Showing posts with label Same-sex marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Same-sex marriage. Show all posts

Tuesday 24 March 2015

Hiding or opening attitude for same sex relationships

In this world lots of people seem to question their own personality. From the babyboom generation there are a lot who have problems with their outer-side or do not feel happy with what they get inside and outside not colliding.

We perhaps may say that there has been an "ethical earthquake" in the past decade in several countries. In Belgium people do not look strange any more when they hear the people opposite them are a married gay couple. for women going with women that was already long ago accepted, but for men it was much longer more difficult to walk hand in hand or to show their same sex love to others.

The gay parades and open same sex parties did not help but the opposite confirmed such negative ideas certain people had about gay people. Those events mostly accentuated perverse actions, though lots of gay people have a personal private relationship with one partner of the same sex, and are not interested in having partnerships with many.

Change in the feeling of the English people is notated by the results of the research by the Oasis Trust. According to the review almost half (49.6 per cent) of Christians across the main 11 denominations believe that monogamous same-sex relationships should be fully embraced and encouraged. More than two-thirds of respondents (68 per cent) said that their views have become more inclusive over the past decade, with 61 per cent noting that the shift had come as a result of "understanding or interpreting the Bible differently".

This is the most difficult issue, how to interpret the Bible and how to look at people with other feelings than your own.  I would say people should look more at Jesus and see how he went about people who were different than others, or who had an other ethic or other religious point of view. Can we see the churches of today take on such a gracious patient attitude as Christ did?

In many countries we also can see that the churchgoers have less problems about the gender issues than the church-leaders. Ten per cent are more likely to support gay marriage than their leaders, but Oasis found that those clergy who supported same-sex relationships were also reluctant to share their views. Some respondents said that admitting to it could put funding at risk, or even cost them their job.
"Whatever the stereotype, it's clear that attitudes in the church toward loving, committed and faithful same-sex relationships are changing,"  
director of Oasis, Steve Chalke said, adding
Many of the most senior church leaders in the country have said they support same-sex relationships, but feel they cannot state it publicly
"It's crucial that we keep talking about it."
According to the survey, the most accepting denomination of same-sex relationships is the Quakers – with 100 per cent of those asked saying that they had no problem with those in faithful same-sex relationships fulfilling a leadership role in the church.
Almost 9 in 10 (88 per cent) of Methodists agreed, along with 79 per cent of those who belong to the United Reformed Churches. Just over half of Anglicans (57 per cent) also affirmed their support of gay people participating in all areas and levels of the church.

The majority of respondents said they would be comfortable with their church leader conducting a blessing or marriage ceremony for a gay couple, but some people who said they had no issue with same-sex relationships didn't think churches should hold gay weddings. Five per cent said they were definitely against it, while eight per cent favoured a blessing.

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Tuesday 24 February 2015

Mennonite’s first same-sex wedding

In December last year two Mennonite ministers in Canada have officiated the denomination’s first same-sex “wedding,” holding the service publicly in a “church” building in Saskatchewan.
Anita Retzlaff and Patrick Preheim of Nutana Park Mennonite Church officiated the ceremony for Craig Friesen and Matt Weins on Dec. 31, which was held at Osler Mennonite, the childhood congregation of Friesen.

“For us, a wedding is supposed to be a celebration of our commitment to each other in front of our faith communities, our other communities and God,”
 Friesen told CBC News.
 “It wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t get married in the Mennonite church.”

I do wonder if the change in their denomination also has something to do with their interpretation of love for each other? They namely do have a new series  “Abounding in Love,” which they call an engaging journey through the book of the bible, First Thessalonians.
Though in it they see Paul modelling Jesus’ passionate and compassionate heart for those he is mentoring. There are many ways they analyse this passage. 

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Canadian Mennonites Officiate First Same-Sex ‘Wedding’


Tuesday 28 October 2014

Idaho wedding chapel to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines

English: Protesters gathered inside the state ...
Protesters gathered inside the state capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, to protest against the upcoming vote by the Minnesota House of Representatives to put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the 2012 election ballot. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
in the Prophecy Newswatch writes that two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.
 
It is strange of a country which runs so high about Freedom of speech such measures can be taken. Nobody obliges those who want to marry to go to that specific church or to have only that specific minister to wed them or to perform any church service.  Normally you would think in the United States everybody is free to chose his own church and to go to any church of whatever denomination.
So, I wonder what can be the problem and why ministers who have a certain faith and want to keep to their faith should be punished not willing to marry certain people. Why do they not go to another church?

The two ordained ministers Donald and Evelyn Knapp, who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene are at risk of being prosecuted attorney Jeremy Tedesco told Todd Starnes.

Clearly those wanting to go in patrimony should know that the wedding chapel is registered as a “religious corporation” limited to performing “one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by the Holy Bible.”

However, the chapel is also a for-profit business and city officials said that means the owners must comply with the local non-discrimination ordinance.

That ordinance, passed in 2013, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and it applies to housing, employment and public accommodation. But unto me religious services as weddings to not fall under such a rule of housing, employement or public accomodation, because it is not that institution which has to accommodate the married people in their belongings.

City Attorney Warren Wilson told The Spokesman-Review in May that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel likely would be required to follow the ordinance.

“I would think that the Hitching Post would probably be considered a place of public accommodation that would be subject to the ordinance,” he said.
 
He also told television station KXLY that any wedding chapel that turns away a gay couple would in theory be a violation of the law “and you’re looking at a potential misdemeanor citation.”

Wilson confirmed to Knapp in a telephone conversation that even ordained ministers would be required to perform same-sex weddings, the lawsuit alleges.

“Wilson also responded that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from the ordinance because the Hitching Post was a business and not a church,” the lawsuit states.

And if he refused to perform the ceremonies, Wilson reportedly told the minister that he could be fined up to $1,000 and serve up to 180 days in jail.

Now all of that was a moot point because until last week gay marriage was not legal in Idaho.

The Ninth Circuit issued an order on May 13 allowing same-sex marriages to commence in Idaho on Oct. 15. Two days later – the folks at the Hitching Post received a telephone call.

A man had called to inquire about a same-sex wedding ceremony. The Hitching Post declined – putting them in violation of the law.

City officials did not respond to my requests for an interview nor did they respond to requests from local news outlets.

“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jeremy Tedesco said. “The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended.”

Alliance Defending Freedom also filed a temporary restraining order to stop the city from enforcing the ordinance.

“The Knapps are in fear that if they exercise their First Amendment rights they will be cited, prosecuted and sent to jail,” Tedesco told Starnes.

It’s hard to believe this could happen in the United States. But as the lawsuit states, the couple is in a “constant state of fear that they may have to go to jail, pay substantial fines, or both, resulting in them losing the business that God has called them to operate and which they have faithfully operated for 25 years.”

The lawsuit comes the same week that the city of Houston issued subpoenas demanding that five Christian pastors turn over sermons dealing with homosexuality and gender identity.

What in heaven’s name is happening to our country, folks? I was under the assumption that churches and pastors would not be impacted by same-sex marriage.

“The other side insisted this would never happen – that pastors would not have to perform same-sex marriages,” Tedesco told me. “The reality is – it’s already happening.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told me it’s “open season on Americans who refuse to bow to the government’s redefinition of marriage.”

“Americans are witnesses to the reality that redefining marriage is less about the marriage altar and more about fundamentally altering the freedoms of the other 98 percent of Americans,” Perkins said.

Why should evangelical Christian ministers be forced to perform and celebrate any marriage that conflicts with their beliefs?

“This is the brave new world of government sanctioned same-sex unions – where Americans are forced to celebrate these unions regardless of their religious beliefs,” Perkins told Todd Starnes.

As Todd Starnes writes his new book, “God Less America,” we are living in a day when those who support traditional marriage are coming under fierce attack.

The incidents in Houston and now in Coeur d’Alene are the just the latest examples of a disturbing trend in the culture war – direct attacks on clergy.

“Government officials are making clear they will use their government power to punish those who oppose the advances of homosexual activists,” Perkins said.

I’m afraid Mr. Perkins is absolutely right.

Whenever a city passes a nondiscrimination ordinance it seems like it’s open season on Christians.

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Wednesday 21 May 2014

Division and defrocking because of same-sex wedding

Religious practices change all the time—just ask Catholics who celebrated mass in Latin until the 1960s or Protestant groups that started ordaining women as ministers in the 1970s. But are there certain core beliefs that can never change? 
Former Methodist minister Frank Schaefer on the division within the United Methodist Church (UMC) says:
"The church is really trying to sweep this under the rug and we're pretending we're all united, we're the United Methodist Church after all." 
For many years now several debates have gone on about celibacy and about intercourse with people of the other and of the same sex.

Conservative theologians within the United Methodist Church argue that Schaefer's defrocking was justified because church law, by definition, must be upheld — otherwise, it is not a church law. They maintain that homosexuals are welcome in the church, but that one should abstain from the practice of homosexuality. 

Schaefer says there was "no way in Hell" he would have declined when he was asked to ordain his son's same-sex wedding in 2007. "I saw it as an act of love," says Schaefer.  Others within the church saw it as an act of rebellion. 
“The ultimate debate is not over sexuality—it’s just one battle flag issue in the current culture wars that’s been going on in the last 150 years between traditionalist and liberal revisionists,”
says Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative Christian think-tank in Washington, D.C.UMC is experiencing a split in opinion on gay marriage.

Read more about it in: Religious Hoi Polloi
Matt Rourke/Associated Press
The Rev. Frank Schaefer with his wife after meeting with Methodist leaders on Thursday.
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Tuesday 5 November 2013

Bishop Marriage Equality: Praying for Marriage Equality Is Blasphemy

Marriage Equality, the infamously homophobic Catholic bishop of Springfield, Illinois, got his cassock in a bunch earlier this week when he heard that a group of pro-LGBT Catholics planned to pray the rosary for marriage equality inside the city's cathedral after rallying at the state capitol.

English: The photo was taken by Joe Murray, an...
English: The photo was taken by Joe Murray, and it is used internationally as the symbol for the Rainbow Sash Movement (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As soon as Paprocki got wind of plans by members of the Rainbow Sash Movement to pray for marriage equality before the 5:15 p.m. mass on Tuesday, he issued a statement calling such prayers "blasphemous" and warning that anyone who attempted to enter the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception while wearing a rainbow sash or otherwise identified themselves as a pro-equality Catholic would be blocked from entering and turned away. Anyone who prayed for same-sex marriage inside the cathedral would be asked to leave.
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Tuesday 9 April 2013

A so called man of God say Christ was wrong about marriage

Can it be that a  a man comes in the name of Jesus denies Jesus’ knowledge and teachings?

Reading the account of  Gina Miller  in Pro-homosexual ‘reverend’ shows profound scriptural ignorance about  Sean Hannity’s nationally syndicated radio show it seems this would be possible.

The Sean Hannity Show
The Sean Hannity Show (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On his show Sean Hannity had two guests taking opposites sides of the marriage issue. “Reverend” Oliver White of the Grace Community United Church of Christ in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently lost his church building and most of his congregation because he chose to support the radical homosexual movement’s war to redefine marriage.

Because Hannity is not constrained by the limitations of a TV news schedule and the need to change subjects every 5 minutes, as is so often the case on cable news, he was able to allow the on-air debate over the scriptural basis for marriage to naturally unfold to the point where the lack of scriptural foundation for same-sex marriage was laughingly evident.  

Mr. White made a boatload of outrageous statements, but one in particular stands out for its shocking claims about Jesus.

Mr. White dropped also this statement:
“I don’t disagree with Jesus Christ, but what I do say, that if Jesus were alive today, I think that he would be more inclined to say, ‘You know, I didn’t know it all’. …I believe that the Jesus who also said ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ would not discriminate against a person on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
Please do read more about this radio interview:  Pro-homosexual ‘reverend’ shows profound scriptural ignorance
and find Oliver White on the Sean Hannity Show: 
Rev. On Gay Marriage: Today Jesus Would be 'Inclined to Say, 'You Know, I Didn't Know it All'

You also can find video fragments in which the minister is quizzed further on his unique and ever-morphinginterpretation of scripture by Hannity and it's revealed for the audience that his understanding of sin and morality is quite pliable and able to bend to meet any modern need: 
Pastor: Jesus was wrong about marriage


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