St. Mary's Summer School of Faith 2023 with Charles Craigmile

I'm a huge fan of Charles Craigmile's theology classes, and have followed him about 10 years now.  I'm usually a little behind. I just found the 2023 list of classes, but haven't watched them yet.  I wish St. Mary's would put the classes on a podcast, although he also has good visuals.

In 2023, Charles Craigmile presented a series of sessions at St. Mary’s in Lake Forest as part of their Adult Education program1. The sessions covered various topics related to the Catholic faith and were held weekly on Tuesday nights. Here are some of the topics that were covered: 

https://youtu.be/d9qpfZBFUU4?si=Y8GNDtyxN0ThOvAC  2023 Summer School of Faith

The Identity and Mission of the Catholic Church
Grace & the Sacraments and the Spiritual Life
Living a Moral Life and Contemporary Moral Issues (marriage, divorce, contraception, abortion, IVF, homosexuality, etc.)
Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell

Collecting My Thoughts: Summer School of Faith 2022, Vatican II

Restoring the sacred in a secular age.  Series for 2019   https://youtu.be/AcS6WXVr6GU?si=jykqmBkfm2WrC7QW

Collecting My Thoughts: Summer School of Faith-Sixth, 2018-Charles Craigmile, Culture Lost, Culture Reclaimed

Letter to God by a mother for her gay son

I've enjoyed listening to Becket Cook's podcasts. He's a celibate man who gave up the gay lifestyle 12 or 13 years ago after becoming a Christian (and that story alone is amazing). He has since attended seminary and has a popular podcast where he interviews many of the people from his former Hollywood life. But yesterday he told about a letter his mother wrote to God before his conversion, that he never knew about. His mother knew about his homosexuality, but she never condemned or nagged him and they remained very close speaking on the phone every night. His sister-in-law found the letter recently (mother died in 2016) and he reads it on his program. In the letter she claims many Bible verses for him and her, and lists about 12 specific requests including protection from HIV. If you have a child you're praying for who has left or never found the Christian life, perhaps you can be Becket's mom or St. Augustine's mother Monica. It's a beautiful prayer.

A Mother's Prayer for Her Gay Son - The Becket Cook Show - Omny.fm

From the web page: The Becket Cook Show

"The Becket Cook Show was created by Becket Cook to discuss relevant topics and to crush the lies of culture with truth. Becket Cook was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. After graduating from college, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of writing and acting, finding success in both. He eventually became a production designer working on fashion shoots for brands such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Gap, L'Oréal Paris, and Nike. Becket lived as a gay man until 2009, when he reluctantly agreed to attend a church service at which he was transformed by the gospel and gave his life to Christ. He also knew that homosexuality was a sin and that he could no longer live that life. Becket spends much of his time in ministry speaking at churches, universities, and conferences helping people understand this issue biblically, theologically, culturally, and personally. Becket graduated from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in 2017 with a Master of Arts in Theology."

What's next after transgenderism?

What rights group will be next for the Democrats to elevate to top victim heap they need to protect for political power?

The only rights group with any credibility and truly victims of injustice we generally call the "civil rights movement" of the 1950s-1960s and they were black citizens, or African Americans. This movement had been going on for decades and was lead primarily by blacks with political pushing by the Republicans. They worked for years to pass anti-lynching legislation (always stopped by Democrats) and civil rights legislation (were finally successful after years of Democratic blocking) when under Eisenhower the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed. Civil Rights Act of 1957 | Eisenhower Presidential Library (eisenhowerlibrary.gov)

With the 1970s came Feminism. Possibly it had a few victims, but it brought it's own problems. Marriages failed and children began their childhood in day care. It was mostly legislation about safety, employment and sports. It got a big shot in the butt with #MeToo.

After Feminism, the attention turned to homosexuality, discrimination, marriage, and AIDS. Or as it's loosely known, the gay culture, or Queer culture, an umbrella term they use, not me.
After the Defense of Marriage Act (1996-2015) failed and homosexuals had the legal right to marry and divorce, there was so much money left in the coffers by the big donors, they needed another cause to add to the movement now called Intersectionality which had by then become radically cultural Marxism.

And that's how Transgenderism rose to the top. With less than 1% of the population and being biologically impossible. The current group at the head of the banquet leaves women and minorities to eat table scraps. And it's destroyed the concept of safety from sexual assault and women's sports. We now in a very short time have "affirming surgery," "chest feeding," male athletes competing in women's sports, and chemical or surgical castration of young boys and men. Oh yes, and drag queens at story hours.

No one loves a victim like the Democrat party. Who's next? They are in the kitchen making the sausage. Will you join?

Gender and sexuality alliance clubs in our schools

"The main national organization behind this campaign, the GSA Network, is a professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states. Once called the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the group rebranded in 2016, reflecting a new focus on “the limits of a binary gender system.” The individual chapters, which operate in elementary, middle, and high schools, often use the language of “LGBTQ inclusion” and “anti-bullying” in their public relations, but behind the scenes, the central organization is driven by pure left-wing radicalism that extends far beyond sexuality."

GSA isn't subtle about it's goals. It's not just to sexualize your children--comes complete with the usual anti-capitalist pro-Marxist drivel. I wonder who is funding these clubs?

"In a manifesto, the organization calls for the “abolition of the police,” the “abolition of borders and ICE,” the payment of “reparations” to minorities, the “decolonization” of native lands, the end of “global white supremacy,” and the overthrow of the “cisgender heterosexual patriarchy.” The organization is also explicitly anti-capitalist: its literature is littered with references to “anti-capitalism” and, during one board meeting, its leaders fantasized about what life would be like “after capitalism falls.”

GSA Clubs Smuggle Gender Ideology into K-12 Education (city-journal.org)

All conservatives (and liberals too who are figuring out this scam) need to understand the basics--these expanding victim groups which supposedly are about equality, diversity, fairness, tolerance, etc. are at their roots, Marxist. It won't end. Don't look for common sense, American values, decency, fairness, tolerance and certainly your kids won't get a good education. The point of all this is manipulation--to destroy, divide and conquer. Gay or straight, black, white or brown, immigrant or native, all children will be hurt, but they (and you) are being used to destroy the family and society through the schools.

It worked in the 20th century--they murdered 100 million of their own people in various countries using class warfare--citizen against citizen. In our era, instead of division in classes and workers, they are using sex, gender and race. Same book, different cover.

Bishops disappoint, but Pope even more so

“The annual Fall Meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which took place in Baltimore earlier this week, was a disappointment on many levels. Yet there were also moments of light and strength coming from a good number of bishops. They spoke with clarity, acknowledging the seriousness of the crisis both in terms of the need to bring some semblance of justice to the victims and of the faltering credibility of the Church. Some even made the forbidden connection of the crisis to active homosexuals in the priesthood. Still others lamented the collective silence on sexual morality, wondering how many bishops and clergy do not believe what the Church teaches.”

Even if he [Pope Francis] were to say, “I made a serious error in judgment and I ask the mercy and forgiveness of God’s people,” many people would do so, even if with sadness. Instead, the Pope has declared that he will “not say one word on this.” Even worse, he subsequently referred to those who have asked for answers and investigations as “a pack of wild dogs,” “scandal-mongers,” and “those in league with the Great Accuser.” This is no way to treat God’s faithful. . .”

Full article in National Catholic Register. http://www.ncregister.com/blog/msgr-pope/the-pope-owns-this

Do you know the sex/gender terminology?

Grant #2011-JF-FX-0001  Urban Institute  “Access to Safety, Health Outcomes, Substance Use and Abuse, and Service Provision for LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Who Engage in Survival Sex “https://www.urban.org/research/publication/access-safety-health-outcomes-substance-use-and-abuse-and-service-provision-lgbtq-youth-ymsm-and-ywsw-who-engage-survival-sex   

This report provides a list of definitions for LGBTQ youth at risk for health problems. It was sort of wordy, so I condensed a bit.  In a discussion group we were noting the changing terminology.

Cisgender: Individuals whose experiences of their gender match the sex they were assigned at birth.

Gender expression: The aspects of behavior and outward presentation that may (intentionally or unintentionally) communicate gender to others in a given culture or society.

Gender nonconforming: People who have or are perceived to have gender characteristics or behaviors that do not conform to traditional or societal expectations. Gender-nonconforming people may or may not identify as transgender.

Sexual orientation: Whom a person is physically and emotionally attracted to. Sexual orientation is distinct from gender identity; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, or any other sexual orientation.

Transgender: People whose gender identity (internal sense of being female, male, or another gender) is incongruent with their sex assigned at birth (physical body).

Young men who have sex with men (YMSM): Young men who may identify as heterosexual but have sex with members of the same sex, often in exchange for money and/or material goods.

Young women who have sex with women (YWSW): Young women who may identify as hetero-sexual but have sex with members of the same sex, often in exchange for money and/or material goods.

Exploiter: An individual who uses tactics involving force, fraud, and coercion to control a young person’s involvement in the commercial sex market.

Peer facilitator: A peer, who may or may not be engaged in survival sex, who provides nonexploitative support to someone engaging in survival sex, so the person engaging in survival sex does not have limited mobility; decides what they do and what they trade sex for; and is not subject to force, fraud, or coercion.

Youth engaged in survival sex: The phrases “youth engaged in survival sex” and “youth who exchange sex for money and/or material goods (e.g., shelter, food, and drugs)” are used here to reflect young people’s experiences of involvement in the commercial sex market in their own terms.

Gay family: An alternative familial network of LGBTQ people that may act as an alternative to the family of origin from which many LGBTQ people, particularly youth, have been excluded. The term may also be used to refer to drag houses in the ball scene.

Ball scene/house culture: A community consisting primarily of black and Latino and Latina LGBTQ people organized around anchoring family-like structures, called houses, and competitive balls. [I’d never heard of Ball Culture, but you can find a description in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_culture .  Apparently, Langston Hughes in the 1920s described it.)

Barrier and nonbarrier protection: Any contraceptive or other protective device or method used to prevent unwanted pregnancy or the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or other STDs.

 Interesting findings about the almost 300 youth in this study (this is the 3rd report):

99% of these LGBTQ at risk youth in this study were using contraceptives (barrier and nonbarrier). [A quick look shows that compares with about 50% of non LGBTQ teens)

93% were using the services of a helping agency, 99% accepted help from them and 94% said they would seek help from that agency again

only 5% in the study were white.

47% male, 36% female, 11% transwoman (i.e.biological male), 3% transman (biological female), 5% other, not specified, or wouldn’t say

These youth are at greater risk than heterosexual male and female youth for violence, abuse, sexual victimization, mental health risks,  sexually transmitted diseases, and homelessness

Other reports funded by this grant

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/71446/2000424-Locked-In-Interactions-with-the-Criminal-Justice-and-Child-Welfare-Systems-for-LGBTQ-Youth-YMSM-and-YWSW-Who-Engage-in-Survival-Sex.pdf

ELCA hits bottom

It's shocking to read in the October issue of First Things how ELCA has gone down, down, down since our congregation left to join NALC. That said, it would have been better to leave in the 1990s when ELCA began disrespecting the unborn and accepting abortion for any reason --even gender--at any time during the pregnancy. The sexual perversion pushed on the kids at the 2018 Youth Gathering is not that far removed from that which eliminated many of their generation.

Imagine a pastor leading impressionable teens in this disgusting chant.

This year, concluding her speech, [Nadia Bolz-­Weber] she employed a blasphemous parody of the set of renunciations that parents or godparents are ex­pected to answer at a baptism: “Do you renounce the devil and all his empty promises?” One renunciation went: “Do you renounce the lie that Queerness is anything other than beauty?” And the youths dutifully chanted back: “I renounce them.”

Sick, and that wasn’t even the worst of it.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/elca-hits-bottom

The PR spin on the sex abuse scandal

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dan-burke/must-watch-video-how-to-recognize-judas-in-your-midst

An excellent sermon, but I don’t think many are listening.

Can it get more strange? Orlando.

This story out of Orlando just gets more convoluted. Now they are investigating Omar Mateen's second wife, who is being charged in 49 murders. The investigators think she helped him.  People who knew him from the Pulse club say he was gay and/or bisexual, and frequented the club where he killed people who he probably knew. Could this be a crime of passion and not religion? And of course, he passed all the back ground checks the gun control lobby wanted, and he was a registered Democrat. His wife (second) was of Palestinian background, but not religious, and his father visited members of Congress and claimed to be a candidate for President of Afghanistan. His co-workers tried to warn personnel, but were afraid of being disciplined because he was "protected" as a Muslim.  Meanwhile, our President gives a major speech chastising us and blaming Americans for this terrible tragedy.  I feel like I've spent the afternoon in a horror show.

After the Ball, the PR agenda for normalizing homosexuality

 It wasn't just the book "After the Ball" which normalized homosexuality in our culture. It was the other 99%.

"It should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention over the course of the past 25 years that the strategies proposed by Kirk and Madsen have been all too successful at normalizing homosexuality—or, at least, the idea that a homosexual “orientation” is perfectly natural.  (Homosexual practice, on the other hand, has been kept discreetly under wraps.)  But as successful as this marketing of the gay brand has been, it could not have made much headway if Americans had not already been predisposed to it by the long development of what sociologist Philip Rieff called the “therapeutic culture,” a culture rooted in affluence, consumerism, and perpetual rebellion against the old communal culture and its system of moral demands.  In the therapeutic culture each individual is liberated to pursue his own desires, convinced that he is the self-created agent of those desires, or, as Stephen L. Gardner has so aptly put it, the “demi-god of his eros and ambitions.”  Within such a culture, sexual desire has gradually become detached from its place in the natural order, and sexual “identity” elevated to an almost sacramental status.  Facebook, surely a bellwether of our free fall into mass narcissism and incoherence, now offers some 56 gender alternatives to traditional male/female sex identities, and each of these implies one or more modes of sexual satisfaction.  Of course, most Americans are boorishly indifferent to this bewildering array of options.  Nonetheless, the unending Sexual Revolution has made deep inroads in Middle America.  Consider the sex-toy industry.  David Rosen at alternet.org estimates that global profits in sex accessories now approach $15 billion annually, much of which is generated by U.S. sales.  Who is buying all those naughty products?  Well, it seems that a whopping number of them are purchased by middle-class American women."

Jack Trotter, Conservatives and the Gay Agenda

LGBT training in the schools

Michael Smith writes:  “I found the recent article about Iowa Safe Schools, the gay advocacy group disguised as an anti-bullying resource, to be intriguingly disturbing. This group has been teaching Humbolt, Iowa middle school students about homosexual relationships and anal sex under the watchful eye of government school administrators – and without the knowledge or approval of parents. According to the article in the Daily Caller, when approached with concerns of parents about such an agenda, “Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, said parents who worry about middle school kids hearing about anal sex with strap-ons and analingus are ‘disgusting.’”

I’ve been watching with interest the recent SCOTUS ruling on same-sex unions and the very recent decision by the Boy Scouts of America to drop all prohibitions of homosexual scout leaders. I’ve noticed a pattern that develops as a social deviancy is mainstreamed. While it is true that the existence of homosexuality is a historical fact, it is also a fact that members of this group are a distinct minority and their behavior has been viewed as a deviant behavior for almost the entirety of the two centuries of America’s existence.

I am confident my observations are unoriginal – and my views are based on a premise that America is being subjected to a particular form of progressive ideology that demands individuals submit to the cognitive dissonance of the two mutually exclusive concepts that libertine behaviors are to be promoted yet regulated at the same time. I have deduced 6 laws from these observations:

In any given progressive-libertine societal system:

1. Deviant minorities will tend to erroneously define the majority’s tolerance of a specific deviancy as acceptance of the entire minority and/or a specific deviancy.

2. Majorities rarely unconditionally accept deviancy, but they do allow it.

3. The fallacious assumption that allowance constitutes acceptance of the entire minority and/or a specific deviancy leads to an equally fallacious assumption that such allowance mandates active celebration of the deviancy by the majority.

4. When a previously forbidden deviancy is allowed, the aggrieved minority will not treat it as with a passive acknowledgement of equality, it will be expressed as overt promotion of that particular deviancy.

5. Minorities are generally incapable of accepting equality as a contemporary status, they believe reparations and/or retribution for past prohibitions of the aforementioned deviant must be co-equal with the new “equality”.

6. When the deviant minority is challenged, they exhibit transference of guilt and responsibility by accusing the majority of equal or greater sins for retaining any opposition to the allowed deviancy.

For clarity, I do not use the words minority, deviant and deviancy as pejoratives, rather to describe aspects of society that are numerically small and distinctly different from the prevailing social mores of the majority.

LGBT activists have assured that the entertainment industry and government schools have moved quickly from allowance to acceptance to promotion of gay lifestyles, seeking to mainstream behaviors of an admittedly extremely small minority population. With the SCOTUS decision, the pattern is evident as they seek to do the same with commercial and religious activities. One wonders how soon the Boy Scouts will have a Gay Pride badge and what the requirements will be to get it.”

Ravi Zacharias on homosexuality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIw6ngIqaD0

Ravi Zacharias -35 year respected top religious scholar and speaker on Christ and Christianity and the Bible answers one of the tougher questions asked about Christianity and its "intolerance". (from 2009)

A guide for parents

The full title of this “What you can do to stop the promotion of homosexuality in our schools; a guide for parents, students and communities” was found this morning when cleaning my bookshelves.  I have no idea when I picked it up, and there’s no copyright date, but judging from the dates of resources, I’d guess about 2002.  Many websites listed.  However, it’s pretty clear this battle has been lost, at least since the President “came out of the closet” in 2012 whereas before he supported marriage.  (It’s recently been revealed that he lied in 2008 to keep the black vote.)

Somehow, support for marriage and the promotion of homosexuality has become conflated.  So these days, if a parent were to object to any of these tactics, he would be called homophobic, a bully, and probably risk having the child expelled.

Christine Baranski and The Good Wife’s wedding planner

How lucky we were!  We'd never seen an episode of the TV series The Good Wife, and after hearing the hysteria for a day (radio news during our auto travel from Ohio to Illinois) from the MSM about an Indiana pizzeria instead of the details of Obama's selling us and Israel down the river in Iran negotiations, we get to see Christine Baranski defend the left's idea of religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment while the screen writers fumbled the Christian viewpoint.

The one redeeming line was at the end of the episode where it was pointed out that Obama defended traditional marriage when he wanted to win the presidency (he was lying, of course, but Democrats lie for their causes). That said, Baranski is an outstanding actress and millions will never check the weak argument presented by the actress portraying a Christian wedding planner.

Here’s the point.  Baranski’s character is correct, Jesus never commented on homosexuality.  It was a practice and lifestyle not known to Jews.  It was for pagans, Greeks and Romans where even they didn’t have marriages for homosexuals—it was a form of acceptable pedophilia or prostitution to engage in outside of marriage.

Jesus also never addressed pornography or pedophilia, or space travel or nuclear war or environment or guitars in worship services or many other things that pull us apart these days.  That said, no Christian church exists strictly on the words of Jesus in the four gospels. The Church of the Brethren in which I was baptized at age 12 loves the book of James which doesn’t present the gospel.  The Lutheran church where I am now a member baptizes babies and Martin Luther wanted to throw out the book of James (he is the reason Catholic and Protestant Bibles have a different number of sacred books).

The Christian church managed to thrive for years with no formal canon/scripture; and today every church whether Protestant, Catholic or Independent has a form of church hierarchy, with accepted rules and traditions passed down by word of mouth or printed documents. Churches have statements of faith, synods, boards, brotherhoods, deacons, pastoral organizations.  How to “do” church appears first in the book of Acts not the gospels and most churches follow that in some form.  But the oldest “here’s how to do it” record, The Didache, is a list of rules on baptism, the Eucharist, worship, how to treat each other, no abortion and no sex with young boys, no fighting or gossip, etc.

Marriage is a part of Scripture from Genesis forward, and in Christian teaching, Jesus Christ created the world and all that is in it, including sex for procreating and marriage.  Tradition and all church groups from the Creation right up to 2012 when a tiny political minority combined with a large number of those who think marriage is worthless anyway worked to get the law changed.  It’s not hard to change a law for an event people don’t even care about—but that doesn’t mean Christians have to give up 2000 years of history and tradition and the First Amendment just because screen writers don’t know how to do research.

In the United States the First Amendment protects millions from government interference in religion—Amish who don’t have to go to public school, truck drivers who won’t deliver alcohol, Quakers who don’t get drafted in war time, Sikhs who wear head coverings, prisoners who don’t need to shave and it should protect wedding planners and bakers who don’t wish to be part of the bonding event for gays. And truly, who has killed and imprisoned more gays than governments?

Governors who rule from Democrat glass houses

shouldn’t lob missiles at Indiana.

Connecticut has the same law as Indiana about religious freedom, as do almost 20 states.  Shame on you, Gov. Dan Malloy,  Democrat. There is also federal law—not only the Bill of Rights, but the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by President Clinton. Barack Obama as a state senator in Illinois helped pass Illinois’. . . although perhaps that not a good example since he lied about his beliefs to get elected in 2008. He probably lied then too. The LBGT lobby is very hostile to Christianity. The real aim isn’t bakeries and florists, but churches.

“The first RFRA was a 1993 federal law that was signed into law by Democratic president Bill Clinton. It unanimously passed the House of Representatives, where it was sponsored by then-congressman Chuck Schumer, and sailed through the Senate on a 97-3 vote.

The law reestablished a balancing test for courts to apply in religious liberty cases (a standard had been used by the Supreme Court for decades). RFRA allows a person's free exercise of religion to be "substantially burdened" by a law only if the law furthers a "compelling governmental interest" in the "least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." “ http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/indianas-religious-freedom-restoration-act-explained_900641.html#!

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Malloy-to-Bar-State-Travel-to-Indiana-Amid-Religious-Freedom-Law-Backlash-298010911.html

http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/30/connecticuts-governor-doesnt-understand-his-own-states-rfra/

No gay person has ever been hurt or discriminated against by the RFRA, whereas many by choice kept their sexuality hidden for decades for fear of their careers and wealth or disappointing their own families.  Being “out” never hurt librarians, hair dressers, or musicians.  Perhaps there was a bigger story?

50 shades of grey--if you’re naked it’s sadomasochism, if you’re not naked, it’s just violence

Judith Reisman has written a number of studies and books on the damage that Alfred Kinsey’s sex research did to society. The  wide acceptance of Kinsey’s claims, she contends, has contributed to a degradation in morality, teaching sex in schools and the expansion of pornography. She traces the mommy porn of 50 shades back to him.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/kinsey-blamed-for-50-shades-mommy-porn/

She accuses Kinsey of child sexual assaults in his “research.”

“One of the main things would be for us have a congressional investigation of Kinsey, to see where people were so completely lied to, how this began,” she said.

There have been previous, unsuccessful attempts at such investigations, she said.

The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University is getting millions of tax dollars, she said, at minimum $21 million in recent years.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/30/entertainment/la-et-kinsey-films-20101230

Gershon Legman, the original compiler for Kinsey's pornography collection, revealed that

Kinsey's not-very-secret intention was to "respectabilize" homosexuality and certain sexual perversions ... He did not hesitate to extrapolate his utterly inadequate and inconclusive samplings to the whole population of the United States, not to say the world ... This is pure propaganda, and is ridiculously far from the mathematical or statistical science pretended.[5]

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLENC/ENCYC116.HTM

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/776356/posts

http://www.whale.to/b/reisman3.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/nih-funds-study-men-dont-like-use-condoms/

Pastors shouldn’t conflate loving the homosexual with accepting the acts

“As a Christian, the conflict between my sexuality and my faith would become the deepest and most intense of my life. Now in my forties, I’ve gone from being closeted to openly lesbian to celibate to heterosexually married. The fact that I need to qualify my marital union as a heterosexual one reveals how much the cultural landscape has changed in that time—just as much as my own personal landscape has, though in very different ways. . .Same-sex sexual activity is outside the design and will of the good plan of God. To claim otherwise requires ignoring Scripture, historical Christian authority, and natural law. ”

“May I make two requests? Continue to love me, but remember that you cannot be more merciful than God. It isn’t mercy to affirm same-sex acts as good. Practice compassion according to the root meaning of “compassion”: Suffer with me. Don’t compromise truth; help me to live in harmony with it.

I’m asking you to help me take up my cross and follow Jesus.”

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/12/14149/

President Obama’s big gay lie

There are several lies being told about Obama's gay lies (as revealed this week in David Axelrod's book). The big one (by Axelrod) is that it was justified because look at the progress gays have made during Obama's administration. Really? Reminds me of whites claiming the progress blacks made in the 60s was the result of their good will and beneficence. We'd be in the same place with McCain as president because this pot had been reaching a small boil for over 30 years. The next big lie is Obama was afraid he'd lose the support of black Christians if they knew he supported gay marriage. How many black men support marriage, period? The third big lie is that he "evolved" on the issue just in time for the 2012 election. I suspect he was going to be "outed" big time as some tried in 2008 if he didn't submit to the gay mafia.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/axelrod-obama-lied-nation-2008-about-his-view-gay-marriage

The movie Philomena

I loved that movie--although sad, it had a lot joy and forgiveness and humor. Amazing acting by Judi Dench and Steve Coogan.  When I see movies that are anti-Christian or anti-Catholic, I just remember the source—Hollywood (or whatever the international equivalent is). Its bread and butter is sex,violence, denying God, and sin, or there would be no story.  As far as the gay theme, I looked a little deeper.  The Catholic Church and Philomena were people of the morals of the time—sex outside marriage is immoral and only kings and statesmen got around it—and the public was in on that, even Philomena who acknowledges her sin in the movie/book. Even as a young teen she knew what she was doing.  The eighties and nineties and early 21st century, right up to Obama’s 2012 campaign during which he claimed to support traditional marriage, had a morality that didn’t support open homosexuality for public figures.  For librarians, like my dear boss Jay and his long time partner, no one cared, or all the lesbians like Dora and Pauline I worked with in the 1960s. Both parties were hypocrites.  Remember how the Democrats pushed out an active gay representative (Republican) from Florida whose life was well known to his fellow congressmen when he sent texts to young male staffers?  Anyway, in the Philomena story, her son who is gay, goes along with the prevailing morality in order to get ahead in Washington and keep his career, with a fake girlfriend and a hidden boyfriend. These were his choices for his career. So which is more phony?  The son or society? Many gays were open; he wasn’t.  He could have been a hairdresser, an actor, an author,  a librarian, etc., and no one would have batted an eyelash.  He chose his lifestyle and his career.

Back to the young Philomena, pregnant at 14 in the 1950s.  These days it is estimated that over 60% of the abortions are forced, in the same way relinquishing babies were forced in the mid-20th century. Today’s 14 year old “Philomena” is “encouraged”with threats of abandonment and financial need, to abort by boyfriend, parents, teachers, peers, and sometimes her church.  Frankly, although God doesn’t grade on a curve, the greater sin in my eyes is killing the child for the indiscretions of the parents.

Enough already

Are we done with the hoopla about athletes coming out of the closet, or do we have to have the golfers, equestrians and bowlers now? Really. This last one is so over done. What is so brave and worthy when Ellen did it 15 years ago, and musicians and artists came out 50-100 years ago? If 1.7% of the population are gay (based on 5 studies by sex researchers), it stands to reason some will be in sports. So, could we keep the media attention at about 2-3%, please.