Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
At a conference in Illinois earlier this month, conservative neurosurgeon and Tea Party hero Dr. Ben Carson made some bold — though unoriginal — claims about the terror that same-sex marriage will surely bring upon society. Speaking to the anti-LGBT-rights group Illinois Family Institute (IFI), Carson invoked the Biblical notion that the relationship between Jesus and his followers is a marriage. Clearly, he’s not okay with using the same terminology to describe committed, loving same-sex couples. Read more
The saga of Pope Francis attempting to win over the gays continues, and once again, it’s quiet, underwhelming, and almost certainly a PR stunt. The Italian Catholic LGBT group Kairos of Florence wrote a letter to the Pope in June, undoubtedly addressing many of the well-known issues that put the Catholic Church at odds with the LGBT community. They reportedly asked for “openness and dialogue” in talking about this rift and stated that a lack of openness “always feeds homophobia.” Hear, hear. Now, months later, the Pope has written them back, according to enthusiastic reports out of the Catholic news world. Unfortunately, though, it’s hard to tell if this is anything significant (spoiler: it probably isn’t) because Kairos has chosen to keep the contents of both letters private. Here’s what they did reveal: Read more
While the Christian-led ex-gay movement is dying down in the United States, some “reparative therapy” or “conversion therapy” programs are still alive and well in other parts of the world. In Canada, for example, a government-registered charity called Living Waters (not affiliated with Ray Comfort’s ministry of the same name) has chapters across the country to help gay people overcome their same-sex attractions. Hearing of the program, an undercover reporter named Graham Slaughter from the Toronto Star joined a Living Waters chapter from January to May and recently published his account of the experience. In reality Slaughter is openly gay — contentedly so, it seems — making his description of the Christian program all the more interesting (and terrifying). Read more
Why won’t comedian Bill Maher be running for Congress anytime soon? Because he thinks his atheism will get in the way. In an interview with Hollywood site TheWrap, Maher chatted with host Sharon Waxman about the lack of representation of atheists in politics — and how it doesn’t quite match up with the rising number of atheists in the country. He told her that while the percentage of atheists in America is approaching 15%, “we have zero representation.” As a person who’s pretty public about his atheism, he should know: [Click headline for more…] Read more
All this talk of a progressive new Pope may have been jumping the gun. Writing for the National Catholic Reporter, Brian Roewe reported this week that Pope Francis has excommunicated an Australian priest from the Church for his liberal values and activism. Fr. Greg Reynolds publicly supports LGBT rights, marriage equality and women’s ordination, three big no-nos in Catholic tradition. (We reported on Reynolds’ dismissal from the church the other day, but at the time, Pope Francis’ role wasn’t exactly clear.) Here’s the Vatican’s “explanation” behind its decision, according to NCR: [Click headline for more…] Read more
