Good move to get out of the business of issuing domestic partner contracts. It shouldn't be the Church's business. I hope the next step they take is to renounce the tax exemption and use their pulpit as an instrument of advocacy on voter issues. It's what they want to do they but dance around it, cuz they don't want to give up the exemption. The dilemma is part of their problem too; they can't say exactly what they mean. Churches shouldn't have to tow the line on freedom of speech anymore than they should get a tax break. It's an alliance that really serves neither side very well. If anyone wants to serve as an example of charity or of hypocracy, let 'em do it on their own dime.

The fucking religious psycho. You move in good company!

I think Drudge has been linking these stories all week. Our nice neighborhood has been overrun by the denizens of the trailer park.

What a great compliment from a low down, dirty mouth, insecure lady, getting its kicks in the alleyway. Dirty mouth? -- Dirty, not only by speech? Try ORBIT !

Is this publication strictly for homosexuals and terminators? If so, please tell me.

Are there any PRAYER warriors in the house? Bishop of Winchester Michael Scott-Joynt - A leading Church of England Bishop has warned that Britain has become a ‘cold place’ for Christians because of a raft of controversial equality laws.

The Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt, criticised the new Equality Bill, due to be law next year, which will force religious organisations that regard same-sex relationships as sinful to employ gay workers.

In a foreword to a report by the pressure group Christian Action Research and Education, the Bishop wrote: ‘The sad fact is that Britain – which owes so much to its Christian heritage – is increasingly becoming a “cold” place which, as any reflection on the fruit of Christian good works will demonstrate, is not in the general interest of society.’

He said there appeared to be a ‘concerted’ attack on the rights of Christians and when there were clashes, gay rights triumphed.

"By spreading the false fear that the government can force churches to marry same-sex couples, it's harder for same-sex couples to achieve legal civil equality."

I disagree. First, I don't believe its a false fear; governmental control of religion does have a way of gaining ground throughout history. Given this, I hope that if religious people could really understand just how against their own interest their acting, they just might finally accept the separation of church and state for their own protection. It might be a false hope that they could understand this, though.

"MIGHT I ADD WE ARE THE ONLY ANIMAL SPECIES WHO GO AGAINST G-D'S LAW"

Are you sure? There's an awful lot of homosexuality amongst non-human animals, e.g. the bonobos (the "make love not war" ape), a male dog I once had who loved my male cat to the point where we had to keep the cat away from the dog for its protection, a species of fish where the females become sexually agressive to other females in the absence of males, etc.

Either your statement is false...or G-d's law includes on awful lot more sexual variation than your human overlords would have you believe.

Historically speaking

Our government has never passed a law executing the “separation of church and state.” Let’s look at what the first amendment actually says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Throughout the history of our country the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have “reinterpreted” this amendment in many ways. This is the first problem with this picture. The Supreme Court is “interpreting” law in order to change existing or make new law. The Supreme Court was never intended to interpret law for this purpose

The First Amendment, which originally prohibited any “law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” has evolved into something entirely new. During the last generation, the courts, at all levels, have ruled in ways that essentially guarantee the freedom from religion, instead of the freedom of religion.

Excerpts from Yakah Blogger

Which makes you a perfectly obedient christian facist.

Four things:

(1) People I know have been talking about separating civil and church marriage for at least a decade. I lived in Germany in the '80s, and know that throughout Western Europe the two-step process is mandatory, in the sense that step 1 has to be at the registry office (the "civil marriage") and step 2 is optional -- but it can't be the other way around. You have to be civilly married before you can be married in church. I met a priest in Belgium who'd been taken to court (found guilty, and fined 1 franc) for having officiated at a church wedding for a couple who had missed the deadline at the registry office. Their family were all there from Spain, so he had compassion. (But btw, the author is wrong in saying the same system holds in Canada.)

(2) The writer who noted that no church has ever been compelled to celebrate any wedding it doesn't want to is quite right. I don't understand, given the example of the Catholic Church with regard to divorced people, anybody even entertains this dumb idea.

(3) I'm an Episcopal priest. In my diocese of Vermont, we have been authorized to celebrate civil unions since they were invented, and it's a dead certainty that -- whatever the General Convention does in Anaheim -- we will be authorized to bless all marriages we choose to, when civil unions give way to equal marriage rights/rites in September. But I still think we should get out of the civil marriage business; I advocate a pastoral solution: a community celebration in which a representative of the congregation (a JP if you have one, or someone else -- in VT and MA, and possibly in some other states, anyone can officiate at a civil marriage by obtaining a one-time license from the Secretary of State) officiates at the civil marriage and the priest or minister celebrates the church blessing of the marriage. Since we put heavy emphasis on "baptismal ministry," that is, the ministry of all the baptized, this is a much better way of doing things than having "father" or "mother" do it all.

(4) The author's analogy with adoption and the action of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts in inaccurate, in that the RCC actively *promotes* adoption as an alternative to abortion, and by shutting down operations in Mass. it is acting counter to its own purpose in regard to diminishing abortions in order to further its other purpose of disapproving of homosexual relationships. For churches to refuse to perform civil marriages will not diminish the number of marriages or make them harder to obtain; if necessary we can just appoint more JPs!