Friday, December 17, 2010

Homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah - by The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson – December 8, 2010 – The Washington Post

This is the third in a series of articles examining the Biblical bases for opposition to homosexuality by The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC.

Now, we move on to Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1-16, see text at end of post), the infamous cities of homosexual sin. Or is that their sin? Certainly, that is how tradition has passed them on to us - even giving us a name (sodomites) for the unspeakable sin and those who commit it. However, most modern Old Testament scholars agree that that may not indeed be true, and that the point of the story was Sodom's violation of the rather strict and universally acknowledged norms of hospitality - a code of ethics one still finds in Middle Eastern cultures today. This unwritten, but fiercely practiced, code of hospitality was a foundation of civil society in Biblical times. The desert is a harsh environment for travelers, and to deny hospitality to a stranger in such a setting was seen to be the height of cruelty.

In the Genesis story of Sodom after welcoming two men (whom the story identifies as angels) into his house, Lot is confronted by all the men in the town, who surround the house and demand, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them." There is some debate about the word "to know" here. Most scholars would agree that it has the sexual meaning here - but it is very clear that we are talking about homosexual rape, a violent act of aggression - and clearly something we would all condemn and deem worthy of God's punishment...
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Homosexuality in Leviticus
by The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson,
December 7, 2010 – The Washington Post

This is the second in a series of articles examining the Biblical bases for opposition to homosexuality by The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC.

First, and most famous, of the scriptural texts used to condemn homosexuality are the two references in the Holiness Codes of Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." (Lev. 18:22) and "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them." (Lev. 20:13)

The context of these two passages are the holiness and purity codes set down for the people of Israel - rules set forth both to define what was clean and unclean before God, as well as what set the Hebrew people apart from their heathen neighbors who worshiped gods other than the one true God. In a memorable speech on homosexuality at Trinity College in 1992, The Rev. Dr. Frank G. Kirkpatrick put the biblical code in context: This "purity code assumes a 'normal' or natural state for things, any deviance from which is abnormal, deviant, and therefore unclean, impure, and polluting. Menstruation is not 'normal' for women (since it occurs less frequently than periods of non-menstruation): therefore when women are menstruating they are regarded as unclean. Blemishes [including blindness and lameness] are abnormal, therefore unclean." …

This is an important point, difficult for the modern day mind to grasp: homosexuality as a sexual orientation was unknown to the ancient mind. Same gender, intimate physical contact was not unknown, of course, but everyone was presumed to be heterosexual. In his book Embodiment, An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology, James B. Nelson wrote, "It is crucial to remember this, for in all probability the biblical writers in each instance were speaking of homosexual acts undertaken by person whom the authors presumed to be heterosexually constituted." Therefore, any man who lay with another man as with a woman was considered to be a heterosexual man acting against his true nature.

The psychological construct of a homosexual orientation was not posited until the late 18th century - the notion that a certain minority of humankind is affectionally oriented toward people of the same gender, rather than the opposite gender…
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All in the Family - By Judy Shepard, December 14, 2010 – The Advocate
Judy Shepard advocates for the most important safeguard against LGBT suicide and substance abuse — family acceptance. 
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/


The Family Acceptance Project
is the only community research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to decrease major health and related risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, such as suicide, substance abuse, HIV and homelessness – in the context of their families. We use a research-based, culturally grounded approach to help ethnically, socially and religiously diverse families decrease rejection and increase support for their LGBT children.


Youth Development Current Trends – Dr. Caitlin Ryan and The Family Acceptance Projects’ Study of LGBT Youth – December 13, 2010 - National Association of Social Workers
Related links:

Gender-Nonconforming Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth: 
School Victimization and Young Adult Psychosocial Adjustment 
- Developmental Psychology © 2010 American Psychological Association
2010, Vol. 46, No. 6, 1580–1589

The Protective Effect of Family Acceptance for Gay Teens 
By ALICE PARK, December 6, 2010 – TIME


Prayers for Bobby (2009) (TV)

…Prayers for Bobby is the amazing true story of a mother torn between her loyalties, challenged by her faith, and moved by a tragedy that would change her life, and the lives of others, forever.

Bobby Griffith (Ryan Kelly, Smallville) was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of much less understood Bobby finally came out to his family. Despite the tentative support of his father, two sisters, and older brother, Bobby's mother, Mary (three time Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Sigourney Weaver, Avatar, Working Girl), turned to the fundamentalist teachings of her church to rescue her son from what she felt was an irredeemable sin. As Mary came closer to the realization that Bobby could not be "healed," she rejected him, denying him a mother's unconditional love, and driving her favorite son to suicide. 

Anguished over Bobby's death, Mary finds little solace in her son's poignant diaries, revelations of a troubled boy fighting for the love of his mother and God. Finding it difficult to reconcile her feelings of guilt, her conflicted emotions over religious teachings, and her struggles with understanding her son's orientation, Mary finally, and unexpectedly, reaches out to the gay community as a source of inspiration and consolation. For Mary Griffith, it's the beginning of a long and emotional journey that extended beyond acceptance to her viable role a vocal advocate for gay and lesbian youth. In 1996, twelve years after Bobby's death, she was invited to address the Congress of the United States, establishing her as a major force in the fight for human rights.'
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Prayers for Bobby star Sigourney Weaver
 December 15, 2010 – The Advocate

Dream Weaver

Prayers for Bobby star Sigourney Weaver discusses the film’s continued impact, offers words of advice for bullied gay youth, and expresses her hope for a chance to play a gay character.

Sigourney Weaver again establishes herself as one of our most dependable allies by continuing to get the word out about Prayers for Bobby, the acclaimed 2009 television film based on the true story of a young gay man who killed himself due to his mother’s intolerance. When the actress initially promoted the film before its premiere, she told The Advocate, “I’m horrified by how hard Americans are making it for my gay friends to live.” Now, nearly two years later and with teenagers still committing suicide due to antigay bullying, the film has finally been released on DVD.

The actress, who received numerous award nominations for her searing performance as Mary Griffith, Bobby’s confused, conservative mother, again volunteered to promote the film due to its special meaning for her and its potential to aid troubled gay teenagers and their families.

The wide-ranging career of the three-time Academy Award–nominated Weaver encompasses kick-ass action heroines in the Alien films and inspired comic turns in hits like Working Girl, which have endeared her to LGBT audiences. Yet her role in Prayers for Bobby is one the actress holds in a unique place apart from the rest. Weaver speaks to The Advocate about Prayers’ continued relevance, offers words of advice for bullied gay youth, and expresses her hope that someone offers her a gay role.
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Hate Crime Bill vs Attacks
But 
No Facts -> Fear And Ignorance
Of The Blind Leading The Blind
October 27, 2009 – Fr. Marty Kurylowicz

The bible in fact does not condemn Galileo or homosexuality, which science reveals that are normal elements of nature and human sexuality.

People for whatever reason seem to be using the bible to hide from their own personal sexual issues. This is a sacrilege! It is a total disrespect for the bible to be used to hide and harm innocent people, most especially children. These people do not check out the facts about the bible and science on homosexuality, because in truth they do not want to know the truth. Even in discourse with people who believe that homosexuality is evil because they say the bible states it to be, as with Galileo, they are not interested in a discussion, they do not want to hear the truth. They only want to discredit the truth, in every conceivable way, by whatever means available to them. They are likely doing what they have been doing all their lives regarding their personal fears about the truth of their sexuality. There is nothing to be gain to be in discourse with such people. In fact, they should be avoided, because they are harmful. Because no matter what they say or how violently they say it, it will not cause the sun to revolve around the earth or for homosexuality to be evil. Photo

ATTACKS and absolutely NO FACTS
from the
BIBLE or SCIENCE

It is a waste of time for you and for them, besides being seriously harmed by their "unchecked meanest" towards others. If and when they do their homework and truly study both the bible and the science regarding homosexuality and human sexuality then there could be a productive discourse. Otherwise, there are no discussions with them; only continuous personal attacks on the person who opposes them that are fierce, cruel and hurtful. Likely, in the way they treat themselves, which may have started when they were treated in such fashion, in their past. 

Even Jesus advised leaving them because, as he said, "they are the blind leading the blind" Matthew 15:14. And it is these people who are worried that their freedom of speech will be curtailed, by the new additions to the Hate-Crime Bill. It is only their ability to remain in darkness that is being curtailed, which is greatly more fearful to them, than their concerns about their freedom of speech. They have attacks but absolutely no facts, all motivated by fear and a self-imposed ignorance of the facts. This is the same for Benedict XVI and his hierarchy you never hear any stated facts regarding human sexuality. None!!! They offer absolutely "no" discussion or classes on the topic of human sexuality. None!!! They offer no detailed documentation regarding human sexuality from the bible or science. None!!! Because they know only too well that it would not be approved by scripture scholars or by any scientific studies. Where is the truth, not to mention the LOVE?

Their attacks are likely meant to be distractions to stay off the issue, because any attempts to keep them on the issue are met with fiercer and even more vicious attacks, but no facts, like an obsession. They seem to be like a child throwing a hysterical tantrum, however, unlike a child, they are able to cause serious harm to innocent people. It is this violence that the Hate-Crime Bill is designed to protect people from.

It is the intensity of their forcefulness to attack others without any substantiated facts to support their position that draws public attention to question their sexuality. It is like so many public figures who so forcefully have spoken out against homosexuality and then are found in "public restrooms" engaging in homosexual acts. Today, not only are more people "coming out" of the "closet" but there is an enormous ever growing number of Allies supporting LGBT people and their civil rights. It is the continuous education on human sexuality that keeps this number growing strong. However, it is also becoming more noticeable when someone protest too much against homosexuals with the absence of factual data to support the protesting that catches peoples attention and causes people to wonder, why? What causes this person to protest so strongly, because no valid facts are given?

What should be top priority is the life harm that is caused to children, who grow up LGBT and sadly it is not even considered of any importance. The Bible is about Love the purest form of Love known. The Bible is not about permission to hate, to remain blind or to harm people, especially very young children.
Posted: October 27, 2009
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GAY YOUTH SUICIDE | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS Child Sexual Abuse Cover-ups – Negligence Protecting (1) Children & (2) LGBT Children | Family of Rutgers suicide victim lends name to bill – November 19, 2010 – CNN


WIDESPREAD HOMOPHOBIA in the Catholic Church | Theologian says much of clergy is gay
by Derek Scally,
November 22, 2010 – The Irish Times

WIDESPREAD HOMOPHOBIA in the Catholic Church stems from its large number of closeted priests, a German theologian has said.

David Berger, an expert on St Thomas Aquinas and former publisher of a Catholic magazine, has called for Rome to own up to the gay priests in its midst and alter its attitudes and teaching on homosexuality.

“It must be acknowledged that a large number of Catholic clerics and trainee priests in Europe and the United States are homosexually-inclined,” Mr Berger told Der Spiegel magazine.

The worst homophobia in the Catholic Church comes from homophile priestswho are desperately fighting their own sexuality,” he said. “Obviously, those who follow their urges are repudiated more fiercely when one is so painfully repressing that disposition oneself.”

…Mr Berger “came out” in April after the Bishop of Essen, Franz-Josef Overbeck, described homosexuality as perverse and a sin during an appearance on a television chat show.

As a gay man in a long-term relationship, he said he had suffered for years under the homophobic atmosphere in the church.
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Hating Gays: 
An Overview of Scientific Studies
by Gregory M. Herek
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

…It frequently is assumed that feelings of personal threat result in strong negative attitudes toward homosexuality, whereas lack of threat leads to neutral or positive attitudes. This perspective often is associated with the term homophobia, and it derives from a psychodynamic view that prejudiced attitudes serve to reduce tension aroused by unconscious conflicts.

Attitudes are likely to serve a defensive function when an individual perceives some analogy between homosexual persons and her or his own unconscious conflicts. Subsequently, that person responds to gay men and lesbians as a way of externalizing inner conflicts and thereby reducing the anxiety associated with them. The conflicts specific to antihomosexual prejudice presumably involve a person's gender identity, sexual object choice, or both. For example, unconscious conflicts about one's own sexuality or gender identity might be attributed to lesbians and gay men through a process of projection. Such a strategy permits people to externalize the conflicts and to reject their own unacceptable urges by rejecting lesbians and gay men (who symbolize those urges) without consciously recognizing the urges as their own. Since contact with homosexual persons threatens to make conscious those thoughts that have been repressed, it inevitably arouses anxiety in defensive individuals. Consequently, defensive attitudes are likely to be negative… - International Day Against Homophobia
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Difference Between Life & Deat
Being “In” And Living “Out” Of The Closet 
"Why, It Is A 'Gift' From God!!!" - Monastic Wisdom 
Absolute Fright For Benedict XVI 
and 
"$126,000.00 as reported by Bishop Walter Hurley – May 27, 2006 – The Grand Rapids Press"
by 
Fr. Marty Kurylowicz


THEORIES OF DISSOCIATION
  
The Psychology of the Closeted
Individual and Coming Out
In contemporary gay culture, to hide one sexual identity is referred to as either “closeted” or “in the closet.” Revealing oneself as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) is called “coming out.” 16 Paradigm • Fall 2007
by Jack Drescher, M.D.  

Many LGB individuals report developmental histories with difficulty acknowledging their homosexuality, either to themselves or to others. This is because, starting in childhood, LGB individuals are often subjected to antihomosexual attitudes, not only from strangers, but also from their own families and communities (Drescher, Stein and Byne, 2005). The childhood need to hide may persist into adulthood, leading many LGB individuals to conceal important aspects of themselves.

There are a range of homosexual identities that describe an individual’s awareness and acceptance of same-sex attractions. Closeted individuals cannot acknowledge homoerotic feelings, attractions and fantasies to themselves. They cannot or will not integrate homosexuality into their public personae and these feelings must be dissociated out of conscious awareness.

If and when same-sex feelings and attractions are no longer completely dissociated, an individual becomes homosexually self-aware. Such individuals may acknowledge some aspect of their homosexuality to themselves. However, accepting the feelings is not a pre-determined outcome. A religious, homosexually self-aware woman may choose to remain celibate rather than integrate her religious and sexual identities…

Sullivan’s (1956) theories of dissociation elaborate how a sexual identity can be separated from the rest of one’s persona. For example, selective inattention is a common, nonpathological process, akin to tuning out the background noise on a busy street. In more intense dissociative mechanisms, double lives are lived yet not acknowledged. One sees clinical presentations of closeted gay people lying somewhere between selective inattention, most commonly seen in the case of homosexually self-aware patients thinking about “the possibility” that they might be gay, to more severe dissociation –in which any hint of same-sex feelings resides out of conscious awareness. More severe forms of dissociation are commonly observed in homosexually selfaware married men who cannot permit themselves the thought of coming out (Drescher, 2006).

To hide significant aspects of the self, or vigilantly separate from each other, can be painful. Constant hiding creates difficulties in accurately assessing other people’s perceptions of oneself as well as recognizing one’s own strengths. Dissociation’s impact on self-esteem can also make it difficult to feel one’s actual accomplishments as reflections of one’s own abilities. Transparency, invisibility, losing one’s voice, being an outsider, etc. are some of the terms used to describe the subjective experience of dissociative detachment (Drescher, 1998).
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Jack Drescher, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.
 

Dr. Drescher is a leader in his profession. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and served as a Consultant to APA’s Committee on Public Affairs. He is a member of the DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders.  He is a past Chair (2000-2006) of APA’s Committee on GLB Issues and a Past President of APA’s New York County Branch. He is currently the Co-Editor of AppleSource, the newsletter of the NYC DB of the APA. He is President-Elect of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, and a Past Trustee of both the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. He is a member of numerous distinguished psychiatric, medical and scientific organizations, including The American College of Psychiatrists and the New York Academy of Medicine.
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SEXUAL ORIENTATION & Thirst For POWER Dissociation - Benedict XVI's “Behind The Scenes” Dictatorship - Restoring The Roman Imperium | “The Plank” Luke 6:40-42



David and Goliath | David and Jonathan | Truth & Benedict XVI & Gay Marriage | Galileo



DICTATORSHIP - Benedict XVI & Hitler
whether explicit/overt or implicit/covert  “hidden from public view” “silent” is still dictatorship - destructive, cruel and violent, even more so when it is implicit/covert.


Pope: Dictatorships can only be destructive 
The Associated Press,
December 12, 2010 - The Washington Post

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI, who spent his youth in Hitler's Germany, says dictators boast that they will change the world, but just bring destruction...

Benedict says the last few centuries witnessed ideologues who created "empires, dictatorships, totalitarianism."

He says they changed the world, but only in a destructive way. Benedict adds that only "the silent light of truth," not cruel and violent revolutions, can change the world.
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Protecting Children from the Church's Abuse Of Power
by William F. McMurry
November 19, 2010 – The Huffington Post

The world continues to watch with genuine interest as the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church parades masks of contrition before the media, in an effort to convince the faithful that the Church has turned the corner on the clergy sexual abuse crisis. On Nov. 19, a gathering of Cardinals from every corner of the Church's influence will convene in Rome at the request of the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. This meeting of Cardinals will include a discussion about the Vatican's response to sexually abusive priests…

This week, as the most powerful officials of the most politically influential religious organization in the world gather to discuss the Church's response to the priest sexual abuse scandal, the stark contrast between those with power and those with none could not be more profound. The Church continues to operate in complete secrecy, without any governmental oversight or accountability. This confluence reminds me of Lord Acton's most famous quote regarding the corruption inherent in power. Most readers will know this oft-quoted phrase, but few, if any, will know that Lord Acton was speaking of the Pope when he wrote the following in a letter to Mandell Creighton in 1887:

“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did not wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”

Until the governments of our world wrestle the power over children away from religious organizations operating in secrecy and without accountability, justice will remain an elusive butterfly.
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AUTHORITARIAN ≠ AUTHORITATIVE – June 27, 2009 | Well-informed Conscience | Benedict XVI UNSUBSTANTIATED Antigay Teachings - November 29, 2010

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Mt 6:23 | Benedict XVI – “Light of the World” | Hitler – “Mein Kampf” | NARCISSISTIC BULLY | WORLD REMAINS SILENT

30 years of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s - Directives To Hierarchy – To make - THREATS, SILENCE, HARM AND DISPOSAL of Catholic Personnel Supportive of LGBT Adults and Children

Gay Marriage - WITCH HUNTS ->The Crucible (1996) -> McCarthyism 1940’s -1950’s, -> Benedict XVI 2005


Ratzinger, Hurley, Maida & Accomplices
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
(Sequential Order of Reactions)” November 28, 2010

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Emile Zola

What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.
Luke 12:3


UNIDENTIFIED - Internalized Homophobia 
Devastating, and Horrific Consequences On Innocent Children 
PERPETUATING GENERATIONS HATRED & VIOLENCE ---


Dehumanization – “The Lucifer Effect” by Philip Zimbardo (2007) | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS & Implicit Child Abuse of LGBT Children

The Lucifer Effect:
Understanding
How Good People Turn 
     Evil




By Philip Zimbardo - Stanford University







“Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts.” http://www.lucifereffect.com/index.html
Perpetrator of Abuse, Abuse

Dehumanization

At the core of evil is the process of dehumanization by which certain other people or collectives of them, are depicted as less than human, as non comparable in humanity or personal dignity to those who do the labeling. Prejudice employs negative stereotypes in images or verbally abusive terms to demean and degrade the objects of its narrow view of superiority over these allegedly inferior persons. Discrimination involves the actions taken against those others based on the beliefs and emotions generated by prejudiced perspectives.

Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a “cortical cataract” that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and even annihilation.

In this section, we will examine three forms that dehumanization has taken: Nazi Comic Books against the Jews; Faces of the Enemy—world-wide propaganda images of the “enemy,” and “trophy photos” of American citizens posing with African Americans who had been lynched or burned alive—and then portrayed in post cards mailed to family and friends.

Nazi Comic Books
Hitler’s “final solution” of genocide of all European Jews began by shaping the beliefs of school children through the reading of assigned texts in which Jews are portrayed in a series of increasingly negative scenarios. At the end of these lessons in civics or geography, we see the “reasonable” discriminatory actions that Germans should take toward Jews…
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The Power of Norms and Groups on Individuals:
 Parallels Between the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s Obedience Research
By Philip Zimbardo - Stanford University
  
Whenever I enter an office-building elevator, I automatically turn and face front, do not make eye contact with other passengers, stop talking or speak only in hush tones to a companion. Are these my personal preferences or idiosyncrasies? Hardly, since most people in most elevators behave similarly. Those actions tell you little about me but a lot about the unspoken rules of public elevators. Why do we do it? Unlike signs forbidding us to smoke or advising us what to do in case of a fire, nothing in any elevator says we should act in these strange ways. Our behavior is under the control of unwritten social rules, implicit norms, which govern appropriate elevator demeanor.

We can test if such situational rules are in silent force by violating them and seeing what our own and others' reactions will be. The reactions will be either of distress or laughter at the apparent violation of these unwritten expectations. One of the most popular scenarios in the long history of Alan Funt's ingenious Candid Camera programs is "Face The Rear." An elevator is rigged so that after an unsuspecting person enters, four Candid Camera staff enter, and one by one they all face the rear. The doors close and then reopen; now revealing that the passenger had conformed and is now also facing the rear. Doors close and reopen, and everyone is facing sideways, and then face the other way. We laugh that these people are manipulated like puppets on invisible strings, but this scenario makes us aware of the number of situations in which we mindlessly follow the dictates of group norms and situational forces.

Social norms are expectations shared by the members of a group about appropriate ways to behave in given situations. Norms are the potential "pressure" in situations that: help to define the nature of social reality; form the foundation upon which people base their interaction; and provide a common referent for members' self-evaluation. By means of these mechanisms, norms increase feelings of personal and group identity…

Faces of The Enemy
What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even to kill them? It requires a ‘hostile imagination,’ a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into “The Enemy.” That image is a soldier’s most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. That image of a dreaded enemy threatening one’s personal well-being and the society’s national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war, and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn ploughshares into swords of destruction.
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SILENCING GAY YOUTH | Catholic school paper deletes student editorials on Catholic DVD, gay teens
by Sasha Aslanian,
November 16, 2010 - Minnesota Public Radio

St. Louis Park, Minn. — A student newspaper at a suburban Catholic school has sparked a debate over free speech by criticizing a Catholic DVD and defending gay teens. The DVD denouncing same-sex marriage was sent by Minnesota's Catholic bishops to parishioners prior to the Nov. 2 election.

The student newspaper of Benilde-St. Margaret's in St. Louis Park deleted two student editorials over the weekend and shut off the online comments.

The Knight Errant student newspaper published a news story last Thursday about the bishops' "Preserving Marriage in Minnesota" DVD.

But it was the two editorials that accompanied it -- and the online comments they inspired -- that created the uproar. One staff editorial challenged the bishops' arguments against same-sex marriage and called the DVD "unsubstantiated."

Senior Bernardo Vigil helped write the piece.

"We did expect a little bit of a pushback from that, which there was. A lot of the comments were 'this shouldn't have been published, this is a Catholic school,'" Vigil said.

But the op-ed that touched off the cyberstorm was editor Sean Simonson's piece, "Life as a gay teenager."
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Benedict XVI Persecution of Gay Priests - PROPAGANDA -> Shifting Blame - Cover-Up Bishops “Failure to Protect Children” Gay Marriage

What is Propaganda?
Today, the word sounds ominous, conjuring up images of falsehood and manipulation, brainwashing and servility. It stands as the antithesis of objectivity, rationality, and truthfulness. But what is propaganda?

Incitement to Genocide When is violent language a crime? Learn more

Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page Read more

Civil Rights Division (U.S. Department of Justice) Read more

What is Propaganda?

Scholars, journalists, and politicians have long argued about how to properly define propaganda and distinguish it from other forms of mass communication. Propaganda is biased information designed to shape public opinion and behavior

In Germany, like the United States, propaganda became the subject of serious discussion and intellectual study. It was commonly held that Germany had lost World War I, not on the battlefield, but because Allied propaganda had sapped the fighting spirit of German troops and weakened morale at home by encouraging demands for peace. In contrast, Imperial Germany’s propaganda efforts were widely criticized for failing to explain why the nation needed to continue to wage war and painted non-threatening images of the enemy. Some politicians and scholars of propaganda urged Germans to learn from the victors. Among these was Adolf Hitler, a former German soldier and leader of an obscure right-wing extremist party in Bavaria. "Propaganda," he wrote five years after the war, "is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert."

Nazi propagandists drew upon the successful techniques and strategies used by the Allies, Socialists, Communists, and Italian Fascists to advance their political campaigns, win public support, and to wage war. Once in power, the Nazis eliminated the "marketplace of ideas" through terror and media manipulation and mobilized propaganda as a weapon to unite the German people around a "leader" and to facilitate aggression, mass murder, and genocide.


Modern propaganda draws upon techniques and strategies used in advertising, public relations, communications, and mass psychology. It simplifies complicated issues or ideology for popular consumption, is always biased, and is geared to achieving a particular end. Propaganda generally employs symbols, whether in written, musical, or visual forms, and plays upon and channels complex human emotions towards a desired goal. It is often employed by governmental and private organizations to promote their causes and institutions and denigrate their opponents. Propaganda functions as just one weapon in the arsenal of mass persuasion.

In contrast to the ideal of an educator, who aims to foster independent judgment and thinking, the practitioner of propaganda does not aim to encourage deliberation by presenting a variety of viewpoints and leaving it up to the audience to determine which perspective is correct. The propagandist transmits only information geared to strengthen his or her case, and consciously omits detrimental information.

Not all propaganda is bad. Propaganda is used to shape opinion and behavior. Public health campaigns, for example, can utilize propaganda. Elections, even in democratic states, often display elements of propaganda, as candidates and political parties vie for office. The real danger of propaganda lies when competing voices are silenced –and unchecked, propaganda can have negative consequences.
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Propaganda techniques - Propagandists use a variety of propaganda techniques to influence opinions and to avoid the truth. Often these techniques rely on some element of censorship or manipulation, either omitting significant information or distorting it. Read more – Source Watch Photo

fear - "Once a government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants. A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop. If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational thought return to the populace, that government is finished."— Michael Rivero.

glittering generalities - Glittering generalities are words that have different positive meaning for individual subjects, but are linked to highly valued concepts. When these words are used, they demand approval without thinking, simply because such an important concept is involved.

name-calling - is a form of ad hominem attack that draws a vague equivalence between a concept and a person, group or idea. By linking the person or idea being attacked to a negative symbol, the propagandist hopes that the audience will reject the person or the idea on the basis of the symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence. - Read more – Source Watch


New Rules Affirm Pope Benedict's Stance Against Gays
By Daniel Williams,
October 8, 2005 – The Washington Post
"No doctrinal chief has ever written and spoken about homosexuality as extensively as Ratzinger has, because homosexuals have never had the freedom to organize and demand recognition they enjoy today," wrote author John L. Allen Jr. in a biography of Benedict, published before he became pope.


AUSCHWITZ -- CHRISTMAS 2008 -- A flashback far more severe than in --- BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (NP)
And when I heard what Pope Benedict XVI said about homosexuals and transgendered human beings at Christmas 2008, I felt that same trauma all over again. Because in some way, somehow, he was conveying in a non-verbal manner the horror of the Holocaust, in what appears to be a traumatized, trance-like, accepted social norm from that period of time dictating that some people just don’t count, aren’t important, and can be easily disposed of. And if you rock the boat, you could be next to be disposed of…
Read complete report:


400,000 Anti-gay marriage DVDs - $1 million Nienstedt - Minnesota October 29, 2010 - RELIGION & ETHICS PBS – video (NP)
Hysteria comes in different styles – sending out 400,000 anti-gay marriage DVDs that is void of any qualified scriptural, theological or scientific, psychological documentation, references could easily be classified as over the top hysteria, regardless of a perceived calm demeanor of the sender.  It is even more alarming that this message contained in these DVDs is in direct contradiction to all accredited research and study in both fields of scripture and science. Such an action by an individual would be a cause of concern of a break with reality? Or dissociation? Kids Are Being Hurt!!!



BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS


“What the Pope Knew”
Gary Tuchman,
September 25, 2010,
CNN & CNN International
(Investigative documentary)
video
Read more/related links:
  
Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope 
– by PADDY AGNEW, DEREK SCALLY and PATSY McGARRY
4/19/10 
– The Irish Times – read more

Priest says he was bullied into taking fall for Pope in abuse scandal 
- The Local – 4/18/10
Germany’s News In English – read more

Ratzinger & Vatican 
“They did as much as they had at each point in time given the public outcry, and no more.” 
Katrin Bennhold – 4/27/10
The New York Times – read more

“…the church must … end its campaign to block the weak and the vulnerable from receiving help to deal with the consequences of criminal sexual abuse.” 
By Lawrence Lessig – 4/26/10
The New York Times – read more

Hurricane Katrina - Nancy Pelosi - Washington, DC – 2005
Accountability 
Benedict XVI Child Sexual Abuse

Who Can Mock This Church?
By Nicholas D. Kristof
May 1, 2010
The New York Times

Pope Blasts U.K. Anti-Discrimination Laws 
CBS NEWS 

(AP)  Pope Benedict XVI weighed in against anti-discrimination laws, which have raised fears at the Vatican that the Catholic Church could be prosecuted for refusing, for example, to hire gays or transsexuals.

Benedict blasted proposed laws before the British Parliament that are intended to prevent employers from denying jobs to applicants on the grounds of gender, sexuality, age or race. Current legislation exempts religious organizations, but the planned new law would effectively apply to lay people employed by churches.

Benedict told the bishops that they needed to take a firm, public stand against the proposed legislation, which he said violated natural law.

"Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society," he told them. "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs."

The Vatican says unjust forms of discrimination must be avoided. But it has, for example, opposed a U.N. initiative against gender discrimination on the grounds that it could pressure countries to recognize same-sex marriages. The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual activity is sinful.

Meanwhile, Benedict confirmed Monday he would visit Britain later this year, a trip that has grown fraught following his move to welcome into the Roman Catholic Church groups of Anglicans upset over the ordination of gays and women...


Read complete report:



Benedict XVI's & his Accomplices -  
Covert Operations
Watergate

Pope hits out at 'unjust and offensive' accusations over Boffo resignation
Richard Owen
Times Online – February 9, 2010


Italian Catholic scandal draws in Pope Benedict
By NICOLE WINFIELD – AP
abc NEWS/International – February 9, 2010


Vatican Asking For Male Prostitutes
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”
Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back.






“This is about the 
reckless endangerment of children 
in a calculated, purposeful strategy to protect the institutional Church”

December 2, 2009

Ireland released a report into 30 years of Catholic priest abuse of children in Dublin that found the police frequently looked the other way to protect accused clerics.

Dublin, Ireland

That the Catholic church covered up sexual abuse by priests for years is hardly news anymore. But the highest-profile investigation into abuse allegations yet in Ireland found another breach of public trust: The Garda Síochána, the police force for the republic, failed to investigate reports of priest abusing children and conspired to protect Catholic officials in Dublin for 30 years. Photo

The commission on child abuse by Catholic priests in Dublin led by Judge Yvonne Murphy released its long-awaited report on the matter last week. Justice Murphy's commission investigated how allegations of child sex abuse by priests in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin were dealt with by both state and church authorities from 1975 to 2004. The report slammed the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland and, for the first time, reprimanded state agencies, particularly the Garda. Photo

Unlike the Catholic sex abuse scandal uncovered by The Boston Globe in the archdiocese of Boston in 2002 where, instead of reporting the incidents to police, the dioceses directed the offenders to seek psychiatric treatment, in Ireland children, parents, and others reported suspicions of abuse to police but investigations did not follow. Many cases were simply referred back to church authorities instead. Photo Boston

Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy said that the report exposed "misguided or undue deference" shown by the police to religious institutions and said, "That has no place in criminal investigations, it certainly has no place in 2009 under my watch." "This is not about failings or learning curves. This about the reckless endangerment of children in a calculated, purposeful strategy to protect the institutional Church," said the abuse charity One in Four in a press release.
Read complete article:  


Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' 
2006 - London Evening Standard 
standard.co.uk

The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.

In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety.

The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, witnesses and perpetrator not to talk about it. And, to keep victims quiet, it threatened that if they repeat the allegations they would be excommunicated.

The Panorama special, Sex Crimes And The Vatican, investigates the details of this little-known document for the first time. The programme also accuses the Catholic Church of knowingly harbouring paedophile clergymen. It reveals that priests accused of child abuse are generally not struck off or arrested but simply moved to another parish, often to reoffend. It gives examples of hush funds being used to silence the victims.

Before being elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April last year, the pontiff was Cardinal Thomas Ratzinger who had, for 24 years, been the head of the powerful Congregation of the Doctrine of The Faith, the department of the Roman Catholic Church charged with promoting Catholic teachings on morals and matters of faith. An arch-Conservative, he was regarded as the 'enforcer' of Pope John Paul II in cracking down on liberal challenges to traditional Catholic teachings.

Five years ago he sent out an updated version of the notorious 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis - Latin for The Crime of Solicitation - which laid down the Vatican's strict instructions on covering up sexual scandal. It was regarded as so secret that it came with instructions that bishops had to keep it locked in a safe at all times.
Read complete report:


Vatican Bank mired in laundering scandal 
By Nicole Winfield and Victor L. Simpson 
Dec 11, 2010 The Associated Press – Bloomberg

Benedict XVI SYSTEMATIC COVER-UPS in child sexual abuse cases - and a lot of MISSING PAPERWORK German study finds – December 3, 2010 - Deutsche Welle

Archbishop Ratzinger Failed to Deal with Suspected Pedophile Priest
by Conny Neumann and Peter Wensierski,
November 29, 2010 – SPIEGEL Online International

Lies & Lies & Still More Lies - Consistent With Benedict XVI’s Past | Define Benedict XVI’s Meaning of - GRAVE MISCONDUCT – It does not refer to child sexual abuse or bishops cover-ups | Pope Sought in Past to Punish Errant Priests, Report Says - By Rachel Donadio. December 1, 2010 – The New York Times



Church in worst credibility crisis since Reformation, 
theologian tells bishops
by HANS KÜNG,
April 16, 2010 – The Irish Times

Pope Benedict has made worse just about everything that is wrong with the Roman Catholic Church and is directly responsible for engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests, according to this open letter to all Catholic bishops.


Pope Benedict XVI seems to be increasingly cut off from the vast majority of church members who pay less and less heed to Rome and, at best, identify themselves only with their local parish and bishop.

I know that many of you are pained by this situation. In his anti-conciliar policy, the pope receives the full support of the Roman Curia. The Curia does its best to stifle criticism in the episcopate and in the church as a whole and to discredit critics with all the means at its disposal. With a return to pomp and spectacle catching the attention of the media, the reactionary forces in Rome have attempted to present us with a strong church fronted by an absolutistic “Vicar of Christ” who combines the church’s legislative, executive and judicial powers in his hands alone. But Benedict’s policy of restoration has failed. All of his spectacular appearances, demonstrative journeys and public statements have failed to influence the opinions of most Catholics on controversial issues. This is especially true regarding matters of sexual morality. Even the papal youth meetings, attended above all by conservative-charismatic groups, have failed to hold back the steady drain of those leaving the church or to attract more vocations to the priesthood.

You in particular, as bishops, have reason for deep sorrow: Tens of thousands of priests have resigned their office since the Second Vatican Council, for the most part because of the celibacy rule. Vocations to the priesthood, but also to religious orders, sisterhoods and lay brotherhoods are down – not just quantitatively but qualitatively. Resignation and frustration are spreading rapidly among both the clergy and the active laity. Many feel that they have been left in the lurch with their personal needs, and many are in deep distress over the state of the church. In many of your dioceses, it is the same story: increasingly empty churches, empty seminaries and empty rectories. In many countries, due to the lack of priests, more and more parishes are being merged, often against the will of their members, into ever larger “pastoral units,” in which the few surviving pastors are completely overtaxed. This is church reform in pretense rather than fact!

And now, on top of these many crises comes a scandal crying out to heaven – the revelation of the clerical abuse of thousands of children and adolescents, first in the United States, then in Ireland and now in Germany and other countries. And to make matters worse, the handling of these cases has given rise to an unprecedented leadership crisis and a collapse of trust in church leadership.

There is no denying the fact that the worldwide system of covering up cases of sexual crimes committed by clerics was engineered by the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger (1981-2005). During the reign of Pope John Paul II, that congregation had already taken charge of all such cases under oath of strictest silence. Ratzinger himself, on May 18th, 2001, sent a solemn document to all the bishops dealing with severe crimes ( “epistula de delictis gravioribus” ), in which cases of abuse were sealed under the “secretum pontificium” , the violation of which could entail grave ecclesiastical penalties. With good reason, therefore, many people have expected a personal mea culpa on the part of the former prefect and current pope. Instead, the pope passed up the opportunity afforded by Holy Week: On Easter Sunday, he had his innocence proclaimed “urbi et orbi” by the dean of the College of Cardinals…
Read complete open letter:


Pontifical Academy of Sciences ...had direct discussions with John Paul but” – not with Benedict XVI … refuses to discuss controversial topics such as contraception… November 5, 2010 – FoxNews.com

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


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?” 

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… photo

… 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


Gay Marriage - WITCH HUNTS ->The Crucible (1996) -> McCarthyism 1940’s -1950’s, -> Benedict XVI 2005


"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


Watergate 1973
Ripping Open An Incredible Scandal

(TIME, April 30, 1973) -- The denials, the evasions, the secretiveness, and, yes, the lies, all had failed. The Watergate case was breaking wide open. A 10-month campaign by some of the highest past and present officials of the Nixon Administration to cover up their involvement was crumbling. Read more - CNN TIME Photo Nixon 


Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse 
cover-ups
ordered by Benedict XVI
to avoid public outrage & criminal charges
- falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE?

No “Checks and Balances” 

A major problem with the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church is that there are no “checks and balances.” When the necessary “checks and balances” are not in place to protect any organization, it leaves “not making waves” the rule that governs the hierarchy and opens the way to many devastating mistakes harmful to everyone and allows corruption to grow.

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. Photo 

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. Photo Nixon 

(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
December 17, 2009 – Revised January 15, 2010 


Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation
Dr. Gregory Herek,
University of California at Davis &
Yale University &
City University of New York

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:



July 2010 

President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
50 United States Governors 

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


“KNOW YOURSELF” 
JOHN PAUL II

ENCYCLICAL LETTER 
FIDES ET RATIO 
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF 
JOHN PAUL II 
TO THE BISHOPS 
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
ON THE RELATIONSHIP 
BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON – September 15, 1998 
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2). 

INTRODUCTION 
“KNOW YOURSELF” 

1. In both East and West, we may trace a journey which has led humanity down the centuries to meet and engage truth more and more deeply. It is a journey which has unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-consciousness: the more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness, with the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becoming ever more pressing. This is why all that is the object of our knowledge becomes a part of our life. The admonition Know yourself was carved on the temple portal at Delphi, as testimony to a basic truth to be adopted as a minimal norm by those who seek to set themselves apart from the rest of creation as “human beings”, that is as those who “know themselves”. 


(29) “[Galileo] declared explicitly that the two truths, of faith and of science, can never contradict each other, 'Sacred Scripture and the natural world proceeding equally from the divine Word, the first as dictated by the Holy Spirit, the second as a very faithful executor of the commands of God', as he wrote in his letter to Father Benedetto Castelli on 21 December 1613. The Second Vatican Council says the same thing, even adopting similar language in its teaching: 'Methodical research, in all realms of knowledge, if it respects... moral norms, will never be genuinely opposed to faith: the reality of the world and of faith have their origin in the same God' (Gaudium et Spes, 36). Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions”: John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (10 November 1979): Insegnamenti, II, 2 (1979), 1111-1112.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”

Faith can never conflict with reason The 'Galileo case' teaches us that different branches of knowledge call for different methods, each of which brings out various aspects of reality. http://www.its.caltech.edu/~nmcenter/sci-cp/sci-9211.html   


“There are no irreconcilable differences 
between science and faith” 
PopeJohn Paul II


Know thyself – Plato  John Paul II

This above all: to thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. - William Shakespeare

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. - Luke 6:40-42

Ricky Martin on Coming out and Coming Into His Own 
- By Nekesa Mumbi Moody AP, 
November 3, 2010 – ABC News


"What, am I gonna teach them how to lie?”
Ricky Martin

Ricky Martin reveals he ‘cried like a baby’ after coming out
– November 2, 2010 – PinkNews.co.uk

Ricky Martin has told Oprah Winfrey about the moment he decided to announce he was gay.

The Puerto Rican star posted a message on his website declaring himself to be a “fortunate gay man” but says he broke down in tears afterwards.

He said: “When I realised, okay, I just pressed send, whoo… I was alone.

“I was in my studio alone for a minute. My assistant walked in and I just started crying like a little baby. I started crying.”

The 38-year-old said he decided to be open about his sexuality to set a good example to his twin sons, Valentine and Matteo, two.

He said: “I couldn’t take it anymore, it was too painful.

“But I guess the most important thing is my children… When I was holding them in my arms I was like, ‘What, am I gonna teach them how to lie?’ Whoa, that is my blessing right there. Then, when I was holding my children I said, ‘Okay, it’s time to tell the world’.”
Read more:

Ricky Martin cried 'like a baby' after revealing his sexuality
– November 2, 2010
CNN.com


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 
Attachment Theory Photo
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.


 Galileo 
facing the Roman Inquisition - Read more
  

 Biblical quotes used to Condemn Galileo

Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New International Version)
5 The sun rises and the sun sets, anhurries 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; icannot 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 movedHe 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:

The Thalamus Center project is about
Protecting Children by education about Human Sexuality.

There is a scene in an old TV series called “All in the Family” where Edith Bunker is experiencing menopause and she does not know what is happening to her. Edith’s daughter Gloria is explaining to her the symptoms of menopause. Edith feels bad that her daughter has to tell her about menopause. Photo

Edith expresses her frustration and sadness about her lifetime lack of knowledge about human sexuality.

“When I was a young girl, I didn’t’ know what every young girl should know. Now, I‘m going to be an old lady, and I don’t know what every old lady should know.” Edith Bunker – video clip
“All in the Family - Edith’s problem (TV episode 1972 #2.15)”

Edith is not alone even today. Much of the opposition to same sex marriage is likely to a great degree related to feelings and confusion about many aspects of human sexuality exactly like Edith, on the part of millions of people, for women as well as for men, everyone. However, Ignorance about human sexuality is extremely harmful to children.
Fr. Marty Kurylowicz



“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.  Photo
Matthew 18:6

Protect children and the entire world will be safe.

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!!!


Angels In America 
[Official HBO Trailer]


I'm His Child
Zella Jackson Price








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