America will not be a civil society until there is equality for all. Our country has made significant gains over the past centuries by abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote and outlawing racial segregation. Now, in 2010, it is imperative for the evolution of our society and country that equal rights are granted to our GLBT friends, neighbors, professors, colleagues and community.
New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino recently gave a speech in Brooklyn. He criticized his opponent, Democrat Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, for marching in a gay pride parade this year and Paladino said that "it is not the example we should be showing our children."
"I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family," Paladino said. "And I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t,"
He faced well-deserved criticism for his homophobic comments. Paladino spent the following Monday defending his remarks and saying that he has a gay nephew and his administration would hire gays. On ABC’s "Good Morning America," he stated that he has one and only one problem with homosexuality: "their desire to be married."
…Paladino is not an obscure figure on the fringe. He is the Republican-endorsed gubernatorial candidate for the state of New York. It is absurd that anyone nonchalantly spouts off hateful rhetoric with the backing of any political party. Perhaps we need to ensure that no one is brainwashed into thinking that bigotry is an equally valid option.
Read complete article: By Ian J. Byrne, U of M – Minneapolis, St. Paul – The Minnesota Daily – mndaily.com
Sexual orientation - Internalized Homophobia -
“Auschwitz – Benedict XVI - Christmas 2008 -A flashback far more severe than in Brokeback Mountain” GAY TEENAGE SUICIDE - Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Attachment Theory
Nothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times. Photo
Gay marriage ->
Restoring "Hope of Love"
To Children In Early Childhood -> Marriage Equality
March 23, 2010 – by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Marriage Equality, like Galileo, is the truth about the facts of growing up gay. Marriage Equality will not become a reality until people learn that its most vital purpose is that it restores the “hope of love” to children in early childhood – essential to their development and well-being for life. Without Marriage Equality we teach children how to hate love and how to be mean and indifferent to people as adults. With all due respect, without Marriage Equality we would teach them in much the same way as has been shown by Benedict XVI and the hierarchy, especially in their lack of care and protection of children for decades.
Gay Marriage Surfaces As An Issue In State Races
by The Associated Press,
October 17, 2010 - NPR
New York
This election will be the first since the 1990s without a measure to ban gay marriage on any state ballot, yet the divisive issue is roiling races across the country during a time of tumult for the gay rights movement.
In Minnesota, New Hampshire, California and New York, gubernatorial campaigns have become battlegrounds for rival sides in the debate, with the Democratic candidates supporting same-sex marriage and the Republicans opposed.
In Iowa, voters will decide whether to oust three state Supreme Court justices who joined last year's unanimous decision making the state one of five where gay marriage is legal.
And in Rhode Island and California, Democratic candidates are seeking to become the fourth and fifth openly gay members of Congress. The Californian, Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, has a husband and 4-year-old twins, and would be Congress' first openly gay parent.
The races are unfolding on a rapidly shifting gay rights landscape, with activists elated by important court rulings, irked at setbacks in Washington and jolted by high-profile cases of anti-gay violence and bullying-provoked suicides.
Read more:
Hate Crime Bill vs Attacks
But No Facts -> Fear And Ignorance
Of The Blind Leading The Blind
October 27, 2009 – Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Thalamus Center
…So, now we have some priests, ministers and even pontiffs saying that the bible states that homosexuality is evil, in exactly the same way that they condemned Galileo because he said that the earth revolves around the sun. Their freedom of speech psychologically harms for life children who grow up gay, it evens creates a hostile social environment that physically threatens the very lives of these children. And should one of these gay children be singled out and beaten to death, the person who killed the child will be charged with a hate crime, not the preacher, priest or pontiff. Their judgment will be made by God, likely more severe than anything on earth could possibly be, because of their negligence in their duty to protect children. Photo
Related links:
UNIDENTIFIED - Internalized Homophobia –
Devastating, and Horrific Consequences
On Innocent Children -
PERPETUATING GENERATIONS HATRED & VIOLENCE
…When we speak of internalized homophobia, we refer to the shame, denigration and anger turned inward onto the self of the homosexual individual either as a re-internalization or from the absorption of homophobic attitudes in the environment and then identifying with the hated and feared object. The primary emotion is shame, but a whole gamut of inhibitions, loss of self esteem, depression and self-destructive behavior often follow…
Same-sex marriage is a fundamental right
by Menachem Z. Rosensaft,
Cornell Law School, October 14, 2010
The Washington Post
New York Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino is far from alone in his bluntly stated opposition to same-sex marriage. Pope Benedict XVI recently reiterated the Vatican's uncompromising stance on this controversial topic: "The Church cannot approve of legislative initiatives that involve a re-evaluation of alternative models of married life and family," he said. "They contribute to the weakening of the principles of natural law and ... also to confusion about society's values." Along the same lines, Rabbi Noson Leiter, executive director of the ultra-Orthodox Torah Jews for Decency, has declared somewhat incongruously that "gay marriage poses an existentialist threat to religious liberty."
Regardless of anyone's religious or moral views on homosexuality, a review of the historical bidding seems to be in order. Not all that long ago, Americans also opposed marriages between Whites and African-Americans by a wide margin. In 1912, Rep. Seaborn Roddenberry, Democrat of Georgia, sponsored a constitutional amendment to prohibit interracial marriages on the ground that "intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant."
…While the statistics may be interesting from a sociological perspective, we must not allow our constitutional rights to be determined by Gallup polls or popular referenda. Does anyone doubt that a majority of the good people of Virginia might well have voted to retain the ban on interracial marriage in 1967? Should the Supreme Court have deferred to prejudices that, I suspect, even most of the opponents of same-sex marriage find despicable today?
And what about the invidious 1935 Nuremberg Laws that criminalized both marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Aryans in Nazi Germany? Does the fact that most Germans had no problem with this legislation make it any less reprehensible?
We must never lose sight of the fact that divisive rhetoric and demagoguery have consequences. The delegitimization or demonization of any group threatens our society as a whole. Any muddying of the separation of church and state encroaches on the religious liberty now enjoyed by all Americans. Unlike most European countries, the United States has never had an established church or religion, and most Americans like it that way just fine. "The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate," wrote James Madison in 1785 in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments.
Generations of immigrants, my parents and I among them, came to these shores "yearning to breathe free," and Emma Lazarus' poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty does not bestow this privilege exclusively on those of "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" who happen to be heterosexual.
Read complete article: by Menachem Z. Rosensaft is Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the Syracuse University College of Law.
Homophobia hurts straight men, too
By Jonathan Zimmerman
October 6, 2010
The Christian Science Monitor
New York
In the 1986 movie Stand By Me, an adult protagonist – played by Richard Dreyfuss – looks back wistfully on the friendships he formed in his youth. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve,” he muses. “Does anyone?”
For most American men, the sad answer is “no.” In surveys, men report that they rarely sustain intimate, long-standing friendships with other males after childhood. And the reason might surprise you: According to a large body of research, they’re afraid of being seen as gay…
A LONGSTANDING PROBLEM – FOR ALL
He’s right, of course. But to fight intolerance against gay boys, we also need to acknowledge its toll on straights – and our entire culture. Homophobia hurts all of our boys, by driving a wedge between them. Sharing your deepest feelings with another man? That’s so . . . gay. Or so we’ve been taught…
Read more:
Gay teen suicides linked to harassment
by Kaitlin Zurawsky,
October 7, 2010 - The Duquesne Duke
Duquesne University
Tyler Clementi, 18. Justin Aaberg, 15. Billy Lucas, 15. Asher Brown, 13. Seth Walsh, 13.
These are not just the names of five teenagers. They are the names of five boys who committed suicide during the month of September because of harassment based on their sexual orientation.
GAY TEENAGE SUICIDE
Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse “cover-ups”
ordered by Benedict XVI
to avoid public outrage & criminal charges
falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE?
The following statements are harsh statements, but unfortunately they are heavily documented. (1) Benedict XVI and his hierarchy failed to protect children from child sexual abuse for decades. (2) They mistreated and intimidated the victims and their families who came to report the child sexual abuse, in order to cover up publicity of any child sexual abuse. (3) They failed to protect children by repeatedly reassigning the child sexual abusers to assignments where children would be present. (4) When the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children became public, globally, in 2002 they shifted the blame wrongfully onto gay priests.
Read complete report: Child Protection Service of the Archdiocese of Dublin http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
(5) By falsely, against known research to the contrary, blaming gay priests they implicated the entire LGBT community and how they are fighting against Marriage Equality. When the scientific facts known for decades about human sexuality have been discounted with no substantiated facts given to explain why, it causes many questions whether Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s fight against Marriage Equality is more a fight to maintained the cover-up of the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children? Benedict XVI and his hierarchy need to clearly offer substantiated reasons why they are against Marriage Equality. This statement needs to be spelled out in great detail and follow Pope John Paul II’s test of truth of not separating science and religion.
(6) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous public propaganda against homosexuality encourages public intolerance towards LGBTQ&I adults and children. They continue to do this even though this summer 2 major Christian denominations approved LGBT singled and partnered people for all forms of ordained ministries. (7) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous promulgation of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings that are harmful to children in their early childhood psychological developmental years, harm that is crippling throughout their lives. They have continued this even after the beginning of the year, 2009, the Family Acceptance Project research studies had shown the negative effects caused to youths, when their sexual orientation is not accepted, having health problems, suicidal ideation, etc. They ignore all the major medical, psychiatric, psychological and social workers national and international professional associations regarding their findings regarding human sexuality and sexual orientation. WHEN DO WE START PROTECTING CHILDREN?!?!
Written by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
New Vatican Rule Said to Bar Gays as New Priests
By Ian Fisher and Laurie Goodstein
September 22, 2005,
The New York Times
ROME, Sept. 21 - Homosexuals, even those who are celibate, will be barred from becoming Roman Catholic priests, a church official said Wednesday, under stricter rules soon to be released on one of the most sensitive issues facing the church.
The official, said the question was not "if it will be published, but when," referring to the new ruling about homosexuality in Catholic seminaries, a topic that has stirred much recent rumor and worry in the church. The official, who has authoritative knowledge of the new rules, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the church's policy of not commenting on unpublished reports.
"Impending rules on gay priests create Catholic divide"
by Charles Honey – October 8, 2005
The Grand Rapids Press
When the Rev. Martin Kurylowicz came out to his Sparta parish eight years ago, he said he had struggled for years with his homosexuality.
The Catholic priest says the struggle would be made harder for many others if the Vatican issues new rules that reportedly would ban gays from becoming priests…
…"I sizzled when I read it," said Kurylowicz, 55. "It's very hurtful, is what it is. In this day and age, there's no reason for it. It sends a message that there's something wrong with gays."
Kurylowicz said he spoke out then to raise awareness of violence against gays and teach others homosexuality is not a choice but an inborn trait. Church leaders still don't understand that and contribute to gays' poor self-esteem, he said…
…"Kids as young as 4 or 5 know they're different," said Kurylowicz, a psychotherapist… "They grow up with this pervasive guilt, which sabotages their growth and motivation." The result is thousands of dollars in therapy to accept their natural orientation, he said, adding, "Does the Vatican want to take that on, like the tobacco industry had to take on for the damage it caused consumers? "…
Read complete article: by Charles Honey - Religion Editor - The Grand Rapids Press – Archives
July 2010
President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
Dear -- --------,
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, a Roman Catholic priest from the Diocese of Grand Rapids Michigan ordained June 16, 1979.
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling "different" is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics, the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and last throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but also affect their families, siblings, friends and anyone whom they might consider special in their lives. They are a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which place at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. They stifle an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offering better ways of maintaining peace among people and improving the quality of life for everyone in the world.
Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-separation-between-church.html
Professor's view:
Witch hunt for gay priests
off base when target should be child abusers
By: Iver Bogen,
University of Minnesota Duluth - Duluth News Tribune
Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005 ordered an investigation of America’s 229 Catholic seminaries in order to eliminate gay seminarians. The week of Sept. 27, Vatican investigators began the “witch-hunt” at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. The question posed to the students: “Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?”
Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005 ordered an investigation of America’s 229 Catholic seminaries in order to eliminate gay seminarians. The week of Sept. 27, Vatican investigators began the “witch-hunt” at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. The question posed to the students: “Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?”
The investigation was reminiscent of the house arrest of Galileo in his home near Florence from 1633 until his death in 1642 for espousing the Copernican heliocentric view of the universe. The church does not suffer “heretical” thinking well and is extremely slow in altering its doctrines to be consistent with scientific progress as well as changes in cultural mores regarding acceptable human behaviors…
… It is my belief the Catholic Church’s focus on gay priests is merely a strategy for affixing blame and is consistent with its historical antipathy toward homosexuality and same-sex behaviors. However, research in the area of child sexual abuse suggests that pedophilic intrusions occur preponderantly with heterosexual males rather than gay men. It is not one’s orientation that is predictive of pedophilia. According to Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy, “The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or women.”
Being immature psycho-sexually, these men find themselves responding sexually to other males who also are immature. One’s orientation is not predictive of pedophilia. Read complete article - By: Iver Bogen, University of Minnesota Duluth - Duluth News Tribune
Galileo
facing the Roman Inquisition,
Biblical quotes used to
Condemn Galileo
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New International Version)
5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5 Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (New International Version)
30 Tremble before him, all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (New American Standard Bible)
30 Tremble before Him, all the earth; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Psalm 93:1 (New International Version)
1 The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Psalm 93:1 (New American Standard Bible)
1 The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Psalm 96:10 (New International Version)
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns."
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.
Psalm 96:10 (New American Standard Bible)
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity."
Psalm 104:5 (New International Version)
5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 104:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5 He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever.
Read more:
Tortured For Being Gay,
by Andrew Sullivan, October 9, 2010
The Atlantic
This story in the NYT this morning obviously speaks for itself. The plight of gay teens and youths, despite so much advances in the culture, for so many remain an unimaginable nightmare. The truth is not, I suspect, that there is a sudden new wave of this; the truth is that we have not been so aware of it before, or that shame on the part of victims, has kept some of this from the light of day. The five well-publicized suicides of the last month do not represent a rise, which is why I've tried before on this blog to mention The Trevor Project, an organization devoted to helping to save suicidal gay teens and children... ------------------------------------Photo
For too long, gay people have been described by too many on the right as a threat to the family, society and decency. Those words have consequences. This is especially true of religious leaders. When even the Pope describes us as "intrinsically disordered" and directed to an "objective moral evil", when Republicans call us a threat to family life, when NOM runs ads of a "storm coming", I hope they understand what these words do to the psyches and souls of the young and impressionable, and to those who need a mere signal to take up arms and attack us.
When you do these things to the least of my brethren, you do them to me, said Jesus. I pray that those who say they follow him would sometimes remember those words when it comes to the rhetoric that gay children and teens cannot help but hear...
Read complete article:
Gay bullying and Catholic responsibilities
by David Gibson, October 8, 2010
Commonweal
A striking aspect of the focus by many bishops on the battle against gay marriage, such as the DVD campaign by Minnesota’s Archbishop John Nienstedt, discussed below, is how out of synch it is with the tragic realities of bullying against gay youths, brought home so forcefully by the deaths of Tyler Clementi and many other teens.
Bishops who have been concerned about gay marriage have also been fighting against anti-bullying laws that include sexual orientation (along with religion and race, e.g.) as a targeted category, which studies show it often is. They argue that including sexual orientation to protect youths from harassment is the slippery slope to gay marriage and other gay rights.
I have a story at PoliticsDaily.com today about some serious soul-searching by Christians, especially those of the conservative stripe, about their language and approach on gays in light of the rash of suicides and bullying that has come to light.
Read more:
Homophobia in the Church:
What Catholics Are Doing About It, and
What Still Needs to Be Done
By Michele Somerville, October 10, 2010
The Huffington Post
I attended a Roman Catholic baptism about two weeks ago. A crowd of young parents and others of all ages stood in semi-circle around the font. The atmosphere was reverent yet festive. Toddlers squirmed. The church was exquisite. Blades of late-morning light slid down through colored glass. The priest exuded hope and delight as he kicked off the rites. As the two parents approached the font to offer their child to the church, I began to tear up. My 11-year-old daughter Grace, not unaccustomed to my poet's penchant for being capsized by moments so tender, saw my waterworks start up, rolled her eyes as adolescents do, smiled, and handed me a tissue. As I often do when my emotions get the best of me in the presence of my children, I get all pedagogical on them. I whispered sidebars to Grace: "That's litany of the saints, it's beautiful when sung in Latin... And that the part about Satan and the empty promises -- it's technically an exorcism!" Photo
I didn't have to explain that it was no ordinary baptism we were witnessing. She knew it was extraordinary, because I had taught her. The two parents at the font were bravely (or so I believe) demonstrating their desire not to throw the baby out with the baptismal water.
They were two gay dads asking a church governed by bullies to bless their child.
My daughter later asked how it was that gay people could have their children baptized in Catholic churches but not be married in them. Good question. I broke it down for her. I told her a far greater percentage of Catholics support gay marriage than support the Vatican. I characterized the failure of my church to offer gay Catholics marriage in the church as just that -- "a failure." And a sin. Photo - not the 2 dads in this article
Read complete article:
Pope Benedict to Beatify a Gay Saint?
A Conservative Icon? Maybe Both
by David Gibson – September 18, 2010
Politics Daily
…"It is not good for a Pope to live 20 years," Newman once wrote of the long-lived Pius IX. "It is an anomaly and bears no good fruit; he becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, and does cruel things without meaning it."
Such frank talk about the failings of the hierarchy tended to make Newman a champion of liberal Catholics -- a courageous man who wrote about the "development of doctrine" in the church at a time when the Vatican was projecting an image of unceasing continuity. He also disagreed strongly with the church's adoption of the doctrine of papal infallibility, and famously wrote that if pressed, he would drink "to Conscience first and the Pope afterwards." Photo
…Complicating all the interpretations is the fact that Newman had an extraordinarily close relationship with another English Catholic, Father Ambrose St. John, who had died in 1875, leaving Newman bereft -- and giving today's gay Christians an icon of their own.
"I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine," Newman wrote at the time of his friend's death. "From the first he loved me with an intensity of love which was unaccountable." And elsewhere: "As far as this world was concerned I was his first and last."
Sexual orientation - Internalized Homophobia -
“Auschwitz – Benedict XVI - Christmas 2008 -A flashback far more severe than in Brokeback Mountain”
GAY TEENAGE SUICIDE - Fr. Marty Kurylowicz - Thalamus Center
Attachment Theory
Nothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times. Photo
Gay marriage ->
Restoring "Hope of Love"
To Children In Early Childhood -> Marriage Equality
March 23, 2010 – by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Marriage Equality, like Galileo, is the truth about the facts of growing up gay. Marriage Equality will not become a reality until people learn that its most vital purpose is that it restores the “hope of love” to children in early childhood – essential to their development and well-being for life. Without Marriage Equality we teach children how to hate love and how to be mean and indifferent to people as adults. With all due respect, without Marriage Equality we would teach them in much the same way as has been shown by Benedict XVI and the hierarchy, especially in their lack of care and protection of children for decades.
No Antigay Religious Norms - Gay Children Not Harmed,
Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, Thalamus Center
It is important to note that a male child who grows up to be gay but is “not” raised in social environments that are influenced by antigay social and religious norms does not experience problems connecting to others as those who do. The attachment process is not disturbed in this regard of experiencing rejection and abandonment for the expressions of the basic human need to love and to be loved. It is important to note that there are numerous factors of degree and kind that effect early childhood psychological development causing an infinite number of possible variations.
Antigay Religious Norms Harm Gay Children
The question to be answered is what kind of person is likely to be formed who is brought up by antigay social and religious norms and is taught that it is acceptable to live in an "implicit" form of isolation from human connectedness? Always depending on the kind and degree of intensity of rejection experienced as child, though not always, as an adult this individual is likely not to be able to tune into the most essential part of bonding with another or other human beings. This is possible sometimes no matter how hard he may try to do so. He is likely to unknowingly treat others the same way he was treated as a child, which was “implicitly” inhuman. Observing this person from the outside, he is likely to appear picture perfect, productive, successful and even engaging interacting with many different groups of people. However, he may unknowingly be perpetuating his “implicit” form of isolation from any human contact, living a very lonely and depressing life. He may be suffering these symptoms and not have a clue why. He would tend not to know of any other way to live or that a happier life is possible, even for him.
Read more:
Related Links:
Suicide Is a Choice When Being Gay Isn't
by Bill Donius, October 12, 2010
The Huffington Post
You never recover from losing a family member to suicide. I know from personal experience, my brother committed suicide at 23.
Teen suicides act as a mirror to our society. Teens take their cues about life, identity, purpose and social value from parents, society at large and too often from other teens. In most cases, teens receive support and love from all of these groups as they develop into adults. The unfortunate few are the recipients of hate, fear and bigotry. Their crime is being different from their peers. In too many cases, they attempt to hide their sexual orientation. Not surprisingly, research shows LGBT youth rejected by their families are eight times more likely to commit suicide, three times more likely to be bullied than their peers and twice as likely to experience major depression according to Friendfactor (see note below about sources).
Many of us were able to hide our sexual identities in order to escape certain ridicule on the school playground. We did not want to face those perpetuating bigotry, hate and biases. Where does all this hate come from? I suspect it is passed down from generation to generation. Why can't we stop the madness? After all these decades, why is there not a law against bullying at school? How many more deaths, suicide attempts and painful childhoods will we allow?
…It is not possible, like flipping a switch, to change one's sexual orientation. I know. I struggled with coming to terms with my sexual orientation as a gay man. I did not want to disappoint my parents. I knew my life would be more difficult coming out in the late 1970's as well. Not to mention working in the business world and perhaps someday in banking. I prayed a lot in both Catholic and Baptist Churches. My prayers were ultimately answered as I became fully aware and comfortable with my sexuality. I believe God made me gay and it is not a choice, no more than I chose to be of Polish and German descent…
Read more:
Tyler Clementi:
Gay Bashed with the Bricks and Bats of Social Media
by Michael C. LaSala, Ph.D., September 29, 2010
Psychology Today
Tyler Clementi: Gay Bashing and Social Media
I am a professor at Rutgers University where Tyler Clementi was a student. I did not know Tyler, nor do I know the two young people accused of filming his sexual activity and posting it-but what I do know is this act was a gay bashing and the weapons were as powerful and wounding as a baseball bat-perhaps more so. Photo
Imagine being a very young boy, recognizing you have romantic feelings toward other boys. However, you come to realize to your horror that there is something wrong with these feelings--horribly wrong. Perhaps you have been bullied and harassed by the other kids in school who knew something was up because you looked or behaved differently than the way boys were expected to. Or perhaps you became proficient at hiding your feelings deep down in a place where no one could find them, not even you. Photo
As you mature, and with much concentrated effort you become somewhat more comfortable with your feelings-comfortable enough to explore and act on your sexuality while away at college. You then find that this most intimate of acts, stigmatized by large segments of society, was secretly videotaped and broadcast to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people…
Read more:
Society’s ‘bullies’ should shoulder blame in suicides of gay teens
by D.L. Stewart, October 12, 2010
Dayton Daily News
…Experts say suicides by gay teenagers is nothing new. But the recent headlines have many persons, both heterosexual and gay, searching for causes.
Is it negligent teachers and lax school administrators? Parents who pass along their homophobic fears to the next generation? Politicians who pander for votes by railing against a so-called “gay agenda” that “threatens America’s families”?
Dan Savage, a sex columnist based in Seattle, cites one more “accomplice.” Religious leaders who use “anti-gay rhetoric.” Photo
“The problem is that kids are being exposed to this rhetoric and then they go to the school and there’s this gay kid,” he said. “And how are they going to treat this gay kid who they’ve been told is trying to destroy their family? They’re going to abuse him.”
Read more:
Related articles:
Silenced or Ousted
one by one for disagreeing with
Benedict XVI
Basilica Artist Suspended Over DVD to ART Project
September 27, 2010
My Fox Twin Cities
Catholics in support of gay rights - Georgetown Professor Launches Catholics for Equality
By Alice Maglio | Sep 28 2010
The Hoya – Georgetown University
Gay Catholics DENIED Communion by Twin Cities RC Archbishop Nienstedt
Tony Jones, October 8, 2010
MinnPost.com
Up here in the barren northland, there’s been a dust-up in the ongoing struggle of the church in America to accept GLBT persons. This time it’s the Catholic church, the St. Paul & Minneapolis Archdiocese of which recently mailed tens of thousands of copies of a DVD opposing gay marriage to its communicants. Of course, the DVD is timed to arrive as we approach mid-term elections.
From where I sit, social issues are playing a negligible role in these elections. I don’t even hear Crazy Michelle Bachmann talking about them.
But that’s what the Catholic church wants its people talking about and voting on. Oh, would that they sent out a DVD about developing a just economy or about extricating ourselves from foreign wars. But, no, their primary interest this fall is making sure that GLBT persons are not afforded the right to marry.
Read more:
Gay Marriage & Galileo:
Pope described as …"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"
The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder (2002)
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY (UMKC) SCHOOL OF LAW
Threats, Silence, Harm and Disposal of Catholic Personnel Supportive of LGBT Adults and Children - Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Directives To Hierarchy
By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation
Dr. Gregory Herek,
University of California at Davis &
Yale University &
City University of New York
Report: Homosexuality No Factor in Abusive Priests
by RACHEL ZOLL
ABC News – 2009
New Catholic Sex Abuse Findings: Gay Priests Are Not the Problem
by DAVID GIBSON
Politics Daily - November 18, 2009
NO EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THESE [homosexual] STEREOTYPES
Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling
California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
Related Links:
Archbishop John Nienstedt on
Catholic Church's opposition to same-sex marriage
by Tom Crann,
September 22, 2010 - Minnesota Public Radio
Quotes Nienstedt:
“Marriage isn't something that we create as human beings. It's already a given from the work of creation by almighty God.”
“We've been labeled as discriminating against gay people. There's no discrimination when there isn't a basic right to something. And those who have the right to marriage are men and women who want to enter into a life-long, mutually supportive and procreative relationship.”
“Marriage came long before there was any government.
And so this is a natural reality, and it's defined by the natural law, what we call the natural law. And so it precedes any government. And government is meant to support marriage between a husband and a wife in order to give it a context for the raising of children and the protection of children.”
“Audio excerpt from Nienstedt's remarks: The archdiocese believes that the time has come for voters to be presented directly with an amendment to our state constitution to preserve our historic understanding of marriage. In fact, this is the only way to put the one man, one woman definition of marriage beyond the reach of the courts and politicians.
Crann: Is that, in fact, a political statement?
Nienstedt: I don't believe so, no. I think that's a reasonable, common sense thing.”
Read more:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/22/archbishop-nienstedt-same-sex-marriage-dvd-qa/
Anti-gay marriage DVDs - UNSUBSTANTIATED - Nienstedt (Minnesota) & Benedict XVI, gay marriage, like Galileo Against Nature law – “It is Common Sense” ??? -> Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
John Nienstedt's anti-gay marriage crusade draws another protest
by Hart Van Denburg,
September 29, 2010 - Minneapolis City Pages
Is It Possible to Be Against Same-Sex Marriage Without Being Homophobic?
Carlos A. Ball
Professor of Law at Rutgers University
August 24, 2010
Huffington Post
A CNN poll released earlier this month has received considerable attention because it is the first national survey showing that a majority of Americans believe that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, a rate of support for gay marriage that is double what it was in 1996. The poll was released a few days after federal Judge Vaughn Walker, in striking down California's Proposition 8, concluded that defenders of that law had failed to introduce any evidence in court that same-sex marriages harm either society or individuals.
Now that opponents of same-sex marriage appear to be in the minority and that their allegations about the purported negative consequences of same-sex marriages have been discredited in federal court, it is fair to ask whether it is possible to oppose marriage equality without at some level, whether consciously or unconsciously, being prejudiced against gay people.
Read complete article:
White-Hot 'Outrage' Over The Capitol Hill Closet
May 9, 2009
National Public Radio (NPR)
Homophobia Is Killing Our Youth
by Jason Mannino – April 17, 2009
Huffington Post
Today is a significant day for silence, youth, and our schools. Today, across the country schools will participate in a National Day of Silence to protest the homophobic bullying that is killing teenagers and honor those whose lives have been taken by the barbaric hands of hatred.
In less than two years there have been four brutal teenage deaths resulting from homophobic bullying. Just last week Carl Walker, an eleven year old in Springfield, Massachusetts, who never actually identified as gay, hung himself with an extension cord from the 3rd floor landing of his home. This was after his mother repeatedly implored his school to do something about the homophobic bullying he experienced. Last summer a transgendered teenager, Angie Zapata, was brutally murdered in Greeley, Colorado. Last February Eric Mohat, a 17-year old student from Ohio, who also never identified as gay, committed suicide after being repeatedly harassed with anti-gay epithets such as "fag" and "homo." His school went to trial last month as a lawsuit was filed by his parents, not because they want the school's money, but because they want to know why the school didn't respond to several requests for action. Also, last year, Lawrence King, a fifteen year old who identified as gay, was shot in the head twice in his English class. He died a few days later. His heart was donated the day after Valentine's day.
Someday,
maybe, there will exist
a
well-informed,
well considered
and
yet fervent public conviction
that the
most deadly of all possible
sins
is the mutilation of
a
child’s spirit.”
…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew 18:6
Important note:
No disrespect meant to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children.
Kids Are Being Hurt !!!
The Trevor Project
Overturning Catholic Moral Teaching on Homosexuality:
Are Salzman And Lawler Right?
By Phyllis Zagano,
9/29/10 – The Huffington Post
Excerpts:
…So the question is: what's "natural" or "unnatural?" That, in turns, leads to a more overarching question: Is homosexuality a status or a choice?
Some thinkers, including several members of the Supreme Court, seem to reason that homosexuality is an inborn status.
Catholicism--and, indeed most religions--teach that while homosexuality exists, homosexual activity is a "disordered" choice against the laws of nature.
If homosexuality is indeed a status rooted in biology or genetics, then homosexuals, like left-handed people, act according to their nature. But if homosexuality is a choice rooted in behavior, then homosexuals act against nature…
In terms of civil rights, individuals deserve and are afforded protections for both status (say, skin color) and choice (for example, religious affiliation).
In terms of morality, status is neutral, while choice has implications and consequences.
Catholicism argues that homosexuals deserve legal protections, but not because homosexuality is a status. Catholicism says homosexual activity is a choice. So while bishops support non-discrimination policies, they won't agree that homosexuals are protected because of their genetic makeup.
Catholic thinkers have grappled with this question for ages. Creighton University professors Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler are the latest voices on the Catholic circuit, Their 2008 book, "The Sexual Person,"…
Salzman and Lawler's dense academic argument turns traditional Catholic teaching on natural law on its head…
Salzman and Lawler argue that what is "natural" for a heterosexual is not "natural" for a homosexual, and therefore homosexuals and heterosexuals must act in accord with their personal "natures".
Read complete article:
The Sexual Person: Toward A Renewed Catholic Anthropology
By Todd A. Salzman, Michael G. Lawler 2008
Same-Sex Marriage: A Selective Bibliography of the Legal Literature
by Paul Axel-Lute - Rutgers School of Law–Newark
"For Richer, For Poorer: Same-Sex Couples and the Freedom to Marry as a Civil Right,"
DMI E-Journal,
by Wolfson, Evan,
(Drum Major Institute for Public Policy) 2003
Excerpts:
Introduction
On the historic, horrific morning of September 11, 2001, John kissed his wife, Rosa, goodbye before heading to his job as an office-cleaner in the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Rosa never heard from her husband again. After searching frantically for days, Rosa accepted the reality of his disappearance. She filed for a death certificate and arranged her husband’s memorial service. Rosa received Workers’ Compensation from the state and a small Social Security death benefit from the federal government. She contacted John's former employer, who arranged for receipt of his pension. Because John and Rosa had few assets, they had never seen the need for a will, nor did they have the financial means to hire a lawyer to prepare one. Nonetheless, John's assets, which included a small savings account, their home and a car, were given to Rosa by law.
That same morning, Juan kissed Ryan, his partner of 21 years, goodbye and headed to his job as a file-clerk in that same North Tower. Like Rosa, Ryan never heard from Juan again. Ryan applied for Workers’ Compensation and Social Security, but, unlike Rosa, he was told he was not eligible for those benefits because he was not Juan’s legal spouse. Even though Juan and Ryan had taken some precautions to protect their commitment -- such as registering as domestic partners, designating one another as beneficiaries on insurance policies, and executing health care proxies and powers of attorney -- and even though Juan paid the same taxes as John, Ryan was not automatically entitled to any of the compensations given to Rosa. In addition to his emotional devastation, Ryan was financially devastated as well.
Why did Rosa have an economic safety net, while Ryan did not? The answer can be summed up in two words: “I do.” ...
Marriage Makes Life Together More Affordable
Marriage makes almost every aspect of a relationship less expensive. Without money, a lawyer or any forethought, married couples receive the benefits of a complex set of legal rules that create default choices most couples would select anyway. Thus:
Spouses are allowed to make life-saving decisions for each other without drafting powers of attorney or other complicated legal documents;
Spouses presumptively inherit each others' estates without the need for intricate wills; …
Read complete article:
The Power of Marital Love – Marriage Equality – Maine 2009 – Minnesota 2010
It must be remembered that the importance and meaning of marriage is more than procreation. Two people pledging their love to each other is not just for themselves, because that is not a marriage. By being in love, two become one and they are better equip to be the best for everyone in world their families, friends, co-workers and beyond. In this way all marriages are contributing to the procreation of children by their enriching the social environment that children will be born into. I think that love; true love like energy is never lost, a bit like Einstein, maybe.
Gay Marriage - Truth Will Set Us Free
Not Ignorance and Fear
by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
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