Category Archives: Religion

REAL Vermonter-American Mama Grizzly Bear Defends Her Young

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@SarahPalinUSA needs to read this letter to the editor of the White River Junction (VT) Valley Times to see how a REAL mama grizzly defended her young in 2000. So good, I quoted the whole thing. h/t MadPriest Of Course, I Could Be Wrong…: ANSWER THAT!.

Sent in to MadPriest Towers by THEMETHATISME:

A letter from SHARON UNDERWOOD
published by The Valley News
(White River Junction, VT)
Sunday, April 30, 2000

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

Portland Catholics Mostly Ignore Archbishop’s Demand They Cancel Newspaper Subscriptions

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That’s a nice message, Abp. Vlazny – go ahead and demand your flock adbpt a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” attitude to the child abuse scandal in the Catholic church. How about demanding priests in your care “do no evil” instead?

Local News | Portland priest attacks Oregonian newspaper’s coverage of sex-abuse scandals | Seattle Times Newspaper

PORTLAND — Hundreds of churchgoers who attended Mass on Easter Sunday at St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception received an unusual written message tucked inside a weekly bulletin.

In a two-page statement, Archbishop John Vlazny declared that he had canceled his subscription to The Oregonian newspaper, and urged others to do the same for its displaying “hostility, arrogance and ridicule” in publishing a syndicated column, a cartoon and an editorial critical of the Catholic Church’s handling of sex-abuse scandals.

Vlazny said this is “simply not tolerable and should not be condoned without some form of protest … My friends, we Catholics are not perfect, but we are deserving of human respect.”Bob Caldwell, editorial-page editor of The Oregonian, said he was startled by Vlazny’s response. He said an editorial cited by Vlazny was a “fairly straight-down-the-line reaction to the sex-abuse scandal,” and was not, in any sense, anti-Catholic.

Vlazny’s letter has resulted only in “minimal cancellations,” according to Peter Bhatia, The Oregonian’s editor.

St Nick Turned Away From Detention Centre

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The patron saint of children and prisoners, who was bearing gifts of toys and other presents, was turned away from a UK “immigration removal centre” by security guards.

Guards stop Father Christmas entering Yarl’s Wood immigration centre | UK news | The Observer

It started out as a well-intentioned attempt to bring festive cheer to some of society’s most neglected members – the hundreds of children who each year are caught up in the UK’s asylum system.

But when the Anglican church’s leading expert on Father Christmas, dressed as St Nicholas himself, arrived with one of Britain’s most distinguished clerics to distribute presents to children held at the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire, things took a turn straight out of Dickens.

An unedifying standoff developed that saw the security personnel who guard the perimeter fence prevent St Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the imprisoned, from delivering £300 worth of presents donated by congregations of several London churches.

In a red robe and long white beard, clutching a bishop’s mitre and crook, St Nick – in real life, the Rev Canon James Rosenthal, a world authority on St Nicholas of Myra, the inspiration for Father Christmas – gently protested that he was not a security threat, but to no avail.

Then as St Nicholas, accompanied by the Rev Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, attempted to bless the gifts, the increasingly angry security guards called the police. The resulting ill-tempered and surreal impasse between church and state was videotaped by asylum seeker support groups and could become an internet viral hit.

Lo, he comes with clouds descending

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Got to sing this at the early service, but at a brisker pace and with no fancy soprano descant at the end. Lawd, that’s a pretty one! Must pass that one along to Her Musical Nibs at St Nick’s for next year.

Lo, he comes with clouds descending | Seven whole days

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/jjn3fBTvBjY" width="425" height="344" wmode="transparent" /]

Lo, he comes with clouds descending

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Got to sing this at the early service, but at a brisker pace and with no fancy soprano descant at the end. Lawd, that’s a pretty one! Must pass that one along to Her Musical Nibs at St Nick’s for next year.

Lo, he comes with clouds descending | Seven whole days

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/jjn3fBTvBjY" width="425" height="344" wmode="transparent" /]

Tempestuous Teapot: Never Mind! No Reciprocal Border Crossing Planned

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As you were. #episcopalian #anglican #kerfuffle
PRELUDIUM: Bp. Anderson paranoia a copy-cat caper.

Bishop David Anderson let loose with a dozy of a conspiracy theory last week. I reported on it HERE. It turns out the theory was lifted from a though piece by The Rev’d Geoffrey M. St.J. Hoare, the rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia. That essay was picked up by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in an article titled, “Americans planning to start a civil war in the Church of England.” The thread was in turn picked up by Episcopal Cafe in “One plus one equals six hundred sixty six“. It would appear that at some point along the line Bishop Anderson picked up on Fr. Hoare’s post, or on Wynne-Jones’ article, and lept with joy to see such nasty doings by those awful Episcopalians, and it just all got out of hand.

Andrew Gerns of Episcopal Cafe noted,

” What Wynne-Jones doesn’t say is that at the end of the blog, Fr. Hoare says that, based on responses he has seen to his own thinking-out-loud, there is no energy for such a strategy.

Oh well there you are, and I had enthusiastically volunteered my parish at Father Jake‘s and Mad Priest‘s blogs for this imaginary “partnership network of inclusive, progressive parishes” idea and everything. Which was just a copy-cat caper of the whole exclusive, conservative parishes thing, really. I shun’ta done it.

But I still think Mad Priest is right to make as noisy a racket as possible to raise the alarum in the English church that a most un-Anglican compromise is about to be finalized over there.

Tempestuous Teapot: Never Mind! No Reciprocal Border Crossing Planned

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As you were. #episcopalian #anglican #kerfuffle
PRELUDIUM: Bp. Anderson paranoia a copy-cat caper.

Bishop David Anderson let loose with a dozy of a conspiracy theory last week. I reported on it HERE. It turns out the theory was lifted from a though piece by The Rev’d Geoffrey M. St.J. Hoare, the rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia. That essay was picked up by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in an article titled, “Americans planning to start a civil war in the Church of England.” The thread was in turn picked up by Episcopal Cafe in “One plus one equals six hundred sixty six“. It would appear that at some point along the line Bishop Anderson picked up on Fr. Hoare’s post, or on Wynne-Jones’ article, and lept with joy to see such nasty doings by those awful Episcopalians, and it just all got out of hand.

Andrew Gerns of Episcopal Cafe noted,

” What Wynne-Jones doesn’t say is that at the end of the blog, Fr. Hoare says that, based on responses he has seen to his own thinking-out-loud, there is no energy for such a strategy.

Oh well there you are, and I had enthusiastically volunteered my parish at Father Jake‘s and Mad Priest‘s blogs for this imaginary “partnership network of inclusive, progressive parishes” idea and everything. Which was just a copy-cat caper of the whole exclusive, conservative parishes thing, really. I shun’ta done it.

But I still think Mad Priest is right to make as noisy a racket as possible to raise the alarum in the English church that a most un-Anglican compromise is about to be finalized over there.

Tempestuous Teapot: Never Mind! No Reciprocal Border Crossing Planned

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As you were. #episcopalian #anglican #kerfuffle
PRELUDIUM: Bp. Anderson paranoia a copy-cat caper.

Bishop David Anderson let loose with a dozy of a conspiracy theory last week. I reported on it HERE. It turns out the theory was lifted from a though piece by The Rev’d Geoffrey M. St.J. Hoare, the rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia. That essay was picked up by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in an article titled, “Americans planning to start a civil war in the Church of England.” The thread was in turn picked up by Episcopal Cafe in “One plus one equals six hundred sixty six“. It would appear that at some point along the line Bishop Anderson picked up on Fr. Hoare’s post, or on Wynne-Jones’ article, and lept with joy to see such nasty doings by those awful Episcopalians, and it just all got out of hand.

Andrew Gerns of Episcopal Cafe noted,

” What Wynne-Jones doesn’t say is that at the end of the blog, Fr. Hoare says that, based on responses he has seen to his own thinking-out-loud, there is no energy for such a strategy.

Oh well there you are, and I had enthusiastically volunteered my parish at Father Jake‘s and Mad Priest‘s blogs for this imaginary “partnership network of inclusive, progressive parishes” idea and everything. Which was just a copy-cat caper of the whole exclusive, conservative parishes thing, really. I shun’ta done it.

But I still think Mad Priest is right to make as noisy a racket as possible to raise the alarum in the English church that a most un-Anglican compromise is about to be finalized over there.

Further Ructions in Episcopalian/Anglican World Likely And Desireable

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Maybe it’s time to turn the tables on the conservatives and agitate from within the English church for inclusion, just as the exclusivists did in the American church. So there.

Mad Priest put me on to this story, it’s all his fault.

Ruth Gledhill of The Times (THE Times, of London, you know) reports that UK “pro-gays” are going to take a survey of all LGBT clergy in London, Southwark, and everywhere in the Anglican church in England. It’s an old joke that there are many, many gay and lesbian priests, who serve with the tacit approval of their bishops (some of whom are also undoubtedly gay). In Greater London, it’s estimated that up to one in five Anglican priests is gay, whether closeted or uncloseted. Thus, the conservative hoo-hah over gay clergy and bishops is thus rendered a bit hypocritical when it’s coming from the Anglican church. See “mote in one’s eye, log in thine own” and so forth. Thus endeth the lesson.

Also, Gledhill notes that hundreds of blessings of gay unions have been done, and the survey would like to get accurate numbers. Then she has been tipped that inclusive churches in Britain may try to link up with liberal parishes in the US, following on the model used by the ultra-conservative “Network” churches, many of which have since decamped for the oversight of African bishops once they found one another via the Internets tubes. Now that the US church has “lost” the most politically and theologically disaffected of the dissident faction, it appears ready to move forward more purposefully, and Gledhill thinks that there may be some kind of “TEC outpost” of the US Episcopal Church in London planned. Meanwhile, two US dioceses have announced candidate slates for bishops, Minnesota and Los Angeles – with several partnered gay and lesbian priests in the running.

Gledhill’s bombshell, already under discussion at conservative sites, quotes (apparently in full) a draft response from a number of inclusive-church groups to Archbishop Rowan’s disappointing reflection that came out after General Convention ended. This is not the Chicago Consulation’s response, this is a bunch of organizations that are all UK-based.

Ruth Gledhill – Times Online – WBLG: New push for same-sex marriage, gay ordination in Church of England

We have no doubt that the Church of England is called to live out the Gospel values of love and justice in the whole of its life; these values are intrinsic to the calling of Jesus Christ to follow him and it is out of this context that we speak. While we acknowledge the intention of the Archbishop of Canterbury to seek a way forward for the Anglican Communion, we have grave concerns about the implications of his reflections in “Covenant, Communion and the Anglican Future.”

‘For example, we consider that references to same-sex unions as a “chosen life-style”, and assertions that those who have made such a commitment are analogous to “a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond” to be inconsistent with the Archbishop’s previous statements on committed and faithful same sex relationships and are at odds with our reading of the message of the gospel.

‘Whilst we applaud his assertion that we are called to “become the Church God wants us to be, for the better proclamation of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ” we find no indication of how that can be achieved for those who are not heterosexual.

‘We acknowledge, once again, that there are and always have been many loyal, committed and faithful bishops, priests and deacons – properly selected and ordained – and many lay people who are LGBT or who work alongside LGBT people with delight and thanksgiving.

‘We know ourselves to be part of the church of God in England and we work, together, to bring about the reign of God in this part of God’s creation. We pray earnestly that the Church of England will continue to select, train, ordain and deploy LGBT people and enable them to exercise their calling from God in the Church of England.

‘Together, we reaffirm our commitment to working for the full inclusion of all people at all levels of ministry. We will continue to work towards liturgical and sacramental recognition of the God-given love which enables many LGBT couples to thrive. We will seek to strengthen the bonds of affection which exist between those in all the Churches of the Anglican Communion who share our commitment to the full inclusion of all of God’s faithful. We will also continue to work closely with our brother and sister churches, especially those with whom we have mutual recognition of orders such as the Nordic churches. We will work to ensure that if the Church of England is to sign up to the Covenant, it has potential for rapid progress on this and other issues.

‘We find the notion of a “two track communion” flawed in the way that the Act of Synod is flawed, and we commit ourselves to continuing the effort to find ways forward through which those who disagree profoundly on this and on other issues can continue to celebrate their common membership of the Church of England and unity in Christ’

Accepting Evangelicals

Changing Attitude

The Clergy Consultation

Courage

Ekklesia

Evangelical Fellowship of Lesbian and Gay Anglicans

General Synod Human Sexuality Group

Group for the Rescinding of the Act of Synod

Inclusive Church

Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (Anglican Matters)

Modern Churchpeople’s Union

Sibyls

I’m pleased to find St John’s-Hyde Park in London is a member of both Inclusive Church
and Changing Attitude, as I thoroughly enjoyed my Sunday visit with them a year ago in August and think they’re really on the right track, as the service was VERY well attended (a rarity in Britain). I had previously blogged on the concept of a “two-track communion” but that referred specifically to women Anglican clergy in Britain, who face similar obstacles (and obstinacies) when faced with conservative opposition to  female ordination.  If this “TEC beachhead” becomes a reality in London (it may be wishful thinking), it would be interesting to see how they respond to the very real and troubling accusation of border-crossing. From the lists of member churches at Inclusive Church and Changing Attitude, it’s clear there are plenty of welcoming, affirming Anglican parishes all over Britain, not just in London.