Category: Gay Marriage

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MPs vote 400 to 175 to pass same-sex marriage bill

by Scott Roberts

MPs have voted 400 to 175 in supporting the government’s Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill – a majority of 225 votes – following an afternoon of heated debate in the House of Commons.

About 140 Conservative MPs are thought to have voted against the plans.

Former children’s minister and Conservative MP Tim Loughton told the BBC that he believed “140 or so” of his party colleagues had voted against the plans, along with “a small rump of Labour MPs” and “four Lib Dem MPs”.

He added: “Apparently there’s 132 Conservative MPs that voted in favour, so I think what we’re going to see is that more Conservative MPs voted against this legislation than for it.”

The bill would enable same-sex couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies, where a religious institution had formally consented, in England and Wales.

It would also allow couples who had previously entered into civil partnerships to convert their relationship into a marriage.

Just before the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Today is an important day. I am a strong believer in marriage. It helps people commit to each other and I think it is right that gay people should be able to get married too.

“This is, yes, about equality. But it is also about making our society stronger.

“I know there are strong views on both side of the argument – I accept that. But I think this is an important step forward for our country.”

Ahead of the vote, Culture Secretary and Minister for Equalities, Maria Miller, told MPs: “What marriage offers us all is a lifelong partner to share our journey; a loving stable relationship to strengthen us and a mutual support throughout our lives.”

She added: ”I believe this is something that should be embraced by more couples. The depth of feeling, love and commitment is no different between same-sex couples than opposite-sex couples.”

Mrs Miller insisted religious freedom would be protected and that no faith organisations would be forced to marry gay couples.

She dismissed concerns from Tory opponents that the European Court of Human Rights could order British churches to marry gay couples.

“It is simply inconceivable that the court would require a faith group to conduct same-sex marriages in breach of its own doctrines” – not my words but the words of the eminent QCs, Lord Pannick, Baroness Kennedy and Lord Lester,” said Mrs Miller.

Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper welcomed Mrs Miller statement.

The Labour MP said in the Commons: “Call us hopeless romantics, call it the triumph of hope over experience, but most of us think it is wonderful when people love each other and want to make that long-term commitment.

“So why would we want to stop a loving couple getting married just because they are gay?”

The bill will now proceed to a parliamentary committee for further scrutiny.

Complete Article HERE!

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4 women go topless in St. Peter’s Square to protest Vatican opposition to gay marriage

VATICAN CITY — Four women have gone topless in St. Peter’s Square to protest the Vatican’s opposition to gay marriage.

Police quickly took the women away Sunday, and the pope appeared not to have been disturbed as he delivered his traditional prayer from his studio window overlooking the piazza.

On their bare backs, the women had painted slogans “In Gay We Trust,” and “Shut Up.” One of them, Inna Shevchenko, said: “Today we are here to protest against homophobia.”

The small demonstration coincided with a march in Paris that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people to protest the French president’s plan to legalize gay marriage and let gay couples adopt children.

French Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have strongly opposed the proposal, and the Vatican has backed them.

Complete Article HERE!

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Fewer Americans Believe Homosexuality is a Sin

By Russ Rankin

The percentage of Americans who believe homosexuality is a sin has decreased significantly in a year, according to a survey by LifeWay Research.

A November 2012 survey of adults in the United States found 37 percent affirm a belief that homosexual behavior is a sin – a statistically significant change from a September 2011 LifeWay Research survey asking the same question. At that time, 44 percent answered, “Yes.”

In contrast, the percentage of Americans who do not believe homosexuality is a sin remains nearly the same between the two surveys – 43 percent in September 2011 and 45 percent in November 2012 indicate this belief, with an increase in the percentage of those unsure of what they believe. Seventeen percent in the November 2012 survey said, “I don’t know;” an increase of 4 percent over the September 2011 survey.

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, pointed out halfway between the two polls President Barack Obama changed his pre-election position concerning gay marriage.

“The president’s evolution on homosexuality probably impacted the evolution of cultural values – there is a real and substantive shift, surprisingly large for a one-year timeframe – though this was hardly a normal year on this issue,” Stetzer said.

The November 2012 survey also reveals Americans in the South (40 percent) are the most likely to select “Yes” to the question “Do you believe homosexual behavior is a sin?” as are Americans who attend religious services at least about once a week (61 percent), and those calling themselves “born-again, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christian” (73 percent).

Americans who never attend religious services are the most likely to say they do not believe homosexual behavior is a sin (71 percent).

These findings from LifeWay Research come as Pastor Louie Giglio on Jan. 10 withdrew from giving the benediction at President Obama’s upcoming inauguration program in the face of criticism over a 15-year-old sermon referencing homosexuality as a sin. Stetzer noted the connection, saying, “The culture is clearly shifting on homosexuality and this creates a whole new issue: How will America deal with a minority view, strongly held by Evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and so many others?”

Complete Article HERE!

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NZ advertising authority dismisses complaints against Pope gay marriage ad

New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority rules billboard advert depicting the Pope blessing a male couple did not cause widespread offense

By Anna Leach
New Zealand electricity company Powershop’s advert depicting the Pope blessing a gay wedding

New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has dismissed complaints against an advert depicted the Pope blessing a gay marriage.

The billboards that were displayed in Auckland and Wellington last month with the slogan ‘Same Power, Different Attitude’ prompted four complaints.

One complainant, B Pender said the advert ‘is offensive to me as a Christian as it features two males exchanging rings as part of a marriage ceremony in the presence of The Pope … it is attempting to imply that The Catholic Church and The Vatican condone same sex marriage despite no formal communication of said claim.’

ASA Chair Jenny Robson said the advert did not cause widespread offense, ‘neither did it breach the due sense of responsibility to consumers and society’, APNZ reports.

The advert was created by electricity company Powershop as part of a series that communicated a message about individual choice and control.

‘Like previous editions, this latest version of Powershop’s long-running campaign is intended to be both thought provoking and satirical,’ said a post on the company’s blog.

‘Kiwis have widely debated the issue of marriage equality over the last year, so we’ve used the issue to point out that large institutions can sometimes lose touch with their modern constituents.

‘We live in a world that has embraced freedom and equality. If something’s working for you and it’s not hurting anyone else, then we support your right to do it. We also believe it’s the responsibility of anybody in a position of power to consider whether their exercise of that power is bringing a greater or lesser happiness to the world.’

Complete Article HERE!

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Pope Brings English Church to Heel

By Richard Palmer

It’s hard to think of a more complete victory in the Vatican’s long-running battle with the English Catholic Church. To fully understand the magnitude of this victory, please bear with me while we go over some history first.

Catholic officials in Rome have long been frustrated by England’s liberal Catholic bishops.

One of the biggest reasons for this is the liberals’ refusal to follow Rome’s strict line on homosexuality. Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, the senior Catholic leader in England, has consistently given the impression that the Catholic Church supported homosexuals forming marriage-like unions in the form of civil partnerships. In approving homosexual partnerships, Nichols has been accused of defying Vatican guidelines.

But perhaps more brazenly, Nichols has consistently supported the Soho Masses. These masses deliberately cater to homosexual Catholics—again prompting accusations that Nichols and the English bishops are defying the Vatican. The Catholic Herald’s Dr. William Oddie called the issue “the most potentially inflammatory source of division between Rome and Westminster.”

Last year, Gerhard Ludwig Müller was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Formerly known as prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, this role is the Vatican’s enforcer. And one of Müller’s top goals was, reportedly, to end the Soho Masses.

A German magazine, Katholisches Magazin für Kirche und Kultur, wrote that Müller “intends, very firmly, to address the problem of the Mass.”

The other big bone of contention between the Vatican and the English bishops has been the bishops’ unenthusiastic welcome for Anglicans defecting to Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI personally orchestrated the creation of a personal ordinariate, to allow defecting Anglicans to retain their traditions. He even donated a quarter of a million dollars toward its upkeep.

But the English bishops have refused to support it. They’ve given the ordinariate no buildings to hold its own church services in. The last thing the English Catholics want is for the Church of England’s most conservative members and priests to cross over into the Catholic Church. That’s not to say that England’s Catholics are liberal. But the bishops are, and they don’t want Anglican conservatives.

Many Catholic commentators believe that Nichols’s defiance over these issues is the reason he is still Archbishop Nichols, not Cardinal Nichols—a promotion he traditionally would have received by now.

With all that in mind, now appreciate the magnitude of the English church’s January 2 announcement.

The Soho Masses will be shut down, and the building they were held in will be given to the Anglican Ordinariate.

The Vatican suddenly got its way on the two issues that have frustrated it for years. The Soho Masses are gone, and, for the first time, Anglicans returning to Rome will be able to worship in their own church building, all with one stroke. It’s hard to think of a better sign that the Vatican is now getting its way in England.

If the change translates into a more welcoming attitude toward the ex-Anglican Catholics, many more may cross over into the Catholic Church.

Just a few days earlier, in his Christmas Eve message, Nichols strongly condemned the government’s plan to introduce same-sex “marriage”—bringing himself back in line with the Vatican.

This all shows the progress the Vatican has made in reasserting control over the more liberal areas of the church. As we’ve point out before, the pope is cementing his control over the church. With England brought to heel, this process seems almost over.

With unity imposed on the church, it will be ready for its new public role. The Trumpet has long forecast that the Catholic Church will rise in power. Now that the dissenters have been defeated, it’s ready for this rise.

For more information on the role the Catholic Church will soon play in world events, read our article “Europe: The Next Chapter.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Illinois Bishop Who Put “Handcuffs & Ball-Gag Priest” On Leave Testified Against Same-Sex Marriage Yesterday

File under “Bad Timing!” Personal note to Bishop Tom; you ain’t never gonna get your red hat this way, darlin’!

Yesterday Diocese of Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki testified against same-sex marriage before the Illinois state Senate. His testimony came just days after he was forced to put one of his own kinky priests on leave for calling 911 to get help to free himself from handcuffs and a mouth gag. (See that story HERE!)

NO SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE!

Below is the letter Paprocki is demanding that all priests in his diocese read aloud this Sunday. NOM blogger Thomas Peters has also posted the letter on his blog at Catholic Vote.

SSM-Illinois +Paprocki Letter 1-2-2013

Complete Article HERE!

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Gay marriage vs. natural law

Ya can’t help but feel a little sorry for old Francis. He’s been without for so long, he’s forgotten some of the fundamentals of the old in and out. Besides, what about all those heterosexual couples who are married, but who are unable to have children. Is he questioning their marriage too?

By Manya A. Brachear

When Illinois legislators approved civil unions last year, gay-marriage opponents turned to Scripture and church teachings to explain their resistance. But with state lawmakers poised to consider approval of same-sex marriage, Roman Catholic bishops and other advocates of traditional marriage have changed their tack.

They say church teaching has nothing to do with it; gay marriage simply violates natural law.

francis george

“Marriage comes to us from nature,” Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said in a recent interview. “That’s based on the complementarity of the two sexes in such a way that the love of a man and a woman joined in a marital union is open to life, and that’s how families are created and society goes along. … It’s not in our doctrine. It’s not a matter of faith. It’s a matter of reason and understanding the way nature operates.”

State Sen. Heather Steans and state Rep. Greg Harris, both Democrats from Chicago, could introduce the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act to legalize same-sex marriage as early as this week. Steans has said she and Harris will not put the legislation up for a vote unless they believe it will pass the current General Assembly. A new set of lawmakers will be sworn in Jan. 9.

George figures the bill’s introduction has some “inevitability to it now,” but he’s dismayed that natural law largely has been left out of the public debate.

Supporters of gay marriage call the renewed effort to highlight natural law a clever but disingenuous appeal to the masses.

“On sexual ethics, nature is neutral,” said Bernard Schlager, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. “We’re moral beings. We may look to nature for some aspects of how we are in our lives, but we answer to a higher standard. Sexual behavior is an expression of human love.”

According to the tradition of natural law, every human being must seek a fundamental “good” that corresponds to the natural order to flourish. Natural-law proponents say heterosexual intercourse between a married man and a woman serves two intertwined good purposes: to procreate and to express a deep, abiding love.

“You want to be sure that everybody has a chance at happiness. That’s a very persuasive argument,” George said. “But we all want that, and nobody should be disdained or persecuted because of their sexual orientation. … But when we get behind the church and behind the state, you’ve got a natural reality that two men or two women … cannot consummate a marriage. It’s a physical impossibility.”

Though some have argued that a basic tenet of natural law is equality, the Rev. Robert John Araujo, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago, said same-sex couples are not equal to heterosexual couples. Objective intelligence demonstrates that heterosexual couples have the capacity to populate the planet and same-gender couples do not, he said.

“It is this very intelligence that is at the core of the natural law upon which the cardinal is relying when he asserts that the marriage question is not restricted to religious concerns but is also of concern to the natural-law legal reasoning that gave us the American republic,” Araujo said.

Other people of faith disagree. Last Sunday, more than 250 Illinois clergy members, mostly Protestant and Jewish, endorsed the gay marriage bill as “morally just to grant equal opportunities and responsibilities to loving, committed same-sex couples.”

Alice Hunt, president of Chicago Theological Seminary, said the natural-law argument seems like a “strategic move.”

“They quickly saw biblical marriage wasn’t going to work,” she said. “It doesn’t work for me because you’re still depending on one person or some group of people’s interpretation of natural law. When you look at the history of marriage, there are many ways marriage has taken shape over time.”

Christopher Wolfe, a professor emeritus of constitutional law at Marquette University who now serves as the co-director of the Thomas International Center, a Raleigh, N.C., institute devoted to the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, said natural law plays a role no matter what side of the debate one takes.

“Everybody’s argument on marriage comes down to some kind of natural-law argument,” Wolfe said. “But there are differences as to what that nature is. Are children central to it or not?”

He argues that children should indeed be central.

Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute has found that most American Catholics support legal recognition of same-sex relationships.

Though that might be true of parishioners, the church hierarchy is of one mind and speaks the truth, according to Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the church’s lobbying arm in Springfield.

“The reason we’re vocal about laws that unite more than a man and a woman in marriage is it’s incompatible with human nature,” he said. “We’re talking to more than people in the pews. This is something that pertains to believers and nonbelievers.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Website helps Dutch Catholics “de-baptize” over gay marriage

Thousands of Dutch Catholics are researching how they can leave the church in protest at its opposition to gay marriage, according to the creator of a website aimed at helping them find the information.

Benedict ClausTom Roes, whose website allows people to download the documents needed to leave the church, said traffic on ontdopen.nl – “de-baptise.nl” – had soared from about 10 visits a day to more than 10,000 after Pope Benedict’s latest denunciation of gay marriage this month.

“Of course it’s not possible to be ‘de-baptized’ because a baptism is an event, but this way people can unsubscribe or de-register themselves as Catholics,” Roes told Reuters.

He said he did not know how many visitors to the site actually go ahead and leave the church.

About 28 percent of the population in the Netherlands is Catholic and 18 percent is Protestant, while a much larger proportion – roughly 44 percent – is not religious, according to official statistics.

The country is famous for its liberal attitudes, for example to drugs and prostitution, and in April 2001 it was the first in the world to legalize same-sex marriages.

In a Christmas address to Vatican officials, the pope signaled the he was ready to forge alliances with other religions against gay marriage, saying the family was threatened “to its foundations” by attempts to change its “true structure”.

Roes, a television director, said he left the church and set up his website partly because he was angry about the way the church downplayed or covered-up sexual abuse in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries.

A report by an independent commission published a year ago said there had been tens of thousands of victims of child sexual abuse in the Netherlands since 1945 and criticized the church’s culture of silence.

Complete Article HERE!

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Swiss abbot makes fiery appeal for church reform

By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

A fiery appeal for church reform by an influential Swiss abbot has attracted widespread attention throughout Europe, and has, moreover, been welcomed by the future president of the Swiss bishops’ conference.

Abbot Martin WerlenFifty-year-old Abbot Martin Werlen, leader of the Abbey of Einsiedeln and himself a member of the Swiss bishops’ conference, first voiced his appeal in a sermon on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council in October. The sermon was later published in a 39-page brochure that sold out within three days and is now in its third edition.

Titled “Discovering the Embers Under the Ashes,” it echoes remarks by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini in his last interview before his death Aug. 31. Referring to the state of the church today, Martini spoke of his sense of powerlessness and how Catholicism’s “embers” were “hidden under the ashes.”

Werlen said he is alarmed by the present state of the church. “The situation of the church is dramatic, not only in the German-speaking countries,” he said. “It is dramatic not only because of the rapidly decreasing number of priests and religious or because of plummeting church attendance. The real problem is not a problem of numbers. What is missing is the fire! We must face the situation and find out what is behind it.”

He said there is leeway for reform and discussed possible reforms at length.

For example, he said, the church could learn from the way the Orthodox church deals with remarried divorced people, who are not barred from Communion. The Catholic church has never condemned the Orthodox approach, Werlen emphasized.

Local churches should also have more say in episcopal nominations, he said, recalling that religious orders have always elected their superiors democratically over the centuries.

On priestly celibacy, he quoted the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1990. The code says that clerical celibacy “is to be greatly esteemed everywhere,” but adds that “likewise, the hallowed practice of married clerics in the primitive Church and in the tradition of the Eastern Churches throughout the ages is to be held in honor.”

There is also a lot of leeway as far as cardinals are concerned, Werlen pointed out. Women and men from all over the world, both young and old, could be elected to the cardinalate for a period of five years and could meet with the pope every three months in Rome. “Such meetings could bring a new dynamism into church leadership,” Werlen suggested.

The church could also “rediscover” synodal processes. “If bishops’ synods are so influentially prepared and accompanied by the Roman Curia that nothing new can emerge, is that a witness of faith?” he asked. As at Vatican II, “bishops should realize their responsibilities and with the help of theologians, and together with the pope, face changes in full faith — and let paper remain paper!”

Werlen wrote that he deplores the lack of courage, vision and creativity in today’s church, which he says is crawling along “with the hand brake on.”

“The problems are known. Pope Benedict on occasion refers to them. But nothing concrete is done to solve them,” Werlen said.

Sweeping problems under the table or forbidding discussion of certain issues undermines the church’s credibility, he warned.

“Not taking a situation or a person seriously is an act of disobedience. When those in authority in the church do not fulfill their duty and are therefore disobedient, initiatives are started as emergency measures … which can lead to schisms or to people leaving the church. The disobedience deplored by church officials is often the consequence of those very church officials’ own disobedience. I can understand why so many initiatives were started in recent years.”

But polarization between conservatives and progressives in the church, which he said has now reached a “frightening” level, has a deadening effect, he cautioned.

“I myself together with the Einsiedeln community would like to take another path, namely that of seeking the embers in the ashes,” he said. He pointed out that Einsiedeln is in dialogue with both the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X and the progressive Catholic theologian Fr. Hans Küng.

Within a week after the brochure was first published, Werlen received more than a 1,000 emails and 100 letters, many from prominent Catholics. He said he was “quite overwhelmed” by this and added, “The embers are there. One can feel people of different generations heaving a deep sigh of relief.”

After reading the brochure, Bishop Markus Büchel of Sankt Gallen, newly elected president of the Swiss bishops’ conference, released the following statement: “Abbot Werlen has taken up urgent questions the faithful are asking; he has outlined the problems very clearly and has put forward possible solutions. This is an impetus for very necessary discussions in the church that are also a great concern of mine. That is why I am most thankful to him.”

Büchel has been elected to succeed Bishop Norbert Brunner of Sion as conference president for three years starting Jan. 1.

Werlen became abbot of Einsiedeln in 2001. The abbey is a famous pilgrimage shrine in the oldest part of Switzerland, its heartland. Between 150,000 and 200,000 pilgrims annually visit the shrine, which at times rivaled Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Complete Article HERE!