April 29, 2012

Pride Day Brazil…I could be wrong } Face Looks Familiar

All that work to end up wearing a brazilian hat on pride day!

London Schools No Place For Prejudice From The Church

In London the Catholic Ed. Service believes that we live in the “Barbaric years in which in what they say went. But not in Britain then. Not on London today. They are telling State funded Schools to take a stands against gay marriage. Well it just so happen they' re breaking the law. I know they believe the law is for us and not them but these bunch is very wrong in this approach. I’ll leave you with a posting from guardian.co.uk.
adamfoxie*

We were appalled to read that the Catholic Education Service had written to state-funded Catholic schools to push them into taking a stand against gay marriage (Catholic state schools promote petition against gay marriage, 26 April).

Brook and FPA do not believe there is a place for this type of lobbying. It raises serious concerns about the impact on the school community and on individuals who are gay or have family members who are gay. Schools have a duty to work within the equal opportunities statement of the national curriculum, and faith-based schools are not exempt.

The young people who responded to this naked attempt by the Catholic Education Service to induce bigotry and intolerance about gay marriage into their school day, by advocating for gay rights instead, should be congratulated. It takes courage to stand up for one's convictions, especially when this pressure comes from those in authority.

Brook and FPA support young people's rights to make choices based on accurate and balanced information. And this is as true for their political and religious views as it is for their sexual health decision-making.
Simon Blake CEO, Brook
Julie Bentley CEO, FPA

• The Catholic Education Service should not be seeking to influence pupils to sign petitions against gay marriage. This entirely breaches the spirit of the Equality Act.

Many Catholic schools will have students and teachers who are gay or questioning their sexual orientation. Students may have family members who are gay or lesbian. It is important that all our schools promote equality, value diversity and implement effective strategies to eradicate homophobia. Students in every school need to discuss human rights and be prepared for a world where gay and straight people are equal.

The Catholic Education Service has failed to realise that teaching what looks like intolerance about lesbian and gay people compounds stereotypes about gay people, and fuels prejudice. Homophobia can lead to hate crime and causes very real harm to LGB young people, even driving some to suicide.

Discrimination on the grounds of sexuality or marital status should have no place in any of our schools.
Christine Blower
General secretary, National Union of Teachers

• As a gay man who was raised in the Catholic church and attended Catholic schools, I am deeply saddened by the church's response to the proposals to change the legal definition of marriage.

While I initially dismissed the comments of Cardinal O'Brien (Report, 5 March) as irresponsible and misguided, the letter that was then read at Catholic masses troubled me greatly. I was concerned by how its contents would be interpreted by younger members of the church, who may still be struggling to reconcile their sexuality with their faith.

The church's campaign has now made its way into Catholic schools. As a trainee teacher, I am only too aware of the power teachers have to shape the ideas and beliefs of the young people in their care. With this power comes responsibility, and I believe it irresponsible to present ideas against equality to schoolchildren in this way. I can only hope common sense prevails, with schools choosing not to peddle the church's campaign in this way.
Andrew Devlin
Leigh, Lancashire

• Reading Chris Bryant's comments in your article (Anti-gay adverts pulled from bus campaign after protests, 13 April), I had to laugh. Not in an amused way. "The emotional damage that is done to the individuals who try to suppress their sexuality [and] the women they marry …" Sorry. I suppose I wrongly assumed that some of the "hurt teenagers struggling with their sexuality", or any of the other vulnerable, misled individuals who might be hurt by the campaign, could be lesbians? Silly me. Of course only men experience homophobia … only men lead double lives. In an article that takes care to point out the negative social and psychological effects of attempts to "cure" homosexuality, Bryant's comment reminds me of the double invisibility that I'd guess makes a lot of gay women susceptible to such campaigns.
Rebecca Balfourth
London

April 28, 2012

Fundamentalist and Progressive Churches Square Off in Gay Marriage

We have been bring in you more than the usual amount of religion and politics. As we sadly learned during our lost in California on proposition 8; Religion is not the solution but the problem. I could argue until you turn blue in the face and I have with some people all day long about how wrongly passages are miss interpreted in the bible and so on. But people tend to believe what is popular , "what's in". Other wise how can you explain, like Gore Vidal asked (Sorry Mr. Vidal I know quoting you as an excerpt not as actual words, l like you too much to pissed you off over a quote,) : Not only do we elect two Bushes but one gets elected twice. These are Bushes which every one knows have "mental deficiencies" to put it mildly.

I Found this article at Alternet.org and think it makes sence to pass it along and keep the discussion going of who are our friends and who only say that they are friends. Not to mention the raw influence the church have in people on a free society as ours. Let’s asume for a second as for the bible would be saying that on the first book of the bible Jesus says "I love men”…even is such was true the church will deny it will oppose it. By the Way Jesus might have said it or something like it.
Adam for adamfoxie*

So this is quite a showdown. There’s much talk of liberty, lifestyle and family -- and a whole lot of talk about God. As opponents and supporters target churches all the way from Appalachia to the Outer Banks, religious leaders are flooding the airwaves to share their views on a hot button issue that throws core values into stark relief.

Growing up, I attended a church in Raleigh that is deeply involved in the current debate. And I can tell you that the fault lines are deep – and often surprising – to folks in other parts of the country.

A Tale of Two Churches

The Upper Room Church of God in Christ, located in south Raleigh, is presided over by the Rev. Patrick Wooden, who describes homosexuality a “deathstyle” and presents himself as a zealous defender of traditional marriage. Rev. Wooden, an African American, launched his ministry career with a tent revival in a small rural town. Bringing a message infused with miracles and warnings of the devil’s influence, the pastor came to Raleigh to lead the Upper Room in 1987, where his congregation, by the reckoning of the church Web site, today numbers 3,000. Proudly describing himself as a businessman and his church as one of the largest employers of blacks in Raleigh, Rev. Wooden's teachings carry a whiff of prosperity gospel that appeals to those striving for economic salvation as well as spiritual. And he champions social views that have made him a rising right-wing media star, complete with spots on "The O’Reilly Factor."

A passage in Genesis forms the basis for Rev. Wooden’s view that God’s definition of marriage is strictly a male-and-female union. He rattled it off in a recent TV appearance: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Rev. Wooden is particularly incensed with those who equate the battle for gay rights with the struggle for civil rights. His comments on homosexuality, sometimes graphic, push the notion that gays are aberrant both culturally and physically. Who, he demands, could support a practice that forces men “to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels?” For him, comparing gays to blacks is denigrating.

Just a few miles away from Rev. Wooden’s church, just at the edge of the North Carolina State University, stands Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, where a different strain of righteousness prevails. Thechurch is led by Rev. Jack McKinney and co-pastor Rev. Nancy Petty, a lesbian who has made history as the first openly gay minister to lead a Baptist church in the South. Pullen, with roots in the late 19th century, evolved a brand of progressive Christianity under the leadership of poet and scholar E. McNeill Poteat, Jr., whose preaching emphasized an inclusive spirit uncommon in Baptist churches. In 1956, the liberal firebrand W.W. Finlator was called to Pullen, and under his guidance, the church opened its doors to worshippers of all races in 1958. In the late 60s, it was this focus on inclusiveness and social justice that attracted my father and mother (an Episcopalian and a Methodist respectively) who both taught at local colleges.

Finlator’s legacy of tolerance continued after his retirement in 1982, when the issue of gay rights began to emerge on the national scene. In 1992 the Southern Baptist Convention cast Pullen out for blessing a same-sex union. Today the church serves as the headquarters for the North Carolina Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality, an interfaith same-sex marriage advocacy group composed of state religious leaders. Last year, Rev. Petty declared that until gay unions are legislatively permitted, she would no longer sign marriage licenses, stating her view that “every time I sign a marriage license for a heterosexual couple and act as an agent of the state, I am reminded of those couples who I marry that are denied the basic human right to legally marry the person of their choice.”

Squaring off against the Rev. Wooden in a recent forum on the same-sex marriage amendment, Rev. Petty expressed her view that the Bible doesn't prescribe a single form of marriage. She has condemned Amendment One as "anti-family" and calls upon North Carolinians to stand together to "protect all people's rights."

Varieties of Religious Experience

That two churches of such dramatically divergent views could occupy a 10-mile radius underscores the complexity of religion in North Carolina, where clashes in the public square date all the way back to the 17th century, when Quakers and Anglicans struggled for control of the colony’s political leadership.

Allegiances break down along racial and class lines in ways that have long confounded and intrigued social scientists, who offer a variety of theories on why you'd have a predominately black church’s leader defending traditional marriage against gays while the head of a nearby, mostly white church frames the issue as an urgent question of civil rights.

Over the last century, the tradition of southern progressive Christianity, with its intellectual strain, was deeply entwined with the national political battle to secure support for Roosevelt’s New Deal. Aligned with northeastern churches like New York’s Riverside Church (built in 1930 with Rockefeller money as a cathedral to progressive Protestantism), congregations like Raleigh’s Pullen Memorial and Chapel Hill’s Binkley Baptist Church, along with divinity programs at institutions of learning like UNC, Chapel Hill, tended to foster openness to others’ beliefs, a tradition of combining faith and reason, and an emphasis on questioning dogma and viewing the Bible in historical context.

Meanwhile, the rise of fundamentalism and the so-called “newer sect” faiths like the Pentecostals tended to attract more rural, working-class Christians. Historian Ken Fones-Wolf of the University of West Virginia has pointed out that hard times of the Depression tended to reinforce rural-born Southerners' strong beliefs in the importance of God's grace, salvation through faith, the necessity of bearing witness, and the Bible as the sole religious authority. Ministers at these pulpits, along with those of most of the fast-rising Baptists, were suspicious of outsiders and reminded their flocks to be wary of associating with those – like labor unions, for example – who did not share their faith.

Which Side Are You On?

The primary election takes place Tuesday, May 8, but early voting is already underway. In addition to voting up or down on the gay marriage amendment, N.C. voters will make political party selections in a crowded race for governor. The hot button gay marriage issue appears to be driving people to the polls early.

The timing of the vote is thought by many to boost the chance of passage because of the Republican presidential primary -- though Romney's annointment may throw off that calculation. Over the past decade, the Democratic-controlled legislature successfully successfully blocked efforts by social conservatives to alter the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But now, Republicans control both houses, and last September they found enough support to put the question to voters.

Polls and denominational stances reveal demographic trends that resist easy categories. In January, the Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling found that 56 percent of respondents to a poll favored the amendment, while 36 percent would vote against it. Ten percent were undecided. The most prominent Catholic leaders in the state, Bishops Peter Jugis of Charlotte and Michael Burbidge of Raleigh, support the amendment. On the other hand, the state’s Episcopal Diocese opposes it. Black Christians, among the most opposed to homosexuality, make up 13 percent of the state population (nearly twice as high as the national average). Yet the North Carolina NAACP, which includes thousands of African-American pastors across the state, is against the amendment.

When my dad was a kid in the small town of Winton, N.C., his Episcopalian family frowned on the idea of his bringing home a Presbyterian. The notion that the state's churches are now divided on the issue of whether partners of the same sex can marry attests to an astonishing transformation in just one generation. The values voters express on May 8 will say a lot about the direction of southern Christianity. In a state where religion plays a central role, questions about inclusiveness, tradition and openness to change will send a powerful signal throughout the nation. There is an awful lot at stake - maybe even the soul of the South.

N.C. is the only state left in the Southeast without a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. What voters decide on May 8 will send a strong signal throughout the nation.

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet contributing editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of 'Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.' Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.

The Most Beautiful as in Pretty Man on Earth

You Be The Judge, as always :)

ent

Rational Thinking } The Enemy of Religion?

I have three years of Bible/Theology Divinity school. I joined because I wanted the truth. I wanted to get closer to god. Everything that people liked and knew nothing about intrigued me so much as something people were ignorant about., That is I wanted to learn. Religion, Diamonds, etc etc . After my three years you needed two more years of post Couses and you could become a teacher. teacher, which is what I wanted. The Director Offered it to me after graduation after 3 yrs and 3rd honor., Besides there was no post courses they were suspended for the time being. they were having serious problems, of Health on the Director, bad car accident on his sucessor and no $ coming in. This why I wanted to to post this article. if I posted it willl take a book and this blog is here to inform not post books, for you write I book…Adam for adamfoxie*

Is rationality the enemy of religion?

A provocative study linking religious disbelief to analytical thinking requires some careful analysis itself, says Philip Ball.

Psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan aren’t trying to make mischief, but their latest work on the psychology of religious belief is sure to fan the flames of debate.

Their study, published in this week's issue of Science¹, offers evidence that when people engage in analytical thinking, they are less likely to express strong religious beliefs. In other words, the more you’re inclined to think a problem through rather than to rely on gut instinct, the less likely you are to capitulate to belief in supernatural agencies.

The authors, who are based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, are clear that they aren’t pronouncing on the value of religious belief, nor suggesting that such beliefs are inherently irrational (let alone that they’re untrue). 'We’re just saying', they seem to insist.

A belief or disbelief in religious figures is underpinned by complex cognitive processes that researchers are only beginning to investigate.

GETTY

But such honest disclaimers won’t prevent some atheists from asserting that the study shows that religion is the result of bad reasoning, if not downright stupidity, for which the only cure is a hefty dose of analytical sobriety. (My experience is that it seems to be extreme views of any sort, whether religious or the opposite, that are the real enemy of analytical thinking.)

What this valuable and stimulating study reveals, however, is the difficulty of subjecting religious belief to scientific scrutiny. It is important that we make the effort to do so — not least to understand how and why religion may promote ignorance, bigotry and conflict. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to devise any investigation of ‘religious belief’ per se, because it takes so many forms and rarely consists of a coherent and consistent set of principles, even in a particular individual. It is like trying to study what makes people ‘artistic’ or ‘nice’.

Primed and ready

That is why the objections and caveats to this study are so obvious, albeit no less pertinent. The researchers’ general approach was to test volunteers — in some cases, Canadian undergraduates, in others, as the paper explains, a “nationwide (though nonrepresentative) sample of American adults recruited online”. Both sets of volunteers constitute only a limited sample, as Gervais and Norenzayan acknowledge.

During the tests, volunteers were either engaged in a task that surreptitiously elicited analytical thinking, or were given a control task. They were then asked if they concurred with a series of statements about religion, such as “I believe in God” or “I don’t really spend much time thinking about my religious beliefs”.

One of the attractions of this approach is that it can say something about causation. One isn’t simply examining whether atheists have a greater tendency to think analytically, but trying to detect whether fostering analytical thought increases disbelief. Apparently it does, and to that extent, it supports the view that scientific training might reduce religiosity.These 'priming' tests were of varying degrees of subtlety. One involved looking at Rodin’s famous sculpture The Thinker, or for the control group, a visually similar but conceptually dissimilar image of a classical Greek athlete. Another involved a word-sorting test, in which the words might or might not be associated with analytical thinking (‘reason’, ‘ponder’ and so on). It is well established that such priming can elicit specific modes of thought; for example, improving performance in analytical tests².

But what kind of religiosity? The authors state that they “focused primarily on belief in and commitment to religiously endorsed supernatural agents” — they examined beliefs in God, the devil and angels. That, of course, already assumes a Judaeo-Christian context, but there are plenty of devout believers who have no need of angels or the devil, and some who perhaps have no need of a belief in God in a traditional or Christian sense (Max Planck was one such example).

This hints at the key problem, which is (or ought to be) as much a quandary for religion itself as for scientific studies of it. Almost all of the questions in Gervais and Norenzayan's study related to religion as a literalist folk tradition — an aspect of lifestyle. This is how it manifests in most cultures, but that barely touches on religion as articulated by its leading intellectuals: for Christianity, say, philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and George Berkeley. The idea that the beliefs of those individuals would have vanished had they been more analytical is, if nothing else, amusing. Gervais and Norenzayan’s findings should help to combat religion as an indolent obstacle to better explanations of the natural world. But it can’t really engage with the rich tradition of religious thought.

Secret Service tru Her Out of the Van when Done } Rear wheels were Not

Fro Shasta Darlington, CNN

Romila Aparacida Ferreira told CNN she suffered a broken collarbone, three broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Brasilia, Brazil (CNN) -- A former prostitute plans to sue the U.S. Embassy in Brazil, alleging that members of its security team in December threw her from a van and ran over her, the woman's attorney said.

Romila Aparacida Ferreira showed CNN photos of injuries she claimed she received in the incident.

"These are the tire marks," she said about one photo. "They run down my side and across my abdomen."

Ferreira claimed she suffered a broken collarbone, three broken ribs and a punctured lung.

The story broke this week, eliciting a comment from visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The Marines involved were disciplined and are no longer in Brazil, he said.

"They were reduced in rank and they were severely punished for that behavior. I have no tolerance for that kind of conduct, not here or any place in the world," Panetta said.

The incident is the third to come to light this month involving alleged transgressions by U.S. government employees or military personnel.

Sources ID agent at center of Colombia scandal

The Secret Service has been rocked by allegations that agents engaged in heavy drinking and consorting with prostitutes this month before President Barack Obama arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, for the Summit of the Americas. Twelve members of the military are under investigation in that alleged incident.

New claims include an account from El Salvador described by CNN affiliate Seattle TV station KIRO as being very similar to what allegedly happened in Colombia. It involved members of the Secret Service and other government agencies, according to KIRO.

Ferreira, in an interview at her modest apartment in a suburb of the Brazilian capital, said she worked for three years as a call girl and stripper at Apples nightclub.

On December 29, she said, she and three co-workers left the club with a group of Americans from the U.S. Embassy security team.

"We had drinks and chatted and then we each set a price," said Ferreira.

According to a police report, the men, three Marines and one embassy employee, called for an embassy van and driver to pick them up.

While soliciting prostitution is legal in Brazil, U.S. military law bars service members from patronizing prostitutes, engaging in conduct unbecoming an officer or, for enlisted personnel, conduct "prejudicial to good order and discipline." It is also considered a breach of the Secret Service's conduct code, government sources said.

The lengthy police report has contradictory accounts of what happened next.

Ferreira says she was violently thrown out of the van by one of the Marines after she argued with the Brazilian driver.

Other witnesses say she was aggressively forced out, but not violently thrown on the ground.

The Marines said Ferreira was asked to leave. When she stepped out of the car, she received injuries as she tried to get back in, they contended.

Ferreira said she was holding on to the door handle when the van took off.

"That's when it dragged me and ripped the skin off my leg. I let go and then the back tire drove over me, literally right over me," she said.

According to the police report, the van stopped and the other women got out. Then, with the embassy staffers inside, the van drove off, leaving Ferreira in the road.

The woman's attorney, Antonio Rodrigo Machado, said the lawsuit is not about money.

"It's a question of honor and reputation," he said. "If money will make them suffer and recognize how much pain they've caused, then let it be money."

The U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, when asked for details of the incident, referred to comments made Thursday by a U.S. State Department spokeswoman.

"My understanding is that she (Ferreira) was initially in the car, she was asked to leave the car, she got out of the car, the doors were closed, as the Pentagon guy said, the vehicle was at rest, and then, as they started to drive away, she chased after the car, tried to get back in and that's when she was hurt," said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. "I do not have that she was run over by the car."

The embassy cooperated with Brazilian authorities and allowed U.S. employees to be interviewed, Nuland told reporters.

Ferreira said she is no longer working as a prostitute. She used her savings to start a pet grooming shop.

"I'm not that girl from the club," she said. "I started to think about what I wanted from life."

Ferreira says she turned down a compensation offer of $2,000 from the U.S. Embassy because it wasn't enough to pay her medical expenses or lost income.

Machado says Brazilian prosecutors are considering criminal charges against the Americans, including assault. But since the men are no longer in the country, it is not clear whether they would ever face trial in Brazil.