Pope Francis Sees Some Bishops With 'Closed Hearts'

The Catholic Church ended its synod on the family on Saturday without clear progress on inclusiveness of gays and lesbians, or divorced parishioners, and Pope Francis says it exposed those with “closed hearts.”

The pope will take the recommendations of the bishops into account when drafting his own teaching on the family, and The New York Times reports that liberals say the final document succeeds at not tying his hands in too many areas. One exception: the bishops are quite clear they will not accept same-sex marriage, not that the pope was aiming that far anyway.

It was the lack of progress on whether divorced Catholics can receive communion, on whether to welcome gays and lesbians, that triggered a critical closing address from the pope. 

Pope Francis said the synod had succeeded in “laying bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the church’s teachings or good intentions.” While the pope said the church had proved it is not afraid of “lively and frank discussions about the family,” he also said some bishops took part “in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”

The bishops use the three-week gathering to outline how they believe the church should move forward on family issues, with the pope taking their recommendations to later draft his own teaching. The 270 bishops vote on each paragraph of the document, requiring a two-thirds approval.  

“Certainly, the Synod was not about settling all the issues having to do with the family,” said Pope Francis, according to a translation by Vatican Radio, of his expectations heading into the conference. “Surely it was not about finding exhaustive solutions for all the difficulties and uncertainties which challenge and threaten the family, but rather about seeing these difficulties and uncertainties in the light of the faith, carefully studying them and confronting them fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.”

The LGBT Catholic group in the United States, New Ways Ministry, reacted to the report from the Vatican Synod by highlighting what it says is still possible. 

Francis DeBernado, the group’s executive director, said in a statement that “a great deal has changed” at “the highest levels of the church.”

“Even though this synod did not achieve a stronger statement of LGBT acceptance, the movement for a more inclusive and equal Church for LGBT members can take hope from this meeting because the discussion has moved forward,” said Bernardo, “and we’ve heard that a large number of bishops see the need for this discussion to continue into the future.”

DeBernado expressed greatest disappointment that the bishops repeatedly cast transgender people as victims of “gender ideology,” and that they said adopted children should be raised by a mother and a father. 

“The remarks show that the bishops do not understand the transgender experience or how people experience their gender identity, which is often received as a spiritual, life-giving revelation,” said DeBernado, who called for more education of the bishops. 

When Pope Francis does sit down to write his teaching on the family, he’ll face the question of how to find common ground among bishops from different continents, with vastly different cultures. The bishops from Africa are more ardently opposed to acceptance of gays and lesbians than those from North America. 

“We have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent, is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another,” the pope said. “What is considered a violation of a right in one society is an evident and inviolable rule in another. What for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion. Cultures are in fact quite diverse, and each general principle needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied.”

Ultimately, the pope left room for further changes.

“The Synod experience also made us better realize,” he said, “that the true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit.”

Lucas Grindley

www.advocate.com/religion/2015/10/25/pope-francis-sees-some-bishops-closed-hearts

Open Question: I'm confused about my sexuality! Help?
I’m 15 years old girl and a junior in highschool. I’ve always been attracted to guys. I’m not really attracted to guys at my school because they are immature, but I’m mostly attracted to men. I’ve recently been talking to this girl who is lesbian and she has a girlfriend but we sit next to each other and we make each other laugh a lot and I’ve recently have had feelings for her. When ever I see her I get nervous and just wish she liked me. I also have crushes on guys but does this mean I’m bisexual? Both girls and boys turn me on. And please no hate comments. I’m Christian and I have no problems with lgbt community it’s just I’m confused. Help?

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151025121946AARiEYO

NAACP Houston Branch & Urban League Intensify Campaign for Equal Rights Ordinance

This weekend, the NAAP Houston Branch and Houston Area Urban League announced that they are intensifying their work in favor of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO).
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/naacp-houston-branch-urban-league-intensify-campaign-for-equal-rights-ordin?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

How do I tell someone I'm trans? (FtM)

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How do I tell someone I’m trans? (FtM)
by inlgbt

Open Question: Why american Christians support LGBT ?

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151025105344AAz39Zu

My birthday soon. Now I have a reason and got those made
submitted by iddeen
[link] [1 comment]

My birthday soon. Now I have a reason and got those made
by inlgbt

Weekend News Brief: Ricky Martin, Gay Rugby, Alcoholic Comet, Chris Christie, Baldness Cure

> Chris Christie got kicked out of Amtrak’s Quiet Car for yelling.

> As Synod ends, Catholic door remains firmly shut for same-sex marriage.

> Puerto Vallarta escaped relatively unscathed from Hurricane Patricia: “Mexico’s Tourism Secretary Enrique de la Madrid says major resorts like Puerto Vallarta had had “extraordinary luck” in avoiding damage from the once immensely powerful storm. He says mountains around the city ‘served as a barrier.’”

> This is what it’s like to be an LGBT Syrian fleeing for your life.

> Brooklyn gay bar Excelsior reopens.

> Ricky Martin is not opposed to the occasional shirtless selfie:

> Former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer endorses Martin O’Malley for President: “I’m endorsing Martin for President today because I believe he is the candidate that best represents the future of our Party,” Schweitzer said in a statement released by the campaign. “Martin and I don’t agree on every issue, but he is the only candidate with a proven record of getting things done, and I believe he is the best candidate to take on Republicans in November 2016.”

> Progress reported on drug to regrow hair.

> Identical strangers stunned after meeting one another in Germany.

> Comet Lovejoy is releasing as much alcohol as 500 bottles of wine every second: “The discovery marks the first time ethyl alcohol – the same type that you might find in a Martini – has been seen in a comet. It adds to evidence that comets could have been a source of the complex molecules necessary for the emergence of life on Earth.”

> British transgender teen says he was refused a haircut by a barber because of ‘different’ hair: “The 16-year-old says staff turned him away and said they were not insured to cut women’s hair. But Barber Barber, the store in Liverpool, denies the incident took place and insisted their ‘no women’ policy is intended to be taken lightly. Gould’s mother Ruth said staff told her “we don’t do trans people” when they inquired about getting a cut.”

> World’s first gay rugby club turns 20.

> Experimental device projects moving images onto clouds:

The post Weekend News Brief: Ricky Martin, Gay Rugby, Alcoholic Comet, Chris Christie, Baldness Cure appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Weekend News Brief: Ricky Martin, Gay Rugby, Alcoholic Comet, Chris Christie, Baldness Cure

WATCH: Bernie Sanders Doesn't Share Hillary Clinton's Memory of How DOMA Passed

Bernie Sanders isn’t buying Hillary Clinton’s version of the history around passage of the Defense of Marriage Act. 

On Saturday, he used what is always considered an important speech in the Democratic primary process — the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa — to counter what Clinton said the day before about passage of the federal ban on same-sex marriage in 1996. 

Clinton said during an interview with Rachel Maddow on Friday that her husband’s signing of DOMA was a “defensive action” meant to stave off a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Sanders was in the House of Representatives at the time and voted against DOMA, which passed on a vote of 342-67.

“In 1996, I faced another fork in the road. A very, very difficult political situation,” he said. “It was called the Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA, brought forth by a Republican-led Congress, and its purpose was clear, to discriminate against gays and lesbians in the law.

“And let us all remember that gay and lesbian rights were not popular then, as they are today. It was a tough vote. And I’m sorry to have to tell you that bill won by an overwhelming majority in the House…. That was not a politically easy vote.

“Now today, some are trying to rewrite history by saying that they voted for one antigay law to stop something worse. That’s not the case. There was a small minority in the House opposed to discriminating against our gay brothers and sisters, and I am proud that I was one of those members.”

Sanders never mentioned Clinton by name, but the pointed comment came as part of a list of comparisons to the former secretary of State — including on the Keystone Pipeline and Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement — that cast him as the candidate most likely to stick with principles.

Republicans proposed DOMA in an election year, and Bill Clinton had already been tripped up by LGBT equality at the start of his term, when he tried to keep a campaign promise to let gays and lesbians serve openly in the military. Instead, the Clinton administration compromised and the nation got “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which led to thousands of dishonorable discharges of men and women who were outed or did not stay in the closet.

So, facing a veto-proof margin of approval for the law in Congress, Bill Clinton signed DOMA after midnight.

Famed LGBT activist David Mixner recalled Bill Clinton’s signing of DOMA to The New York Times critically in 2013, after the former president finally decried it as unconstitutional: “He made a political calculation that was an immoral calculation.”

Even the president’s former press secretary, Mike McCurry, was blunt in that same article about what had led to Bill Clinton signing DOMA: “His posture was quite frankly driven by the political realities of an election year in 1996.” Then Bill Clinton made things worse with LGBT voters when he touted the signature in campaign ads for his reelection. 

Still, when the former president renounced DOMA in 2013, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, he began it by telling the same version of history that Hillary Clinton did in the Maddow interview. He quoted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court by a group of senators who said they believed DOMA “would defuse a movement to enact a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which would have ended the debate for a generation or more.”

Watch a clip from Bernie Sanders’s speech below via CSPAN:

Lucas Grindley

www.advocate.com/election/2015/10/25/bernie-sanders-doesnt-remember-domas-passage-same-way-hillary-clinton