Category: Faith & Sex

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Over 600 wait to wed as gay marriages ‘go live’ today

By Ralph Riegel

More than 300 same-sex marriages are expected to take place in the first fortnight after the new Marriage Equality Act comes into force.

 

Jerry Buttimer,Fine Gael deputy for Cork South-Central at Leinster House yesterday.Pic Tom Burke 1/7/2015
Jerry Buttimer,Fine Gael deputy for Cork South-Central at Leinster House yesterday.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald will today sign the commencement order, with the first same-sex marriages likely to take place from today.

Regulatory and procedural issues are expected to require a 24-hour delay for marriages to take place after the commencement order brings the Marriage Act 2015 into legal effect from today.

However, same-sex marriages are already planned for tomorrow for Dublin, Cork and Galway.

The new act was made possible by the overwhelming endorsement of same-sex marriage in the May 22 referendum.

Cork TD Jerry Buttimer, who played a key role in the ‘Yes’ campaign, said it was a great day for Ireland and for civil rights.

“There are a lot of people who probably thought that this day would never arrive,” he said.

“But it is a wonderful endorsement of a modern, inclusive and caring Ireland that this day is finally here.”

Mr Buttimer confirmed in 2012 that he was gay, becoming the first Fine Gael TD to do so.

Ireland’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community said it remains to be seen precisely how many couples will now opt to avail of the new legislation

Under the Marriage Act 2015, all same-sex couples who married overseas will have those marriages recognised as a formality by the State. This will happen automatically.

From today, there will be no more civil partnerships in Ireland.

All those who secured civil partnerships in Ireland will have that status recognised, unless they opt to transfer the arrangement into a new same-sex marriage.

If they do so, their old civil partnership arrangement will be dissolved as part of the process.

Critically, the Government will not be offering an automatic transfer from civil partnership to same-sex marriage status.

A couple will be required to attend a registry office, sign paperwork and attend a civil marriage ceremony.

There are now 1,695 civil partnerships in Ireland registered between 2011 and 2014 – 1,048 between men and 647 between women.

Civil partnerships for same-sex couples first became available in Ireland in April 2011.

While same-sex marriage regulations were signed into law by President Michael D Higgins last month, it required a commencement order from Ms Fitzgerald for the regulation to become operational.

A key element of the new regulations is that clerics and other religious officials who object on belief grounds to same-sex marriages will not be legally required to solemnise any such unions.

Co-director of the Yes Equality Campaign, Brian Sheehan, welcomed the speed with which the Government has moved to bring the outcome of the May referendum into legal effect.

Studies have varied on how many Irish people are gay, lesbian or bisexual, with estimates varying from between 4pc to 10pc of the population.

Complete Article HERE!

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Comedian Lewis Black Reads 18 Year Old’s Awesome Resignation Letter To The Mormon Church

Thousands of Mormons are resigning from the LDS Church over its new and spiteful anti-gay policies. Lewis Black reads one teen’s resignation letter that is hysterical.

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Last week the Mormon Church updated its Handbook, the book of rules that lays out official Church policy. In an exceptionally spiteful, hate-filled, and dangerous decision, Church leaders declared that children being raised by same-sex parents cannot be baptized until they turn 18 and denounce their parents. The Church also decreed that any Mormon in a same-sex relationship is now an apostate and can be ex-communicated.

There are now reports that calls to suicide prevention hotlines have skyrocketed.

In response to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ attack on LGBT families, thousands of LGBTQ Mormons and allies, along with parents of LGBTQ children, will be officially resigning from their Church on Saturday. A mass resignation event is scheduled in Salt Lake City, where Mormons will gather to resign and support each other.

In order to resign from the Mormon Church, members have to write a letter and mail it to the Church.

Last week, Lewis Black during a performance in Oklahoma City read a resignation letter written by an 18-year old Mormon. It is hilarious, profanity-laden, and, for those of the Mormon faith, highly disrespectful.

But mostly, at least to outsiders, it is hilarious especially as Black, also known for his profanity, adds his own embellishments to the young man’s thoughts.

Don’t watch this video if you’re in a space where foul language is inappropriate, or if you’re drinking hot coffee. You’ve been warned!

 

Complete Article HERE!

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Church of Norway Votes in Favor of Gay Marriage

By Stoyan Zaimov

gay-marriage
Jenny Taylor adjusts a wedding cake figurine of a couple made up of two men at the gay wedding show at the Town Hall in Manchester, November 6, 2005.

The General Synod of the Church of Norway, the largest Christian denomination in the Scandinavian country, has voted in favor of accepting same-sex marriage, and will be offering the service to gay couples in the future.

Church of Norway chairman Sturla Stålsett said that the Synod’s decision is “historical,” The Nordic Page reported.

The decision still allows individual priests and other church staff to decide whether they want to participate in ceremonies for gay people, however.

Breitbart noted that the vote from the country’s 12 bishops was unanimous, but will first need to be ratified by the Synod next spring before it becomes official. It opens the door for the first gay weddings to take place in Church of Norway churches by 2017.

Gay marriage has been legal in Norway since 2008, but churches were left to decide on their own how to adapt to the decision.

The last vote on the issue in 2013 left bishops split eight to four in favor of accepting gay marriage, so they had decided to only offer a blessing service instead.

The Church of Norway, part of the Evangelical Lutheran denomination, claims nominally 82 percent of the entire Norwegian population, according to 2011 estimates.

The second largest Christian group, the Roman Catholic Church, remains opposed to same-sex marriage, and defines marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman.

Back in October, the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa also voted for sweeping changes to its marriage tradition by deciding to recognize gay marriage and begin ordaining gay minsters without a celibacy cause.

DRC moderator Nelis Janse van Rensburg said that the decision shows that the church is “serious about human dignity,” but added that individual churches will not be forced to follow the ruling.

The decision by the DRC, which claims a membership of almost 1.1 million people, was criticized by South Africa’s Roman Catholic Church, which said that it went against biblical doctrine.

“We would not accept active homosexuals as priests but no doubt there may be a priest who is an active homosexual in our church, but he is so without the bishop knowing it. As the Catholic Church, we do not accept that position of the Dutch Reformed Church,” Catholic spokesman Archbishop William Slattery said at the time.

Complete Article HERE!

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A Review: That Undeniable Longing: My Road To And From The Priesthood

The author of That Undeniable Longing: My Road To And From The Priesthood, Mark Tedesco, contacted me through this site and asked if he could send me a copy of his memoir in hopes I’d be able to review it. I was glad to make his e-acquaintance and said; “by all means, do send me a copy.”

That Undeniable LongingFirst off, I was surprised to discover that the book was published way back in 2006. Where have I been? I had to ask myself. I try to stay on top of such things, but I totally missed this one.

Mark’s road to and from the priesthood begins with him leaving his home in California in 1978 at the age of nineteen to enter a seminary with the Oblates of the Virgin Mary on the outskirts of Rome. My own road to the priesthood began ten years in 1967 at age 17 when I left my family in Chicago to enter college seminary in Northern Illinois with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. I was a novice by age 19.

Mark didn’t stay with his Oblates: they asked him to leave after a couple of years. But, after a short hiatus back in California, Mark returned to Rome as a seminarian at the North American College, one of the most eminent seminaries in Rome. He was ordained in 1988 and served the church as a priest until 1994. I was ordained in 1975. I was a member in good standing in my religious community until 1981. At which point I had completed my post-graduate studies with my dissertation on the sexual attitudes and behaviors for gay Catholic priest in the active ministry. The ensuing media attention associated with my dissertation and my public coming out brought my public ministry to a halt. My subsequent 13-year battle with the Oblates to preserve my priesthood and ministry ended the same year Mark left the priesthood, 1994.

Despite the differences in our stories I think the dovetailing is rather remarkable. And Mark’s reminiscences were very familiar territory to me. The struggles Mark recalls of his efforts to wed his spirituality with his burgeoning sexual awareness mirrors precisely the turmoil I encountered when I interviewed the 50 gay priests for my doctoral thesis. It mirrored my own story too.

I read That Undeniable Longing thinking, my goodness, another story of a super talented man, one with so many gifts, one that clearly had a vocation to serve God’s people, but one who had to choose between ministry and personal integrity. Why, I had to ask myself, why is this still going on? Why does the Church continue to sacrifice its faithful sons on an altar of an outmoded sexual morality based on a woefully deficient understanding of human sexuality?

Mark Tedesco
Mark Tedesco

To his credit, Mark is not bitter as he looks back on his priestly formation and active ministry and toward his new life as a layman.

“How did I arrive at this point? Could I ever have imagined, long ago on a winter day in Rome, that I would find myself on this new path, my dreams not shattered, but transformed? And that elusive, relentless desire, for happiness – where is it leading me?”

That Undeniable Longing is not an angry book, though God knows, it could have been. Notwithstanding Mark’s emotional struggles, which at times manifested themselves physically, his attitude and his lack of recriminations at the end of his priestly dreams are very refreshing and, I believe, they are the heart and soul of the book.

The author details his involvement in a conservative lay Catholic cult with Italian ties that he calls the Community and Freedom (CF). I’m guessing this is a thinly veiled Community And Liberation. But, as they say, a rose by any other name smells the same. Sounds to me like extricating himself from CF was as traumatic as leaving the priesthood.

After some soul-searching and with the help of a counselor, Mark, who was by now in Washington DC, left the priesthood and moved back to California to start a career as a teacher.

Mark doesn’t go into much detail on his process of discernment regarding his being gay vis-a-vis his priesthood. I would have liked him to have spelled out that more. It would be helpful for other gay priests still weighing their options. Even though Mark mentions that he had deep emotional (love) attachments to some of his confrères, he never goes into detail. Did he act upon his attractions? He doesn’t say. But I remain curious. Not for the prurient interest, mind you, but because how we behave is how we learn. That being said, the fact that Mark went through this ordeal, dealt with all the oppressive and sex-negative Catholic culture has to offer, and came out the other side in tack, is a testament to his character. Not everyone who attempts this is successful.

I know that a lot of visitors to this blog are gay clergy and religious. I know that a lot of my visitors are struggling with a lot of the same things Mark struggled with. I believe many of my visitors would prosper from reading this book. Mark’s openness, honesty, integrity, not to mention his chatty writing style, are remarkable as well as edifying.

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Exclusive: Vatican Meets with U.S. State Department’s Gay and Lesbian Envoy

By Elizabeth Dias

A symbolic meeting to open a controversial dialog

VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - NOVEMBER 11: Pope Francis leaves St. Peter's Square after his weekly audience at The Vatican on November 11, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican. During the event, the Pontiff continued his catechesis on the family, focussing on togetherness and solidarity which extends as "a sign of God's universal love" . (Photo by Giulio Origlia/Getty Images)
Pope Francis leaves St. Peter’s Square after his weekly audience at The Vatican on November 11, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican. During the event, the Pontiff continued his catechesis on the family, focussing on togetherness and solidarity which extends as “a sign of God’s universal love” .

 

The encounter took place in a non-descript room at the Vatican, and conversation stuck to regular diplomatic briefs. But for the parties involved on Tuesday morning, the meeting held historic significance: Randy Berry, the first-ever U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI persons, and Vatican officials from the Holy See’s Secretary of State office were meeting for the first time.

The moment, simple as it was, marked a new level of U.S. engagement with the Catholic Church on LGBT human rights issues. Berry told TIME he met with officials for about an hour, and he met separately with representatives from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. For both sides, the conversations were new.

President Barack Obama only created Berry’s position at the State Department in April, and until now, Berry has primarily only talked with faith leaders in the field, as he has traveled to 30 countries in the last seven months. He met with evangelical congregations in Jamaica when he visited in May, for example. Conversations about LGBT human rights have never before reached this level with the Catholic Church, which considers gay and lesbian sexual behavior a sin and restricts marriage to unions of one man and one woman.

Berry’s focus however is not on marriage, but on the twin foreign policy issues of violence and discrimination. That strategy, Berry hopes, allows for common ground with the Vatican to stand together against extreme violence. “We were not there to talk about issues of civil unions or same sex marriage, for example, because that is not part of our policy,” Berry says. “That is not part of the conversation we were interested in engaging in, nor do I think were they.”

Berry requested the Vatican meeting as part of his three-week trip to Eastern Europe, which has included visits to five countries and a stop in Athens for the annual conference for ILGA, an international lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex rights association. Church officials accepted. “I wanted a chance to brief Vatican officials myself,” Berry says. “These issues of violence and extreme discrimination are of concern to us all.”

The meeting is particularly noteworthy ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Uganda at the end of the month, where homosexuality is illegal. When Uganda introduced a law last year that further criminalized homosexuality with extensive prison sentences, Western powers including the U.S. pushed back, while local Catholic leaders had mixed responses. Courts eventually struck the measure down, but hundreds of gay Ugandans have since fled to Kenya, where homosexuality is also illegal and where Pope Francis also plans a visit during his trip to central Africa.

Berry says he spent time in “listening mode” to learn from officials about how Pope Francis engages on human rights issues when he travels. He remembers how a gay rights activist was included when a large group of political activists met with Pope Francis in Paraguay this summer. “That inclusive approach speaks volumes,” Berry says. “I would hope that certainly those same messages are shared, and I fully expect that they will be because I think they are completely consistent with what we’ve seen from His Holiness in the past.”

The fact that the meeting even happened is revealing. It is a sign that the Obama administration sees future opportunity to work with the Vatican after the Pope’s September visit, with the possibility to build on the partnership they have strengthened on climate change and migration. It is also a sign that Vatican diplomatic efforts are willing to take certain amount of risk by talking with the U.S. on this issue, as any LGBT issues thrusts the Church into an often conflicted spotlight. Pope Francis has continued to advocate dialogue and listening to a range of perspectives even as he has ramped up the Vatican’s diplomatic activism, and the U.S. State Department continues to take note and look for opportunities to engage.

Discussion of any concrete collaboration with the Vatican would be premature, however. For now, Berry hopes to further common ground and expand contacts for future conversations. “It was an important first dialogue and I hope that we will continue,” Berry says. “I get to do a lot of really amazing things in this job,” he continues. “It was quite a positive experience.”

Complete Article HERE!