Lesbian Evangelical Lutheran Church Pastor Ordained

The struggle for full inclusion of LGBT individuals in my church, the ELCA, continues to move onward. This is ordination reported by 365gay.com (http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/11/111907luth.htm) is one more encouraging step in the right direction. Here are some story highlights followed by my comments to the homophobes and hypocrites still within the ELCA:

(Chicago, Illinois) Jen Rude has become the first lesbian pastor to be ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since the denomination voted last year to temporarily leave it up to individual bishops whether to maintain the ban on clergy in same-sex relationships. The measure - the product of three years' work by a special church task force - was meant as a compromise that will satisfy both those who support gay clergy and those who regard gay sex as sinful. A final decision will be made in 2009.

Nevertheless most Lutheran bishops require gay and lesbian pastors to make make a vow of celibacy before they can be ordained. Heterosexual ministers are not required to make a similar vow. Rude, who said she is not in a relationship, refused to make the vow because she considers it discriminatory and her suburban Chicago church, Resurrection Lutheran Church in Lakeview, stood behind her.

Miller's predecessor, Rev. Paul Landahl, did attended the ceremony. Landahl, who now is acting director of candidacy for Chicago's Lutheran School of Theology, told the Tribune that the seminary's board recently approved an unprecedented welcoming statement affirming inclusion. Rude's father and grandfather, both Lutheran ministers, also attended the ceremony.

Like all the anti-gay "Christians," those in the ELCA who oppose full inclusion of gays insist they are being true to the literal wording of the Bible, citing the standard few passages about same sex activities. Like all true hypocrites, they conveniently forget some of theses Bible passages:

Malachi 2:14-16: You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. 15 Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. [e] So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. 16 "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, . .

Matthew 19:9:9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Mark 10:11:11 -12 He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."

Luke 16:18: Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Leviticus 19:19: Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

The list of ignored passages constantly is almost endless. Only the anti-gay passages get a literal interpretation. As I have said numerous times before, if one claims to take the Bible literally, it is an all or nothing proposition, not an ala carte menu. None the less, the "Christian" evangelicals who are the most gay-hating have the highest divorce rate. Go figure. I truly do not suffer hypocrites well.

Australian Prime Minister One Week from Oblivion

If this story proves true, some of my Australian blogger friends will be celebrating, particularly Magic Bellybutton who holds John Howard in at least as low of regard as I do the Chimperator. From following some of the Australian newspapers, etc., Howard has appeared to have tried to impose a regime agenda very much parallel to that of the Chimperator. Like Bush, he seems to be no friend of the LGBT community in Australia. Thus, I hope he goes down to defeat - the Aussies deserve someone more progressive. Here are some highlights from the Sydney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/one-week-left-to-save-pms-political-skin/2007/11/15/1194766869599.html):

JOHN HOWARD has a week to engineer a dramatic shift in voter sentiment or suffer defeat at the ballot box, the latest Herald/Nielsen poll shows. It confirms the Coalition has made gains since the campaign began five weeks ago, but not enough to win the election if it were held now. Conducted from Monday night to Wednesday, the poll shows the Coalition campaign launch failed to deliver a significant boost and Labor still holds an election-winning, two-party preferred lead of 54 per cent to 46 per cent. It leads on the primary vote by 47 per cent to 43 per cent, a slight improvement for the Coalition since the last poll a fortnight ago.

As if this was not bad enough for the Howard Government, a week from polling day a report arrived from a global committee of scientific experts on global warming. The findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change do little to take any pressure off Howard. On the contrary, the panel's summary assessment only adds urgency to the global negotiation to set up a new action plan.

"If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," said the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri. It just so happens that Howard has proposed that carbon trading, the mechanism for tackling emissions in Australia, should begin in 2012. Howard's allies in the Bush Administration tried to remove some of the more alarming elements of the report in negotiations with the panel, but failed. "We have to make sure that scientific truth is not suppressed," Pachauri said.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Blasts Anglicans Over Gay Feud

As I commented in an earlier post today, some elements within the Anglican Communion - particularly some congregations within the US Episcopal Church - are simply obsessed with homosexuality to the point of being utterly irrational. Hence, it is interesting to see Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu saying exactly the same thing and taking the homophobes to task. Here are highlights from a 365gay.com story (http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/11/111807tutu.htm):

(London) South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Sunday blasted the Anglican church for being "obsessed" with homosexuality. The denomination has been deeply divided since the election of Gene Robinson in 2003 to be Bishop of New Hampshire. Robinson is the first openly gay man to be made a bishop in the Anglican faith. Since then, Tutu told the BBC, the Church has become "extraordinarily homophobic".

Tutu slammed the worldwide leader of the church and Anglican conservatives in a BBC radio program to be broadcast Tuesday. Tutu accused Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams of failing to follow a "welcoming God" and said he was ashamed of what the Anglican Church has become.

"Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict," Tutu told the broadcaster. "God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. "In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality," he said.

Tutu also chastised Church conservatives who say that homosexuality is a choice and gays and lesbians need to repent. "It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual," the Nobel laureate said.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Sex Toys for Alabama Attorney General Troy King

Having once lived in Mobile, Alabama, in the years since I moved away, the state - or at least some politicians - seem to have become nuttier and nuttier and down right obsessed with all things sexual. The recent efforts to shut down the sale of sex toys within the sate by GOP Attorney General Troy King is perhaps the most crazy example. Fortunately, not all Alabama residents are taking this lying down. Even the conservative Mobile Press-Register has a column condemning the AG's efforts (http://www.al.com/opinion/press-register/fcoleman.ssf?/base/opinion/1195381246248290.xml&coll=3) Better yet, blogger Loretta Nall has launched an effort to encourage the shipment of sex toys to the AG's office. Nothing is more fun than to see a fundie exposed for the nut case that they are. Here are some highlights from Loretta's blog (a cartoon of Mr. King is set out above):

The Birmingham News is reporting that Attorney General Troy King might push for tougher anti-obscenity laws in the next legislative session because of a recent court's ruling that the current laws are too vague with regard to Love Stuff, an adult toy shop.

Now, I only have six words to say to AG King about his anti-dildo crusade..FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS TROY!!!

I think that Troy may not have any experience with devices used in sexual pleasure, so, I am starting a crusade to introduce Troy King to the fabulous world of ben-wa balls, rubber weiners and pocket tooties. I want to encourage all of my readers to purchase a sex toy of some sort and send it to Alabama Attorney General Troy King. I also think there is something fundamentally wrong with a grown, college educated, elected official who seems to obsess over what other consenting adults in his home state might be using in the privacy of their bedrooms. I mean...don't we have much more serious problems in Alabama that our Attorney General should address?

Send your SEX TOYS FOR TROY to:

Alabama Attorney General

c/o Troy King

11 South Union St., 3rd floor

Montgomery, AL 36130

If you participate and send a toy to Troy please post in the comments. I want to track how many he gets.

UPDATE: This seems to have caught on and is being carried by the following Alabama blogs.

Alabama Moderate

AntDawgBitter

Daily Dixie

Gordon Unleashed

MetaChat

As Owners Feel Mortgage Pain, So Do Renters

As this New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18renters.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) spotlights, it is not just homeowners who are losing their stable homes due to the surging number of foreclosures. As real estate investors begin to go under - whether due to having other rental properties vacant or acquisition/rehab/resale deals crash and burn due to the lack of sales in the housing market - many tenants are finding themselves sucked into the foreclosure maelstrom. I have had investor clients lose properties and the tenants are caught in the cross fire even though they have made every rent payment on time. I continue to believe things are going to get much messier. Here are some story highlights:

LAS VEGAS — In the foreclosure crisis of 2007, thousands of American families are losing their homes without ever missing a payment. They are renters in houses whose owners default on their mortgages — a large but little noticed class of casualties. Some live in big apartments, others in houses owned by small investors who got in over their heads.

There are no exact figures for how many renters have been evicted because of foreclosures, but a survey taken this year by the Mortgage Bankers Association found that one in eight foreclosures was non-owner-occupied. This figure probably underestimates the problem, according to the association, because buildings receive tax benefits if they are registered as owner-occupied. More than one million properties are expected to enter foreclosure this year.

“This is an explosion,” said Judith Liben, a lawyer at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. “This isn’t business as usual. These are investors that overleveraged themselves, and the renters are collateral damage in the mortgage crisis.” Foreclosing lenders typically evict tenants in order to sell the property, said Vicki Vidal, senior director of loan administration and government affairs at the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Banks don’t want to be landlords,” Ms. Vidal said. “They’re in the business of making mortgages. You need to recoup the money to keep the process moving.”

The House [of Representative] on Thursday passed a broad mortgage act that includes protections for renters. The House act, which the lending industry has opposed, would require new owners to continue the leases of tenants for up to six months after foreclosure. In a statement, the White House said it opposed a number of provisions in the House mortgage bill, but did not single out protection to renters.

“A lot of the investors were subprime, but the market was so great they could keep refinancing and make the mortgage payments with no problem,” said Anna Marie Johnson, the director of Nevada Legal Services, whose clients increasingly include displaced tenants.

Sunday Male Beauty

More Nations Dumping Ties to the U. S. Dollar

As the U. S. economy continues to head - in my view - towards a recession of as yet unknown severity, nations around the world are shifting investments in and exchange rates tied to the U. S. Dollar. Obviously, this is not good for the country with its huge federal deficit run up by the Chimperator and his out of control spending. It likewise is not promising for the high consumer debt of the average citizen either. Here are highlights from Bloomberg.com (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=azto7U.TmGX0&refer=exclusive):

(Bloomberg) -- ``It may be our currency, but it's your problem'' was Treasury Secretary John Connally's taunt when the U.S. unhooked the dollar from the gold standard in 1971, unilaterally rewriting the rules of world business in America's favor. Now the world is taunting back. Almost four decades after the U.S. tore up the monetary arrangements that governed the post-World War II international economy, the dollar's fall from grace amounts to a tectonic shift in the global hierarchy. This time, the U.S. currency is on the losing side.

Whoever wins the White House next year will confront two unpopular choices: Accept the fall in U.S. clout and the rise of new rivals, or rein in record public and consumer debt that the rest of the world no longer wants to bankroll. ``What we're seeing is a very broad rebalancing of economic and political power in the world,'' says Jeffrey Garten, a Yale School of Business professor who was the Commerce Department's undersecretary for international trade in the Clinton administration. ``The scales are moving, and they're moving quite fast.''

The latest tailspin was triggered by the ascendance of China and India, growing confidence in Europe's common currency, record American debt and trade gaps, London's challenge to New York as a financial center and a two-year housing recession in the U.S. For the first time, economists are raising the once-improbable specter that the dollar's monopoly as the world's dominant reserve currency is under threat.

``Part of the depreciation is permanent,'' says Harvard University professor Kenneth Froot, who has been a consultant to the Fed. ``There is no doubt that the dollar must sink against periphery currencies to reflect their increase in competitiveness and productivity.'' The Fed's trade-weighted major currency index bottomed at 71.11 on Nov. 7, the lowest since the era of free-floating currencies started in 1971. Against the yen and European currencies, the dollar is now worth about a third of what it was in the days of fixed rates.

``There is a loss of confidence in both the dollar and the U.S.,'' said Riordan Roett, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. ``It may only reflect the widespread dismay with the Bush administration, but it is obvious that the next administration, of either party, will have a steep uphill struggle.''

Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese Takes Step to Cut Ties with US Episcopal Church

With all the pressing needs and services that are needed by the poor and others who are unchurched, one would think that the Fort Worth Diocese would have more important things to obsess over besides gays in the church. It really makes me wonder why these people are so freaked out by gays in general and so afraid to recognize that our sexuality and its inherent nature was unknown and not understood by the ignorant, nomadic, tribal writers of the Old Testament. I mean, these same authors thought the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun revolved around the earth. Isn't it just possible, they were likewise mistaken about their condemnations of same sex relations? Duh, you'd thing it would be so obvious. I truly cannot envision the mind set/world view of the fundamentalists who refuse to ever admit that the Bible is NOT 100% accurate on all kinds of factual/historical matters. Their religion is a religion of fear and hate of others. NOT what Jesus preached. In any event, here are highlights from the Star-Telegram's coverage (http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/308682.html):

FORT WORTH -- Delegates to the Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese's annual convention took the first step Saturday to cut ties to the Episcopal Church, a move driven in part by the diocese's opposition to the ordination of women and gay men and the blessing of same-sex unions.

Delegates also adopted on first reading an amendment affirming membership with the Anglican Communion, which has 75 million members. They rejected on first reading an amendment stating that church and mission property within the 24-county diocese are held in trust for the Episcopal Church. Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and his followers say property owned by parishes and missions is held in trust for the diocese through a corporation. The second and final votes on those actions will take place at the diocese convention in 2008, diocese leaders said.

National leaders say that although a diocese may appeal to be dissolved or moved to another province, it cannot leave without consent. In November 2006, national leaders rejected the Fort Worth Diocese's request to be placed under the authority of an alternative, orthodox authority other than Jefferts Schori.

Some diocese members, including a group called Fort Worth Via Media, have remained supportive of the national church's stances. They say an attempt by the diocese to take mission and parish property would be immoral and lead to costly litigation. A measure approved by delegates Saturday would give parishes the option to remain with the Episcopal Church if they cannot resolve their differences through meetings with the bishop and standing committee.

My Son - Sunday Morning Update

I spoke to my son this morning (I will go visit him later this afternoon) and he seems to be continuing to improve and his blood counts remain good. His main complaint now is of hunger since he is not allowed to eat so as to avoid any added pressure on his spleen. He can only have sips of water and lifesavers. He's going nuts because he last ate on Friday afternoon. His mantra is I want a burrito!!

As I indicated in prior posts, I am really hoping that this whole situation begins a much needed healing process. My youngest sister and her son who is close to Pete's age visited him this morning and my sister said it went well and that he was very happy to see them. Since the divorce got so incredibly ugly and after my almost successful OD attempt last October 27th (2006), my sisters and the ex-wife really got hostile with each other. My sisters blamed her for me trying to OD - it was after a very nasty all day divorce hearing - and they have not spoken since then. The ex-wife was not there while they visited, which was probably a good thing. My sister works at Beach General and told Pete she'd visit again tomorrow when she's on duty. She said he seemed pleased.