The formerly “ex-gay” U.K. organization, Courage Trust, in changing its focus from attempted sexual orientation change to the integration of unchanged sexual orientation with an honest life of Christian discipleship has been forced to resign from Britain’s Evangelical Alliance.
In a joint EA/Courage press release on March 6, it was stated that at “a meeting of the 79-strong Evangelical Alliance Council on 14 February 2002 a Report was presented concerning Courage’s continued membership of the Alliance. The key recommendations were: The Alliance commends the pastoral motivation and integrity of Jeremy Marks [leader of Courage]. It acknowledges the valuable contribution Courage has made into many lives. The Alliance acknowledges the desire of Courage to remain within the evangelical constituency and their desire for evangelical unity. The Alliance recognises the validity of a ministry strategy which seeks to minister to those of homosexual orientation without seeking necessarily to alter that orientation. However, the Council also unanimously decided that the New Approach of Courage consitutes a step outside the parameters [of the EA]. The Alliance and Courage have therefore mutually agreed to part company with immediate effect.”
Jeremy Marks told Record: “My contention is that a stand for moral righteousness is not the issue here! The issue is that, in my own pastoral work with gay people over 14 years, it has become obvious that the church’s hard line anti-gay stance (and Courage’s too in earlier years) has not only failed to preserve the moral purity of gay people (or the church) but, on the contrary, has proved to have an extremely destructive effect on the lives of many gay people. Worse still, such a line has had an extremely corrosive effect on their faith in God. … Of course the pro-gay lobby’s view, that espouses a “free-love/anything goes” approach, can be equally destructive in its effect. … So, at the end of the day, whilst wanting to be considerate of the EA’s biblical convictions and moral conscience, and work towards Christian unity on this issue, I felt I just could not compromise what I believe that God has clearly revealed – that God loves and accepts gay people as much as straight people; that He loves and accepts us as we are; that He does want to see a change of heart because we are all sinners; but apparently He is not all that bothered about the gender of the people we feel attracted to! … In recent years, therefore, I have seen that God accepts gay partnerships, entered into freely, sincerely and on the basis of love and mutual respect.”
An internationally-known healing evangelist, named for Oral Roberts, has confessed to a gay relationship of several months with his church’s youth minister. The never-married Roberts Liardon, 34, is on “at least three months” leave of absence from Roberts Liardon Ministries (including the huge Embassy Christian Center and Spirit Life Bible College) in Irvine, California. The purpose of his period away, according to his public relations spokesperson, is to allow him to spend “an enormous amount of time in prayer, studying the Bible and [getting] counseling” from two other Pentecostal evangelists, one from Texas and another who will be traveling between New Zealand and the U.S. to encourage Liardon. According to the charismatic magazine, Charisma, the Auckland counselor reports that “Liardon is responding well to the process of restoration,” assuring supporters: “He is making good, positive steps.” The Los Angeles Times quoted a church lay leader’s saying that, before Liardon left, the congregation gave him “a standing ovation – not for what happened, but because he’s making it right.”
Meanwhile, the youth minister, John Carrette, Jr. (son of Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International’s executive vice-president) has resigned from Embassy and gone to Guatemala where, Charisma reports, he “could not be reached for comment.” Some Embassy church members, missionaries, and Bible college students have left in anger – the latter threatening to sue for unused tuition payments. Some of Liardon’s critics are vicious in their attacks in print and on the Web – spelling his last name with four capital letters: “LIARdon.”
A historian and professor of religious studies at Penn State is calling for a more reality-based perspective on the “pedophile priest” hysteria currently in the news. His twenty years of research leads Philip Jenkins (who is not a Catholic) to conclude that there is “no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination – or indeed, than nonclergy.”
Writing in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in early March, Jenkins states: “However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported.” He points out, too, that the typical case does not involve true pedophilia – “a psychiatric term meaning sexual interest in children below the age of puberty.” He notes that in most cases, the age of the “boy” (16 or 17), while below the age of consent in the U.S., is above the age of consent in Europe and “there is an element of consent” on the part of the teenager. Jenkins is the author of Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press, 1996).
The American Academy of Pediatrics urges states to permit gay men and lesbians to adopt their partners’ children. The recommendation, published in the journal Pediatrics, argues the case for the welfare of the children who would have the continuity of a familiar and loving parent in the event of the death of the first parent. Although the Religious Right is attacking the AAP statement, the physicians find that children raised by same-sex parents do as well as those raised by discordant-sex parents. The academy estimates that between 1 million and 9 million children live with a gay parent. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association are among other professional groups that support the position of the AAP. Meanwhile, Bob Knight, a director at Concerned Women for America, attacks adoption rights for same-sex couples, berating them as “motherless or fatherless families.” Lou Sheldon of Traditional Values Coalition denounces the AAP as “a group of pro-homosexual people … who want to further tear down the one-man, one-woman relationship.” The Religious Right’s Family Research Council also opposes the pediatricians’ recommendation, claiming that gay couples are more depressed, suicidal, and have more multiple sex partners and are more violent than heterosexuals. Supporters counter with the fact that, for instance, a third of all women who are murdered or otherwise brutally abused are victims of their own heterosexual husband or boyfriend. Besides, as it’s pointed out by Internet commentator William Saletan: “Suppose, for example, there’s more suicide, depression, promiscuity, and domestic violence among blacks than among whites. Would such findings justify a ban on adoptions by blacks? If not, why would they justify a ban on adoptions by gays?” Nonetheless, Saletan notes that both proponents and opponents “reek of bias” and “each side’s ‘science’ is loaded with politics.”
Insisting that children are best reared by two people of discordant gender, Florida’s Religious Right is fighting to keep a state ban on adoption by same-sex couples. The Child Welfare League of America and other children’s groups are supporting repeal of the 1977 ban. Nearly a dozen former state legislators who voted for the original ban publicly apologized for their 1977 vote and are endorsing efforts for repeal.
The antigay “Father of Christian Marriage Ministries” is divorcing his wife of 42 years. According to his Marriage Plus Web site: “Since 1971 Ray Mossholder has presented God’s roadmap from the Bible on singleness, marriage, and the family to countless thousands of people all over the world. … Ray’s teaching is mightily empowered by the Holy Spirit. …The Marriage Plus Seminar is remarkably effective in restoring broken marriages and transforming good marriages into great ones. You can see the same results in your own life, no matter how hopeless things seem. … It breaks bondages and sets the people free.” Mossholder, 64, claims that “what I taught was truth; however, it seemed that we were never able to apply it to our own marriage.” According to Charisma magazine, Mossholder, author of the Creation House bestsellers, Marriage Plus and Kids are a Plus, says he’s “ashamed and disgraced [and] I don’t feel I deserve heaven. I can only hope for the blood and grace of Christ to be sufficient.” Charisma notes that Mossholder “and the other woman plan to marry after she gets a divorce.”
A Johns Hopkins study of 2,100 poor families finds a slight increase in the percentage of low-income children growing up in two-parent households. However, it appears that “poor children in central cities will probably not benefit as much from the trend [since] both the marriages and the live-in relationships proved fragile. Of the couples who were living together at the start of the study, 42 percent had broken up 16 months later.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics finds that some 43 percent of first marriages end within 15 years. One-fifth of these breakups occurred within five years. Pamela Paul, an editor at American Demographics, observes that Generation Xers, aged 24-37, are the first “children of divorce” generation. So, she finds, there is an increasingly popular approach to avoidance of divorce: brief, childless “starter marriages.” She discusses this phenomenon in her book, The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony (Villard).
“Homosexuality [is] an inherent evil, and if a person openly engages in such a practice, that fact alone would render him or her an unfit parent.” So said Alabama’s Chief Justice Roy Moore as he added his antigay vitriol to his court’s decision in February to award custody of three children to their heterosexual father rather than to their homosexual mother. Moore’s 35-page opinion called gay people “destructive to a basic building block of society – the family.” He said homosexuality is “a violation of nature’s law.”
Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly blasted Moore for “poisoning the well” with his “gratuitous” remarks and for “demonizing all homosexuals in Alabama” so that gays and lesbians won’t be able to get a fair trial in the state. Said O’Reilly: “That’s not right!”
Meanwhile, the United States Supreme Court let stand an appellate ruling barring a governor from erecting a Ten Commandments monument. Moore has been in the news in the past for his aggressive display of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom.
California sponsors of a bill that sought to established legality for same-gender civil unions have withdrawn it for now. Groups such as the Religious Right’s Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and Concerned Women for America have been denouncing the bill in press conferences, rallies, and in e-mail and letter campaigns. State Senator William “Pete” Knight – who has an openly-gay son who supports gay marriages – attacked the bill as “unconstitutional” and vowed to take legal action against any reintroduction of the bill.
Anti-gay forces in Maine have failed to drum up enough support to force a vote against the state’s gay and lesbian citizens. An attempted initiative prohibiting same-sex couples from receiving insurance and other benefits, including the possibility of one day being allowed to marry, did not collect enough signatures to put it on the a ballot.
The Law Commission of Canada is calling for the legalizing of gay and lesbian marriage. This independent, government-funded group released a study in support of its recommendation. The Commission’s president suggested that a national registry for gay and lesbian couples might be a first step. Nova Scotia already has such a registry and Quebec is studying a plan to provide a registry. Leaders of the Religious Right in both Canada and the U.S. are voicing angry opposition to the plan.
The government of Poland introduced a bill legalizing same-gender couples’ cohabitation as a necessary step for Poland’s entry into the European Union. The bill is modeled on France’s civil solidarity pact law. A spokesman for Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops criticized the bill as an “attack against the institutions of marriage and the family.”
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted against amending the denomination’s requirement that clergy “live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.” In February, the Presbytery of South Louisiana cast the deciding vote, putting the opposition at 87 out of 173 votes, the majority needed for a decision. The overall voting this time went in a somewhat more pro-gay direction compared to a similar vote in 1997.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is launching a four-year study on homosexuality. James M. Childs, Jr. will take a leave of absence from his academic duties at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in order to lead in the research. The study is expected to produce a statement for future policy in the ELCA.
A leader of antigay Episcopalians has been suspended from his parish duties by his bishop. Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison, Jr. is disciplining David L. Moyer, rector of a suburban Philadelphia parish, for barring him from preaching to the congregation. Moyer heads the 19,000-member Forward in Faith movement in opposition to homo-sexuals in committed relation-ships and the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church USA. Bennison takes the opposite position on both issues.
The Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the winter Olympic games invited two openly gay activists to serve on the official Volunteer Work Group. The gay New York Blade News quoted one of them, Laura Milliken Gray, as saying: “It’s ironic. Here is the great Olympic movement embracing the gay community, while the dominant religion of the sponsoring city still turns its back on us and prosecutes us.” The other, Michael Marriott, says that when he was 17 tried to send him to an “ex-gay” counselor but he ended up seeing a therapist who helped him accept his homosexuality. He says: “I know of people who had to go through shock therapies and had terrible experiences with their families and all kinds of trouble with the church.” Now 35, Marriott has had his name officially removed from Mormon membership.
It’s “the first gay and lesbian synagogue [in America] to be built especially for its congregation.” That’s what Rabbi Denise L. Eger says about the new synagogue building for her West Hollywood congregation of some 300 gay and lesbian Reform Jews.
An International Conference on Christians and AIDS was held in Washington, DC in February. Sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse, the Franklin Graham ministry, the conference drew more than 900 evangelical church and government leaders and medical providers from 87 countries. In addition to men and women on the world’s AIDS frontlines, the better known speakers included Ravi Zacharias and Republican Senators Bill Frist and Jesse Helms. Helms said he was “so ashamed that I’ve done so little” about AIDS. He admitted: “I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant about AIDS” and he promised to do more in the months that remain of his tenure.
“It can’t be coincidental that both films [on Matthew Shepard] are being shown in the shadow of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.” That’s the opinion of Richard Goldstein of The Village Voice. Writing about the HBO and NBC made-for-TV movies, Golstein says: “The fence to which Shepard was bound is a kind of cross. The bigots who picketed his funeral are like the mob that mocked Jesus. The plea from Shepard’s parents to spare the killer’s life was a Christian gesture. … Making a connection between Jesus’ torment and Matthew’s turns the theological justification for homophobia on its head. When a Laramie minister expresses his hope that Shepard had a moment while dying to reflect on the consequences of his lifestyle, it reminds us anew that what was said of the recreant can also apply to the reverent: They know not what they do.”
AmeriCorps has called on Mike McKay, an openly gay man, to be its deputy director. He was selected by Rosie Mauk, whom President Bush appointed director of this national community volunteer service organization. McKay had been executive director of the Tarrant County [Texas] AIDS Outreach Center and also had worked for passage of a gay rights initiative in Fort Worth.
The White House confirmed on January 31 that the new version of President Bush’s “faith-based initiative” bill drops the exemption desired by anti-gay religious groups. Outraged lobbyists for the Religious Right say they feel betrayed. “We’re very upset. The president’s faith-based initiative was the hallmark of his administration. If he caves on that, we can’t trust him on any issue of our agenda,” complained the director of governmental affairs for the anti-gay American Family Association.
Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians members were arrested at the annual March for Life in Washington, DC on January 22nd. March leader and permit holder, Nellie Gray, was behind the arrest. She insists that, though other organizations march with banners identifying themselves, PLAGAL has no right to do the same.
AND FINALLY:
The New York Blade News reports that gay and lesbian witches (or Wiccans) are offended over Santa Fe cartoonist Ron Williams’ depiction of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as witches. The two, dressed in witch drag, are shown brewing up a boiling caldron of “Our Agenda” with ingredients such as hatred, religious fanaticism, and divisiveness. Williams says: “It’s important that we not constantly take ourselves so seriously. I think humor has always been really important to gay people and their survival.”