Homosexual man complains to NZ Human Rights Tribunal for being barred from seminary

Some friends of mine in New Zealand sent me this article.

Excerpt:

A homosexual man is taking the Anglican Bishop of Auckland to the Human Rights Tribunal after being rejected for training as a priest.

A hearing begins today following a complaint from the man, who says he feels discriminated against because of his sexuality.

It is understood the man – who is in a sexual relationship with his partner – has wanted to enter the church’s training programme for priests for years.

But after applying to enter after years of study, he was rejected by the Bishop Ross Bay, who approves entrants.

Bishop Bay told One News last night that he was simply following the church’s doctrines.

The man was rejected “by reason of the defendant not being chaste in terms of canons of the Anglican Church,” the bishop said.

That means that anyone wanting to become ordained needs to be in what the Anglican Church deems to be a chaste relationship – a marriage between a man and a woman or committed to a life of celibacy.

In a statement to the tribunal, the complainant says he “felt totally humiliated that I had spent six years of my life in study, for a process that I was not permitted to enter because I was a gay man and in a relationship”.

“My humiliation and disappointment continue to this day.”

And this humiliation is so terrible that the government has to step in and drag the church in front of a secular court to pass judgment on Judeo-Christian values.

And here’s another story from Mercator:

Family First New Zealand has received notification that government’s Charities Commission intends to deregister the charity. Why? Family First has a traditional view of marriage being one man and one woman. The commission’s investigation began just after NZ’s gay marriage debate started last year.

The decision means that the organisation will no longer be exempt from income tax and, more importantly for a non-profit, donations to it will no longer be tax-deductible.

“This is a highly politicised decision which is grim evidence that groups that think differently to the prevailing politically correct view will be targeted in an attempt to shut them up,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

New Zealand recently decided to legalize gay marriage, and now we are seeing some of the repercussions. This is exactly what happened in Canada as well, where Christians are regularly dragged in front of Human Rights Tribunals and Human Rights Commissions for refusing to affirm the goodness of homosexuality and gay marriage. There, Christians can be tried by non-Christians for months and even years. They are never found innocent, and can look forward to being censored, forced to apologize, fined, etc. Why? Because once gay marriage is made legal, it becomes a crime to disapprove of homosexuality or disagree with gay marriage.

Legalized gay marriage is not compatible with religious liberty. We as a society have to choose one or the other.

UPDATE: Bill Muehlenberg’s commentary on New Zealand, gay marriage and liberty.

Filed under: News, Anglican Church, Gay Agenda, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Tribunal, New Zealand, Religious Liberty, Ross Bay, Seminary

What is marriage? Ryan T. Anderson debates Alastair Gamble at Arizona State University

Details:

A debate about what marriage is, hosted by the Federalist Society at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, featuring Ryan T. Anderson and Alastair Gamble.

The debate took place at the law school at Arizona State University.

The speakers:

Ryan T. Anderson researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory.

Anderson’s recent work focuses on the moral and constitutional questions surrounding same-sex “marriage.” He is the co-author with Princeton’s Robert P. George and Sherif Girgis of “What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense” (Encounter Books, December 2012). The three also co-wrote the article “What is Marriage?” in the winter 2011 issue of Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Anderson received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa andmagna cum laude. He is a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he received his master’s degree.

Alastair Gamble is an attorney in the firm’s Litigation group and focuses his practice on Labor and Employment at both the trial and appellate level.

From 2008 – 2012, Mr. Gamble practiced in Los Angeles, California, where he focused on Labor and Employment and Securities litigation. Before that, he served as a law clerk to Hon. Andrew Hurwitz of the Arizona Supreme Court and as a judicial extern to Hon. Michael Daly Hawkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Gamble holds the J.D., Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and the B.A., History, Emory University, 2000.

The video is 70 minutes:

The format is 15 minute opening speeches, 5 minute rebuttals, then Q&A.

Filed under: Videos, Debate, Gay Agenda, Gay Marriage, Homosexuality, Marriage, Relationship, Ryan Anderson, Ryan T. Anderson

ESPN newscaster punished for not affirming the goodness of homosexuality

Here’s a popular post at the American Spectator.

Excerpt:

As homosexuals come out of the closet, Christians go into it. “Authenticity” is highly prized in society today, provided that what one feels falls safely within the dictates of political correctness. Sports analyst Chris Broussard stepped briefly outside of the Christian closet on Monday and paid the price for it.

“Personally I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex [lifestyle] between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin,” Broussard said on ESPN. “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be. I think that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ.”

ESPN, not long thereafter, apologized for permitting these remarks to disrupt Monday’s canonization: “We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.”

Naturally, a Soviet-style clarification was in order from the guilty party, and Broussard supplied it via Twitter by Monday night: “Today on [ESPN], as part of a larger, wide-ranging discussion on today’s news, I offered my personal opinion as it relates to Christianity, a point of view that I have expressed publicly before. I realize that some people disagree with my opinion and I accept and respect that. As has been the case in the past, my beliefs have not and will not impact my ability to report on the NBA. I believe Jason Collins displayed bravery with his announcement today and I have no objection to him or anyone else playing in the NBA.”

Broussard did a good job of expressing his opposition to marriage, but any kind of restrictions on sex are no longer welcome in a society that thinks that there are no moral rules when it comes to sex. Obviously, he could have  a better job of expressing his opposition with some evidence, but I don’t see why he should be censored and forced to apologize.

One other funny thing about the gay NBA player story. He had a girlfriend for 8 years and was going to marry her in 2009. He called it off. She found out that he was gay just a few days before the big announcement was made to the public. I wonder how this sort of thing squares with the popular myth that gay people are born gay?

Filed under: News, Carolyn Moos, Chris Broussard, Christianity, ESPN, Family, Free Speech, Gay Agenda, Homosexuality, Marriage, Religious Liberty

What do children learn in “anti-bullying” school programs?

The answer might surprise you. Take a look at this article that Lydia found.

Excerpt:

Young girls at a New York middle school were instructed to ask one another for a lesbian kiss and boys were given guidance on how to tell if women are sluts during an anti-bullying presentation on gender identity and sexual orientation, angry parents allege.

The special health class was held last week at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, NY. The students were separated by gender – with students from Bard College leading the workshops.

Parents are especially furious after their young daughters were told that it was perfectly normal for 14-year-old girls to have sex and there was nothing their parents could do to intervene.

The boys and girls were also given a sexual vocabulary primer – that included words like “pansexual” and “genderqueer.”

“I am furious,” said Mandy Coon, whose daughter was in the class. “I am her parent. Where does anyone get the right to tell her that it’s okay for her to have sex?”

Coon told Fox News that her daughter was upset by the classroom lecture and was confused about why she had to ask another girl for a kiss.

“She told me, ‘Mom, we all get teased and picked on enough – now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” Coon said.

She said the school told her that the purpose of the lesson was to “teach girls boundaries and how to say no.”

“They also picked two girls to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date,” Coons said.

Paul Finch, the superintendent of the Red Hook Central School District, told the Poughkeepsie Journal that the workshop focused on “improving culture, relationships, communication and self-perceptions.”

He told the newspaper those were issues the school was obligated to teach under the state’s Dignity for All Students Act.

The state law requires schools to create a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment and bullying, the newspaper reported.

Parents said they were not notified about the class or the subject matter.

Now, the public schools are dominated by feminists and Democrats who think that it is a good idea to sexualize children as early as possible as a way of breaking their ability to marry and form stable families that will function independently of the state. The left does not like the traditional family. They would much rather that children are either aborted or raised fatherless. It is very important to the left that children grow up in situations where they take dependency on the state to be normal. It’s much easier to rule over a people that is used to receiving money from the government, and having the government intrude into their lives.

Filed under: News, Anti-Bullying, Bully, Bullying, Dignity for All Students Act, Gay Activism, Gay Agenda, Gay Rights, Gender Identity, GLBT, LGBT, Linden Avenue Middle School, New York, Public School, School, Sexual Orientation, Teacher Union, Tolerance

New study: pro-gay television shows have shifted public opinion on gay marriage

Life Site News reports.

Excerpt:

Ipsos MediaCT, a global market research company, have just released a study…

According to the report, 18 percent of Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 said that television has directly contributed to their increasing support for same-sex “marriage.”

That’s nearly double the number (10 percent) who reported television had increased their opposition to marriage redefinition.

“Based on this data, I think we can conclude that TV has, at least in part, moved the needle of public opinion to see same-sex marriage in a positive way,” Ben Spergel, Senior Vice President and Head of TV Insights at Ipsos MediaCT said in a statement.

“With everything from higher profile portrayals of gay characters, to celebrity support of gay marriage, to last year’s groundbreaking endorsement by President Obama, we are seeing a shift in our culture that is being influenced by popular culture,” he said.

Last month, liberal writer Andrew O’Hehir wrote an article for Salon crediting the American movement toward homosexual acceptance to television shows like “Will and Grace,”"Roseanne,” “The Real World,” “Ellen DeGeneres,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Modern Family,” and “Glee.”

“From ‘Soap’ to Ellen DeGeneres to Richard Hatch on ‘Survivor’ to the macho male couple who won season 4 of ‘The Amazing Race,’” O’Hehir wrote, “televisual images of sexual diversity have gradually moved away from victimology and ‘gay best friend’ stereotypes toward a ‘normalizing vision’of LGBT culture.”

“While the startling public shift on gay marriage – something few people of my generation, straight or gay, thought they’d ever see — is not solely the product of TV, it represents the ultimate fulfillment of TV’s vision of sexual equality,” O’Hehir added.

Support for same-sex “marriage” is on the rise in the United States. Recent polls show more than half of Americans support redefining marriage to include homosexual couples, and several states now allow gay nuptials in defiance of federal law.

One reason I don’t have a TV in my house is because television is used as a way to change people’s minds without making rational arguments or showing evidence. It’s easy enough for gay-friendly Hollywood to make TV shows where all the gay characters are funny, hard-working, faithful and moral. But that doesn’t reflect what studies tell us about gay relationships. They are non-exclusive, short-lived, have higher rates of violence and abuse, etc.

If gay marriage were to become legal, then marriage would would no longer be permanent, faithful, or child-centered, as this gay activist recently explained.

It’s a no-brainer that (homosexuals) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. . . . Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago.

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally. . . . I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three. . . . And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

The purpose of gay marriage is to normalize and celebrate any arrangements that makes adults happy, whether or not it provides for the needs of the children. Evidence from large-scale studies shows that gay relationships are not as good for children as natural marriage. But people who watch TV and don’t read studies will have their minds changed by TV, and then they will vote. And children not yet born will have to grow up without mothers and fathers because of it.

In a very real sense, stupidity and selfishness are destroying the next generation of children. It’s not just the crushing 17 trillion dollar debt being run up by selfish adults for their entitlements. It’s not just that our public schools are insulated from reform by powerful politically connected teacher unions. It’s not just that we liberalized divorce laws so that women can divorce men when they are not “happy” any more. It’s not just that we force employers to ship jobs overseas by raising their corporate taxes and burdening them with nonsense regulations. It’s not just that government pays irresponsible women to have babies out of wedlock. It’s not just that we abort the next generation of taxpayers because we can’t be bothered to get married and make a home for them before having sex. Now, we have to go beyond all that . We have to go even further. Now we have to formalize and normalize the complete supremacy of selfish adults over the needs of children. God help us all.

Filed under: News, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Art, Brainwashing, Children, Children's Rights, Culture, Divorce, Entertainment, Family, Father, Feminism, Gay Agenda, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Hollywood, Irrationality, LGBT, Marriage, Mother, Ondoctrination, Peer Pressure, Persuasion, Plato, Pop Culture, Same-Sex Marriage, Sex, Television, TV