How Religion Is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youth

By Bishop Gene Robinson

An increasingly popular bumper sticker reads, "Guns Don't Kill People—RELIGION Kills People!" In light of recent events I would add religion kills young people: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people.

Perhaps not directly, though. And religion is certainly not the only source of anti-gay sentiment in the culture. But it's hard to deny that religious voices denouncing LGBT people contribute to the atmosphere in which violence against LGBT people and bullying of LGBT youth can flourish.

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It Gets Better!

Find a religious community that affirms you!
If you are feeling sad or depressed, there are people out there that can help. The Trevor Project 866-488-7386. In Phoenix, AZ- 1 Voice Anti-Violence Project Hotline-
800-625-1822. In Tucson, AZ- Wingspan Anti-Violence Crisis Line- 520-624-0348 or
800-553-9387. There are people who care about you!

UMS: Voice of faith crucial to young gays

NASHVILLE (UMNS) -- At age 23, the pain of believing that God didn’t love him because he was gay was too much for “George.” He decided to commit suicide. But at the darkest time of his life, he felt overwhelmed by a loving divine presence and he clearly heard in his head the words “Don’t do it.” Listening to that voice saved his life.

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USA Today: If gays serve openly, will chaplains suffer?

By Arnold E. Resnicoff (July 12, 2010)

No, the mission is to serve all troops.
In 1943, four Army chaplains gave away their life vests to save others when the troopship Dorchester, which had been torpedoed, sank. Those chaplains (two Protestants, one Catholic and one Jew) comforted the wounded — of all faiths — with their dying breaths.

Read the story at USA Today

A Woman of Faith: Bishop Mary Glasspool

From The Advocate June 2010
By Andrew Harmon

Mary Glasspool, the Episcopal Church’s first openly lesbian bishop, speaks about her lifelong call to ministry—and the controversy that inevitably followed her.

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On campus, 'tolerance' and faith collide - The Supreme Court will Decide

One person’s religious freedom is another person’s discrimination. A Christian group’s stance on homosexuality will test this conflict before the Supreme Court.

By Tom Krattenmaker

Should a student religious group at a public university be allowed to bar a certain group of students from membership — gay students, to be precise — without losing its official student-group status, and the funding and other benefits that go with it?

From USA Today . . .

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on LGBT Clergy

You've got to really admire the humility of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The former Nobel Peace Prize Winner, not to mention the former chair of South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has a pretty unbelievable way of seeing the humanity in everyone, from former child soldiers to patients with HIV/AIDS to brutal officials in the South African apartheid regime. When he speaks, particularly about human rights, there's a certain sense of gravitas that comes with his words.
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In Africa, a step backward on human rights

By Desmond Tutu

Friday, March 12, 2010

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

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Where have all the Protestants gone?

So-called mainliners led the fight for social causes such as civil rights, equality for women and other key issues of the day. Now that American society has embraced such norms, liberal Protestant groups have become marginalized. Or have they?
By Oliver Thomas

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Ted Olson argues on behalf of marriage equality

Conservative lawyer Theodore B. Olson explains why he believes he has a winning case in mounting a federal court challenge, with David Boies, of California's Proposition 8 marriage ban. "Legalizing same-sex marriage would ... be a recognition of basic American principles, and would represent the culmination of our nation's commitment to equal rights," Olson writes.

Newsweek . . .