Breakaway Episcopalians look to US high court

Marcia Kear’s three daughters were married at St. James Anglican Church. Her mother’s funeral was there. She said she found the Holy Spirit there.

But she may have to give up the bayside sanctuary, where sunlight filters through watery blue stained-glass windows and glints off the flawless copper pipes of an organ purchased with parishioners’ tithes.

Kear is among theologically conservative breakaway Episcopalians fighting over parish property in a long-running rift over how churchgoers should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships and many other issues.

St. James Anglican, in the Diocese of Los Angeles, is one of several dozen individual parishes and four dioceses nationwide that voted to split from the national church after the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire.

“It’s not just about the building, it’s about the church,” said Kear, 70, who participates in group prayers for the property even while she says the congregation could continue without it.
The congregation may have to do just that. State courts have sided with the Los Angeles diocese throughout the five-year legal case, most recently in January. St. James has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes that it might take up what has so far been a losing battle. St. James expects to know next month whether the nation’s highest court will take the case.

Two other seceding parishes - All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood - are parties in the lawsuit. A high court decision could also affect the Fresno-based Diocese of San Joaquin, one of the dioceses that voted to split off and is now involved in a complex property dispute with the national church.

Both sides make similar claims to the individual properties beyond their legal positions. Each has strong emotional and spiritual ties to the parishes, and views its interpretation of Scripture as the right one. Traditional Episcopalians believe that the Bible bars gay relationships; liberal Episcopalians emphasize social justice teachings of Scripture.

The Episcopal Church has argued that its rules bar anyone from walking away with denomination property, which often includes large endowments and land worth millions of dollars. Theological conservatives who want to separate say they have spent years, even decades, spending money to maintain and improve the buildings.

More Layoffs at Focus on the Family

Antigay organization Focus on the Family announced they will downsize its workforce for a third time in a year.

Antigay organization Focus on the Family announced it will downsize its workforce for the third time in the past year, effective September 18.

The Colorado-based group will completely shut down its advertising department's creative division by eliminating 30 positions, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. It will also hand over its "ex-gay" ministry, Love Won Out, to a similar organization in Florida.

Seventy-five total jobs will be lost.At its height, Focus on the Family employed 1,400. After two other layoffs since September 2008, the workforce is down to 860. The group is also attempting to bounce back from a $6 million funding shortfall after cutting its budget from $160 million for fiscal year 2009 to $138 million.

"These are tough economic times," Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger said in the article. "The challenges have made us take a hard look at what we do structurally and strategically so we can accomplish our mission more efficiently."

Surface Area Required to Power the Whole World With Solar and Wind Power

Putting Things in Perspective

The picture above has been making the rounds of the internet lately. It represents the total surface area that would be required to power the whole world in 2030 using nothing but solar or wind power.

According to the US Department of Energy (Energy Information Administration), the world consumption of energy in all of its forms (barrels of petroleum, cubic meters of natural gas, watts of hydro power, etc.) is projected to reach 678 quadrillion Btu (or 7.15 exajoules) by 2030 - a 44% increase over 2008 levels (levels for 1980 were 283 quadrillion Btu and we stand at around 500 quadrillion Btu today). [...]

Dividing the global yearly demand by 400 kW•h per square meter (198,721,800,000,000 / 400) and we arrive at 496,804,500,000 square meters or 496,805 square kilometers (191,817 square miles) as the area required to power the world with solar panels. [...]

If divided into 5,000 super-site installations around the world (average of 25 per country), it would measure less than 10km a side for each. The UAE has plans to construct 1,500MW of capacity by 2020 which will require a space of 3 km per side. If the UAE constructed the other 7 km per side of that area, it would be able to power itself as a nation completely with solar energy. The USA would require a much larger area and approximately 1,000 of these super-sites.

According to the United Nations 170,000 square kilometers of forest is destroyed each year. If we constructed solar farms at the same rate, we would be finished in 3 years.

They did the same thing with wind power:

A 5 MW turbine can be expected to produce 17 GWh per year (they are 40% effective from their peak rated capacity - 5 MW x 365 x 24 = 43.8 GWh). Therefore, it would require 11,748,294 of the 5 MW capacity turbines to create the same yearly output. There are 500 million cars in the world so it's not like that's an unattainable goal from a manufacturing standpoint. And each 5 MW turbine is a 30 year lifespan money making machine for whoever buys it. But if we can build 90,000 Cape Wind size installations, we would be there on wind alone. Based on that installation, each turbine requires 1/2 square mile of area for offshore sites. This would require 5.85 million square kilometers for 2030 world energy needs.

Scientists were able to isolate two antibodies responsible for resistance to the disease in an African patient.

The discovery could be key to the development of a vaccine.

After nearly two decades of futile searching for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease.

They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one.
A team based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla reports today in the journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many strains of HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

Crucial to the discovery is the fact that the antibodies target a portion of HIV that researchers had not considered in their search for a vaccine. Moreover, the target is a relatively stable portion of the virus that does not participate in the extensive mutations that have made HIV able to escape from antiviral drugs and previous experimental vaccines.

"This is opening up a whole new area of science," said Dr. Seth F. Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which funded and coordinated the research.
At least 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, and at least 25 million have died from AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Two large trials of experimental vaccines have failed -- the most recent, in 2007, because the vaccine apparently made people more susceptible to infection.

To find the neutralizing antibodies, researchers collected blood samples from more than 1,800 people in Thailand, Australia and Africa who had been infected with HIV for at least three years without the infection proceeding to severe disease. Such individuals are most likely to produce antibodies that interfere with the replication of the virus.

Researchers at Monogram Biosciences in South San Francisco studied the samples most resistant to infection, then a team from Theraclone Sciences in Seattle isolated the antibodies responsible for the resistance.

They ultimately isolated two antibodies, called PG9 and PG16, from one African patient. The antibodies were able to block the activity of about three-quarters of the 162 separate strains of HIV they tested it against.

Immunologist Dennis Burton of Scripps and his colleagues then showed that the antibodies bind to regions of two proteins on the surface of the virus, called gp120 and gp41, that help the virus invade cells. These regions had never before been considered as targets for vaccines.

Researchers still have a long way to go to produce a vaccine, however.

The antibodies themselves could potentially be used as a treatment for infected patients who develop severe disease.

But the long-term hope is to find molecules, either synthetic or natural, that can stimulate the body to produce the broadly neutralizing antibodies. Such molecules could potentially be the basis for a successful vaccine.

American Idol Season 1 Finalist Jim Verraros 'Marrying' His Partner

American Idol season 1 finalist Jim Verraros is "marrying" his partner Bill Brennan on Sunday in Oak Brook, Illinois.

Said Verraros on the couple's wedding website: "I knew with Bill that I wanted to 'marry,' him. I put 'marry,' only because, sadly it isn't legal in Illinois yet, but we're hopeful that the time is near. Looking back on our four years together, we've come so far and grown so close together. He's not only my partner, but my confidante, my soul mate, my best friend, and the love of my life. When we're apart, I miss him and when we're together, I think to myself how lucky I am that our paths have crossed and intertwined. People ask me how I knew that Bill was the one, and I always say the same thing: 'I just knew. When you KNOW, you know.' This wedding is a culmination of our lives so far, and our lives from this point onward. It is so imperative to the both of us that our friends and family see just how in love we are, and how happy we are to share it with everyone."

Fate of Maine gay marriage law in hands of voters

The governor of Maine has signed a formal proclamation putting the state’s gay marriage law up for a vote in November.

Gov. John Baldacci signed the measure Wednesday after election officials verified that gay marriage foes had reached the threshold of petitions necessary to put the law on the ballot.

The gay marriage law was supposed to go into effect this month, but it was put on hold while the secretary of state’s office validated the number of petitions.

The announcement comes as no surprise.

Gay marriage opponents needed the signatures of at least 55,087 registered voters for the so-called People’s Veto, and they turned in nearly 100,000 signatures.

In May, Maine became the fifth state to allow gay marriage, and New Hampshire followed suit.


Maine Marriage Equality Ad Hits TV






Its Wrong to Vote on Rights: Peter Hams

Supreme Court to Get Another New Justice?

Could one of the most reliable friends of gays and lesbians be retiring from the Supreme Court?

Could one of the most reliable friends of gays and lesbians be retiring from the Supreme Court?

According to Change.org, it’s looking that way.

The website is speculating that Justice John Paul Stevens is preparing to hang up his robe.

First clue is his age: He’ll be 90 years old in April.

Second clue: The court is just about finished picking its law clerks for next year and the venerable Justice Stevens has hired only one clerk; he typically hires four, the usual number of assistants retained by the court's justices.

Stevens is one of the most liberal voices on the court, and has stated that the decriminalization of gay sex should have happened years before 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas decision. Stevens also voted with the majority in Romer v. Evans, the 1996 decision that struck down a Colorado law preventing municipalities from enacting antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people.

Homophobe Kern to face transgender challenger

Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern made headlines when she warned the audience at a Republican fundraiser that “gays are infiltrating city councils” and “they are winning elections.”

Kern won’t have to worry about that menace in her upcoming 2010 race for re-election. Her main opponent, Brittany Novotny, is not gay. She’s transgender.

D.C. Archbishop Donald Wuerl Is Mobilizing God's Anti-Gay Crusade

Like New York's new Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Washington D.C.'s Roman Catholic leader Donald Wuerl is jumping into the gay marriage powwow. And just like Dolan, Archbishop Wuerl is doing it just as the the debate is brewing inside legislative halls.

Dolan entered the fray just moments after taking over the top post in April. While he had his picture taken with Gov. David Paterson, he was quick to denounce New York's chief executive's support for same-sex marriage. Wuerl is putting himself in the same scenario: A renewed effort, led by fellow religious bigot Rev. Harry Jackson, to let voters up or down your marriage rights in the nation's capital is underway, and Wuerl just RSVPd to the party.

Yesterday, Wuerl sent letters — reading, in part, that "marriage is a path toward holiness . . . so as members of the church we are obliged to be all the more attentive to the challenges that weaken marriage" — to 300 local Catholic priests "reminding" them of the church's official position on gay marriage. Namely, that it endorses discrimination. Wuerl, who the Washington Post says normally evades such controversy and media attention, is aligning himself with other hateful faith leaders, including Jackson and other Baptists, in what could end up being a national anti-gay push.

Harvey Milk Day Passes Calif.

The California legislature passed a bill on Thursday to honor Harvey Milk, the gay rights leader who was assassinated in 1978, with a day of recognition as opponents of the symbolic measure appealed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto the legislation for the second year in a row.

The contentious bill, authored by openly gay state senator Mark Leno of San Francisco, also passed the legislature last year, but the governor rejected it with the claim that Milk held only local significance.

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Conservatives are pushing hard for Schwarzenegger to veto Leno's legislation, which would proclaim Milk's May 22 birthday a day of recognition and encourage schools to consider commemorating his life.”

Since last year, Milk has been the subject of an Academy Award–winning film, and the governor recently announced that he would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame.A decision on the proposal to honor Milk annually on his birthday is expected soon from Schwarzenegger.

N.Y. marriage vote possible this month State senator optimistic at prospect for same-sex nuptials

The New York State Senate's only openly gay lawmaker said his chamber could vote on the proposed same-sex marriage bill later this month — and he's optimistic it will win approval.
Democratic Sen. Tom Duane, who's gay and represents part of New York City, said he's not expecting immediate action on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York when lawmakers return after Labor Day.

But he said a vote is possible before the end of September in a special session called by Gov. David Paterson (D).

"We are not going to bring up marriage on Sept. 10," Duane said. "I am hopeful that we will bring it up when the governor calls us all back into session. He hasn't set that date; it'll probably be in late September."

Duane said he hopes supporters of same-sex marriage will be "popping up the advocacy" to encourage senators to vote for the bill, adding that he strongly believes it will pass if lawmakers are allowed to vote their conscience.

"I remain optimistic that it'll pass this year and it'll pass with bipartisan support," he said.
Approval in the Senate is the last major obstacle in passing same-sex marriage legislation in New York. In May, the New York Assembly passed legislation that would grant marriage rights to gay couples, 89-52. Paterson has pledged to sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Los Angeles Fire Was Arson, Officials Say

A wildfire in the foothills north of Los Angeles that has claimed the lives of two firefighters, ravaged more than 250 square miles and destroyed more than 60 homes was caused by arson, the federal Forest Service said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has begun a homicide inquiry looking for the person or people responsible for the wildfire, which continues to burn.

The blaze, known as the Station Fire, has burned for over a week in the Angeles National Forest outside Los Angeles. After a forensic investigation, officials with the U.S. Forest Service determined on Thursday that the fire was started intentionally, and they labeled the firefighters’ deaths homicides, the Associated Press reported.

The authorities did not say where precisely the fire is believed to have begun and whether they had identified any suspects.

A Trip To The Marriage Bureau

This video follows Darcy and Kate, a couple married in CA, to the NYS Marriage Bureau. They are seeking to change their last name on their Marriage Certificate.

Pope accepts resignation of anti-gay Penn. bishop

Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the early retirement of a U.S. bishop who has denounced nuns for sponsoring lectures by gay-rights advocates and directed priests to deny communion to abortion backers, the Vatican said Monday.

The brief announcement, keeping to Vatican tradition, did not say why the staunchly conservative Monsignor Joseph Martino, 63, Bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, had submitted his resignation. He took up the post in 2003.

Under canon law, which contain the “rules” of the Catholic church, bishops are expected to offer their resignation when they turn 75, but the pope sometimes asks bishops to stay on beyond that age.

The Vatican said that the pope had accepted the resignation under a provision of canon law in which a bishop due to illness or “some other grave reason, has become unsuited” to carry out his duties, in which case the bishop is “earnestly requested to offer his resignation from office.”

A spokesman for the Vatican declined to elaborate on the resignation because the Diocese of Scranton had announced it will hold a news conference later in the day.

The resignation came as no surprise. A local newspaper reported last week that workers removed furniture from Martino’s residence in Scranton.

The pope also accepted the resignation of Scranton’s auxiliary bishop John Dougherty for reasons of age. No new appointments were announced.

One Night Only: Dorothy in Hi-Def!

In celebration of the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, a special high-definition presentation of the iconic film will be screened for audiences in theaters nationwide on September 23.

Maine Marriage: Following the Money

As the same-sex marriage battle heats up in Maine, the Roman Catholic Church has stepped up its financial support to put the kibosh on marriage equality -- even as churches shut down because of dwindling membership.

Education 5X More Important Than Race with Regard to Gay Marriage Ban

A Florida political science professor and a UF graduate student are set to present findings of a study on Florida's Amendment 2, which passed last November banning same-sex marriage in the state, to the American Political Science Association meeting in Toronto.

The Gainesville Sun reports: "The study found education was about five times as important as race in determining whether a county's residents favored the ban. The results contradict claims that newly registered black voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama were a socially conservative group that can be credited with passing the ban...Controlling for political and socioeconomic factors, the study found each additional 1 percent of a county's population with bachelor's degrees correlated with a 1 percent decrease in support for the amendment. In comparison, each 1 percent increase in a county's black population led to two-tenths of a percent increase in support. 'There's a lot of evidence showing increased education leads to greater tolerance,' [professor Dan] Smith said."

Best-selling Bible to become more gender-inclusive

The top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text.

The New International Version, the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship, it was announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011.

“We want to reach English speakers across the globe with a Bible that is accurate, accessible and that speaks to its readers in a language they can understand,” said Keith Danby, global president and CEO of Biblica, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Christian ministry that holds the NIV copyright.

But past attempts to remake the NIV for contemporary audiences in different editions have been plagued by controversies about gender language that have pitted theological conservatives against each other.

The changes did not make all men “people” or remove male references to God, but instead involved dropping gender-specific terms when translators judged that the original text didn’t intend it. So in some verses, references to “sons of God” became “children of God,” for example.

Supporters say gender-inclusive changes are more accurate and make the Bible more accessible, but critics contend they twist meaning or smack of political correctness.

Pastor Won’t Cave on D.C. Marriage Fight

Bishop Harry Jackson isn’t giving up on his campaign to stop same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. without a fight. Despite the drubbing he took this summer before the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, Jackson released a statement Monday saying he and other opponents of marriage equality would file an initiative request with the elections board Tuesday.

Anti-domestic partner referendum makes ballot

A referendum on an expansion of Washington’s domestic partnership law for gay couples has qualified for the November ballot, election officials said Monday.

The “everything but marriage” measure broadens recognition of domestic partnerships by granting gay and lesbian couples all the remaining state-provided benefits presently extended only to married heterosexual couples.

After a month of counting petition signatures, the secretary of state’s office said that Referendum 71 had 121,486 valid signatures - nearly a thousand more than needed to advance to the general election.

But supporters of the expansion of the law asked a King County Superior Court judge on Monday to at least temporarily block the referendum from the ballot, arguing that election officials have accepted thousands of invalid petition signatures.

The new law was supposed to take effect on July 26. But the referendum campaign put it on hold, and the law can now only take effect if approved by state voters Nov. 3.

It would expand the domestic partnership law passed in 2007 that granted gay couples hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and inheritance rights when there is no will.

Lawmakers expanded that law again in 2008 to give gay domestic partners standing under laws covering probate and trusts, community property and guardianship.

The new benefits under the current measure for gay couples range from adoption and child support rights to public employment benefits - although any benefits that cost the state money, such as pensions, are delayed until 2014 because of the state’s recession-fueled budget problems.

If the referendum leads to a rejection of the law’s expansion, legislation approved in 2007 and 2008 would be retained, but it would roll back the additional rights granted in the “everything but marriage” bill.

As of this week, more than 5,800 domestic partnership registrations had been filed in Washington since the first law took effect in July 2007.

Iowa Officials Question NOM

Iowa ethics officials sent a letter to the National Organization for Marriage questioning the group about possible violations of campaign finance laws, reports the blog HRC Back Story.

Last week, NOM launched its Reclaim Iowa Project, a multiyear effort to pass a constitutional amendment that would overturn the state supreme court’s unanimous April 2009 decision legalizing same-sex marriage. NOM purchased $86,068 worth of advertisements in support of Stephen Burgmeier, a Des Moines–area state house candidate who wants to put marriage equality to a public vote.

The letter from the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board to NOM executive director Brian Brown, dated August 27, warns NOM that it will need to register as a political action committee if people make donations of more than $750 for “express advocacy activities.” It also clarifies that NOM will need to disclose its donors, in spite of the organization’s reported promise of anonymity to contributors.

“The independent expenditure process in Iowa is not a vehicle to shield political contributions,” says the letter.

NOM is also being questioned about its activities in Maine, where it provides support to Stand for Marriage Maine, the group that succeeded in placing a referendum on the new marriage equality law on the November ballot.

California AIDS Clearinghouse Closes

The state of California is in a massive budget crisis – so big that even the millions of dollars that gay marriage tourism would have brought into the state wouldn’t have solved it.

In the middle of the panic, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has used a line-item veto to cut more than $52 million in HIV programs from the State budget – cuts beyond the agreement with the state legislature.

The California AIDS Clearinghouse had to abruptly shut its doors last week after receiving word that its funding – all of it – had been eliminated.

The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center ran the California AIDS Clearinghouse for 15 years, working with hundreds of nonprofit organizations to help provide education, testing, counseling, medical services, and condom distribution.

Anti-Gay SC Lt. Governor Andre Bauer is Gay

Activist Mike Rogers, who was featured in Kirby Dick's movie Outrage and is known for exposing hypocritical closeted politicians, told Michelangelo Signorile today on Signorile's Sirius OutQ radio show that South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer is a closeted gay man.

Writes Rogers on his blog:

"I have confirmed and spoken to four individuals who I have no doubt are telling me the truth. These men have been hit on by Bauer, with one of them telling me it happened at least five times since Bauer's election in 2003. To a varying degree I have met with and believe the sources. And, as you'll recall, I have that 100% record. This was still not enough for me to report on him. Then another call came in and I met with the source while he was visiting DC recently. 'He's gay,' the source told me. 'How do you know?' I asked. 'Because I've had sex with him on two separate occasions.' That too, was not enough for me to report on without confirmation from others. I was led on a path to chatting with acquaintances of the source and two former employees of Bauer who served on his staff between 2004 and 2007. They reported to me that on on a total of three occasions Bauer spent hours alone with men hotel rooms. Each of them explained that the visits were with younger men who were not on the staff of the Lt. Governor nor had any official reason to be with him. The two men each confirmed that they had not known each other who saw this and each described similar circumstances under with these interactions occurred. One of them confirmed that he was told by the Lt. governor's visitor had a sexual encounter with Bauer. The combination of the reports and the first hand experiences were what I need to maintain my 100% record of being right in my reporting on this site."

Adds Rogers: "The bachelor is a right wing Christian conservative. He's done everything from defend the state issuing "I believe" license plates (complete with a cross on them) to defending the right of schools to use corporal punishment. In the presidential election he supported Mike Huckabee."

Should Governor Mark Sanford, who is under fire for an extramarital affair, leave office, Bauer is set to take his place as governor. Sanford continues to be under pressure from lawmakers and colleagues to resign.

Methodist Minister Comes Out to His Congregation as Transgender

Reverend David Weekley of the Epworth United Methodist Church in southeast Portland, Oregon, took a big step on Sunday:

"Just months after telling his own children that he was not their biological father, Weekley, who is in his late-50s, came out to his congregation of 221 members. Standing behind his pulpit, Weekley began his usual worship service. About halfway through, he paused to share a personal message he called 'My Book Report.' He told them that in 1984, just nine years after undergoing extensive sex-reassignment surgeries, he was ordained by the Methodist Church without telling anyone of his original gender at birth. Following his story, the congregation, who had remained silent throughout his talk, broke into thunderous applause. Church members then proclaimed their support for their pastor.' It doesn’t change him; he’s still Reverend David, and that’s what counts,' says congregation member Robbie Tsuboi, who has been attending Epworth since 1964."

Weekley has been married to his wife Deborah for 13 years and has served as a clergyman for 27.