Gay marriage -> Restoring
"Hope of Love"
To Children In Early Childhood
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.
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.
July 2010
President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
United States Department of Justice
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
California - Prop 8 judgment, August 4, 2010
Gay marriage
“Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.”
Judge Vaughn Walker
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
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee - unyielding force supporting - DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL Repeal Act of 2010 – ENDS discriminatory policy that “forces young men and women to lie,” – to lie – “about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” December 2010
Gay marriage: Obama administration won't defend part of marriage act
By David G. Savage and James Oliphant,
Washington Bureau,
February 23, 2011 – Los Angeles Times Photo
Eric Holder, Attorney General,
U.S. Department of Justice
Defense of Marriage Act
February 23, 2011
Same-sex marriage: Courts expected to heed Obama move
by Bob Egelko,
February 24, 2011 – San Francisco Chronicle
“Gays and lesbians have been oppressed historically, lack substantial political power, should not be asked to suppress their identities, and have the same ability as heterosexuals to contribute to society, Holder said.”
Md.'s top leaders cross Catholic hierarchy on gay marriage
February 24, 2011 – The Washington Post
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley regularly attends a weekday Mass and has sent his four children to Catholic schools.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) used to teach and coach at his old Catholic high school in Annapolis.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) grew up serving as an altar boy in the idyllic wood-frame Catholic church his family helped build in Clinton.
But the presence of three Catholics at the helm in Annapolis hasn't stopped a same-sex marriage bill from wending its way through the legislature, triggering deep disappointment among church leaders as it suggests a waning of Catholic influence in this heavily Catholic state…
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Key To the Protection of Children Is:
CONTINUOUS EDUCATION OF ALL THE FACTS OF HUMAN SEXUALITY –
Beginning first with:
Early Childhood Psychological Development Growing Up Gay
Safeguards - Gay Marriage From REPEAL
The CENTRAL ROUTE To Decision-Making - Permanent Change In Attitude
ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL
Same-sex marriage: Courts expected to heed Obama move
by Bob Egelko,
February 24, 2011 – San Francisco Chronicle
President Obama's decision Wednesday to stop defending a law banning federal marital benefits for same-sex couples will boost an array of court challenges to the measure, including two in the Bay Area by gay and lesbian government workers seeking insurance coverage for their spouses. Photo
Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse “cover-ups” ordered by Benedict XVI to avoid public outrage & criminal charges - falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE? 12/17/09
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt4x0nd25q/
Unsubstantiated Antigay Teachings ≠ Well-informed Conscience http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/11/authoritarian-authoritative-june-27.html
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/04/ratzinger-hurley-maida-accomplices-kids.html
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2009/04/nancy-pelosi-hate-crimes-have-no-place.html
It could also strengthen the case against states' prohibitions on same-sex marriage, including California's Proposition 8.
Although the Justice Department has not taken a position on those measures, its newly stated position - that the government cannot support laws tilted toward heterosexuals without a strong justification - is central to the marriage cases. Photo
Although the Justice Department has not taken a position on those measures, its newly stated position - that the government cannot support laws tilted toward heterosexuals without a strong justification - is central to the marriage cases. Photo
"This will impact every case" on the rights of same-sex couples, said Brad Sears, a UCLA law professor and executive director of the school's Williams Institute, which studies sexual orientation law. "The courts will pay attention."…
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Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse “cover-ups” ordered by Benedict XVI to avoid public outrage & criminal charges - falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE? 12/17/09
Vatican blocks gay human rights vote at the UN.
Peter Tatchell
Pope Blasts U.K. Anti-Discrimination Laws
AP – February 2, 2010
In Speech, Benedict Raises
Fears that Vatican Could Be Prosecuted
for Stances Against Gay
(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…
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USCCB Condemns New Ways Ministry; Gay Ministry Responds
by James Martin, S.J.
February 6, 2010, America Magazine
Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, has denounced New Ways Ministry, a national organization based in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, which reaches out to gay and lesbian Catholics, runs conferences on issues concerning gay and lesbian Catholics, and sponsors regular retreats for that same population. (It also offers a variety of resources on its websites, such as a list of Catholic parishes where gays and lesbians would feel welcome.) Valued among the gay and lesbian Catholics, the organization and its founders (Sister Jeanine Gramick, SL, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS) have often found themselves at odds with the Catholic hierarchy. Sister Gramick and Father Nugent have been for some years officially barred "from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons," as the USCCB statement affirms. New Ways Ministry, which includes on its board and advisory board both priests and religious, said in a statement today that it was not contacted by the USCCB to explain its positions before the bishops' statement was released. Here is part of Cardinal George's statement, dated yesterday…
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Homophobic?
“The Church and the Homosexual”
By John J. McNeill 1976
Priest & Psychotherapist
Silenced 1988
by Ratzinger-Benedict XVI
former HITLER YOUTH
Growing Up Gay
Originally published in 1976 with the Roman Catholic Church's official imprimi potest(permission to print) after more than three years' delay in Rome, approval was unexpectedly rescinded by the Vatican two years after publication. It was the first attempt by a reputed scholar and theologian to fully examine andchallenge the Catholic Church's official traditional attitudes toward homosexuality.
This now classic book convincingly established that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, examining in detail and refuting all the traditional arguments for condemnation of homosexuality in Scripture, tradition and philosophy. McNeill also examined the general misconceptions of human sexual development. Photo
Now in its fourth and updated edition, The Church and the Homosexual remains one of the most widely discussed works in modern spiritual thought, "...a theologically and ethically enlightened attempt to demonstrate the intellectual baselessness of current attitudes and policies concerning homosexuality..." Publishers Weekly described McNeill's book as "...an important 'first', a rational yet compassionate reevaluation based on scriptural exegesis and current psychological research."
In the provocative new preface to this fourth edition, McNeill calls on the Vatican to make a public act of repentance for its homophobia.
The Church and the Homosexual is published by Beacon Press (Boston, MA).
Read more:
The Church and the homosexual (1976) By John J. McNeill
John J. McNeill
The LGBT Religious Archives Network
For more than twenty-five years, John J. McNeill, an ordained priest andpsychotherapist, has been devoting his life to spreading the good news of God's love for lesbian and gay Christians. One year after the publication of The Church and the Homosexual (1976), McNeill received an order from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican ordering him to silence in the public media. He observed the silence for nine years while continuing a private ministry to gays and lesbians which included psychotherapy, workshops, lectures and retreats. In1988, he received a further order from Cardinal Ratzinger [Benedict XVI] directing him to give up all ministry to gay persons which he refused to do in conscience. As a result, he was expelled by the Vatican from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for challenging the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of homosexuality, and for refusing to give up his ministry and psychotherapy practice to gay men and lesbians. McNeill had been a Jesuit for nearly 40 years…
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Religion and Faith – Human Rights Champaign
By Mary Elizabeth Hunt, from John McNeill’s book,
Sex as God Intended with Festschrift Essays Celebrating the Life and Work of John McNeill.
…I have entitled my remarks: “Holier Than Thou: John J. McNeill’s Contribution to Theology and Ministry,” because I think it is important to contextualize and claim John’s work as part of the contemporary Catholic scene. I do this both for purposes of scholarly rigor, because that is where John’s work is rooted, and for purposes of redemption, that it might help to undo some of the virulent “homohatred” and duplicity for which the Catholic Church is responsible.
Today’s event is a delicious irony in light of John’s history with the institutional, or what Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has so helpfully called the “kyriarchal,” Catholic Church. He was silenced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith shortly after the publication of The Church and the Homosexual in the late 1970s, and forbidden from speaking in the public arena on these matters, though he continued his private psychotherapy work.
In 1988, he was ordered by Cardinal Ratzinger [Benedict XVI]to cease all ministry with the GLBTQ community, an order he chose not to obey. As a result, the Jesuits caved in to Vatican pressure to expel him from the Society of Jesus…
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Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., is a feminist theologian, co-founder and co-director of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, MD. A Roman Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to liberation issues. She is author ofFierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship (Crossroad, 1991); editor ofA Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z (Palgrave, 2004) and co-editor, with Patricia Beattie Jung and Radhika Balakrishnan, of Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World’s Religions (Rutgers U Press, 2001).
Father John J. McNeill wins the Building Bridges Award
By Father Tony
October 9, 2009 – The Bilerico Project
Father John J. McNeill, the author of several important books about gay spirituality, and a guest contributor at Bilerico, was in New York City on October 4th at The Desmond Tutu Center to accept New Ways Ministry's Bridge Building Award.
On the night before the award ceremony, I had the good fortune to be able to celebrate this event with John and his partner Charles Chiarelli, Brendan Fay and his partner Dr. Thomas Moulton, Andy Humm and John's two army buddies, John Thornton and the poet Sam Menashe (the three of whom, pictured here, told us an amazing story of how they were more or less tricked into enlistment at the age of seventeen to be canon fodder.)
John McNeill (on the right in the photo) is having an extraordinary life and the keys to his strong spirituality, and his accounts of near starvation as a young prisoner of war, are to be found in the words of his acceptance speech printed in full after the break…
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John J. McNeill and Charles Chiarelli Gay and Lesbian Liberation Collection - 2001
John J. McNeill (1925 -) was born in Buffalo, New York on September 2,1925. He attended schools in New York State and one year at Canisius College, Buffalo when in 1943 he volunteered for an officer's training program (ASPA) in the Army as an engineer. He spent six months in German POW (Prisoner of War) Camps. He served until November 29, 1945. He earned several degrees: Canisius College, A.B. (magna cum laude) in 1948; Bellarmine College, M.A. and Ph. L., 1954; Woodstock College S.T.L., 1960; Catholic University of Louvain, Ph.D. (with great distinction), 1964; and Institutes of Regional and Health, postdoctoral study, beginning in 1975. John joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuit Order) in 1948 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1959. He remained a Jesuit until his dismissal in 1988. He was dismissed from the Jesuits due to his inability to continue to remain silent on matters of homosexuality and lesbianism…
Read complete background: John J. McNeill
Online Archive of California (OAC)
30 Years - Benedict XVI Silencing/Removing Catholic Academics/Theologians
Studying Homosexuality Worldwide
Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) 1981-2005 – Pope Benedict XVI
National Catholic Reporter
October 10, 1989
The Most Reverend Adam J. Maida
Bishop of Green Bay
1910 S. Webster
P.O. Box 66
Green Bay, Wisconsin 54305
Dear Bishop Maida,
I enclose a copy of a recent article in the New York Times reporting on a gathering of homosexual religious and clergy. You will notice that Sister Jeannine Gramickparticipated in the program. Comments, as quoted by the New York Times, are not in and of themselves objectionable. It is objectionable, however, that Sister Jeannine continues to participate in seminars such as this one in spite of her ambiguity with regard to the Church’s teaching on the wrongness of homosexual activity…
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October 4, 1994
The Writings & Ministry Of
Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND and Father Robert Nugent, SDS
In March of 1988, the Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes formed an ad hoc Commission chaired by Archbishop Adam J. Maida, presently the Archbishop of Detroit, and at that time the Bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Msgr. James Mulligan of the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Sister Sharon Holland, IHM, who was later replaced by Dr. Janet Smith of Irving, Texas, were also appointed to serve on the Commission.
The Commission was to hear and examine the theological writings and teachings on homosexuality of Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS. Sister Gramick and Father Nugent had been involved in a ministry to homosexuals since 1971. The Congregation had been aware of concerns that the teachings, writings and ministry of Sister Gramick and Father Nugent may have created an ambiguity which has caused confusion in the minds of some people with regard to the teachings of the Church on homosexuality…
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Related links:
March 1997 - Fr. Marty Kurylowicz - New Ways Ministry Symposium - Pastor "Comes Out" - Holy Family Parish - Sparta, Michigan USA
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, ordained in 1979, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was pastor of Holy Family Parish, Sparta, Michigan USA and in March of 1997, I attended the New Ways Ministry Symposium, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Dr. Richard Isay, Psychoanalyst and Professor of Psychiatry of Cornell University Medical School, gave the keynote address. I was absolutely stunned just how closely I was able to personally identify with Dr. Isay’s description of the different stages of early childhood psychological development and the harm caused to children by the influence of harsh anti-gay societal and religious norms who grow up to be gay. From clinical studies, adult gay men remember feeling "different" at young as 4 and 5 years of age. This feeling "different" was identified as the natural experience of a child's sexual orientation, whether heterosexual or homosexual...
October 8, 1997, Cardinal Ratzinger, judged that the statements on homosexuality made by Father Nugent and Sister Gramick, [cofounders of - New Ways Ministry] through the procedure of the Regulations for Doctrinal Examination, were in fact erroneous and dangerous.
October 1, 1997, Bishops Urge Parents of Homosexuals to Accept Their Children, Themselves, Church Teaching on Human Dignity By the US Catholic Bishops' Committee on Marriage and Family Life released Always Our Children.
October 1, 1997, Bishops: Parents, love your gay children - By David Briggs, Associated Press writer
NEW YORK -- U.S. Catholic bishops are advising parents of gay children to put love and support for their sons and daughters before church doctrine that condemns homosexual activity.
June 1998, “Always Our Children” - revised by Cardinal Ratzinger - Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions for Pastoral Ministers, NCCB Committee on Marriage and Family, Third Printing, Revised, June 1998
The Vatican thirst for power divides Christianity and damages Catholicism - by Hans Kung - guardian.co.uk – October 27, 2009
Machinations of Benedict XVI Denials Leaking Documents Homosexual Overtones To Publicly Discredit Prominent Catholic Editor Who Criticized Italian MP - A Supporter of Benedict XVI Issues - February 9, 2010
New Rules Affirm Pope Benedict's Stance Against Gays - By Daniel Williams, October 8, 2005 – The Washington Post
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…
Kurylowicz said he spoke out then to raise awareness of violence against gays … homosexuality is not a choice… 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: http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=GRPB&p_theme=grpb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=Impending%20rules%20on%20gay%20priests%20create%20Catholic%20divide%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(Impending%20rules%20on%20gay%20priests%20create%20Catholic%20divide)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no
Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION of CHURCH and STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010
Unsubstantiated Antigay Teachings ≠ Well-informed Conscience http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/11/authoritarian-authoritative-june-27.html
Ratzinger, Hurley, Maida & Accomplices
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 Photo
Homophobic?
Benedict XVI former
HITLER YOUTH
Early Childhood Psychological Development Growing Up Gay
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
Homophobic? Then You're Probably Gay
by Johann Hari,
January 16, 2009 – The Huffington Post
…I recently interviewed Dean for Attitude, Britain's best-selling gay magazine. He told me about a man -- I don't believe in outing, so I won't give his name -- who "has been named in the past as one of the biggest rappers of all time by MTV. He's always trashing gay men in his lyrics. But he is surrounded by a posse of transvestites," who he has sex with. Dean then runs through a list of hip-hop gays, each more famous and closeted than the last.
He explains: "When the rappers rap about the hatred they have of homosexuals, I know it's because many of them are struggling with their own sexuality. They hate what they are and in turn they spew their hatred toward men who are reflections of themselves."
Terence tried to live their life. He explains: "They had to see me with women. I talked the talk -- cars, sports, women. One misstep would have been the end of my career. Hell, it would have been the end of my life." But it was a miserable, bitter existence, based on violent emotional repression. These homie-sexuals even convinced themselves they could have sex with men without being "gay" -- a term they see as synonymous with being weak and womanly…
There is some scientific evidence suggesting Dean is right -- and that his arguments apply much more widely, to homophobes in politics, religion and the wider world. Professor Henry Adams at the University of Georgia conducted a major study in the 1990s, where he took several groups of men who identified as heterosexual and expressed hostility to gays, and wired them up so the blood flow to their penises could be monitored. He then showed them gay porn -- and some 80 percent became aroused. He concluded that since "most homophobes demonstrate significant sexual arousal to homosexual erotic stimuli", anti-gay hatred is probably "a form of latent homosexuality."…
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Johann Hari is a columnist for the London Independent. He has reported from Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Congo, the Central African Republic, Venezuela, Peru and the US, and his journalism has appeared in publications all over the world, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. In 2007 Amnesty International named him Newspaper Journalist of the Year. In 2008 he became the youngest person ever to win Britain's leading award for political writing, the Orwell Prize. He is also a contributing writer for Slate.
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Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal?
By Henry E. Adams, Lester W. Wright, Jr., and Bethany A. Lohr,
University of Georgia - 1996
The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.
Hostility and discrimination against homosexual individuals are well-established facts (Berrill, 1990). On occasion, these negative attitudes lead to hostile verbal and physical acts against gay individuals with little apparent motivation except a strong dislike (Herek, 1989). In fact, more than 90% of gay men and lesbians report being targets of verbal abuse or threats, and more than one-third report being survivors of violence related to their homosexuality (Fassinger, 1991 ). Although negative attitudes and behaviors toward gay individuals have been assumed to be associated with rigid moralistic beliefs, sexual ignorance, and fear of homosexuality, the etiology of these attitudes and behaviors remains a puzzle (Marmor, 1980). Weinberg ( 1972 ) labeled these attitudes and behaviors homophobia, which he defined as the dread of being in close quarters with homosexual men and women as well as irrational fear, hatred, and intolerance by heterosexual individuals of homosexual men and women… Photo
Discussion
The results of this study indicate that individuals who score in the homophobic range and admit negative affect toward homosexuality demonstrate significant sexual arousal to male homosexual erotic stimuli.
These individuals were selected on the basis of their report of having only heterosexual arousal and experiences. Furthermore, their ratings of erection and arousal to homosexual stimuli were low and not significantly different from nonhomophobic men who demonstrated no significant increase in penile response to homosexual stimuli. These data are consistent with response discordance where verbal judgments are not consistent with physiological reactivity, as in the case of homophobic individuals viewing homosexual stimuli. Lang (1994) has noted that the most dramatic response discordance occurs with reports of feeling and physiologic responses. Another possible explanation is found in various psychoanalytic theories, which have generally explained homophobia as a threat to an individual's own homosexual impulses causing repression, denial, or reaction formation (or all three; West, 1977). Generally, these varied explanations conceive of homophobia as one type of latent homosexuality where persons either are unaware of or deny their homosexual urges. These data are consistent with these notions.
Another explanation of these data is found in Barlow, Sakheim, and Beck's (1983) theory of the role of anxiety and attention in sexual responding. It is possible that viewing homosexualstimuli causes negative emotions such as anxiety in homophobic men but not in nonhomophobic men. Because anxiety has been shown to enhance arousal and erection, this theory would predict increases in erection in homophobic men. Furthermore, it would indicate that a response to homosexual stimuli is a function of the threat condition rather than sexual arousal per se. Whereas difficulties of objectively evaluating psychoanalytic hypotheses are well-documented, these approaches would predict that sexual arousal is an intrinsic response to homosexual stimuli, whereas Barlow's (1986) theory would predict that sexual arousal to homosexual stimuli by homophobic individuals is a function of anxiety. These competing notions can and should be evaluated by future research.Photos
The hypothesis that homophobic men are merely aggressive individuals is not supported by the present data…
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Journal of Abnormal Psychology, American Psychological Association, Inc.
1996, Vol. 105, No. 3,440—445
The origins of homophobia
August 20, 2003
JAMAICA | The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?
April 12, 2006 – TIME
…Though familiar to Americans primarily as a laid-back beach destination, Jamaica is hardly idyllic. The country has the world's highest murder rate. And its rampant violence against gays and lesbians has prompted human-rights groups to confer another ugly distinction: the most homophobic place on earth…
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Jamaica's gays finding refuge by applying for U.S. asylum
By Shankar Vedantam,
February 11, 2011 – The Washington Post
From the time he was in grade school in his native Jamaica, Andrae Bent was the target of taunts and attacks.
A classmate once stabbed him near his eye with a pencil for being effeminate. Another time, a man pulled a knife on him and asked if he was "one of them," Bent said, meaning homosexual. Fearing for his life, Bent denied his homosexuality…
Five months ago, Bent, now 24, won asylum in the United States on the grounds that he had credible fear of persecution as a gay man if he were to go back to Jamaica…
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Homosexuals: Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945
On May 6, 1933, Nazis ransacked the "Institute for Sexual Science" in Berlin; four days later' as part of large public burnings of books viewed as "un-German," thousands of books plundered from the Institute's library were thrown into a huge bonfire. The institute was founded in 1919 by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868 -1935). It sponsored research and discussion on marital problems, sexually transmitted diseases, and laws relating to sexual offenses, abortion, and homosexuality. The author of many works, Hirschfeld, himself a homosexual, led efforts for three decades to reform laws criminalizing homosexuality (In 1933 Hirschfeld happened to be in France, where he remained until his death.)
In 1934, a special Gestapo (Secret State Police) division on homosexuals was set up. One of its first acts was to order the police "pink lists" from all over Germany The police had been compiling these lists of suspected homosexual men since 1900. On September 1, 1935, a harsher, amended version of Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, originally framed in 1871, went into effect, punishing a broad range of "lewd and lascivious" behavior between men. In 1936 Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler created a Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion: Special Office (II S), a subdepartment of Executive Department II of the Gestapo. The linking of homosexuality and abortion reflected the Nazi regimes population policies to promote a higher birthrate of its "Aryan" population. On this subject Himmler spoke in Bad Tölz on February 18, 1937, before a group of high-ranking SS officers on the dangers both homosexuality and abortion posed to the German birthrate.
Benedict XVI / Ratzinger born Germany 4/18/1927Photo
Pope's Nazi past
Benedict XVI former Hitler Youth member
msnbc 2005
Early life of Pope Benedict XVI
Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger - Germany 1927 - 1951
The Hitler Youth is a term used to refer to the members of the youth groups that were implemented in Nazi Germany. The groups, founded in 1922, taught the infamous ideologies and practices of Nazism. They served as a “leisure” activity for German children to participate in outside of school. In 1935, Baldur von Schirach, the Reich Youth Leader, assimilated all of the youth groups into one major organization. Prior to 1936, there were various other youth groups in Germany promoting other causes, but under Hitler’s rule these groups were outlawed, leaving the Hitler Youth groups as the only activity for Aryan children to participate in…
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Sexual orientation is less about sex and more about love, being one with another human being. Attachment Theory
- - LOVE & RELIGION
Early Childhood Psychological Development Growing Up Gay
Who Grow Up to Be Gay
The research of Dr. Sidney H. Phillips is significant in understanding the kind of harm caused to very young children who grow up to be gay and the effects its has for these children in their adult lives. His works, as well as,Dr. Jack Drescher, Dr. Richard Isay and others bring to light the many problems and complications that children who grows up to be gay will encounter in their adult lives, when these children are raised in a social environment that has been influenced by harsh antigay social and religious norms. Whereas, children who grow up to be gay, but are not raised under the influence of harsh antigay social and religious norms, do not experience the complications in adult life, as those who do. Photo
Essential Precautions
Explaining clinical psychological material, especially when it relates to children warrants taking certain precautions, because clinical material is so easily misinterpreted, almost as much as the bible and other sacred religious texts to the harm of many innocent lives, especially to children. To present the research work of Dr. Phillips related to the early childhood psychological development of children who grow up to be gay, there are four important concepts to understand. First, is the importance of understanding the cognitive differences between a child’s mind and that of an adult. The second is found in Selma Fraiberg, (1987) Ghosts in the Nursery, her research helps us to understand how our past mistreatment by adults in our lives growing up as children, can be unconsciously repeated in our treatment of children, when we are adults. Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., explains the third in his description of Dissociative Processes in his book Clinical Studies on Psychiatry (1956), Chapter 8, pp. 166 to 181. Fourth, it is important to remember the complexity of the research material on early childhood psychological development being presented here and further reading of this material and references listed is encouraged. Photo
A Child's Mind
It is absolutely essential when attempting to understand clinical material related to the stages of early childhood psychological development to remember, at all times, that a child’s mind is not capable of seeing and understanding the world around them in the same way as an adult. Many forms of child abuse stem from negligence in this regard of not being mindful of child’s level of comprehension to perceive and interact in the child's surrounding social environment. Just as adults, we must physically bend our bodies down to play, at times, even to talk to a child, mentally, as adults, we must position our minds to the level that of a child’s mind, in order to understand and care for a small child. Personally, from my years as a parish Catholic priest and as a clinical psychologist I have found that this mental positioning of the mind to the level that of a child, working with very young children can be as therapeutic for the adult, as it is helpful for the child.
It is essential for non-clinicians, many who may be exceptional experts in their own particular fields of study and employment to take a moment to assess their ability to tune into a child’s mind. Selma Fraiberg, (1987) Ghosts in the Nursery, in her landmark work, reminds us all, clinicians, non-clinicians and parents, how even unconsciously we may mistreat children. This can be done quite unintentionally and unknowingly by inflicting on them the same kind of mistreatment we received as children growing up.
Selma Fraiberg, (1987) Ghosts in the Nursery, explains how parents' own past experiences of growing up, impacts their relationship with their own child, beginning as infants. Fraiberg’s research studied the interactions between an infant and one of the parents, when both were left alone in a room. She observed what happens when an infant begins to cry and continues crying for an extended amount of time. Fraiberg discovered that some parents appeared undisturbed by their infant's distress and made no gesture, to soothe, calm or even to pick up their infant.
What prevented these parents from attending to their crying infants? Fraiberg’s research revealed that unconscious processes, conflicts (the Ghosts) of the parents' own past were being played out, in the same way, as these parents experienced being cared for by adults during their early childhood years growing up. The reason why some parents did not pick up their crying infants was because in the past when they were growing up, no one heard their cries or picked them up to soothe them. Not having experienced the attentiveness of a caring comforting adult when they were in distress, as children, as parents, they have no conception of the need to comfort their own crying infants.
Fraiberg’s aim was to intervene at this point, in her parent/infant psychotherapy, to uncover these unconscious processes of the parents that were being played out in caring for their infants and then to them help to construct a more meaningful life-giving interactions between the parents and their infants. (Fraiberg, Selma; Adelson, Edna; Shapirio, Vivian; (1987) Ghosts in the Nursery: a Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Impaired Infant-mother Relationships. Ohio State University Press, p. 105).
by Harry Stack Sullivan
Have you ever wonder why some very prominent male public figures, who have been known for making harsh condemning public statements against homosexuality, only to find out later in the news media that these same men were caught engaging in “public restroom” sex or were paying to have sex with men. Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D. in his description of Dissociative Processes in his book Clinical Studies on Psychiatrygives some insight, as to how this phenomenon can happen not only to public figures but also to anyone.
Anxiety
Instant Smoke Screen
Dr. Sullivan considers his theory of dissociative processes in understanding how “an important system of the personality is effectively barred from any disturbing influence of personal awareness for a period of years and perhaps for a lifetime.” He explains how even a blatantly obvious issue of a person’s personality, which would be expected to be in that person’s self-awareness, however, it is successfully kept out. How is this possible? Sullivan begins by explaining the dynamics of anxiety, as having an “extraordinarily arresting effect on whatever was about to happen.” So when a disturbing issue is provoked and about to enter into one’s consciousness that person feels anxious. Sullivan states that the anxiety becomes more important than the disturbing issue that has been provoked. It sounds like anxiety can be used like a drug. Because when anxiety is allowed to flood the conscious mind, it preoccupies that person’s attention, and therefore any disturbing issue is blocked out of the person’s awareness. However, over time, if anxiety is allowed to run a person’s life, Sullivan states that it ...
… generally leads to an appallingly uncomfortable life. Take for example, a person to whom any sexual impulse, any movement of lust, is an intolerable ingredient of awareness. Presumably the only discharge of impulse, which concerned lust would occur in sleep or in some other very extraordinary situation. One would expect long stretches of waking life to remain in which the person was in the throes of lust. That would mean, from our standpoint, that he was anxious, and was therefore practically incapable of that application to reality that is necessary in order to carry out complex performances, to realize goals take more than momentary action (Clinical Studies on Psychiatry, 1956, p. 168).
Dissociation
Contradistinction to Anxiety
Dr. Sullivan describes dissociation in contrast to anxiety, because it “does not require disturbance of the contents of consciousness and which does not act as an impediment to the conduct of life in the areas where there is not dissociation…one is more efficient and much nearer happiness, contentment.” Sullivan describes what a person suffers being in a dissociative state by what people say who are recovering from a dissociation state. They report that “... they could now take things easier. Life is less exhausting; it was not so intense; it did not tire them so rapidly per hour (Clinical Studies on Psychiatry, 1956, p. 169)."
To illustrate the processes and effects of dissociation, Sullivan chooses the example of a married man, he calls, Mr. A, who has dissociated from all his thoughts and impulses of being a homosexual. On the surface, this man’s married life is picture prefect, except for his lack of sexual relations with his wife. Although, this man’s homosexual impulses have remained constant and alive from preadolescence to the present, he has been able to successfully totally dissociate from that whole part of his life. What this means is that this man has tremendous anxiety about being a homosexual, which likely began for him, as far back as his pre adolescent years growing up. And the way he has been able not to have his anxiety become overwhelming for him is by not consciously accepting the fact that he is a homosexual. In his mind he would have seamlessly reworked any indication that would lead to the conscious fact that he was a homosexual. It is this process that Sullivan is describing, as dissociation, a level of cognitive sophistication and specificity that is seamless, undetectable consciously by the person himself. Photos | Video Shirtless Acrobats Entertain Benedict XVI
Process Of Dissociation
How this process of dissociation works is that a person is mentally reworking all perceived information from his surrounding social environment that would lead to the intensely dreaded indication that he was a homosexual. Dr. Sullivan illustrates “what a remarkable performance dissociation is,” by using his example of this married man, Mr. A. Sullivan begins by indicating that Mr. A did have a very happy experience, which was a definite homosexual relationship, in his preadolescent years growing up. However, now, as an adult, Mr. A has successfully dissociated from all conscious memory of this happy experience. Sullivan than describes how Mr. A. would react if he met someone new, Mr. X, as an adult, years later, that vividly resembled this special friend from his past. Mr. X is “the type to activate powerfully an impulse which … would lead to homosexual instances with Mr. A (p 171).” Instead, what happens with Mr. A is he will treat Mr. X “almost as a non-existent entity.” Mr. A will be polite but it will be a reduction of his normal social demeanor. If people notice that Mr. A’s behavior tends to be rather cool towards Mr. X, Mr. A will rationalize it by saying that there is just something about this new person he does not like. Sullivan goes through many examples of how Mr. A will continue to act cool, disinterested, continuously making derogatory remarks about Mr. X. However, Mr. A in his dissociative state “has anything but data on what he has been doing (p.173),” studying Mr. X’s physical profile, orchestrating to sit across from Mr. X at dinner, even to have a sexual encounter with Mr. X. Sullivan describes, Photo Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal?
Thus here is an aspect of the self-organization which frequently appear in the major tendencies. That is, a patient with a dissociated impulse will experience special cognitive distortions about anyone whose combination of positive values horribly moves the patient to integrate his dissociated impulse. These positively valued people are then endowed by the patient with the negative of the feelings that would accompany this integration, so that one literally, suavely, and automatically misidentifies the meaning of such a person. In other words, in order that the dissociated tendency shall never disturb awareness, shall not provoke anxiety – because if it did, one would be anxious so much of the time that one could not do things which are necessary to life---the security system has come to include very elaborate pseudo memories, revery processes, and so on, which amount to a wonderfully thorough piece of fantasy that neatly and very adequately excludes any ordinary ways by which one would become aware of something. You need not marvel too much that such things can be, because our erroneous explanations of things are of the same type, and you know they run very beautifully unless they happen to break down in a particularly distressful situation (Clinical Studies on Psychiatry, 1956, p. 174). Photo
The process of dissociation as described by Harry Stack Sullivan is a complex system of cognitive distortion of our perception of reality to securely avoid us from knowing some truth about ourselves. A truth, so feared, if known to us would flood our conscious mind with overwhelming amounts of anxiety, causing us to become incapacitated to function normally.
How To Stop Harming Children
Understanding the mind of a child, personal ghosts from childhood and dissociations, mentally distorting reality to avoid the conscious flooding of overwhelming amounts of anxiety are the necessary precautions to be able to effectively avoid harming children. The following postings on this blog will be dealing with the lives of real children, who have no one to keep them safe from the kind of harm that is past on from generation to generation. This kind of harm is an implicit form, not visible to the human eye, easily rationalized or denied. However, the telltale signs are left in the wake of this destructive force of this form of implicit harm. By identifying this form of implicit harm that it exists, is the first step to help prevent it from continuing and being past on to future generations.
First, making an effort to understand and learn how children are easily traumatized is critical. This, also, requires us to learn and know the ways that we may have been traumatized as children, because they are our ghosts that follow us into the nursery. It is in this way that we unknowingly past on this implicit form of harm to other generation.
Secondly, indiscriminately speaking out publically against a whole group of people globally, like homosexuals, should be the very first sign that some form of dissociation is taking place within us, personally. It is the first easy detectable clue that we our cognitively distorting reality because unless we know every homosexual in the world, we cannot in truth make such statements. Time and time again, we have witnessed in the news media major prominent male political and religious leaders publically condemning all homosexuals and then some of these same leaders are caught in some public sandal having sex with men. Photo Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals
Collective Dissociation
Harmful to Children
It seemed like the process of dissociation was working overtime in the November election 2008, for many with the defeat of the gay marriage proposals. However, it also showed that the process of dissociation does not have as tight of a grip on people as it once did regarding gay marriage, because the defeat was not by any overwhelming majority.
It is critical for each person to be responsible for personally attempting to identify this form of implicit harm that can be caused to others by our own seamless process of dissociation. And that the harm that this dissociation causes, especially regarding homosexuals is generational being passed on from one generation to another, unknowingly. Photo Auschwitz - Christmas 2008 - Brokeback Mountain
Homophobic Machinations of Benedict XVI – Perpetuation of Generational Violence On LGBT Children
Related links:
Unrequited Love Affairs
Cause of Inability to Form A Close Relationship
Dissociative Efforts Buries Deep
Double Shame
An Illustration of the Relentless Cycles of Everyday Life
Attraction & Disappointment
Hope & Despair
Excitement, Arousal & Grief
AUSCHWITZ -- CHRISTMAS 2008 -- A flashback far more severe than in --- BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
December 26, 2008
An example of this is most vividly portrayed in the movie "Brokeback Mountain." It takes place when Ennis and Jack are together again for the first time in 4 years, after first meeting on Brokeback Mountain. They are sitting around a campfire in the evening and Ennis is relaxing reclining back starring up at the stars. Jack looks over at Ennis and says to him, "Is there anything interesting up there in heaven?" Ennis replies with a very pleasant smile on his face "I was just sending up a prayer of thanks." This is a very tender moment in the film, which Jack is in a way proposing to Ennis. Jack tells Ennis that "... it could be like this always, just like this, always." Ennis's face loses its smile becoming strained as he turns his face away from Jack, looks down at the ground. Ennis then begins to soberly tell Jack about this vivid flashback he is having to his early childhood days growing up. Ennis describes for Jack this disturbing scene from his past how his father took him and his brother along this pathway in the country to show them the kind of violence that happens to adult men who lived together. The traumatic psychological effects from this event with his father appear to have remained vivid throughout Ennis's adult life. It is shown in Ennis's inability to form and be in a relationship, any kind of relationship, but particularly the one with Jack, to go with Jack, and build a life together. "Early Childhood Growing Up" - Read more
______________________
AUSCHWITZ -- CHRISTMAS 2008 -- A flashback far more severe than in --- BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN – December 26, 2008 – Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Dear Fr. Geoff Farrow,
I have been so saddened by Pope Benedict XVI's cruel words to LGBTQ people around the world, to their parents, families and friends, most ESPECIALLY TO CHILDREN. After reading the accounts of this human travesty, I did not know where to find comfort or hope. And then I thought about your blog. And just like receiving a wonderful Christmas present, sure enough I found the hope and comfort I needed to hear. Photo
I am a priest and a clinical psychologist (MS). And for one of my research projects I chose to do a qualitative research project of the recorded verbal accounts of survivors of the Holocaust, 50 years after the event. It was a difficult research project, because I could not make sense of one of the accounts of the survivors.
For example, one survivor was describing what it was like riding the train toAUSCHWITZ, but he was describing how he was trying to make conversation with a girl on the train. I listened and wrote out this one account almost 30 times but I just was not getting it. I could not understand how this man could be talking about wanting to make conversation with this girl on the same train to AUSCHWITZ!?!
Because I had taught high school religion classes for nearly 20 years, it hit me hard, like a flash of lightning. Instantly, all the pieces came together, so fast. Though this survivor was in his late 60’s when he gave his account of his story on audiotape, he was remembering the events that took place, but naturally they were recounted through the mind of a teenager, the age he was on the train to AUSCHWITZ. That is why the dialogue wasn’t making any sense. I was thinking of him as an old man because the voice on the audiotape was the voice of a 68-year-old. As shocking as a bomb going off, all the different aspects of the psychological developmental stages of a teenager kicked in. I realized only too fully that he was just a young normal teenager on that train!!! And so was the girl he was trying to make conversation, and their moms and dads were there with them!!! There was no way to pretend I did not realize what I discovered. It kept hitting me: this is not some script from a movie or TV miniseries on the Holocaust. No; as much as I wished it were. The reality of this horror hit me all at once, on so many different levels of consciousness: what an unbelievable horror it was!!! How could we treat human beings like this! I remember when the realization of the magnitude of this horror first hit me, like an instant reflex. I threw down the transcript I was holding as if it were a blazing hot poker. It kept hitting me over and over again that this is not a movie script or some kind of play – this really happened! It really happened! Oh, my God, how could this have happened!?!!!
My supervisor told me at the time that I was traumatized by the oral content. Qualitative research is an attempt to understand the complexity of emotions, the kinds of emotions, and the degree of intensity involved. Our emotions are what allow us to connect with other human beings. We identify with the non-verbal quality of emotions more immediately and strongly than with the words used to express them. The non-verbal qualities include tone of voice, eye contact, facial expression, body posture, and gestures, all of which express emotions. Emotions are why we can connect with people through time, across cultures, and individually. It is the expression of human emotions in the arts that makes some works of art timeless, because they continually speak to all people through the ages.
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.
I truly have to believe that a person in his position would not be doing this consciously or intentionally. The horror of the Holocaust is like an atomic bombwith fallout so extensive that it spreads over a radius of more than 150 miles. The horror of the Holocaust began in 1933 and ended in 1945. The psychological fallout would have been far more extensive and more deadly, especially when it is not identified as such.
It hit me the way it did when I realized that the research I was doing about a Holocaust survivor, a man 68 years old telling his story, who was remembering what it was like to be on the train to AUSCHWITZ, from the perspective of a young teenage boy who just wanted to talk to a girl. It seemed like the same kind of horror, a tacit assumption that some people don't count and can be disposed of without remorse. Could it be that Benedict XVI is unconsciously repeating Hitler's crime against humanity by taking on a long-accepted social attitude from that period of time?
The question I asked myself was: what would it have been like for someone growing up gay during the Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933 -1945?
What would be the severity of the psychological effects on a boy who grew up to be gay in Germany during the time of Hitler’s NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS 1933 -1945? During the Nazi regime, homosexuals were publicly defamed and falsely accused for the major social problems of that time, which was done to incite massive public hatred and hostility directed against homosexuals. Homosexuals were used for medical experiments, physically mutilated, brutally tortured and exterminated.
Would this child, as an adult, in a severe dissociated state of mind from his own homosexual feelings (Harry Stack Sullivan MD, Dissociative Processes, Clinical Studies on Psychiatry (1956)), unconsciously perpetuate the terrifying horror of the insensitivity he had experienced growing up? If he found himself in a position of authority would he recreate the same social and political environment of violence and terror for homosexuals that he experienced, as a child who grew up to be gay, during the NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS?
I think in truth on a much deeper level I was frightened, really frightened, to hearPope Benedict XVI’s Christmas remarks against homosexuals and transgendered human beings and even more frightened by the silence from the larger global community of human beings. What is so frightening is, even if there is agreement that one person does not matter or is not important, in truth then no one matters. Therefore, when I thought about your blog and what you did on October 5, 2008, I felt more reassured, I felt hope, and I felt comforted. NOW, isn’t that the true meaning of Christmas?
God Bless you,
. . . .Written by Martin S. Kurylowicz, M.Div., M.S.
Edited by Madeline Wright, Ph.D., M.S. . . . .
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Main telephone: (202) 488-0400
TTY: (202) 488-0406
by Geoffrey J. Giles explanation of Hitler’s immediate action taken against gays, when he came to power, accounts of the inhuman treatment of gays.
www.vatican.va. - Benedict XVI - Cardinal Ratzinger on April 19, 2005, was elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II. Read more
CBS News, Ratzinger On Abuse, Celibacy, Gays - - April 19, 2005 | by Christine Lagorio, A Collection Of Quotations By Newly Named Pope Benedict XVI Read more
Human Rights Campaign - Election of Pope Benedict XVI Portends Further Conflict Between Church and GLBT Community 4/19/2005 - WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign pointed to years of statements by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the newly elected pope, in expressing concern about the Catholic Church’s future treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Read more
Southern Voice - Gay Catholics dismayed by Pope Benedict XVI By DYANA BAGBYAPR. 22, 2005 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who described homosexuality as “an intrinsic moral evil,” emerged at dusk on Tuesday on to the balcony of St. Peter’s Square, drawing cheers from the thousands gathered as the 265th pope announced his new name, Benedict XVI. Read more
Washington Post Foreign Service, Saturday October 8, 2005 , ROME, Rules Affirm Pope Benedict's Stance Against Gays by Daniel Williams -- In the first five months of Pope Benedict XVI's reign, stern opposition to homosexuality in and outside the Roman Catholic Church has quickly become a prime public message for the Vatican.Read more
Cable News Network (CNN) Monday, November 28, 2005 -- In an eagerly awaited document, the Vatican has reiterated its policy against gay priests, but has said it would allow those who have "clearly overcome" homosexual tendencies to start the process of becoming a priest. Read more
Slate Magazine - Gland Inquisitor Pope Benedict's antigay tendencies. By William Saletan Posted Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005, at 12:46 AM ET - The Vatican's new policy on gay priests has been leaked. Officially, it proposes the incorrigibility of deeply rooted gay tendencies. Unofficially, it exposes the deeply rooted, incorrigible antigay tendencies of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI. Read more
Blog Out - Just Out Newspaper - Does the Vatican Support Criminalizing, Executing Homosexuals? December 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am by Jim Radosta - That’s the message that Pope Benedict XVI seems to be sending: The Vatican is trying to block a nonbinding proposed U.N. resolution calling on governments worldwide to decriminalize homosexuality, claiming that it will start a “slippery slope” toward same-sex marriage. Read more
365gay Pope celebrates Human Rights Day while opposing gay rights By 365gay Newscenter Staff 12.12.2008 8:35am EST - (Vatican City) At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; but elsewhere, LGBT civil rights groups were denouncing the pope’s opposition to expanding the 60-year-old United Nations document to include gays. Read more
Task Force December 22, 2008 National Religious Leadership Roundtable condemns pope’s remarks denouncing gender theory - WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 — The National Religious Leadership Roundtable, convened by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, condemns today’s remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that denounced gender theory, saying it could lead to humanity’s “self-destruction.” Gender theory explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to individuals according to their gender and how people perceive their identity. Read more
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - Pope wants humanity 'saved' from homosexuality Dec 23, 2008 - Pope Benedict XVI says saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. Read more
BBC - Tuesday, 23 December 2008, Pope attacks blurring of gender - Pope Benedict XVI has suggested that the need to save mankind from a destructive blurring of gender roles is as important as saving the rainforests. Read more
Times Online, December 23, 2008 Pope accused of stoking homophobia after he equates homosexuality to climate change
"There are still so many instances of people being killed around the world, including in Western society, purely and simply because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.
"When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way because they feel that they are doing God’s work in ridding the world of these people." Read more
SFGate.com December 23 2008 at 05:35 AM Pope Benedict at Christmas: Preaching bigotry disguised as compassion - by Edward M. Gomez Read More
Gay Rights - Pope Benedict XVI: How Gays are Like the Rainforest by Michael A. Jones December 22, 2008 @ 09:45AM PST - In the (not-so) spirit of the holidays,Pope Benedict XVI gave a Christmas address to the Vatican's Central Administration (known as the Curia), where he called homosexuality unnatural and "a destruction of God's work." Read more
The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound."
He also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected." Read more
guardian.co.uk - A whiff of hypocrisy in pope's pronouncement by Stephen BatesTuesday 23 December 2008 15.22 GMT Read more
NowPublic - Pope Says Gays as Dangerous as Climate Change by Rob Walker | December 23, 2008 at 08:44 am - The internet is abuzz today after remarks from Pope Benedict XVI's speech yesterday, where he declared that saving humanity from homosexuality was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.Read more
SKY NEWS, Pope: 'Save The World From Gays' 9:34am UK, Tuesday December 23, 2008 Benedict XVI described relationships that are not heterosexual as "a destruction of God's work", during his Christmas speech to the Curia, the administrative body of the Catholic Church. .. "(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," he said.Read more
The New York Times, The Vatican: In Speech, Pope Calls Homosexual Behavior a Violation, By Rachel Donadio, Published: December 22, 2008, Pope Benedict XVIspoke out Monday against homosexual behavior, calling it a violation of the natural order. In an address to the Vatican hierarchy, the pope called for an “ecology of man” to protect man from “the destruction of himself.” He added, “The rain forests deserve our protection, but man as a creature indeed deserves no less.” The Vatican opposes same-sex marriage and considers homosexual acts sinful. Read more
Telegraph.co.uk by Nick Allen: 7:31PM GMT 23 Dec 2008 Pope says humanity needs 'saving' from homosexuality … Pope Benedict XVI sparked a furious reaction from other Christian groups as he also suggested that a blurring of the distinction between male and female could lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.Read more
China Daily, Gays outraged by pope's 'homophobic attack' (Agencies) Updated: 2008-12-24 09:43 VATICAN CITY – A suggestion by Pope Benedict XVI that homosexuality is as much of a threat to the survival of the human race as climate change sparked outrage among gay rights campaigners on Tuesday… "The Vatican talks about homosexuality or transsexuality as if it were a whim, never as suffering," Hofer said, adding that the Roman Catholic Church "reduces sexual orientation to the sexual act as if it had nothing to do with a person's identity."Read more
The Bilerico Project - All Powerful Trannies Threaten Humanity - December 24, 2008 2:00 PM by: Brynn Craffey - In his end-of-year address to senior Vatican staff, Pope Benedict XVI, head of the 1.13 billion person-strong Catholic Church, has warned of the dangers of "gender theory," saying it threatens humanity's existence and equating its potential destructive power to that of the disappearing rain forests. Read more
Couriermail.comau December 24, 2008 08:55pm Pope Benedict XVI uses Christmas message to attack gays OPENLY gay Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has joined the world-wide chorus of condemnation directed at Pope Benedict XVI, after the Catholic leader suggested homosexuality was as much a threat to the survival of the human race as climate change.
In his end-of-year speech at the Vatican on Monday, the Pope said gender theory blurred the distinction between male and female, and he called for "an ecology of the human being" to protect mankind "from self-destruction". Read more
World New/The Manila Times, Thursday, December 25, 2008 Gays outraged by ‘homophobic
attack’ of Pope Benedict XVI -
VATICAN CITY: A suggestion by Pope Benedict XVI that homosexuality is as much of a threat to the survival of the human race as climate change sparked outrage among gay rights campaigners on Tuesday. Read more
PinkNews.co.uk - Amnesty asks Pope to defend gay rights By Jessica Geen • March 19, 2009 - 11:53 Amnesty International has urged Pope Benedict XVI to condemn the criminalisation of homosexuality when he meets with African bishops today in Cameroon. Read more
“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.” Erik Erikson
…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 !!!
Related links:
Groundbreaking Study Finds Family Acceptance of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Adolescents Protects Against Depression, Substance Abuse and Suicidal Behavior in Early Adulthood – by Caitlin Ryan, PhD, December 6, 2010 - FAMILY ACCEPTANCE PROJECT.
Related links:
FAMILY ACCEPTANCE in Adolescence and the Health of LGBT Young Adults – Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing - Volume 23, Number 4, pp. 205–213, November, 2010
Related links:
Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man
Jack Drescher, M.D. in his book Psychoanalytic Therapy & The Gay Man describes the complexities related to growing up gay; from his research of developmental narratives of gay adults retrospectively recalling their feelings being gay began in early childhood. These gay feelings had remained constant, and were resistant to being altered. Dr. Drescher explains the contrast of how social norms impact the psychology of the early childhood developmental years of a heterosexual boy and a homosexual boy.
Online articles:
Jack Drescher, M.D. website:
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.
SEXUAL CONVERSION THERAPIES
by Jack Drescher, M.D.
Gay Conversion | Religious Conversion - Transforms The Damned Into The Saved |
COVERING - Kenji Yoshino – 2002
The Yale Law Journal
Excerpts:
A. Gay Conversion
…What does it mean to convert? Generally defined as a “ [c]hange in character [or] nature,” 37 conversion encompasses mundane, value-neutral, and reversible transactions such as changes of measure or currency. Yet as the above account of electroshock therapy suggests, this general definition may fail to capture what conversion denotes for human identities. In such cases, I believe conversion often has a more specific meaning inflected by the instance of religious conversion—“ [t]he turning of sinners to God; a spiritual change from sinfulness, ungodliness, or worldliness to love of God and pursuit of holiness.” 38 Conversion in this formulation is not a mundane event, but a sacred one; not a value-neutral event, but one that transforms the damned into the saved; and not a reversible event, but in theory a unique occurrence.
Under such an account, human conversion differs profoundly from either passing or covering. Passing and covering are both perceived to be compromise formations in which the underlying identity is ostensibly preserved, modified only for popular consumption. In contrast, conversion is thought to be a more complete embrace or surrender. It is believed to change not only the expression of an identity, but the underlying substance of it.39
In this discussion, I describe the history of attempts to convert homosexuality into heterosexuality in the nonlegal field of mental health, as well as in the legal field. In both contexts, I document the same trend…
Read complete article:
Kenji Yoshino – Website
"Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights"
A conversation with author Kenji Yoshino about Yoshino's book.
April 20, 2006 – Charlie Rose
View video:
Kenji Yoshino – Website
Same-Sex Marriage:
The Legal and Psychological Evolution in America
by Donald J. Cantor,
Elizabeth Cantor,
James C. Black, and
Campbell D. Barrett.
2006
Lesbians, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis - The Second Wave
By Judith Glassgold, and Suzanne Iasenza. 2004
The book is divided into three sections—“Community: Personal and Political,” “Ongoing Clinical Issues,” and “New Thinking on Sexuality and Gender,” addressing lesbian tomboy development, the queering of relational psychoanalysis, how attachment theory and intersubjectivity can contribute to newer gender theory, and including:
Read more:
Gay Catholic - Nichi Vendola - Possible ITALY’S PRIME MINISTER
USA Cross-party Catholic Leadership Gay Marriage Support
Gay marriage isn't revolutionary. It's just next.
By Stephanie Coontz,
January 9, 2010
The Washington Post
Stephanie Coontz teaches family history at the Evergreen State College and is the author of "A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s."
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
Institutionalized STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE – Vatican’s UNSUBSTANTIATED ANTIGAY TEACHINGS - severe harm lasting throughout a child’s lifetime | Benedict XVI & Hierarchy CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE COVER-UPS
“ACTIVE IGNORANCE” | What's the answer to privilege?
By Alejandra Cuellar
Staff Writer,
February 19, 2010 – The Climax - Hampshire College
“Coming out” March 1997, Fr. Marty Kurylowicz | Galileo, Benedict XVI & Hierarchy UNSUBSTANTIATED Antigay Pronouncements Harmful to Children – Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
Galileo
facing the
Roman Inquisition
Holy Office of the 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:
WIDESPREAD HOMOPHOBIA
in the Catholic Church
Theologian says much of clergy is gay
by Derek Scally,
November 22, 2010 – The Irish Times
Related links:
Part 1: 'A Large Proportion of Catholic Clerics and Trainee Priests Are Homosexual'
Part 2: 'I Hope that the Church Will at Last Confront the Issue of Homophobia'
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
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/11/30-years-of-ratzingerbenedict-xvis.html Photo book
Iowa’s Catholic Bishops urge legislators to Discriminate Against Adults and Children Who Are Gay – Bishops Lack Substantiating Evidence To Support Claim, February 9, 2011
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.)
The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting... Photo
Words of pain, contrition in O’Malley’s Irish service
by Lisa Wangsness,
February 21, 2011 – The Boston Globe
What you cannot do is accept injustice.
From Hitler – or anyone.
You must make the injustice visible – be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.
Mahatma Gandhi
Kids Are Being Hurt !!!
Hawaii * Both sides see same-sex marriage in future
by B.J. Reyes,
February 24, 2011 – Honolulu Star Advertiser
Final approval of a proposal to legalize civil unions is a step closer to same-sex marriage in Hawaii, supporters say.
"We hope so," said Laurie Temple, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii. "We should continue to work toward it."
As supporters celebrated and cheered Gov. Neil Abercrombie's signing of the bill to allow civil unions yesterday, opponents lamented that they also see the new law as a step closer to redefining marriage in Hawaii…
Read complete report:
Hawaii's governor signs civil unions into law
By Mark Niesse,
February 23, 2011 – The Boston Globe
HONOLULU—Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed same-sex civil unions into law Wednesday, calling it "a triumph for everyone" that gay and lesbian couples will have the same state rights as married partners.
Civil unions in the Rainbow State would start Jan. 1, 2012, making Hawaii the seventh state to permit civil unions or similar legal recognitions for gay couples. Five other states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage.
"This bill represents equal rights for everyone in Hawaii, everyone who comes here. This is to me the essence of the aloha spirit," Abercrombie said at a signing ceremony. "With its signing, I want to say 'welcome' to the world, come to paradise."
A crowd of exuberant supporters yelled, cheered and applauded as the Democrat inscribed his signature on the legislation, making it the first law he's enacted since he was elected in November. The bill passed the state Legislature last week…
Read complete report:
Analysis: Obama Shifts Stance on Gay Marriage
By Charles Babington Associated Press,
February 24, 2011 – ABC News
One way for President Barack Obama to win the future, it seems, is to have his administration stop defending a federal law that bans recognition of same-sex marriage.
Opinion polls show a steady rise in Americans' embrace of gay rights, and young voters solidly back positions their grandparents opposed, including gay marriage.
"Anybody under the age of 40 doesn't care, or actively supports it," said Steve Elmendorf, a longtime Democratic staffer and lobbyist.
The administration said Wednesday it no longer would defend the constitutionality of the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. Attorney General Eric Holder cited recent shifts in legal thought, not public opinion, in explaining the decision.
"Much of the legal landscape has changed in the 15 years since Congress passed" the Defense of Marriage Act, Holder said. He noted that the Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional and that Congress has repealed the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which barred service by openly gay men and women…
Read complete report:
by Jan Crawford,
February 23, 2011 – CBS News
Aside from the Big Deal that DOJ no longer will defend a federal law (which historically has hardly ever happened) there's perhaps an even Bigger Deal in today's announcement that President Obama has decided the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional… Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504564_162-20035525-504564.html
Gay marriage: Obama administration won't defend part of marriage act
By David G. Savage and James Oliphant,
Washington Bureau,
February 23, 2011 – Los Angeles Times
In a key shift on gay rights, the administration says a section of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional as applied to gay couples who are legally married under state law. The administration vows not to defend the law against two lawsuits brought by same-sex couples…
…Holder said the Justice Department now agrees with that claim. Photo
In his legal analysis, discrimination against gays "warrants heightened scrutiny," not general acceptance. "There is, regrettably, a significant history of purposeful discrimination against gay and lesbian people, by governmental as well as private entities, based on prejudice and stereotypes that continue to have ramifications today," he said. He also cited "recent evolutions" of the law in courts and state legislatures recognizing the principle of equal treatment for gays and lesbians.
Read complete report:
'Tis the gift to be free
Inauguration
President Barack Obama
January 20, 2009
Eleanor Roosevelt and Civil Rights
Ku Klux Klan put a bounty of $25,000 on
Eleanor Roosevelt’s head
because they didn't want her
teaching people how to protest discrimination. 1958
"We can't afford to have two kinds of citizens,
We must have equal citizenship for anybody in our country."
Eleanor Roosevelt
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I Have a Dream
Address at the March on Washington, D.C.
August 28, 1963
Established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, the King center is the official, living memorial dedicated to the advancement of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [Applause]
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,
"Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Related Links:
Martin Luther King Jr. - National Historic Site – Atlanta, Georgia - U.S. Department of the Interior
Gay Marriage & Obama ≠ "incomprehensible and misguided" Benedict XVI, Cardinals & Bishops CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE COVER-UPS – 30 years plus! – Bishop Thomas Tobin – Providence, R. I.
Words of pain, contrition in O’Malley’s Irish service
by Lisa Wangsness,
February 21, 2011 – The Boston Globe
jdA handful of protesters ridiculed the service as ecclesiastical theater. Among them was Paddy Doyle, one of the first abuse victims to go public with his story in his 1988 autobiography “The God Squad,’’ his account of suffering severe physical and sexual abuse at a church-run industrial school.
Doyle said he had been invited to have his feet washed, but he declined.
“It’s a stunt,’’ he said. “Another stunt by the Catholic Church to absolve itself of the rape and abuse of children all over the world.’’
The service was disrupted several times by victims who interrupted to speak.
The first such case occurred minutes after the service began, when a man strode down the center aisle and asked the musicians to stop playing for a moment.
The man, Robert Dempsey, spoke for five minutes about being sexually abused in a church-run mental institution as a child, waiting endlessly for his case to be heard in court, and being mistreated by police.
“What the hell did I do wrong as a child?’’ he said. “What the hell did any of us do?’’
When he said he had pictures proving his story to give to Martin, Martin came and stood by his side. And when he finished, the cathedral burst into applause.
A while later, an elderly man made his way to the microphone from the middle of the pews.
He gave a terse account of how, as a child in a church-run school, he was thrown into a cold bath and then brought into another room, “frozen, naked, and terrified.’’
He was forced to climb a ladder, and with each step, he was lashed with a whip.
“May God forgive them,’’ he said.
The congregation applauded again — and again a bit later, when a young man spoke in remembrance of those who had committed suicide as a result of abuse…
Read complete report:
Machinations of Benedict XVI Denials Leaking Documents Homosexual Overtones To Publicly Discredit Prominent Catholic Editor Who Criticized Italian MP - A Supporter of Benedict XVI Issues - February 9, 2010
What you cannot do is accept injustice.
From Hitler – or anyone.
You must make the injustice visible – be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.
Mahatma Gandhi
Pope 'is at centre of Vatican abuse cover-up', says Hans Küng
by Roger Boyes, Berlin,
March 25, 2010 – The Times
One of Europe’s leading theological thinkers has accused the Pope of being complicit in a Vatican cover-up of child abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.
“No one in the whole of the Catholic Church knows as much about abuse cases – knowledge that is ex officio, derived from his office,” Hans Küng said in an interview with Swiss television. Photo
Professor Küng – a long-standing critic of the Vatican – said that the Pope’s involvement in hiding clerical molestation of children dated back at least to his 24 years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome .
“This Vatican authority has for a long time centralised [information about] all abuse cases so that they can be concealed, classified as top secret,” the 82-year old Swiss theologian said.
He has been a close observer of Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – since they were theology professors at the University of Tübingen in the 1960s. Both were theological advisers to the Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965.
Professor Küng’s clinching piece of documentary evidence against his old university colleague is contained in a diocesal letter, dated March 18, 2001, on child abuse, “De delictis gravioribus” (“about serious offences”). Signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the document establishes guidelines for dealing with priests suspected of abuse: Photo
“In tribunals established by ordinaries or hierarchs, the functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests. When the trial in the tribunal is finished in any fashion, all the acts of the case are to be transmitted ex officio as soon as possible to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith," it says.
Professor Küng argues that the Pope is acting hypocritically by calling bishops to order because for the past ten years such offences have been officially regulated behind closed doors…
Read complete report:
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
VENERABLE BISHOPS,
Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and I were the youngest theologians at the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. Now we are the oldest and the only ones still fully active. I have always understood my theological work as a service to the Roman Catholic Church. For this reason, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the election of Pope Benedict XVI, I am making this appeal to you in an open letter. In doing so, I am motivated by my profound concern for our church, which now finds itself in the worst credibility crisis since the Reformation. Please excuse the form of an open letter; unfortunately, I have no other way of reaching you… Photo
Read complete letter:
Irish abuse victim: New letter proves Vatican cover-up
by Claudio Lavanga,
January 18, 2011 – NBC News
A 1997 letter from a Vatican official advising Irish bishops not to report suspected child abuse cases to the police has sent shockwaves across the Catholic world.
To child abuse victims, it’s the “smoking gun” that proves what they have claimed all along: that the Vatican actively tried to prevent criminal investigations against sexually abusive priests by instructing bishops not to report them to the police…
…The Vatican letter instructed bishops that abuse allegations and punishments were to be handled within the church through canon law. It warned that bishops who tried to pursue charges outside of canon law could have their actions overturned on appeal in Rome.
The newly revealed document undermines what the Vatican has said for years – that it never instructed local bishops to withhold evidence of suspected crimes from the police. It could be used as crucial evidence in multi-billion dollar lawsuits against archdioceses in the United States and across the world…
Vatican dismisses letter
The Vatican has downplayed the importance of the letter, claiming that it represents an outdated approach to sexual abuse cases and that much has changed since 1997 in the way the Vatican deals with them...
Victim: letter shows cover-up
But Colm O'Gorman, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and founder of the Irish charity One-in-Four, said that it’s time the Catholic Church took responsibility for its mishandling of thousands of abuse cases.
“It’s just not credible to dismiss the letter because it’s 14 years old. It was 1997, not 1597, and nothing has changed since,” O’Gorman told msnbc.com. “This letter is important for a number of reasons: not only because it shows that the Vatican tried to cover-up abuse cases in Ireland, it also proves that Pope Benedict XVI wasdishonest in his handling of the scandal.”
Read complete report:
143 Catholic theologians in Germany
demand broad church reforms, abandoning vow of celibacy
by Juergen Baetz,
Associated Press, February 4, 2011 – Los Angelus Times
BERLIN (AP) — University theologians in Germany have called on the Catholic Church to abandon the vow of celibacy for priests, open up the clergy for women and accept gays couples.
The 143 professors said the church must implement bold reforms because of "a crisis without precedent" following the discovery of widespread sexual and physical abuses by clergymen a year ago.
More Christians than ever have turned their backs on the Catholic Church in the past year, they said. "The Church has to understand these signs and move beyond its ossified structures to regain new vitality and credibility."...
Read complete report:
“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
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
Ratzinger, Hurley, Maida & Accomplices
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
(Sequential Order of Reactions)” 2010
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
“This is about the reckless endangerment of children in a calculated, purposeful strategy to protect the institutional Church”
December 2, 2009
By Jason Walsh
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 thearchdiocese 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
Catholic Church sex abuse documents made public
By Gillian Flaccus,
Associated Press, October 25, 2010 - Salon
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 ofDublin 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:
GAY MARRIAGE ≠ Benedict XVI Storm Suggesting Wider Western Culture Normalized Pedophilia, Hierarchy Systemic Cover-ups – Children - Victims, Islam Violent, Deny Holocaust, Pray Jews Convert, etc., etc., etc., …
The Irish Affliction
February 9, 2011 – The New York Times
…Ireland’s move away from the Catholic Church began before the reports were released. Between 1974 and 2008, regular Mass attendance dropped by some 50 percent. The situation today highlights a problem that is looming for the Vatican, especially in the West, as the global sex-abuse crisis, coupled with the increasingly conservative rule and top-down control that have prevailed since the 1970s, is contributing to the departure of populations the church once considered foundational. “Ireland is a prime example of what the church is facing, because they made this island into a concentration camp where they could control everything,” Mark Patrick Hederman, abbot of Glenstal Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in County Limerick, told me. “And the control was really all about sex. They told you if you masturbated, it meant you were impure and had allowed the devil to work on you. Generations of people were crucified with guilt complexes. Now the game is up.” Photo
…The Vatican’s repeated efforts to deal with the scandals seem to bring only further outcry. During his Christmas greetings, Pope Benedict touched off another global storm by suggesting that the wider Western culture had normalized pedophilia. In the estimation of Peter Nissen, a Vatican-watcher and professor of the cultural history of religion at Radboud University in the Netherlands: “This is the largest crisis the Catholic Church has faced since the French Revolution, and in a way you could say it is even worse. In those days, the church was a victim of the crisis. Now she has caused the crisis herself.”
…The visitation itself is seen by many as another indication that the Vatican intends not to bring reform but to exert control. “If the Vatican wanted to do a credible investigation of sexual abuse,” Thomas Doyle said, “they would not send archbishops and cardinals. These people — the church hierarchy — are the very people who have caused this problem.”…
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U.S. diocese agrees to $77 million abuse settlement
February 3, 2011 - Reuters
Vatican Letter to Irish Bishops on Sex Abuse: A 'Smoking Gun' in Conspiracy?
by David Gibson,
January 19, 2011 – Politics Daily
Vatican Letter Warned Bishops on Abuse Policy
By Laurie Goodstein,
January 18, 2011 - The New York Times
Document
Irish abuse victims 'disgusted' at Vatican letter
January 19, 2010 – CNN World
Quick Facts: US church sex abuse,
February 14, 2011 - PressTV
New allegations of sexual abuse surfaced in the U.S. after a U.S. grand jury accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after another grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests.
These new allegations have brought the issue of sexual abuse by priests into the limelight. Photo
The New York Times says in October 2010, the U.S. fell in the Annual Corruption Survey. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Tribal Justice, American in the United States, Roman Catholic archdioceses have collectively paid some $2 billion in settlements to victims since the priest sex scandals first erupted in Boston nearly a decade ago. In 2011, a Roman Catholic diocese in Delaware agreed to settle 142 claims of sexual abuse by priests for $77 million. Later that year, two Roman Catholic priests, a former priest and a Catholic school teacher were charged with raping young boys. 78% of the victims of sexual abuse in U.S. churches were between the ages of 11 and 17.
Time and again the Roman Catholic Church has been forced to defend itself against charges that top officials tried to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by priests.
Pope Benedict XVI himself has not been spared from these charges, especially for his actions as an archbishop and as the head of a Vatican watchdog group.
A look back at sex abuse scandals in the US…
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“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.” Erik Erikson
…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 !!!
RI bishop: Obama gay marriage stance 'misguided'
February 24, 2011 - The Boston Globe
Bishop Thomas Tobin calls Obama's move on Wednesday "incomprehensible and misguided." The Obama administration says the law is legally indefensible.
I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis
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