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Category: Gay Rights and Government

Barbara Bush Comes out for Gay Marriage

Written by ECWR Web
Tuesday, 01 February 2011 15:51
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Barbara Bush has become the latest daughter of a prominent Republican politician to come out in favor of same-sex marriage.In a video recorded for gay-rights advocacy group The Human Rights Campaign, the 29-year-old daughter of former President George W. Bush says she believes gay residents of New York, where she lives, should have the right to get married.”New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love,” she says in the video, before imploring viewers to “join us.”

Meghan McCain, former of 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, has also come out in favor of same-sex marriage, as has her mother Cindy. Dick Cheneys daughter Mary, a lesbian, also supports gay marriage, and her father does as well. And Laura Bush, the former first lady, said in May that couples that “are committed to each other and love each other” should have “the same sort of rights that everyone has.”"

Bushs advocacy shows that equality knows no party label and raises the profile of this timely fight for equal marriage rights in the Empire State,” the Human Rights Campaign said.As president, George W. Bush pushed for a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and Republicans depended on gay marriage referenda to drive out conservative turnout in election years.Barbara has had gay friends dating back at least to her time at Yale University, and her support for same-sex marriage comes as no surprise to her friends. She used to take one gay friend to the White House for dinner with her family when she was in Washington.

via Barbara Bush Comes out for Gay Marriage Video – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

 

David Kato, Gay Rights Activist, Is Killed in Uganda – NYTimes.com

Written by ECWR Web
Saturday, 29 January 2011 17:03
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David Kato, Gay Rights Activist, Is Killed in Uganda – NYTimes.com.

NAIROBI, Kenya — David Kato knew he was a marked man.

As the most outspoken gay rights advocate in Uganda, a country where homophobia is so severe that Parliament is considering a bill to execute gay people, Mr. Kato had received a stream of death threats, his friends said. A few months ago, a Ugandan newspaper ran an antigay diatribe with Mr. Kato’s picture on the front page under a banner urging, “Hang Them.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Kato was beaten to death with a hammer in his rough-and-tumble neighborhood. Police officials were quick to chalk up the motive to robbery, but members of the small and increasingly besieged gay community in Uganda suspect otherwise.

“David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009,” Val Kalende, the chairwoman of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, said in a statement. “The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood.”

Ms. Kalende was referring to visits in March 2009 by a group of American evangelicals, who held rallies and workshops in Uganda discussing how to turn gay people straight, how gay men sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” intended to “defeat the marriage-based society.”

The Americans involved said they had no intention of stoking a violent reaction. But the antigay bill was drafted shortly thereafter. Some of the Ugandan politicians and preachers who wrote it had attended those sessions and said that they had discussed the legislation with the Americans.

After growing international pressure and threats from a few European countries to cut assistance — Uganda relies on hundreds of millions of dollars of aid — Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, indicated that the bill would be scrapped.

But more than a year later, that has not happened, and the legislation remains a simmering issue in Parliament. Some political analysts say the bill could be passed in the coming months, after a general election in February that is expected to return Mr. Museveni, who has been in office for 25 years, to power.

On Thursday, Don Schmierer, one of the American evangelicals who visited Uganda in 2009, said Mr. Kato’s death was “horrible.”

“Naturally, I don’t want anyone killed, but I don’t feel I had anything to do with that,” said Mr. Schmierer, who added that in Uganda he had focused on parenting skills. He also said that he had been a target of threats himself, recently receiving more than 600 messages of hate mail related to his visit.

“I spoke to help people,” he said, “and I’m getting bludgeoned from one end to the other.”

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. In Kenya, which is considered one of the more Westernized nations in Africa, gay people can be sentenced to years in prison.

But Uganda seems to be on the front lines of this battle. Conservative Christian groups that espouse antigay beliefs have made great headway in this country and wield considerable influence. Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, who describes himself as a devout Christian, has said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

At the same time, American groups that defend gay rights have also poured money into Uganda to help the beleaguered gay community.

In October, a Ugandan newspaper called Rolling Stone (with a circulation of roughly 2,000 and no connection to the American magazine) published an article that included photos and the whereabouts of gay men and lesbians, including several well-known activists like Mr. Kato.

The paper said homosexuals were raiding schools and recruiting children, a belief that is quite widespread in Uganda and has helped drive the homophobia.

Mr. Kato and a few other activists sued the paper and won. This month, Uganda’s High Court ordered Rolling Stone to pay hundreds of dollars in damages and to cease publishing the names of people it said were gay.

But the danger remained.

“I had to move houses,” said Stosh Mugisha, a woman who is going through a transition to become a man. “People tried to stone me. It’s so scary. And it’s getting worse.”

On Thursday, Giles Muhame, Rolling Stone’s managing editor, said he did not think that Mr. Kato’s killing had anything to do with what his paper had published.

“There is no need for anxiety or for hype,” he said. “We should not overblow the death of one.”

But that one man was considered a founding father of Uganda’s nascent gay rights movement. In an interview in 2009, Mr. Kato shared his life story, how he was raised in a conservative family where “we grew up brainwashed that it was wrong to be in love with a man.”

He was a high school teacher who had graduated from some of Uganda’s best schools, and he moved to South Africa in the mid-1990s, where he came out. A few years ago, he organized what he claimed was Uganda’s first gay rights news conference in Kampala, the capital, and said he was punched in the face and cracked in the nose by police officers soon afterward.

Friends said that Mr. Kato had recently put an alarm system in his house and was killed by an acquaintance, someone who had been inside several times before and was seen by neighbors on Wednesday. Mr. Kato’s neighborhood on the outskirts of Kampala is known as a rough one, where several people have recently been beaten to death with iron bars.

Judith Nabakooba, a police spokeswoman, said Mr. Kato’s death did not appear to be a hate crime, though the investigation had just started. “It looks like theft, as some things were stolen,” Ms. Nabakooba said.

But Nikki Mawanda, a friend who was born female and lives as a man, said: “This is a clear signal. You don’t know who’s going to do it to you.”

Mr. Kato was in his mid-40s, his friends said. He was a fast talker, fidgety, bespectacled, slightly built and constantly checking over his shoulder, even in the envelope of darkness of an empty lot near a disco, where he was interviewed in 2009.

He said then that he wanted to be a “good human rights defender, not a dead one, but an alive one.”

Josh Kron contributed reporting from Juba, Sudan.

 

WGLB: Gay marriage could move forward in some U.S. states

Written by ECWR Web
Sunday, 23 January 2011 14:58
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WGLB: Gay marriage could move forward in some U.S. states.

Gay marriage could move forward in some U.S. states

By Chris Michaud -WGLB

(Reuters) – A handful of U.S. states are poised to take up the issue of gay marriage afresh, due largely to incoming lawmakers who may tip the balance in favor of the controversial measure.

In Maryland, New York and Rhode Island in particular, the legalization of same-sex marriages is moving ahead, organizers and supporters say.

“We have the numbers,” said Maryland state Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr. “We’ve never been in a better position.”

The November 2010 election brought a “significant shift,” especially in the Senate, said Madaleno, one of Maryland’s seven openly gay legislators, three of whom are newly elected.

Even more important, Maryland’s Senate Judicial Proceedings committee, which has prevented gay marriage bills from reaching a floor vote, has several new, sympathetic members, said Morgan Meneses-Sheets of Equality Maryland, an advocacy group.

Majority leaders of both houses plan to co-sponsor gay marriage measures. Gov. Martin O’Malley, whose opponent was against gay marriage, has pledged to sign such a bill,

Nationwide, after the Congressional vote to repeal the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which expelled thousands of gay people from the U.S. military, gay rights advocates are pushing ahead on marriage.

“The work of persuasion, of personal conversations, of talking to lawmakers and mobilizing against a well-funded anti-gay opposition” are among the primary tasks for the lobbying group Freedom to Marry, said founder Evan Wolfson.

“With the freedom to marry within reach this year in states such as New York, Maryland and Rhode Island, now is the time to have those conversations and move marriage forward,” he said.

Nearly half of the states have amended their constitutions, however, to prohibit marriage between same-sex partners or defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, rendering gay marriage beyond reach any time soon.

In New York, where newly-inaugurated Gov. Andrew Cuomo strongly supports gay marriage, lawmakers remain divided but advocates say the prospects are improved with the popular governor’s backing.

“Its chances only get better,” said Democratic Sen. Thomas Duane, the state’s only openly gay senator, who has said he would introduce a gay marriage bill and push for a vote by summer. “Public support grows every time the issue is debated.”

Although not a supporter, Dean Skelos, leader of the majority Republicans in the Senate, has said he would not block such a bill coming to the Senate floor for a vote so legislators can make their positions known, according to rights group Empire State Pride Agenda.

Put to a so-called conscience vote, gay marriage has a better chance this year than it did in 2009, said Democratic Sen. Malcolm Smith of New York City, when the Assembly approved it but the Senate did not.

“It is premature to make predictions or attempt head counts based solely on prior votes, but there is reason to be confident,” said Ross Levi of Empire State Pride Agenda.

One of the most vocal opponents, Bronx Democrat Sen. Ruben Diaz, would not comment on prospects for passage. “There are more pressing issues facing the state,” such as the budget and overhauling ethics laws, Diaz said.

Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa and the District of Columbia, although a bill to revoke it was introduced in Iowa recently.

In California and New Jersey civil unions, which mimic but do not provide all the legal benefits of marriage, are being challenged in court.

The other West coast states, Hawaii and Illinois have broad domestic partnership or civil union provisions. Several states, including Pennsylvania, Minnesota, North Carolina and Indiana do not deal with the issue, neither granting nor denying it.

The fresh battles come with passionate opposition.

In Maryland, Republican Sen. Allan Kittleman said he would introduce a bill legalizing civil unions, drawing heat from fellow Republicans.

Maryland Delegate Don Dwyer, who opposes civil unions and gay marriage, said he “can’t wait for the debate.”

Should gay marriage pass, he said he is confident of a referendum which “will drive the conservatives to the polls,” where he predicted it would be defeated.

Marriage bills were introduced this month in the House and Senate in Rhode Island, a heavily Roman Catholic but relatively liberal state, where polls show a majority of residents favor what advocates call “marriage freedom.”

Newly elected Gov. Lincoln Chafee, whose predecessor vowed to veto gay marriage, voiced support at his inauguration, stressing the potential economic benefits.

But the Senate in Rhode Island is presided over by Sen. Teresa Paiva Weed, a gay marriage opponent.

 

Gay couples hotel battle

Written by ECWR Web
Sunday, 23 January 2011 14:44
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Gay couples hotel battle is latest case of religion clashing with human rights | World news | The Observer.

Gay couple’s hotel battle is latest case of religion clashing with human rights

Stephen Preddy and Martyn Hall’s legal victory against a Christian hotel that refused them a double room is part of a growing trend of cases that pit faith against discrimination

Gay couple hotel room battle

Steven Preddy, left, and Martyn Hall celebrate their victory against the owners of a Christian hotel. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

If there is one clear trend in contentious litigation in recent months, it is the increase in cases that pit the rights of religious communities against the prohibition on discrimination.

“Religitigation”, as it is becoming known, is manifest in increasingly diverse ways. Last year Christian registrar Lillian Ladele failed to exempt herself from the duty of conducting civil partnerships, Christian counsellor Gary McFarlane lost his attempt to be exempt from giving same-sex couples relationship therapy and Christian British Airways employee Nadia Eweida lost her claim to have the right to wear a crucifix at work

It is not only Christians in the dock. Also last year north London’s Jewish Free School lost its supreme court bid to refuse admission to a pupil on the basis of his mother’s background, after the court found the policy amounted to race discrimination.

In much the same vein, Christian hoteliers Peter and Hazel Bull last week lost their claim to be entitled to refuse double-bed hotel rooms to civil partners Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy. Judge Andrew Rutherford, sitting at Bristol county court, found it was “clear that homosexuals as a group are disadvantaged by the practice adopted by [Peter and Hazel Bull].”

The case appears to be the first to try the distinct legal question of whether a civil partnership is the legal equivalent of marriage, as far as discrimination is concerned. The Bulls’ case was that they openly discriminated on marital status – unmarried heterosexual couples were also denied rooms with double beds – but that this policy was based on sex outside wedlock, not sexual orientation. As their counsel memorably stated, the policy “has nothing to do with sexual orientation but everything to do with sex”.

That argument might have been successful if it were legally accurate to compare an unmarried couple with same-sex civil partners. But anticipating arguments such as these, the law faces the issue head on. The regulations that ban discrimination against sexual orientation state explicitly that “the fact that one of the persons is a civil partner while the other is married shall not be treated as a material difference”.

This exact issue is the subject of a separate legal campaign. Campaigner Peter Tatchell has announced that eight couples will apply to the European court of human rights to overturn the law, on the basis that it “creates a system that segregates couples into two separate legal institutions, with different names but identical rights and responsibilities… based on their sexual orientations”.

His gripe is that same-sex couples are denied the right to marry, while heterosexuals are denied the right to civil partnerships – and that both are violations of their rights.

So while some are fighting for gay marriage, the Bulls’ case confirms that, in the meantime, Christians will have to accept that civil partnerships are intended to be its equivalent as far as the law is concerned. But the interesting issue in this case lurks in the judge’s commentary. “It is no longer the case that our laws must, or should, automatically reflect the Judaeo-Christian position,” said Rutherford, that is in regarding marriage as the only form of legally recognised binding relationship.

It is this issue that concerns religious groups – the ability of the law to move on from its religious roots to a more equitable formula of guaranteeing fundamental rights, including the right against discrimination. Of course where those rights come into conflict, a more nuanced exercise of balancing takes place – one that the judiciary has so far approached with the utmost seriousness. Rutherford confessed he found the Bulls’ case “very difficult”, and Lord Phillips – president of the supreme court and the UK’s most senior judge – said earlier this year that the Jewish school decision had been the hardest of his judicial life.

That has been of little consolation to religitigants, however. What they seem to want is a trump card that puts them above the subtle considerations of fairness. And that, the courts have repeatedly said, is not going to happen.

 

Gay Parents Find the South More Welcoming

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Wednesday, 19 January 2011 08:51
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Gay Parents Find the South More Welcoming, Census Says – NYTimes.com.

Parenting by Gays More Common in the South, Census Shows

Sarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York Tim

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Being gay in this Southern city was once a lonely existence. Most people kept their sexuality to themselves, and they were reminded of the dangers of being openly gay when a gay church was bombed in the 1980s. These days, there are eight churches that openly welcome gay worshipers. One even caters to couples with children

Reginald Maffett, 14, at services at St. Luke’s Community Church, which he attends with his mother and her partner.

The changes may seem surprising for a city where churches that have long condemned homosexuality remain a powerful force. But as demographers sift through recent data releases from the Census Bureau, they have found that Jacksonville is home to one of the biggest populations of gay parents in the country.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.

Experts offer theories for the pattern. A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, Mr. Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

“People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame,” said Darlene Maffett, 43, a Jacksonville resident, who had two children in eight years of marriage before coming out in 2002. “What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.”

Moreover, gay men who have children do so an average of three years earlier than heterosexual men, census data shows, Mr. Gates said. At the same time, there are fewer white women of childbearing age nationally, according to demographers, while the number of minority women of childbearing age is expanding.

Jacksonville was a magnet for Ms. Maffett even before she moved here. While its gay residents remained largely hidden, it had a gay-friendly church. In 2003, she spent her Sundays driving 90 minutes each way to attend from the town where she worked as a school bus driver.

Ms. Maffett appreciated the safety of the church in Jacksonville. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and her former husband was a member of the Church of Christ, so she knew how unwelcoming some churches could be for gays. Even so, she felt little connection to the gay congregation in Jacksonville — mostly white, male and childless.

“The pastors were all white guys,” said Ms. Maffett, who is black. “They were nice to us, but we weren’t really feeling that they knew how to cater to kids.”

Then she met Valerie Williams, a customer service worker with a sunny personality and a booming voice. Ms. Williams, 33, had been part of the city’s gay community for years, and when the first African-American, gay-friendly church opened in 2007, she thought it needed to go one step further.

“People were looking to do stuff with their kids, and they had no place to go,” she said.

So last summer, Ms. Williams became pastor of St. Luke’s Community Church, one of the oldest gay-friendly churches in the city, and immediately set up a youth program. Attendance by the mixed-race congregation swelled to more than 90 from 25 in just a few months.

“All of a sudden you started seeing all of these women coming out,” Ms. Maffett said. “All of them had children.”

In 2009, the Census Bureau estimated that there were 581,000 same-sex couples in the United States, Mr. Gates said; the bureau does not count gay singles.

About a third of lesbians are parents, and a fifth of gay men are. Advocacy groups argue that their children are some of society’s most vulnerable, with fewer legal protections and less health insurance than children of heterosexual parents.

Even so, their ranks have been mostly left out of national policy debates, because the Census Bureau did not conduct its first preliminary count of same-sex couples until 1990. This year, the bureau will count married same-sex partners for the first time.

“We don’t know a lot about this group,” Mr. Gates said. “Their story has not been told.”

About 32 percent of gay couples in Jacksonville are raising children, Mr. Gates said, citing the 2009 Census data, second only to San Antonio, where the rate is about 34 percent.

Some gay parents here say that family life can be complicated. Cynthia, the mother of a talkative 9-year-old, can be herself at her daughter’s cheerleading practice, because it is far from their home. But at her daughter’s school, she tells no one that she is gay, because her partner, Monique, teaches there.

Their daughter, they said, ends up with a mixed message at school.

“We tell her, ‘Be honest, don’t lie, but keep this in the closet,’ ” said Monique, who asked that the couple’s last names not be used to protect her privacy at work, “It gets confusing for her.”

Ms. Williams confronts those troubles directly with a program called Youth Power Hour, a kind of group counseling session for children of gay parents. This month, the group of about 20 young people discussed their problems after a free spaghetti dinner cooked by one of the adult moderators.

“This girl at school is always bullying me,” said a 9-year-old named Diantra.

Ms. Williams responded, her voice filling the room: “Remember what we said? Tell an adult.”

Cynthia’s daughter, also part of the group, said the sense of community it provided helped her.

“It feels good to be around people who don’t just have moms and dads,” she said, pulling her braids nervously. “I like it because I’m not alone anymore.”

Married same-sex parents face legal hurdles. Florida does not recognize same-sex marriage, and its domestic partnership recognition, while growing, is an uneven patchwork, and still leaves many spouses uninsured.

Even when employers agree to cover domestic partners, those couples pay higher taxes, because without federal recognition of their status, health coverage is considered income and is taxable. Until recently, Florida was one of a handful of states that expressly prohibited adoption by gay couples.

But money is often a more immediate problem.

Ty Francis, a bank customer-service worker here with a sharp sense of humor, supports six children together with her partner, Rosalyn Cooley, a health care worker.

“I’m one check away from being on welfare,” Ms. Francis said.

But that kind of financial difficulty does not dampen enthusiasm for coaxing along acceptance in this conservative city of more than 800,000 people. A recent billboard supporting gay and lesbian youth drew no public scorn or boycotts, and gay pride parades have been held for several years.

Ms. Williams compares the community’s efforts to the struggles of the civil rights movement.

“Slowly but surely, all this will pass,” she said. “I truly believe that.”

 

Cathleen Falsani: Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Written by ECWR Web
Thursday, 13 January 2011 17:02
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Cathleen FalsaniReligion Columnist aka “God Girl”
Posted: January 13, 2011 06:10 PM

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians.

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I’m supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I’ve been taught that it’s impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

When a number of my friends “came out” shortly after our graduation from Wheaton College in the early ’90s, first I panicked and then I prayed.

What would Jesus do? I asked myself (and God).

According to biblical accounts, Jesus said very little, if anything, about homosexuality. But he spent loads of time talking, preaching, teaching and issuing commandments about love.

That was my answer: Love them. Unconditionally, without caveats or exceptions.

I wasn’t sure whether homosexuality actually was a sin. But I was certain I was commanded to love.

For 20 years, that answer was workable, if incomplete. Lately, though, it’s been nagging at me. Some of my gay friends are married, have children and have been with their partners and spouses as long as I’ve been with my husband.

Loving them is easy. Finding clear theological answers to questions about homosexuality has been decidedly not so.

That’s why I’m grateful for a growing number of evangelical leaders who are bravely offering a different answer.

In his new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Jay Bakker, the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, gives clear and compelling answers to my nagging questions.

Simply put, homosexuality is not a sin, says Bakker, 35, pastor of Revolution NYC, a Brooklyn evangelical congregation that meets in a bar.

Bakker, who is straight and divorced, crafts his argument using the same “clobber scriptures” (as he calls them) that are so often wielded to condemn homosexuals.

“The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin … a capital offense even,” Bakker writes. “But before you say, ‘I told you so,’ consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.

“The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal.”

Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.

“The church has always been late,” Bakker told me in an interview this week. “We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we’re late on this.”

Examining the original Greek words translated as “homosexual” and “homosexuality” in three New Testament passages, Bakker (and others) conclude that the original words have been translated inaccurately in modern English.

What we read as “homosexuals” and “homosexuality” actually refers to male prostitutes and the men who hire them. The passages address prostitution — sex as a commodity — and not same-sex, consensual relationships, he says.

(The word “homosexual” first appeared in an English-language Bible in 1958. Bakker is part of a group petitioning Bible publishers to remove the words “homosexual” and “homosexuality” from new translations and replace it with terms that more precisely reflect the original Greek.)

“We must weigh all the evidence,” Bakker writes. “The clobber scriptures don’t hold a candle to the raging inferno of grace and love that burns through Paul’s writing and Christ’s teaching. And it’s a love that should be our guiding light.”

Bakker’s clear voice on homosexuality is not alone in the evangelical community.

Tony Jones, a “theologian-in-residence” at Minnesota’s Solomon’s Porch, one of the pre-eminent “Emergent” churches in the nation, echoes many of Bakker’s arguments. Peggy Campolo, wife of evangelist Tony Campolo, has been saying this kind of thing for years, despite her husband’s disagreement.

And while he stops short of explicitly saying “it’s not a sin” in his 2010 book, A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren, godfather of the Emergent church movement, condemns a Christian preoccupation with homosexual issues as “fundasexuality.”

“We could really use someone like Rob Bell to step forward and say this, too,” Bakker said in the interview, referring to the 40-year-old pastor of the Michigan megachurch Mars Hill and author of bestselling books such as Velvet Elvis and Sex God.

Bell, a classmate of mine at Wheaton, is a rock star in emerging Christian circles, despite eschewing the “Emergent” label or any other apart from “Christ follower.”

Only time will tell whether more evangelical leaders — Emergent, emerging or otherwise — will add their voices to the chorus calling for full and unapologetic inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church.

But I’m sensing a change in the wind (and the Spirit.)

Might the evangelical church be on the verge of a Gay Awakening?

I prayerfully hope so.

 

Biden says gay marriage inevitable – WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |

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Sunday, 26 December 2010 14:31
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Biden says gay marriage inevitable – WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |.

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Joe Biden is predicting that the evolution in thinking that will permit gays to soon serve openly in the military eventually will bring about a national consensus for same-sex marriage.

Changes in attitudes by military leaders, those in the service and the public allowed the repeal by Congress of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Biden noted in a nationally broadcast interview on Christmas eve.

“I think the country’s evolving,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And I think you’re going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so-called DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).” He said he agreed with Obama that his position in gay marriage is “evolving.”

Gay marriage is legal in only a handful of states, mostly in the Northeast, and in Iowa. President Barack Obama recently said his feelings on the gay marriage issue were in a state of transition. But he also said he still believes in allowing strong civil unions that provide certain protections and legal rights that married couples have.

Obama said he is still wrestling with whether gay couples should have the right to marry, now that the change in the law will allow them to serve openly in combat.

Presidents in recent years have struggled with this issue. President Bill Clinton developed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for the military, and Obama promised repeatedly in his 2008 campaign for the presidency that his administration would have a more supportive attitude toward gays. But gay rights groups also have said frequently they have been disappointed with the administration’s performance on this issue.

The question about same-sex marriage came at Obama’s news conference Wednesday, just hours after he signed landmark legislation repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military. The law ends the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that forced gays to hide their sexual orientation or face dismissal. Before that, there was an outright ban on service by gays in the military.

But in letters to the troops after the new bill was signed into law, the four military service chiefs warned that the ban was still in place, and that implementing the policy change in full was still months away.

Recommendations to put the new policy into place were outlined in a report last month, and now these steps must be written into concrete regulations governing the military. Defense officials say that they still don’t know how long it will take before the Pentagon completes its implementation plan and certifies the change will not damage combat readiness. Once certified, the implementation would begin 60 days later.

In his interview with ABC newsman George Stephanopoulos, Biden brought up the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that Congress passed in 1996 that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Obama has repeatedly said he would like to see the law repealed, but the Justice Department has defended its constitutionality, which the agency is required to do.

As recently as October, the department defended DOMA, appealing two rulings in Massachusetts by a judge who called the law unconstitutional for denying federal benefits to gay marriage couples.

In two separate cases, U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro in July ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional because it interferes with a state’s right to define marriage and denies gay couples an array of federal benefits to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

Appeals court sets hearing on Proposition 8 | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

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Tuesday, 16 November 2010 14:24
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Appeals court sets hearing on Proposition 8 | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

A federal appeals court Monday scheduled a two-hour hearing on Proposition 8, California’s anti-gay marriage initiative, for Dec. 6.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has asked attorneys on both sides to devote the first hour of the hearing to arguments on whether anyone has legal authority to appeal the August district court ruling that found the measure unconstitutional.

The second hour will be spent on questions of the measure’s constitutionality.

California voters resurrected the state’s ban on same-sex marriage in November 2008. The ruling against the measure by a federal judge in San Francisco is on hold pending the 9th Circuit’s decision.