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ROME - Two leftists in Italy's ruling coalition caused an uproar with fellow lawmakers by putting four dolls representing homosexual couples in the official nativity scene at the parliament.
Members of the small "Rose in the Fist" party, the two parliamentarians wanted to push for the cause of legalizing gay marriage and granting legal recognition to unmarried couples.
Bruno Mellano and Donatella Poretti had added Barbie and Ken-type dolls in the parliamentary nativity scene.
Parliamentary ushers removed the dolls with the miniature slogans in favor of gay rights quickly after it was placed.
"This is a vulgar and unacceptable double attack against both a (national) institution as well as a religious symbol," a group of women parliamentarians of the opposition conservative Forza Italia party said in a statement.
Luca Volonte, a member of the small centrist opposition Union of Christian Democrats, called it a "pure attack against the religion practiced by the majority of Italians".
Majority of Italy is Roman Catholic and nativity scenes are a common sight in homes, squares and shops.
Some members of the opposition even wanted the offending lawmakers to be censured by the speaker of the lower house of parliament.
from All Headline News
LONDON, ENGLAND - The British High Court has allowed a group of Christian organisations to challenge new gay rights legislation. Seven groups launched the suit after it became apparent that the laws would ban discrimination in the provision of goods and services to homosexuals.
Justice Deeny granted leave to apply for a judicial review. The case will come before him later this week.
The groups which launched the legal action have claimed the consultation process into it was flawed. Lawyer David Scoffield, representing the organisations, said the eight-week consultation process was too short and should not have been conducted during the summer months, BBC News Online reported Tuesday.
Scoffield argued it was improper for the office of the first minister and deputy first minister to make legislation which 'discriminates on the grounds of religious belief'. Similar regulations proposed in England and Wales extended the consultation process six months as 'further time was needed to consider complex issues,' he said.
Bernard McCloskey, acting on behalf of the office of the first minister and deputy first minister, said the applicants needed to establish whether there was a 'legitimate expectation for consultation' regarding the proposed regulations. He added there was no legal obligation to consult such Christian organisations, branding their collective assertion as 'merely threadbare'.
from Monsters And Critics
HOUSTON, TEXAS - Last month, a local landscaping firm prompted a furor here by telling a gay couple in an e-mail message, “We choose not to work for homosexuals.”
The message quickly made its way around the Internet, and the company, Garden Guy Inc., was bombarded with threats and hate mail. But since then, the company’s owners say they have gained far more business than they have lost.
In an interview Friday, Sabrina Farber, 34, co-owner of the company with her husband, Todd, 37, said the company had picked up $40,000 in new business in the past two weeks, while losing only two clients worth about $500 each a year.
“I’m not saying that to gloat,” said Mrs. Farber, who described the frenzy as ugly and emotionally draining. But she said they would not do it differently and deserved credit for not masking their refusal with excuses.
“Why can’t people handle it when you say the truth?” she said.
One of the two gay clients, Gary Lackey, said, “We’re hoping things would die down” and declined to comment further in a telephone interview. The other member of the couple, Michael Lord, did not return a call.
The law appears to be on the Farbers’ side, said Lisa Graybill, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
“The federal law of public accommodations says if you hang out a shingle or open your door you don’t get to say, ‘Only to whites,’ ” Ms. Graybill said. But sexual orientation is not protected. And while some localities, like Seattle, have adopted ordinances extending antidiscrimination protection to gay men and lesbians, she said, Houston has not.
The uproar began after Mr. Lord contacted Garden Guy, whose Web site contains this slogan: “Treating you with respect and honesty are the cornerstones of our reputation.”
It also carries citations from the New Testament — Mrs. Farber volunteered that her husband was Jewish and now practices Christianity — and a message against same-sex marriage that the gay couple evidently overlooked: “The God-ordained institution of marriage is under attack in courts across the nation and your help is needed.”
Mrs. Farber and Mr. Lord talked business on the phone, but after Mr. Lord’s references to his “partner,” Mrs. Farber e-mailed Mr. Lord to cancel their appointment.
“I am appreciative of your time on the phone today and glad you contacted us,” she wrote. “I need to tell you that we cannot meet with you because we choose not to work for homosexuals.”
In the ensuing uproar, the family had to change its private phone numbers, Mrs. Farber said, and turned over to the police copies of threatening messages like “I will sodomize their children.”
Mrs. Farber said her husband, who holds a degree in horticulture from Texas A&M University, had done landscaping for gay clients before but had become increasingly “grieved” over visiting their homes to discuss design and plantings.
Dumbfounded by the e-mail message, Mr. Lord and Mr. Lackey forwarded it to friends, and it circulated widely on gay Web sites. A copy reached The Houston Chronicle, where a columnist, Rick Casey, broke the story on Oct. 20, suggesting that the Farbers “should refuse to do business with all sinners.”
With the affair spreading to the radio airwaves, Houstonians have piled on.
“It seems to me the Farbers must be a little naïve,” a letter writer, Joseph Carroll, wrote The Chronicle. “Don’t they realize they are probably doing business with homosexuals every day? They should check out their pharmacist, hair dresser, bank teller, the nurse at their doctor’s office, the waiter at their favorite restaurant and the church secretary.”
The Association of Professional Landscape Designers condemned the action of the Farbers, whose membership has lapsed, and instituted a requirement for members to abide by an antidiscrimination clause.
In addition to the criticism of the Farbers, there was also widespread support. Mrs. Farber cited one e-mail message from “Eric in St. Louis,” who wrote: “Life to the Farbers who have planted themselves like solid oak trees against these strong winds of perversion.”
Mrs. Farber said she and her husband never claimed to be perfect.
“We’re sinners, Todd and I,” Mrs. Farber said. But she added: “My husband made a personal choice, according to something he felt in his heart. It was never a judgmental choice or a hating choice or even a choice that said, ‘Well, we’re better than them.’ ”
from The New York Times
The executive director of an organization that offers support to members and to the families of members of the "ex-gay" community -- former homosexuals and those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction -- has a unique perspective on the Mark Foley scandal. While reproaches and recriminations abound in the media, she says someone needs to offer the disgraced former Congressman and others like him a message of hope and truth.
Regina Griggs of the group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, or PFOX, says it is not enough for the public discourse to ignore Foley's homosexuality or to affirm its existence while condemning his immoral and possibly criminal actions -- specifically his alleged sending of sexually suggestive e-mails to underage boys in the Congressional Page Program. But even getting to the bottom of a criminal investigation of the allegations against Foley, she suggests, would not adequately address his situation.
"So why are we not providing hope? Why are we not publishing the facts?" Griggs wants know. And why is no one really telling the clear though politically incorrect truth -- about the link between his sexual initiation and his sexual orientation -- to "people like Mr. Foley, who decided that he was gay based on something that took place during his teen years?" she asks.
This scandal is an opportunity to spotlight two truths, the PFOX official asserts. One, she says, is that homosexuality is often the result of molestation of children and youths; and the other is that many of those victims have still managed to come out of the homosexual lifestyle.
"My concern is that people who are buying into [the notion of] 'born gay, cannot change' do not realize that there is hope and there is healing available," Griggs notes. It is important to give voice to these facts, she contends, because the message of recovery from homosexuality is being silenced by homosexual activists, who are instead directing youth that have been molested into a homosexual identity.
"If we want to stop this type of behavior, and if we don't want to see it reproduced, then we have to begin to provide information for all men and women," the ex-gay outreach spokeswoman says. The victims caught in this tragic cycle and other homosexuals "have to know there's an answer," she insists.
The teenage molestation incident that former Congressman Foley says introduced him to homosexuality is unfortunately a very common phenomenon, Griggs points out. And it is a graphic example of why treatment to keep sexual disorientation or gender mis-identity from occurring is so vital. "The truth is out there," she says; "it's time to make it known."
from Agape Press
NEW YORK - Sickening violence against homosexuals is nothing new, but using the Internet to lure victims elevates attacks from random hate to premeditated evil, experts say.
Last week, interior designer Michael Sandy was lured to a gay hookup spot in Brooklyn, allegedly by a group of thugs who exchanged flirtatious messages with him in a gay chat room.
The victim was robbed, beaten and then chased onto the Belt Parkway, where he was struck by a hit-and-run vehicle. He died days later.
Three Brooklyn men have been arrested and face hate-crime charges.
"One of the things that is particularly disturbing is that it just seems so calculated the way they went about doing this," said Clarence Patton, executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project.
He said that the use of the Internet as a tool for anti-gay violence was so new that his organization barely had a grip on the number of attacks but that he knew they were up.
"I do know that it's something that we see happening with more frequency in recent years, clearly as the Internet has become a vehicle for people to meet in a lot of different settings," Patton told The Post.
"Just in the last year, there were a number of Internet-setup cases on Long Island."
Police have said this particular M.O. - using the Internet to gay bash - seems new to them.
"I don't know if [the] Hate Crimes [Unit] has had a case quite like this one," said Officer Thomas Vierni, the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender liaison for the NYPD. "If something like this has happened before, we'd like to know about it."
from The New York Post
ROME - Two leftists in Italy's ruling coalition caused an uproar with fellow lawmakers by putting four dolls representing homosexual couples in the official nativity scene at the parliament.
