Psych student rejects diversity training

A graduate student in counseling says pro-gay diversity training violates her religious beliefs.

Psych student rejects diversity training

A graduate student in counseling says pro-gay diversity training violates her religious beliefs.

Group claims DADT would mar religious freedom

A right-wing Christian values coalition is worried a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would marginalize the effectiveness of military chaplains, the Catholic News Agency reported.

“The military would effectively establish preferred religions or religious beliefs,” the letter said. “That is a constitutional offense that carries a very pragmatic consequence: just …

Soap star: I was fired for my religion!

Patricia Mauceri says her religious beliefs prevented her from playing a gay-accepting mother.

Sask. appeal court asked whether commissioners can opt out of same-sex marriages

REGINA — The Saskatchewan government wants the province’s highest court to weigh in on proposed legislation that would allow marriage commissioners to not perform same-sex marriages if it is contrary to their religious beliefs.

Justice Minister Don Morgan said Friday that the government is referring legislative options to the Court of Appeal for its opinion on whether the proposals meet the requirements of the Charter of Rights.

“We’ve given the Court of Appeal two suggested options: one that we grandfather the existing marriage commissioners that are reluctant or refusing to perform a same-sex marriage, and the other one would be to create a religious exemption for those and for future marriage commissioners,” he said.

“It would require us to have two pools of marriage commissioners. One that would be willing to perform the same-sex marriage and one that would not.”

Whether officials can refuse to marry same-sex couples is the subject of a lawsuit and a complaint before the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal – both of which are being heard by Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench.

The complaint arose in 2005 when marriage commissioner Orville Nichols, a devout Baptist, told a gay couple he wouldn’t marry them because it went against his religious beliefs.

See Sask. appeal court asked whether commissioners can opt out of same … The Canadian Press

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Study: Gays not ‘godless Christian bashers’

This breaking news in from The Barna Group — a chronicler of religious life and habits, particularly of the Christian variety: Gay folks’ attitudes about spirituality aren’t much different from straight folks. These and other “surprising insights” were in Barna’s spiritual profile of gays released Monday. In it was a bit of a political heeding for gay-bashers:

“People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts,” wrote George Barna Monday. “A substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life, consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today.”

“It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles — but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles,” Barna said. “Although there are clearly some substantial differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay populations, there may be less of a spiritual gap between straights and gays than many Americans would assume.”

Now there will be some quibbling with a couple of Barna’s assumptions. Like how Barna pegs the LGBT population at about 3 percent of the adult population. No, he doesn’t believe in the 1-in-10 stat, but then again, LGBT population scholar Gary Gates says it’s more like 5 percent, depending how you count.

That aside, the Barnanians found that “out of the 20 faith-oriented attributes examined in the Barna study, there were just a few in which there were no significant differences between the heterosexual and homosexual populations.”

Hmm. “No significant differences between the heterosexual and homosexual”(s)? Does Donald Wildmon know about this?

One big diff, according to the study: “While seven out of every ten heterosexuals (71 percent) have an orthodox, biblical perception of God, just 43 percent of homosexuals do. In fact, an equal percentage possesses a pantheistic view about deity — i.e., that ‘God’ refers to any of a variety of perspectives, such as personally achieving a state of higher consciousness or maximized personal potential, or that there are multiple gods that exist, or even that everyone is god.”

Another diff: “Heterosexuals were twice as likely as homosexuals to strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches.”

And in the timeliness is next to godliness (OK, and cleanliness) dept: On Monday a crew of organizations supporting same sex marriage are launching their Get Engaged Tour of California — a pump-priming tour of the state in advance of an expected 2010 ballot measure campaign expected later this year. We told you about it a while back. Faith leaders will be prominently featured on this tour, as opposed to last year’s anti-Proposition 8 campaign, when they were largely invisible.

“Our faith-based values require us to love our neighbor as ourselves,” said Pastor Samuel Chu, of California Faith for Equality. “Gay and lesbian people are our neighbors and they should be able to enjoy the dignity, respect and commitment that come with marriage.”

Posted By: Joe Garofoli (Email) | June 22 2009 at 12:25 PM

See Study: Gays not ‘godless Christian bashers’ 5:12 PM

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Will Miss California sue over loss?

Miss California might sue for “psychic injury” after losing Miss USA because of her “religious” beliefs.

DC Bishop Harry Jackson: All of black DC is against gay marriage Metro Weekly

”It’s a race and a class struggle on this. If 51 percent of the people in D.C. are African-American and you have a unanimous vote by the city council on this, somebody’s not listening to the people…. The black ministers are irate that they are being shut out. They feel like nobody’s listening to them.”

Harry Jackson, a African-American evangelical church leader from Bowie, Maryland who is doing his best to ride his anti-gay marriage agenda to national fame and significance among social conservatives. He has repeated alleged that the interests of the black community and gay community are incompatible on the basis of his religious beliefs; defining the civil rights movement as belonging only to black Americans; and spreading misinformation that somehow that the entire gay rights movement is elitist and racist. His arguments, of course, do not allow for the existence of proud, gay African-Americans or that there are even voting members of the DC council who also happen to be black. Jackson has scheduled a protest for Tuesday, 10am, at Freedom Plaza against same-sex marriage recognition being adopted in any form by the DC City Council. (Washington Post)

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