tuesday. Complaints that name a specific doctor and the alleged violations of rules covered by their licenses will be forwarded to the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board. Letters specifying the complaint will be sent to the doctors at the start of the investigation. To date, the names of doctors Lou Sanner and James Shropshire have been cited in media reports about the medical excuses dispensed over the weekend....

Wisconsin Doctors Probed for Fake Sick NotesJeanne Rose – 2 hrs 14 mins ago The debate over the Wisconsin budget has been going on for over a week now, and it does not seem to be letting up anytime soon. Just when you thought things were bad with the protests, which led to the closing of many schools, there is another twist to the case. Fox News reports that the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health has launched an investigation into whether some of their doctors issued fake sick notes to protesters. The demonstrations are against the...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The woman who authorities say killed her teenage daughter and son because she was fed up with them talking back and being mouthy did not appear in court Saturday because she was being treated at a hospital for an unknown condition. Authorities say Julie Powers Schenecker was taken to Tampa General Hospital shortly after midnight Saturday to be treated for a medical condition that existed before she was taken to jail. Hillsborough Sheriff's deputies — who oversee jail inmates — said they could not reveal Schenecker's medical condition, citing health care privacy laws. A jail spokesman...

White House Says It Wasn't Responsible for Picking Rowdy Basketball Arena for Arizona Memorial Service Thursday, January 13, 2011 By Fred Lucas Washington (CNSNews.com) – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the White Houes was not responsible for choosing a basketball arena, as opposed to a church or a smaller auditorium that might be more conducive to a solemn event, for Wednesday's night's memorial service in Tucson, Ariz. The McKale Memorial Center, an athletics facility at the University of Arizona, was packed with a reported 14,000 people, who repeatedly broke out in cheers and screams of a...

Two Wisconsin men, one of them a twice-convicted sex offender, have denied in court that they used a live snake to rape a woman in a home in Eau Claire. John Bullock, 24, of Altoona, and Damonta Jones, 25, of Eau Claire, pleaded not guilty Monday in Eau Claire County Circuit Court to first-degree sexual assault of the 32-year-old woman. Both men remain jailed in lieu of $30,000 bail.

The historic marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, took place today at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston.The Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts began 2011 by solemnizing the first lesbian marriage - of two senior Episcopalian clergy - at Boston's St Paul's Cathedral Saturday (January 1). The marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, was the first lesbian marriage solemnized by the Right Reverend M Thomas Shaw SSJE, Bishop Diocesan...

Sir Elton John’s new baby son Zachary is ‘living like royalty’ in his own £1.3million apartment adjoining the singer’s exclusive Los Angeles pad. The Mail on Sunday has learned that Sir Elton, 63, and his partner David Furnish have appointed a top Hollywood interior designer to turn the flat beside their luxury home into a dream nursery. [snip] ‘From what I understand the baby and his nannies are living in one apartment and Elton and David are living in another.’ The couple have hired ‘interior designer to the stars’ Martyn Lawrence-Bullard to decorate the baby’s apartment. Lawrence-Bullard, who also masterminded...

Obama: No shirtless pictures By Ian Swanson - 12/28/10 04:34 PM ET The White House is taking extra steps to prevent photos of a shirtless President Obama on vacation in Hawaii. The president and his family are on a snorkeling trip in Haunama Bay State Park, and traveling press are under “explicit instructions that there will be no long lenses or other sneaky attempts to take pictures,” according to a pool report. Photos of a shirtless president on a Hawaii vacation after his win in the 2008 presidential election caused a stir two Christmases ago. Washingtonian magazine even ran a...

Sir Elton John and husband David Furnish have welcomed a baby boy to their family, according to US Magazine. Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John was born on Christmas in California via a surrogate. He weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces. "We are overwhelmed with happiness and joy at this very special moment," John, 62, and Furnish, 48, told the magazine. "Zachary is healthy and doing really well, and we are very proud and happy parents." This is the first child for the couple, who wed in 2005 after 12 years together.

In its 2009 Churchwide Assembly in August of 2009 the Evangelical Lutheran Church took the momentous step to allow for the blessing of gay and lesbian unions as well as for the ordination of gays and lesbians in partnered relationships. It was the first major confessional church to take those steps. In anticipation of much disagreement about its decisions, the church struck what it thought was a compromise so that we could “journey together faithfully” even though there was no consensus on these issues. The instrument for compromise was the “bound-conscience” doctrine. Realizing that we now had no authoritative teaching...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office worked behind the scenes to help the organizers of a mosque and community center near ground zero, intervening with city administrators to get a temporary prayer service permit and having an official ghostwrite a letter to community leaders.

SCOTTSBURG, Ind. -- Police said an 18-day-old boy who died was beaten. Indiana State Police said the baby boy was rushed to the hospital Tuesday night, clinging to life after being beaten. He was pronounced dead shortly after 12 p.m. Wednesday. Police will not say who they think is responsible for this crime. "It's very hard to comprehend how anyone could harm a child," said Sgt. Jerry Goodin of Indiana State Police. "This is a tragic crime no matter when it happens, but here at Christmas time, it adds more heartbreak. It really does." Police said Gaven Henderson's mother called...

OGDEN -- There may be some congregations that are leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for other Lutheran sects, but the state of the church is good, even locally. This was the message Sunday delivered by Bishop Allan Bjornberg of the Rocky Mountain ELCA Synod when he paid a visit to Ogden's Elim Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Rocky Mountain Synod includes 175 congregations in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. He is currently chair of the ELCA Conference of Bishops. Bjornberg said the synod continues to open new congregations. "There are always more opportunities than there...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recommended constitutional amendments to the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly regarding a 3-year cycle for churchwide assemblies, council membership, eliminating program committees and strengthening interrelationships. . . . David D. Swartling, ELCA secretary, said a committee of the "Living Into the Future Together: Renewing the Ecology of the ELCA" task force, proposed the four constitutional amendments on structure and governance. The council adopted the amendments and sent them to the 2011 Churchwide Assembly, which must approve amendments to the ELCA Constitution, Bylaws and Continuing Resolutions. The council...

Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands. Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands. All deciduous trees in the Western world are affected, according to the study by Wageningen University. The city of Alphen aan den Rijn ordered the study five years ago after officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees that couldn't be ascribed...

Finally, there’s something that both the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life camps can agree on (besides the fact that the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are patently ridiculous). That something is the fact that this is really creepy and gross. Last night, Gawker reported on a Minneapolis couple who is letting Internet users vote on whether or not they should have an abortion. I totally understand the impulse. The other day I asked my Twitter friends if it was warm enough for me to go outside without a coat which is totally the same thing…What? No, it’s not? At all? Oh. Yes, Pete...

Like pretty much every child who walks up Main Street U.S.A. at Disney World for the first time, Alix, 10, and her brother Evan, 11, can barely contain their anticipation. Evan wants to ride Space Mountain. Alix is so excited, she can't even say what she wants to do. She is jumping up and down. It's a typical Disney scene, except that Evan, Alix and their sister Jamie, a desultory 4-year-old shielded from the sun in a stroller, have come to the Magic Kingdom with their two moms. It is the 20th anniversary of Gay Days at Disney, and...

NEW YORK – For TV viewers, this cutthroat election year is a riot of attack ads and media saturation made possible by big-money donors. For TV stations, it's a stimulus package. One research group expects TV political spending to hit a record $3 billion. The windfall may continue well past Election Day because regular advertisers are getting squeezed out of the schedule and could spend their ad budgets later. Coming out of a recession that put some broadcasters in or near bankruptcy protection, political spending is emerging as a critical — but temporary — source of revenue. Several factors created...

For 33 years, Florida forced them to hide behind a veil of secrecy. But now, prospective parents who are gay can legally adopt a child in Florida. Already, some are stepping forward, putting the process in motion. For others, it means a quicker end to their legal limbo. "We've had a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of tears,'' said Melanie Leon Alenier, who with partner Vanessa Alenier has been fighting the state over the right to adopt 21-month-old Ethan, a biological relative who has been with them since he was nine days old.

BANGALORE: Archbishop of Canterbury Reverend Rowan Williams is known to be broad-minded, liberal and outspoken in his thoughts. As the Archbishop was about to rush in his car to a programme after the inter-faith dialogue at ECC concluded, TOI asked him what his view on gay rights was. Williams replied: "The answer to this question is a long one. But yes, I support gay rights as a personal and legal right in the civil domain." Dr Mani Chacko, director of ECC, said: "The Archbishop of Canterbury is broad-minded and liberal. It is true that he had proffered gentle criticism of...

Neil Patrick Harris, star of "How I Met Your Mother" and "Doogie, Howser, M.D." has become the proud father of twins with his partner David Burtka. Harris welcomed a baby boy and a baby girl on October 12, 2010. Neil Patrick Harris used Twitter to send a message to his followers about how babies Gideon Scott and Harper Grace are doing at home. The message Harris sent on Friday, October 15, 2010: "All of us are happy, healthy tired, and a little pukey." No stranger to Twitter, a previous post from the star of television and Broadway sent a Tweet...

BOWIE, Md. - About 15 people have been treated for illness during a rally featuring President Obama at Bowie State University. Prince George's County Fire and EMS spokesman Mark Brady tells WTOP numerous ambulances have been sent to the rally after people started fainting and became dizzy. The problems could be related to warmer temperatures today. Brady says crowds at the rally were outside and packed shoulder to shoulder. Two people have been taken to the hospital so far, Brady says. The rest have been treated at the scene.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Tells ELCA Leaders it's Time to Move Forward 10-261-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- In a report to leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, said it is time for the church to move forward and get over being "timid" about mission and ministry. "In the name of Jesus Christ our days of timidity are over," Hanson told the ELCA Conference of Bishops, ELCA synod vice presidents and ELCA seminary presidents Oct. 2. "I just think we have to say it. And we have to say it with the...

Virus-infected computers that pose a risk to other PCs should be blocked from the net, a senior researcher at software giant Microsoft suggests. The proposal is based on lessons from public health, said Scott Charney of the firm's Trustworthy Computing team. It is designed to tackle botnets - networks of infected computers under the control of cybercriminals. Putting machines in temporary quarantine would stop the spread of a virus and allow it to be cleaned.