Texas Values President Jonathan Saenz: Gay Army Has Occupied America And Is Coming For Your Pastor

Gay people are like an Army that has occupied America, and now they’re about to start targeting pastors and churches, according to one Texas-based anti-LGBT hate group.

Texas Values President Jonathan Saenz, whose wife famously left him for a woman, wrote in a fundraising email Thursday:

America today is occupied territory. The enemies of religious freedom occupy every power center from government to academia. Everyone (SIC) except its spiritual core. Thank God, that power isn’t centered in Washington. It flows from the faith and values of its people, from a thousand churches and faith-filled homes across Texas and beyond.

That makes our pastors the Leaders of the Resistancee (SIC).

How does an invading army break the will of an occupied people? First, it identifies its Resistance Leaders. Next, it isolates and demoralizes them, making them think they’re alone and powerless. Then it breaks them––before the people can rally to their defense.

This is why your pastor is truly in the cross-hairs. Armed with not only the recent egregious Supreme Court same-sex ‘marriage’ decision but a host of lower-court rulings and guidelines, the pro-homosexual left is scouring Texas—America’s last stronghold of resistance—seeking “weakest link” communities and churches for a pre-emptive strike.

Thankfully, pastors can save us from the gays, according to Saenz, but only if Texas Values can raise $25,000 to educate them about the so-called “Pastor Protection Act.” 

The law, passed earlier this year, is designed to protect pastors and churches from being forced to participate in same-sex weddings. As such, it merely reaffirms existing protections under the First Amendment, and Texas’ two openly LGBT lawmakers both voted in favor of it. But don’t tell that to Saenz:

So it’s not enough for only a few well-informed pastors to know about our state’s new Pastor Protection Law. Every member of the Texas clergy and every Texas church must know they’re shielded against being forced to solemnize, perform, or celebrate a same-sex ‘marriage’ in violation of their beliefs.

Does your pastor know? What about other pastors and churches in your community?

I have been through a lawsuit for my First Amendment rights before, as a law student defending the rights of the campus pro-life group I was leading. It’s no picnic. If more people know about the Pastor Protection Law we can help keep pastors out of court or jail and in the pulpits, and out in their community where they do their best work!

The post Texas Values President Jonathan Saenz: Gay Army Has Occupied America And Is Coming For Your Pastor appeared first on Towleroad.

John Wright

Texas Values President Jonathan Saenz: Gay Army Has Occupied America And Is Coming For Your Pastor

Why This Latina Photographer Documented the Moment She Came Out to Her Parents

Paola Paredes traveled to her native Ecuador to come out to her parents, and took photos of the emotional moment for a project she calls ‘Unveiled.’

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Yezmin Villarreal

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2015/08/27/why-latina-photographer-documented-moment-she-came-out-her-parents

Stop Looking For A Single Reason Men Commit Public Shootings

Shock. Horror. Debate. Exasperation. Ignore. Repeat. This is the cycle we go through each and every time a public, violent tragedy strikes. 

December 14, 2012 was supposed to be a good day. The Huffington Post’s yearly holiday party was that evening, and most of the office arrived at work in the morning thinking more about free food and booze than what news we’d cover that day. Then, at around 9:35 a.m., Adam Lanza shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and slaughtered six adults and 20 children before turning a gun on himself. 

It was a devastating thing to witness and cover, even from miles away in a crowded, safe newsroom. The pain among my colleagues was palpable as we all sought details about who Lanza was, how he came to murder first-graders and why. The “why” was most haunting.

Unfortunately, we’ve asked “why?” more times than I can remember off the top of my head during the four years I’ve worked at HuffPost.

We asked “why?” when Wade Michael Page shot up a Sikh temple.

We asked “why?” when James Holmes opened fire on a movie theater in Aurora, Col.

We asked “why?” when Elliot Rodger went on a went on a shooting spree near UC-Santa Barbara. 

We asked “why?” Dylann Roof murdered parishioners in cold blood at a church in Charleston. 

We asked “why?” when John Russell Houser opened fire on the audience of “Trainwreck” in Lafayette. 

Yesterday we, yet again, asked “why?” when a man killed two of his former coworkers, Alison Parker and Adam Wade, on live television. 

It makes sense why we focus on the why — and hope for an easy answer. We grapple with this question, especially in cases of public violence and tragedy, because without a clear answer, the reality that mass gun violence has become a cornerstone of American culture feels inconceivable. We want someone or something to blame, because the idea that we could be complicit in fueling a society that hasn’t gone more than eight days without a mass shooting in 2015 is completely terrifying. 

Plus, the real “why” is complicated, not easily solved with one new law or by writing off each shooter as an isolated, mentally ill madman, or the rallying cry of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

“Why” involves our cultural ideas about masculinity and what makes a “real” or “good” or “worthy” man. Mass murderers are nearly always (white) men. Men who feel wronged — either by society or their colleagues or their classmates or their ex-lovers or all of the above. It’s about the entitlement to success, women’s bodies and attention men have been taught they deserve.

As Josie Duffy wrote at Gawker of WDBJ shooter Vester Flanagan: “This guy reminds me of many other men who kill — off the top of my head I can think of at least five mass murders where the killer was fired from a job, dumped by a girlfriend, or rejected. Ending lives essentially because they didn’t feel like they were getting what they deserve. Entitlement.”

It’s often about institutional racism. “It must be acknowledged that there are more Dylann Roofs out there, and they exist because we let them,” wrote HuffPost’s Zeba Blay after the Charleston shooting. 

In the wake of the UCSB shooting in 2014, Tiffany Xie took a closer look at the research on similar public massacres — specifically at the pattern of white, middle-class men as the people most often behind the gun. “This ‘suicide-by-mass-murder’ is a reflection of a combination of both White and male privilege,” she wrote, “the ideology that White males have social, economic, and political advantages granted to them solely on the basis of their sex and race.” Flanagan was not a white, straight man. But, unfortunately, men of color are not exempt from misogyny — it just plays out differently for them.

It involves easy access to firearms, a conversation we seem doomed to put off indefinitely, as it’s never “the right time” to discuss it. As though grieving parents who spend their mourning days going on television to plead with the American public and politicians to do something are just “pushing an agenda.” 

Searching for a “why” brings up important conversations about mental illness treatment — greater access to health care is always a good thing! — but it also encourages us to scapegoat mental illness, when mentally ill individuals are far more likely to be the victims of crimes than commit them.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/08/27/americas-gun-violence-is-on-all-of-us_n_8051684.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Catholic School Heeds Inclusive Voice of Laity

The power of the Catholic laity was dramatically illustrated today when the board of a Portland, Ore., all-girls Catholic high school reversed its ban on hiring LGB employees.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/catholic-school-heeds-inclusive-voice-of-laity?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Venice Mayor Plans To Ban Gay Pride, Calls It “Farcical” And “Kitsch”

The mayor of Venice wants to ban gay pride parades in the city, reports The BBC .

“There will be no gay pride in my Venice,” Luigi Brugnaro told La Repubblica newspaper, before describing the event as both farcical and kitsch.

In the article, he claims that he’s not homophobic and, in fact, has gay friends.

Flavio Romani, the head of Italian gay rights group Arcigay group, criticized the mayor’s statement and suggested he come visit the Pride parade in Venice.

“We will be back next year and we invite the mayor to march at the head of the parade with us,” he told AFP news agency. “That way he will see what gay pride really is.”

Romani also accused Brugnaro of trying to impose his rigid viewpoints on a “cosmopolitan city.”

Brugnaro is adamant about his opposition to the event, and certainly the idea of hosting the event.

“Let them go and do it in Milan, or in front of their own homes,” he said.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/jqM_pTXHaw0/venice-mayor-plans-to-ban-gay-pride-calls-it-farcical-and-kitsch-20150827

News: Michael Fassbender, Nazi Gold Train, Hurricane Katrina, AHS

> A look at who’s in and who’s out of the next GOP presidential debate.

> This claimed discovery of a Nazi gold train in western Poland is something straight out of Indiana Jones.

> First look at Michael Fassbender in Assassin’s Creed.

> LGBT activists express anger over Rentboy.com raid. “It’s troubling to think that we’re investing resources and time to target Rentboy and sex workers,” said writer/activist Alex Garner, “when what we really should be having is a reasonable and thoughtful conversation about the decriminalization of sex work.”

> Meet the young people who refuse to define their sexuality.

> Friction between LGBT Catholics and the Church mounts before Pope Francis’s visit to Philadelphia next month.

> Ridley Scott confirms Prometheus 2 is his next movie.

> Donald Trump: “I will be the best thing that ever happened to women”

> One New Jersey man’s blue house is making his neighbors see red.

> Chris Martin and Jennifer Lawrence have reportedly called it quits.

> New concept art reveals the opposing superhero teams in Captain America: Civil War.

> Ellen and Portia have a happy date night together.

> Ben Affleck has officially taken off his wedding ring.

> Oxford Dictonary adds “manspreading,” “hangry,” “wine o’ clock” and other slag terms.

> Celebrate Chris Pine’s 35th birthday today with a GIF tribute to those beautiful blue eyes.

> New report shows average life expectancy among people worldwide has risen by more than six years since 1990.

> Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley tallies the cost of George W. Bush’s incompetence. “Unlike Ronald Reagan, after theChallenger explosion, or Bill Clinton, after the Oklahoma City bombing, Bush had failed to feel the profound implications of the moment as his predecessors had. He didn’t scramble into action. He didn’t touch the nation’s heartstrings by using epic oratory to inform the disaster. What we got, instead, were guitar chords and terse speeches void of human pathos. No matter how the Bush library in Dallas tries to spin Bush’s Katrina performance, we all know he deserved an F in crisis management.”

> There may be TWO seasons of American Horror Story in 2016.

The post News: Michael Fassbender, Nazi Gold Train, Hurricane Katrina, AHS appeared first on Towleroad.

Kyler Geoffroy

News: Michael Fassbender, Nazi Gold Train, Hurricane Katrina, AHS

WATCH: Did a Texas Chef Refuse to Cater This Couple's Wedding?

Plans for a same-sex wedding at the Hilton Garden Inn in Plano, Texas, are on hold as the hotel investigates allegations of antigay statements by the chef.

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Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2015/08/27/watch-did-texas-chef-refuse-cater-couples-wedding

Man Proposes To Boyfriend At Church, Church Responds Perfectly

Love is love, and this congregation embraced that. 

Trevor Harper and Davis Covin, who have been dating for nine years, are active members of the First United Methodist Church of Austin in Texas. Harper proposed to Covin at the church earlier this month in front of the congregation — a moment which was captured in a video and shared on YouTube.

The congregation responded to the magical moment in the best way possible — with a standing ovation. We must say, we’d totally be lying if we didn’t tear up a bit ourselves while watching the proposal. 

Harper told BuzzFeed News that the couple’s church, which they’ve belonged to for two years, has been supportive of the pair’s relationship and welcome people of all sexual orientations to attend. When Harper proposed, the pair had actually been sharing the story of their faith during the service, according to the video. 

While clergy belonging to the Methodist church aren’t permitted to perform same-sex marriages, Harper said that his pastor, the Reverend John Wright — who helped plan the moment — thought the proposal in front of the congregation was a great way to celebrate the pair’s love, BuzzFeed reported. The couple hopes that the church will allow them to hold their wedding ceremony there by the time they plan to get married in 2016. 

Also on HuffPost: 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Donald Trump on how he would explain his opposition to same-sex marriage to gay child or grandkid

Donald Trump recently said he believes same-sex marriage is a dead issue politically but that hasn’t stopped him from opposing it.

The current front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination was asked by Bloomberg reporters this week how he would explain his opposition to a gay child or grandchild.

‘I wouldn’t speak to them at all about it other than they are who they are and I want them to be happy and will love them and cherish them,’ said the twice divorced Trump.

He went on to say: ‘I’ve gone to gay weddings. I’ve been at gay weddings. I have been against (gay marriage) from the standpoint of Bible, from the standpoint of my teachings as growing up and going to Sunday school and going to church and I’ve been opposed to it and we’ll just see how it all comes out.’

Trump told The Hollywood Reporter  recently that he had attended the wedding of gay Broadway theater owner Jordan Roth, who he described as a ‘great guy.’

In June, Trump was asked on CNN what he would say to a lesbian who’s married, or a gay man who is married, who says, ‘Donald Trump, what’s traditional about being married three times?’

Trump replied that the person asking the question would have ‘a very good point.’

Of his failed marriages to Ivana Trump and Marla Maples he said: ‘I blame myself because my business was so powerful for me. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.’

In the end, Trump he really didn’t have anything to say to gays and lesbians who want to press him on his own marital record except: ‘I am just … I’m for traditional marriage.’

Below is the full interview with Bloomberg:

The post Donald Trump on how he would explain his opposition to same-sex marriage to gay child or grandkid appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/donald-trump-on-how-he-would-explain-his-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage-to-gay-child-or-grandkid/

Same-Sex Couple Denied Hotel Room During Honeymoon

Lucas Kellogg married the love of his life, Corey Silva, on October 5, 2013, in a small ceremony on the front porch of the Baltimore County Courthouse. Surrounded by friends and family, Lucas said that “It was truly the most special day of our lives.”
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/same-sex-couple-denied-hotel-room-during-honeymoon?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed