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PORTLAND, Ore/SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Four Oregon men sued the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday for $20 million over childhood sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of a pedophile knowingly appointed as their scoutmaster in the 1970s. The four lawsuits, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, accuse the national Boy Scouts and its Cascade Pacific Council of negligence, fraud and sexual battery of a child in connection with the repeated molestation of the men, then aged 12 to 15. The suits, each seeking $5.2 million in damages, are the latest in a barrage of...

The California Supreme Court's newest justice, Goodwin Liu, hits the ground running this morning with a high-profile issue: Proposition 8. The high court is hearing oral arguments in San Francisco on whether state law gives sponsors of the same-sex marriage ban the right to defend it in a case now pending before a federal appellate court. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco struck down the voter-approved measure last year as unconstitutional. State officials, including Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris, have declined to appeal. Another federal judge has since rejected the proponents' argument that Walker's decision...

With the official end of the U.S. military’s ban two weeks away, gay-rights activists are pressing the Pentagon for more than just the right to serve openly. An underground group of gay personnel says it has won permission from at least two military branches to let it distribute its magazine, Outserve, on bases. In addition, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which led a long fight in Washington to repeal the ban, has written to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta urging him to extend military housing and other benefits to the same-sex spouses of personnel. “Provisions in the Defense of Marriage...

Just months after being fired from Cisco Systems in California over an anti-gay marriage book, Christian consultant Dr. Frank Turek was also given the boot from Bank of America. "I get a lot of flak for just actually agreeing with what a majority of Americans agree on and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman," Turek said this past week on American Family Radio. Turek was doing work on and off for Bank of America for about 15 years, mainly conducting leadership and team building programs, he said. Other clients have included Coca Cola, Home Depot...

WASHINGTON — US officials have approved the distribution of a gay-themed magazine at Army and Air Force bases for the first time, coinciding with the end of a ban on openly gay troops, according to activists. OutServe Magazine, which caters to gay members of the armed forces, said it would deliver a special "repeal issue" on September 20, the day the prohibition against openly gay US service members is due to officially end. The upcoming edition will feature photos and biographies of nearly 100 service members who will be openly acknowledging their sexual orientation, the magazine said on its website...

Opinion L.A. 2012 Campaign: Rick Perry And A Uniquely Anti-Gay GOP Field? August 24, 2011 You might think as much following the revelation by reporter Mark Benjamin that Republican front-runner and Texas Gov. Rick Perry once compared, in writing, homosexuality to alcoholism. Benjamin writes at Time magazine's Swampland blog: Since leaping into the GOP presidential race, Texas Gov. Rick Perry hasn't been asked if he thinks gays are born or made. But in a little-noticed passage in his first book, "On My Honor," a encomium on the Boy Scouts published in 2008, Perry also drew a parallel between homosexuality and...

If a small group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have their way at a conference this week, pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013. Critics warn that their success could lead to the decriminalization of pedophilia. The August 17 Baltimore conference is sponsored by B4U-ACT, a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists. According to the conference brochure, the event will examine “ways in which minor-attracted persons...

The Anoka-Hennepin School District is being sued for its Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy, which says that staff members must remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation. The district has been dealing with bullying and harassing of students for their sexual orientation and is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Southern Poverty Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Faegre & Benson, LLP, filed a federal lawsuit today, calling the policy a “gag policy.” According to a statement released by the Anoka Hennepin Gay Equity Team, they feel that the policy has contributed to an “unsafe...

A conservative advocacy group wants to know if the U.S. Justice Department had any behind-the-scenes correspondence or communication with various law firms and/or groups that are suing California over its voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. The Family Research Council has filed a freedom of information act (FOIA) request with the Justice Department, seeking any and all communications between Justice Department officials and various law firms or liberal advocacy groups that oppose, or are involved in the legal fight against either Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war,

Though many Christians are going to try to deny "the obvious," evangelical leader Dr. Albert Mohler believes gay marriage is going to become normalized. "I think it's clear that something like same-sex marriage is going to become normalized, legalized and recognized in the culture. It's time for Christians to start thinking about how we're going to deal with that," he said Friday on the Focus on the Family radio program. Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was speaking in response to the Obama administration's decision this week to stop defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act – federal...

Canisius College – a Jesuit institution – has invited an open homosexual activist, Dustin Lance Black, to talk about “Leadership for Equal Rights: GLBT Equality.” According to the college’s web site, the lecture is scheduled on March 10 as part of a Leadership Series program. The web site post is here: http://www.canisius.edu/campus_leader/workshops.asp Not only is Black a homosexual activist and screenwriter for the movie “Milk,” but he is also a board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), which sponsored a federal court challenge to overturn Prop. 8 – the 2008 amendment that defends traditional marriage in California....

Six same-sex Montana couples represented by the American Civil Liberties Union appeared in Helena District Court Tuesday afternoon to begin preliminary oral arguments in the case of Donaldson and Guggenheim versus the state of Montana.

The new religious leader at the Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan is raising eyebrows and objections from gay advocates over his views on homosexuality...A fight over the planned Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan centers around its location of being two blocks from the World Trade Center site. But now the controversy is broadening as some gay advocates are airing concerns about the new imam who's joined the project. In a lecture Imam Abdallah Adhami sells on the Internet, he offers the following explanation for the existence of homosexuality: "An enormously, overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling...

There has always been a “disproportionate overlap between homosexuality and fascism,” writes Hari By Peter LaBarberaWarning: offensive language The late British neo-Nazi skinhead Nicky Crane was just one of many fascists in Europe who lead a secret double life as a practicing homosexual. Click to enlarge. To nobody’s surprise, homosexual activist Evan Hurst of ‘Truth’ Wins Out supported fellow “gay” blogger Joe Jervis’ sophomoric hit-piece against AFTAH – which draws a crude link between this writer and the KKK. Jervis was just “stating fact,” protests Hurst, in writing that since the Klan opposed discrimination against a Christian student at Augusta State, and AFTAH also opposes this injustice, then the...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Researcher: Children of same-sex couples more likely to be homosexual Manhattan, Kans., Oct 22, 2010 / 06:04 am (CNA).- Social scientist Walter Schumm doesn't think his forthcoming paper ought to be provoking outraged responses he has already received. For years, researchers have admitted the possibility that he says he has now confirmed -- that children raised by homosexual parents are more apt to become homosexual themselves. Nevertheless, Schumm's article, which will be published in the November edition of the Journal of Biosocial Science, has triggered a firestorm since it began circulating online this summer. Irate advocates for the...

STRASBOURG, France – The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia on Thursday for letting Moscow ban gay pride marches simply because the city's then-mayor — who famously compared gays to the devil — and other officials disapproved of them. The binding ruling means that Russia must ensure gay parades are freely held in its cities, and requires the country to pay organizers of gay pride events euro29,510 ($41,300) for damages and court costs stemming from bans from 2006 to 2008. The court is an arm of the Council of Europe, the continent's premier human rights watchdog and Russia is...

<p>The civil war in the Republican Party takes another turn on Wednesday night when Sarah Palin basher Nicolle Wallace lends her name to a fundraiser for a pro-homosexual group called American Foundation for Equal Rights. Wallace, an adviser to the 2008 McCain for President campaign, figures prominently in Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, as someone determined to get her on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric so that she could be sandbagged by the left-wing anchorwoman.</p>

A Democratic congressional candidate has told police he was assaulted near downtown Spokane after making sexual advances to another man. David R. Fox, who moved to Spokane from Port Angeles recently to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, told police he wasn't injured in Sunday's altercation. But he is pressing charges against the man. Fox is one of four Democrats in the Aug. 17 primary. The attorney entered the race at the last minute and has no known campaign office or website. He could not be reached for comment.

Bellevue says 'you're out,' gay softball coach claims A local women's softball coach said her team was banned from a Bellevue Baptist Church league after she acknowledged she is gay. Jana J. Jacobson said church officials told her the "deviant" lifestyle would prevent the team from competing in Bellevue's adult women's softball league. The coach said she was the only team member who attended meetings in preparation for the season that began June 8, and the only member questioned by Bellevue leadership. She wondered why her lifestyle mattered since they were playing softball. "Finally, in my frustration, I said that...

Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.... Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social...