Nadia Bolz-Weber's church, House for All Sinners and Saints, is not your typical Lutheran church.
LGBTQ
Jim Merrell 8-20-2012
Photo: Glynnis Jones / Shutterstock.com
For the second time in Chicago this year, the life of a gender-variant young person of color was lost to violence.
Donta Gooden’s body was found in an abandoned building on the city’s West Side late in the evening of August 14th. Gooden, 19, who also went by the name “Tiffany,” was stabbed to death just three blocks from where Paige Clay, a 23 year-old transgender woman, was shot and killed in April, according to media reports. The police investigation is ongoing.
The tragedy of these senseless killings, still so raw and heartrending for the loved ones of Gooden and Clay, is beyond comprehension and deplorable on every level. But perhaps even more unsettling is how often violent crimes against LGBTQ people occur and how little social outrage they ignite.
For many, these two terrible tragedies may melt into the background in a year when Chicago is scrambling to stem a rising tide of murder across the city (year -to-date homicides are up 25 percent from August 2011 according to data compiled by the Redeye. However, they are part of an alarming trend of violence targeting LGBTQ people of color – and transgender and gender-variant people of color in particular – which directly intersects with the front lines of the HIV epidemic.
Trevor Grundy, Religion News Service 3-16-2012
Wedding cake topper photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.
CANTERBURY, England — The British government on Thursday launched a 12-week consultation that is widely expected to lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage in England and Wales, despite strong opposition from Catholics and some Anglicans.
"Should two people who care deeply for each other, who love each other and who want to spend the rest of their lives together be allowed to marry?" Home Secretary Theresa May wrote in The Times of London.
"That is the essential question behind the debate over the government'splans to extend civil marriage to same-sex couples."
The coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, has made it clear that it wants to see a same-sex marriage law before the next general election in 2015. It is also supported by the New Labour opposition leader, Ed Miliband.
The consultation will also include an option of retaining the status quo and that has met with the approval of senior church figures, as well as a number of Conservative lawmakers.
Christian Piatt 3-16-2012
Atheist activism is hardly news these days. Folks are feeling increasingly convicted about taking their disbelief public, and more specifically, pointing out the damage done by religion.
But it seems the most recent publicity campaign by a group called American Atheists has gone a little too far, even for those not in the religious sphere.
Human rights groups howled when the following billboard appeared in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:
Following a public uproar, the billboard promptly was replaced with one for the local symphony.
There are some more obvious concerns this kind of campaign raises, while others are more subtle. The point of the billboard is well taken, at least for me; the Bible has some messed up stories and rules in it. But cherry-picking isolated quotes like this from scripture is something that most in mainline Christianity consider a no-no. It’s called proof-texting, and it’s seen as tantamount to using the Bible as a weapon to further a personal agenda.
Elizabethe Holland 3-02-2012
(Catholic classroom photo by Shutterstock.com)
NORMANDY, Mo. — A popular music teacher at a Catholic Church was fired after church officials learned that he planned to marry his male partner of 20 years in New York, where same-sex marriage is legal.
The teacher, Al Fischer, confirmed that he was fired Feb. 17 from his job of four years at St. Ann Catholic School. When asked to comment on his firing, Fischer declined and referred to a letter emailed to his students' parents shortly after his termination.
In the letter, Fischer tells parents of "my joyful news, and my sad news" — the former being his plans to marry his longtime partner in New York City, and the latter, "that I can't be your music teacher anymore."
Fischer's partner, Charlie Robin, told the Post-Dispatch that the couple's relationship was not a secret at St. Ann, and that Fischer was fired after a representative of the St. Louis Archdiocese overheard him talking to co-workers about his wedding plans.
Annalisa Musarra 3-02-2012
Empty church pews with heavenly light. Photo by Tony Marinella Photography/ Shutterstock.com.
A small Minnesota church is finding out the high cost of standing up for same-sex equality — as well as an unexpected lifeline from the very people it decided to support.
When the Rev. Oliver White voted in favor of the United Church of Christ's endorsement of same-sex marriage in 2005, 72 percent of his predominantly African-American flock at Grace Community United Church in St. Paul couldn't stand with him.
The UCC's 2005 vote, he said, was "the beginning of the end of many UCC churches." Predominantly black churches like his suffered the most, he said, because the black community "was, and still is, very homophobic."
Because of White's vote, his church developed a reputation of being a "gay church" and people stopped coming. And stopped giving.
Christian Piatt 2-27-2012
(Bible image titled "Getting the Message" by JustASC/Shutterstock.)
It’s bad enough when Christians sit silently by while LGBTQ folks are marginalized, ridiculed, abused, raped or even killed for who they are.
It’s another when Christians actively engage in the exclusion of people based on their identity or orientation.
And then there’s John Piper.
It seems Piper has a Twitter problem. Maybe he doesn’t see it as such, because with fewer than 140 characters, he can stir up quite a storm of controversy. But considering the damage that can be done with so few words, I think it is a significant problem.
the Web Editors 2-16-2012
Tony Perkins speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in DC last week. Photo By Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call
Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, New York faith leaders, and members of Faithful America delivered a petition with 20,000 signatures to MSNBC studios in New York City's Rockefeller Center on Tuesday asking that the network stop inviting Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on its programs as a "Christian" spokesman.
the Web Editors 2-16-2012
No Room at the Inn. Image via Wylio, http://bit.ly/ADRtVi.
LONDON — Britain's Court of Appeal has ordered a pair of Christian innkeepers to pay 3,600 pounds ($5,800) in damages to a gay couple that was told they could not share a room in the couple's guesthouse.
The three-judge panel rejected an appeal by the innkeepers, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, in their conviction of telling Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy they could not share a double room.
The court in London told the couple, who ran the Chymorvah House in Cornwall, England, to pay the penalty.
Tracy Simmons 2-14-2012
Two grooms wedding cake topper. Image via Wylio, http://bit.ly/x8aDYB.
In an emotional ceremony Monday (Feb. 13), Gov. Chris Gregoire signed legislation that makes Washington the seventh state to legalize gay marriage.
"Today is a day that historians will mark as a milestone for equal rights," she said to a hailing crowd at the state Capitol in Olympia.
The House passed the bill with a 55-43 vote on Feb. 8, one week after the Senate approved it. The gay marriage law is slated to take effect June 7.
Christian Piatt 2-03-2012
Eric James Borges via Facebook.
Eric James Borges was teased his entire life for being different. Though he didn’t come out publicly until his sophomore year of college, he recalls emotional and physical abuse as far back as kindergarten for his differences. And though most children undergo some degree of hazing from time to time, the seeming indifference of the adults in his life made matters dramatically worse.
In a video recorded for the “It Gets Better” Project, an LGBT advocacy group focused on offering hope and community to LGBT people on the margins, Borges, 19, recalls being physically assaulted in a full high school classroom while his teacher stood by and watched.
The distressed teen had nowhere to turn at home either. His Christian parents decided to perform a ritual exorcism on him with the hope of “curing” him of his orientation. When that failed, they kicked him out of the house.
Though Borges went on to advocate for LGBT rights through the “It Gets Better” Project and his work with The Trevor Project (a group committed to preventing suicide among LGBT teens), the demons of his past still lingered. Despite finding a community that affirmed and embraced who he was, the damage had already been done.
He killed himself on Jan 11.
Timothy McMahan King 10-21-2011
Yesterday, was Spirit Day, a national movement to speak out against bullying of LGBT teens. Here are a few links as to what religious communities and leaders are saying and doing about bullying. ...