- Dalai Banana discusses the allure of spiritual regression (OK, this is my own spin) — the temptation to limit oneself to an immature, beginner-level spirituality that sells trite answers to life’s questions. In time, some people discover the answers were inconsistent or factually, historically or scientifically erroneous, or they find that the wrong questions were being asked to begin with. Their faith matures. Those who don’t mature — who continue to use their faith as a crutch to justify their own prejudices — become embarrassments and political liabilities to their respective religions.
- The liberal Catholic blog In Today’s News reacts, in part, to XGW’s discussion of fluidity with a discussion of bisexuality. In a separate entry, ITN offers advice to the GOP for saving marriage:
If you want to protect heterosexual marriage, focus energy on improving health care and education, increasing wages for working Americans so that one partner can actually support a family, preventing divorce, and eliminating financial tax burdens on married couples by taxing corporations instead.
The antigay MarriageWatch site at Catholic University of America tracks states with DOMA laws and constitutional amendments.
- Ex-ex-gay Scott Cruse offers a simple commentary on Ex-Gay Theoretical Theology (as opposed to practical theology).
Moving on to the ex-gay question, the theoreticians tell us that homosexuals can’t be Christians, that homosexual sex is an abomination, or that God will cure us if we really want Him to and have enough faith.
By the way, those last three words are a sure sign you’re dealing with theoretical theology. That’s the escape hatch.
- Just months after gaining a presence in the NEA, Jeralee Smith, head of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, says “We’re asking NEA to disengage from all organizations that contribute to a sexual environment.” What an odd request. Does Smith intend the NEA to disengage from her own organization? Whatever the answer, the ex-gay lobbyists would like the public to know that they’re tolerant:
“If you’re happy being gay, that’s fine,” said Elaine Berk, co-director of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) and an exhibitor at the ex-gay caucus booth.
“We deal with people who are unhappy being gay,” said Berk.
However, JONAH and its partners in the ex-gay PATH coalition are already on record supporting legal harassment against gay-tolerant educators, employers, and media.
- When Jeralee Smith of the ex-gay caucus isn’t asking the NEA to kick out sex-issue groups like her own, she has reportedly been using the caucus soapbox to wage a smear campaign against Kevin Jennings of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. According to The Washington Times, Smith and antigay NEA colleague Diane Lenning accused Jennings of protecting the confidentiality of a distraught teenager in 1988 who reported being involved sexually with an adult. According to the Times, the NEA Republican educators caucus reacted to the smear campaign by firing Lenning as its chairwoman.
- Evangelicals Concerned profiles British ex-ex-gay Christian counselor Jeremy Marks, who will speak July 24 in Pasadena, Calif.
- The libertarian Gay American reviews one of Focus on the Family’s “Eleven Arguments Against Same Sex Marriage.”
- Dispatches from the Culture Wars analyzes “contradictory claims from the Right on separation of church and state.”
- Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas does his periodic smear against mutual tolerance. Instead of noting Swedish censorship of antigay Christians and calling it intolerant, he blasts tolerance per se.
- New on DVD: The 1993 documentary One Nation Under God about the ex-gay movement and ex-ex-gays.
- Jason Kuznicki assesses an article by Johann Hari about alleged connections between fascism and homosexuality.
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