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What Really Happened in North Carolina With LGBT Activists and the HB2 Vote

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Did the North Carolina legislature do the right thing by refusing to repeal HB2 after the Charlotte City Council voted 9-0 to repeal the controversial bill that started the whole firestorm? Or did the Republican-led NC Senate miss a great opportunity to remove the stigma surrounding the state and do a major reset? When all things are considered, these legislators did the only thing they could do if they were to be faithful to their convictions and their conscience.

Before I explain why, allow me to give a brief recap.

Recap: How North Carolina Got HB2

In February, 2016, the Charlotte City Council voted 7-4 to enact radical LGBT legislation that would have in effect prohibited genuinely separate male and female restrooms. And they did this despite “more than 250,000 emails, more than 20,000 petition signatures, the opposition of more than 200 local business, community, and faith leaders, and the strong disapproval voiced by the overwhelming number of the 140 people who testified before the council prior to the vote.”

In response to this far-reaching “LGBT Non-Discrimination” bill, and before it could take effect, the state passed HB2, stopping the bill in its tracks and, for the most part, simply putting things back to the way they were before Charlotte’s rash actions. And Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill into law. (For simplicity’s sake, I’m focusing here on the most controversial aspects of both bills, first that of the city of the Charlotte, then of the state of North Carolina.)

Recalling the Nationwide Backlash Against HB2

The backlash against HB2 was immediate, intense, and unrelenting, with PayPal deciding not to move into Charlotte, the NBA pulling the 2017 All-Star game and the NCAA pulling its state championship events, and celebrities like Bruce Springsteen and Ringo Starr cancelling appearances in the state, costing North Carolina millions.

Gov. McCrory came under unrelenting assault for supporting HB2, while his Attorney General Roy Cooper, who was himself running for governor, strongly opposed HB2 and became the darling of LGBT activists.

Then, in September, Gov. McCrory stated that if the Charlotte City Council would drop its bill, HB2 could be repealed, offering a state-wide reset, but the City Council, with strong support from pro-LGBT activist Mayor Jennifer Roberts, refused to repeal their bill.

On the political front, the battle between McCrory and Cooper was neck and neck, with Cooper holding a small lead most of the time, even before the passage of HB2, and McCrory dogged by two other issues, one having to do with a proposed toll road and the other having to do with Duke Energy.

In the end, Cooper barely defeated McCrory, despite outspending him roughly two-to-one, with the help of major backing by wealthy gay activists and leftwing organizations like the Human Rights Campaign. And, I was informed, some local pundits suggested that without either the toll road controversy or the Duke Energy controversy, McCrory would have stayed in office, let alone if he had received equal funding for his campaign. So, despite the spin being put on McCrory’s loss, this was not a statewide rejection of HB2, as the Republicans, who passed HB2, retained their super-majority in both state houses.

Instead, this was a targeted strategy by LGBT activists and their allies to remove McCrory and make North Carolina an example. In that sense, the state was ground zero in a larger national campaign.

Now, with Roy Cooper about to assume office, the same Charlotte City Council that refused to vote on a repeal of their bill back in September miraculously changed their tune, voting 9-0 to repeal their bill with the understanding that the state would then repeal HB2.

“Let’s have a reset and go back to the way things were before,” they seemed to be saying.

Why then didn’t the state legislators jump at this opportunity to remove the reproach of being boycotted and shunned?

I can best explain that by reminding you of Aesop’s fable about the scorpion and the frog, which goes like this.

Analogy: The Scorpion and the Frog

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”

Replies the scorpion: “I’m a scorpion. It’s in my nature. …”

Now, I am not comparing LGBT activists and their allies to scorpions (or conservatives to frogs), but I am making a point about people and groups acting in accordance with their nature.

The fact is, this had nothing to do with a reset, nor were groups like the HRC saying, “OK. We’ll stop pushing our bills if you stop pushing yours.” If that had been the case, they would have repealed their bill back in September, under Gov. McCrory’s leadership, rather than refusing to act until he had been removed.

No, this was the HRC and the City Council and the incoming governor saying, “We’ll give you an excuse to remove your oppressive HB2 so we can now come at you with a flood of new bills in cities across North Carolina, bills just as radical as the Charlotte bill that started all this. It’s what we do. It’s our nature.”

Of course, LGBT activists and their allies will say in response, “This is not about our ‘nature.’ This is about what’s right. This is about equality. This is about fairness. This is about non-discrimination.”

I certainly understand that perspective, but that only underscores my point.

Mayor Roberts and her radical council members are not about to retreat from their larger goals, nor is the HRC, nor is Governor-elect Cooper. In fact, on December 19, the HRC issued this urgent notice: “North Carolina General Assembly Must Immediately Repeal HB2.” And the HRC stated up front that, “City leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to passing comprehensive non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people after HB2’s repeal.”

Roy Cooper himself said,“Full repeal [of HB2] will help to bring jobs, sports and entertainment events back and will provide the opportunity for strong LGBT protections in our state” — and note that these “strong LGBT protections” were the very things which HB2 was preventing, since these alleged “protections” were actually direct attacks on religious freedoms along with unwanted intrusions into private places like bathrooms and locker rooms.

To return to the scorpion and frog analogy, in this case, the scorpion was telling the frog up front that it was going to bite him. Why then, would the frog give the scorpion a ride? Why remove HB2 if, within a matter of months, there would be bills passed in city after city in North Carolina which would only multiply what HB2 was put in place to stop?

“No Thanks,” Says the Frog

It is truly unfortunate that North Carolina has been stigmatized and bullied by the cultural elitists — although, from what I understand, the state economy continues to thrive — and it is a shame that the city of Charlotte has engaged in such a dangerous game of political football. It’s also tragic that many in the LGBT community in North Carolina feel rejected and unsafe although, the truth be told, things were basically fine statewide before Charlotte started on its ill-advised activist course.

But the heart of the matter was expressed by Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who posted this on his Facebook page:

Charlotte repealed an ordinance that the General Assembly already voided months ago. I support HB2 and do not favor its repeal. No economic, political or ideological pressure can convince me that what is wrong is right. It will always be wrong for men to have access to women’s showers and bathrooms. If HB2 is repealed, there will be nothing on the books to prevent another city or county to take us down this path again. The left has already publicly stated the removal of HB2 is necessary for the rest of their agenda to move forward. With certainty, if HB2 is repealed, we will fight this battle all over again with another city or county. The names will change, but the national groups who are pushing this agenda will not stop until their social engineering is accomplished. The only thing stopping them are those of us who continue to stand strong.

Yes, “The left has already publicly stated the removal of HB2 is necessary for the rest of their agenda to move forward,” and people of conscience throughout the state have said, “Not on our watch.”

Where things will go in the months and years ahead is uncertain, but what happened this week in North Carolina makes perfect sense: A scorpion asks a frog for a ride across the stream but tells him it will bite him along the way, and the frog said, “No thanks.” (For more from the author of “What Really Happened in North Carolina With LGBT Activists and the HB2 Vote” please click HERE)

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Religious Leaders, Academics Sign ‘Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion’ Statement Against LGBT Agenda

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More than seventy-five academics and religious leaders have declared their opposition to laws that punish Christians and people of other faiths who practice beliefs that gender cannot change and that marriage is between a man and a woman. The signers of “Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion” include The Stream Executive Editor Jay Richards.

According to the statement, thanks to laws across the country, “people of good will can face personal and professional ruin, fines, and even jail time, and organizations face the loss of accreditation, licensing, grants, contracts, and tax-exemption” for holding to traditional views on marriage and sexuality. The signers also declare:

We affirm that every individual is created in the image of God and as such should be treated with love, compassion, and respect. We also affirm that people are created male and female, that this complementarity is the basis for the family centered on the marital union of a man and a woman, and that the family is the wellspring of human flourishing. We believe that it is imperative that our nation preserve the freedoms to speak, teach, and live out these truths in public life without fear of lawsuits or government censorship.

Endangered Freedoms

While marriage was legally redefined nationwide in 2015, many state laws require citizens who hold traditional views on sexuality to act in opposition to their views. One of those laws has been challenged in Washington State by florist Baronelle Stutzman. Stutzman, a Christian who fought her case at the state Supreme Court earlier in November, was sued for declining to serve a gay couple’s “marriage” ceremony because of her religious beliefs. She faces bankruptcy if she loses the case.

A law that could have jailed pastors in Massachusetts for using biologically correct pronouns, meanwhile, has been modified to protect religious leaders. Christians who are not pastors still face fines and possible jail time if they use pronouns that don’t meet the government’s approval, or decline to open sex-segregated bathrooms to the opposite sex.

Many of these laws don’t just target just Christians, but instead an entire citizenry. Perhaps most famously, North Carolina’s HB2, which responded to a City of Charlotte mandate that bathrooms be opened to anyone of either gender, reiterated that business owners have the liberty to make their own bathroom policies. HB2 was declared by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to be akin to racist Jim Crow laws that existed prior to the Civil Rights Era.

The religiously diverse signers say the laws “empower the government to use the force of law to silence or punish Americans who seek to exercise their God-given liberty to peacefully live and work consistent with their convictions.”
“As Americans, we cherish the freedom to peacefully express and live by our religious, philosophical, and political beliefs,” say the signers, “not merely to hold them privately. We write on behalf of millions of Americans who are concerned about laws that undermine the public good and diminish this freedom for individuals and organizations alike.”

The 79 signers included leaders from every Christian tradition. Among the signers are Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Albert Mohler and Paige Patterson, presidents of the SBC’s two largest seminaries. The list includes Catholics like Archbishop Charles Chaput, president of the Franciscan University Sean Sheridan, and scholar Robert P. George. Presbyterian theologian Peter Leithart and Orthodox scholar John Mark Reynolds also signed.

The statement was posted on the Colson Center website. (For more from the author of “Religious Leaders, Academics Sign ‘Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion’ Statement Against LGBT Agenda” please click HERE)

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Top U.S. Security Official Makes Speech on … the LGBT Agenda?

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Last week, the Obama administration enacted a rule that prohibits the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from contracting with groups that engage in “discrimination” against people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. According to National Security Advisor Susan Rice in a speech on Wednesday:

This rule means that any organization that contracts with USAID must ensure that all people can benefit from its federally-funded programs, regardless of race, religion, disability — or sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s a major step towards ensuring that American assistance is provided in a fair and equitable manner.

But “fair and equitable” have a specific meaning for the Obama administration. It doesn’t include the unborn. “Discrimination” is still permitted against the unborn — USAID has given tens of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups, and engaged in other anti-life policies.

It does include LGBT people. As Rice notes elsewhere in the talk, some countries punish homosexual acts with death, and a death penalty law was narrowly defeated in Uganda a few years ago. Her speech suggested that supporting the LGBT agenda is more important to the Obama administration than stopping the Syrian slaughter, preventing Russia’s advance internationally and protecting Christian refugees.

The Administration’s LBGT Pressure

Rice’s speech reflects how the administration has spent years blackmailing African nations over the LGBT agenda, demanding acquiescence in exchange for basic humanitarian aid. Many Christian leaders have refused to bow to the administration, but the pressure has continued. While some nations certainly have deplorable and inhuman policies, many times the administration has prioritized the LGBT agenda over fighting terrorism and stopping starvation.

She thanked the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and another group “who fight so admirably to promote equal rights and dignity for all.” Co-founded by Terrence Bean — who squirreled out of being found guilty in the alleged sexual abuse of a minor — HRC has targeted pro-marriage advocates to such a degree that a college professor told me he’s never sure if his family is safe.

HRC has also attempted to bully Johns Hopkins University into denouncing a much-cited study that debunks LGBT talking points about sexuality, and has led the dishonest-yet-successful effort to tar North Carolina’s HB2 “bathroom” law as bigoted and hateful. (The Obama administration has also contributed to this misleading state of affairs, with Attorney General Loretta Lynch comparing the very modest bathroom law to racist Jim Crow laws.)

Finally, after referencing the Pulse nightclub shooting this summer, Rice compared HB2 and state-based religious liberty laws to unfair and sometimes inhumane treatment of people who identify as LGBT in other nations. She briefly mentioned the cultural and legal LGBT fight in Indonesia, “governments in Central Asia and Eastern Europe” that are passing anti-homosexual laws and how that “in as many as ten countries, same-sex acts are punishable by death.” She then said:

And, in Syria and Iraq, ISIL has unleashed a unique brutality on LGBT people — dragging gay men behind trucks, stoning them, and burning them alive. ISIL works with chilling efficiency, often going through the cell phones and social media accounts of their victims to identify more LGBT individuals for slaughter. As we speak, the United States is supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces as they push to liberate Mosul, where ISIL fighters were taped hurling gay men off of buildings. As one Iraqi man testified before the UN: “In my society, being gay means death.”

Again, some of these laws are downright horrifying, and ISIS’ actions are the same. The Obama administration is right to condemn them, and put pressure on nations to change those practices and laws. But Rice’s speech shows that the Obama administration’s ideology on LGBT “rights” continues to go above and beyond what is right and just, instead giving state-sanctioned preference to the LGBT agenda over the rights of business owners, women and children. (For more from the author of “Top U.S. Security Official Makes Speech on … the LGBT Agenda?” please click HERE)

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LGBT Activists Are Coming for Your Children

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Do you need to lock your doors and windows at night because a homosexual predator is coming after your kids? That is absolutely not what I mean when I say that LGBT activists are coming for your children.

I’m talking about educators and government leaders; I’m talking about celebrities and judges; I’m talking about people of influence who want to indoctrinate your children even before they get to school. I’m talking about an all-out war for the minds and hearts of your kids.

Are you equipped and ready to do what is best for these little ones?

By all means, as parents, we should teach our kids to be kind to all, especially to those who seem different and are ostracized by their peers. And we should teach by word and example that bullying is always wrong. In other words, we don’t need to teach gay is good in order to teach that bullying is bad. In the same way, we don’t need to push every boy to be a football player and every girl to be a ballerina to combat transgender activism.

But you better believe that we need to take a stand for our kids — in the schools; in the world of entertainment and social media; in the courts; in the churches — if we want to keep them safe from this destructive and deceptive indoctrination.

Consider that there are YouTube channels dedicated to teaching pre-school children that you can be a boy or a girl or neither or both, also trying to teach them the meaning of words like “queer.”

Kids this age can barely tell the difference between fantasy and reality (they play with dolls and toys as if they were real creatures), and they have virtually no understanding of sexuality or romantic attraction. Some even think they are dogs and like to walk on all fours and bark. Yet activists want to indoctrinate them with the latest LGBT talking points. This is so wrong.

I documented years ago how groups like GLSEN were going after elementary school children with “Terminology Game Cards” that quizzed students and teachers on terms like Biological Sex, Gender Identity, Gender Role, Transgender, Gender Expression, Sexual Orientation, Heterosexism, Transphobia, Asexual, Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transsexual, Intersexual, Androgyny, Cross Dresser, Genderqueer, Gender Non-Conforming, Queer, LGBTQ, Sexual Reassignment Surgery, D/L (Down Low), MSM (Men Who Have Sex with Men).

And the average mom and dad probably have no clue that their little 7-year-old daughter just learned to distinguish between Genderqueer and Gender Non-Conforming in school today.

This is absolute madness.

Of course, I understand what motivates the activists and educators. They want to teach “tolerance” and they want a child who does not appear to be “gender conforming” to realize that their insides might not be in harmony with their outsides.

But that doesn’t make what they’re doing right, nor does it make it helpful. And the best motivation in the world cannot change falsehood into truth.

That being said, it is clear that LGBT activists and their allies have had ample motivation to change the thinking of Americans, beginning with our children, and already in 1995, lesbian author Patricia Nell Warren stated, “Whoever captures the kids owns the future.” (Published in The Advocate, October 3, 1995, p. 80, in the article “Future Shock.”)

How sad that these activists have been far more visionary than many of us who identify as conservative Christians and who claim to care about future generations.

Frankly, I don’t doubt that we care; I do doubt that we have been on the alert.

It is becoming increasingly common for women who partially transitioned to men to give birth to their children and even nurse them — this was graphically illustrated in one of the most disturbing images I have ever seen — while a recent headline stated, “Is this the world’s most modern family? Man who used to be a woman gives birth to a baby by woman who used to be a man.” (Stream note: You can read more about this twisted story in Jennifer Hartline’s new column “Back to Reality, Please: A Man and a Woman Make Babies“)

What effect will this have on the children? How will the child feel as it grows up and marries and has children yet knows that its “father” is actually its mother?

In keeping with this confusion, the hit ABC show Modern Family has now added a transgender child actor to its cast. How fitting (and ironic) that Modern Family will now feature an 8-year-old boy who is actually a girl. And your kids are taking all this in.

Over in Norway, “A proposed bill in the Norwegian Parliament would allow people to change their legal gender online within a matter of minutes.” And the word “people” includes children as young as 6-years-old. Yes, a child that young would have the ability to make a decision officially changing their legal gender. How can this be?

Incredibly, “The bill is expected to pass with few objections when it goes to a vote this summer. Norwegians would just have to go online and simply ‘tick a box’ to change their legal gender.”

Back here in the States, the Obama administration is ready to punish schools that will not force a 15-year-old girl to share a locker room and shower with a 15-year-old boy who identifies as a girl. This is why I say that LGBT activists (and their allies) are coming after your children.

Perhaps we can learn from the people of Mexico who recently rallied in more than 130 cities and drew crowds of over 200,000 in Mexico City alone, as they stood against redefining marriage and family in their country.

And we can do this without hating anyone. In fact, love requires us to act. Our children’s future is at stake. (For more from the author of “LGBT Activists Are Coming for Your Children” please click HERE)

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Meet the GOP Billionaire Behind the LGBT Push

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It is not surprising that those seeking to advance the LGBT agenda would work through left-leaning organizations, but one billionaire who has his eye on millennials has begun partnering with Hobby Lobby and its Museum of the Bible. Paul Singer has been targeting Republican candidates, lawmakers and the Republican Party platform. Now, he is reaching out to Christian students on college campuses.

Singer has an elaborate funding and organizational scheme that appears to support Christians and gain their goodwill while at the same time working against them to advance his same-sex marriage and LGBT agenda. One of the organizations Singer heavily funds created false propaganda that was published in the Washington Post by editorial board member Jonathan Capehart.

Purporting to show an interconnecting “enemies of equality” network, Capehart’s article is based entirely upon a chart created by Freedom for All Americans. Capehart refused to respond to multiple attempts to set the record straight. As an out homosexual who regularly appears on MSNBC, truth about LGBT issues must not matter to Capehart.

The chart and Capehart’s article depicting a vast “right wing conspiracy” are false. The chart also makes false allegations about Liberty Counsel and the other named people and groups. But, as will be discussed below, the inclusion of Hobby Lobby raises special attention to Singer’s activities and reveals how he uses a well-known Christian organization.

Billionaire New York hedge-fund manager Paul Singer and Tim Gill are behind Freedom for All Americans, which produced the false propaganda. Singer and Gill, the founder of Quark, are leading financial supporters of same-sex marriage and the LGBT agenda. Singer is also behind the American Unity PAC, which works to elect pro-LGBT advocates to public office, and American Unity Fund, a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization whose mission is to advance the LGBT agenda. This group hosted a “Big Tent Brunch” at the Republican National Convention featuring Montel Williams, Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner, elected officials and delegates. (Read more from “Meet the GOP Billionaire Behind the LGBT Push” HERE)

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Republican Says He Accidentally Voted for LGBT Amendment

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Make that 42, not 43, Republicans who voted with Democrats for the controversial LGBT amendment in the House of Representatives.

When the amendment passed late Wednesday night, 223-195, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., voted for the measure but only by accident. The next day, Shimkus entered a statement into the congressional record to clarify his gaffe.

“My position on this issue has not and will not change,” Shimkus said in a press release. “I’ve consistently defended religious liberty and I always will. During a series of 14 votes on the House floor, I accidentally cast a ‘yea’ vote for the Maloney amendment when I intended to vote ‘nay.’”

Though the veteran Illinois representative did not cast the deciding vote and while the underlying bill with the LGBT amendment attached ultimately failed, Shimkus added that he “regrets the mistake.”

The apparent blunder comes during the middle of an unforeseen and controversial battle that threatens to derail the entire appropriations process.

Shimkus is not the first representative in Congress to unknowingly cast the wrong vote. The House of Representatives records votes using an electronic system first introduced in 1973. Small and narrow voting buttons allow a member to vote yea, nay, or present.

Supporters describe the amendment—introduced by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y.—as an effort to prohibit federal contractors from discrimination against members of the LGBT community on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Opponents characterize the measure as a violation of conscience rights.

An intentional vote for the Maloney amendment would mark a significant shift for Shimkus. The Illinois representative voted against the amendment when it was first introduced to a separate appropriations bill.

Shimkus also supported other legislation to curb President Barack Obama’s transgender bathroom directive. (For more from the author of “Republican Says He Accidentally Voted for LGBT Amendment” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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Richest Indian State Announces Plans to Cure Homosexuals

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By Sara Malm. An Indian state minister has announced plans to open treatment centres for the LGBT community to ‘make them normal’, comparing homosexuals to alcoholics.

Ramesh Tawadkar, Goa’s minister for sport and youth, said the government in the popular tourist resort would ‘cure’ homosexuals with ‘training and medicines’.

Tawadkar, a representative of right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, sparked outrage with the comments, made during a press conference yesterday.

‘We will make them normal. We will have centres for them, like Alcoholics Anonymous centres,’ Tawadkar said, adding that the Goa government would ‘train them and give them medicines too’. (Read more about the facility being created to cure homosexuals HERE)

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Former VP of Christian Reparative Therapy Group Exodus International Admits He is a Homosexual

By Billy Hallowell. Randy Thomas, the former executive vice-president of Exodus International, a now defunct, ex-gay Christian organization, and a self-described former “ex-gay poster boy“ announced in a blog post Monday that he’s gay.

In a piece titled, “A Peaceful Disclosure – I Am Gay,” Thomas wrote that the suicide of a man he once dated before he joined the ex-gay movement more than two decades ago, in part, led him to rethink how he addresses his sexuality.

Thomas also explained how additional circumstances in recent years have led him to question his beliefs and to reevaluate, asking key questions about himself and his journey. This process began to ramp up after organizational turmoil within Exodus began to take root in 2011, he said. (Read more from this story HERE)
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Update: Indian Minister Backtracks on Comments About Homosexuals

Ramesh Tawadkar claimed [today that] he was misquoted even as Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar did some damage control to say homosexuality is not a “disease”.

“I was misunderstood and misquoted. I was not talking about the LGBT (youths) but about drug addicted and sexually abused youths,” Tawadkar told PTI, as local channels in Goa continued to air the footage in which he assured medical treatment to LGBT youths to make them “normal”. (Read more from this story HERE)

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LGBT Activist, Lesbian Hired as the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford

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the-very-reverend-dr.-jane-shawThe church needs to focus more on art and less on religion and converting people in an effort to become less “churchy,” according to Stanford University’s Dean for Religious Life, The Very Reverend Dr. Jane Shaw.

“I think people are always slightly surprised that I’m not very churchy as a person,” Shaw told the Palo Alto Online in an interview. “I don’t think church is to be more churchy. I think church is about, anyone should be welcome. I’m really interested in how you welcome many different kind of constituencies, certainly not convert them, not even necessarily to do religion all the time.”

Stanford announced that Shaw, 51, was to join the school’s Department of Religious Studies in July as a dean and professor of religious studies, moving to the school from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. At Grace Cathedral, Shaw was not only the first woman to head the church, but the first openly lesbian dean.

Shaw, hailed as a “champion within the LGBT community” by the Palo Alto Online, was a founding member of the Chicago Consultation, a think tank made up of Anglican and Episcopal bishops, clergy, and lay people who support the full inclusion of LGBT people into the church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

According to the university’s press release, Shaw is to “provide spiritual, religious and ethical leadership to the university community, serve as minister of Memorial Church and also teach undergraduates and graduate students as a professor of religious studies.” (Read more about the lesbian hired as dean HERE)

Gay Rights Group: Immigration Deal ‘Leaves Out Too Many LGBT Immigrant Families’

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) welcomed President Barack Obama’s amnesty deal, but criticized it for excluding too many LGBT immigrant families.

“We applaud the vision and courage of our President in making good on his promise to act on immigration reform. We know that this is a first step and we are gratified that many of the cruel policies of the past will be replaced with more humane and effective strategies,” NCLR Policy Director Maya Rupert said in a statement Thursday night.

“However, we remain deeply concerned that the plan leaves out too many LGBT immigrant families. LGBT families are less likely to have legally recognized or biological relationships with each other, and thus relief based wholly on familial ties will exclude too many LGBT families,” Rupert said.

NCLR is a national legal organization committed to advancing the human and civil rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education, according to its website.

Read more from this story HERE.

In Arizona, GOP Shows How Easily It Will Cave On Religious Liberty

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Photo Credit: The Federalist Arizona is populated largely by warty, crooked-fingered Christians who were waiting excitedly to eject LGBT people from their restaurants, flower shops, and laundromats until Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062.

This is the only conclusion one can draw from the hysterical claims peddled by LGBT activists, business leaders, and several prominent Republicans about the infamous religious liberty bill. If the bill were to have been signed into law, we were led to believe that Arizona’s economic competitiveness and international reputation would have been disastrously diminished.

All of the explicit and implicit claims about the negative consequences of SB 1062 were founded in ignorance—in most cases willful, blameworthy ignorance.

Here’s what you need to know about religious liberty and LGBT rights in Arizona.

In 1990, the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith established that a “neutral law of general applicability” could impinge on religious practice without violating the First Amendment. Alarmed at this erosion of traditional religious liberty protections, Congress responded by passing nearly unanimously the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which applies the highest level of judicial scrutiny to laws which restrict religious practice.

Read more this story HERE.