FILIBUSTERPROOFING THE SENATE: Senator-Elect Al Franken, the 60th member of the Democratic Caucus, United States SENATE!

YES WE CAN! YES WE DID! ANOTHER SENATE DEMOCRAT WINS!


¡FELICIDADES TO THE GREAT STATE OF MINNESOTA!


Senator-elect Al Franken of Minnesota, Democrat


"I look forward to working with Senator-Elect Franken to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering health care costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century." President of The United States, Barack Obama

Thanks to CNN International
Thanks to The Daily Kos
Thanks to Flickr Photosharing

BURN BABY BURN: A Knight, a Squire, a Bishop, a Steward, Five RC Monks and Millions of murders initiated by bigots at Church!

The knight von Hohenberg and his squire, being burned at the stake for sodomy, Zurich 1482 (Zurich Central Library)


John Atherton, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, was hanged for sodomy under a law that he had helped to institute. His lover was John Childe, his steward and tithe proctor, also hanged. Anonymous pamphlet, 1641.


¨On June 28, 1578, five Catholic monks were burnt to death in Ghent for homosexuality.¨

The five holy men being prepared for execution, in this drawing by Franz Hogenberg. (Click for larger view.)At our scene in the Spanish-controlled Low Countries, the revolt that would become known as the Eighty Years’ War and secure Dutch independence still had about 70 of those years to run...¨

¨...Rumors of homosexuality in the religious orders swept the overheated city (assuming they were not put about intentionally), and this day opened a summer’s terror that saw 14 monks burned (pdf) for the love that dare not speak its name.¨read it all, click HERE


John Calvin né Jean Cauvin (10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he suddenly broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1520s.

After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where in 1536 he published the first edition of his seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion.¨ read it all, click HERE

¨Violence against LGBT people, queer identifying and the same-sex attracted are actions which may occur either at the hands of individuals or groups, or as part of governmental enforcement of laws targeting people who are perceived to violate heteronormative rules and who contravene protocols of gender roles. People who are mistakenly perceived to be LGBT may also be targeted.¨

May, 2009, Kampala, Uganda: The Government Cabinet Minister Nsaba Buturo of ¨Ethics and Morals¨ for Uganda, one of the reckless and ill-informed initiators of the current, and deadly, ¨witch hunt¨ directed against LGBT Christians and others.


Minister Nsaba Buturo demands Parliment act immediately against the ¨imported¨ homosexual perversions at all levels of Ugandan society.

Peter Jasper Akinola, Gafcon Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria/CANA and Henri Orombi, Gafcon Anglican Archbishop of Uganda (Poacher and ACNA supporter), attempt to persecute ¨evil¨ Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Anglicans/Christians and others. Read about ¨Beyond Homophobia, Licensed by preachers¨ click HERE

A hate crime is when individuals become victimized because of their race, ethnicity, RELIGION, gender or sexual orientation (Conklin,1992)(CSVR). Hate crimes against homosexual people often occur because the perpetrators are homophobic. The attacks can also be blamed on society itself. A variety of religious groups as well as proponents of extremist political ideologies condemn homosexuality and relate it to being weak, ill, feminine, and morally wrong.[1] Violence targeted at people because of their perceived sexuality may include threats, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, rape, torture, attempted murder and murder. These actions may be caused by cultural, religious, or political mores and biases.¨ read it all, click HERE

By Philip Kennedy, ¨God's Good News for Gays¨

A Kaleidoscope of Horrors...here is an excerpt from that section:

¨From the Christian emperor Justinian in the sixth century until the eighteenth century, Christian communities around Europe regularly put homosexuals to death by burning, beheading, flaying, drowning or hanging them. The ancient Christian thinkers Tertullian, Eusebius and John Chrysostom all argued that same sex relations deserve the penalty of death...In medieval Europe, secular laws often invoked the authority of the bible to execute homosexuals. Bologna adopted the death penalty for sodomy in 1259. Padua followed suit in 1329; Venice in 1342; Rome in 1363; Cremona in 1387; Milan in 1476; and Genoa in 1556. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain actively sought out sodomites to be burned. In the hundred and twenty five years after Calvin taught in Geneva, there were thirty burnings, beheadings, drownings, and hangings of homosexuals in that city. Scores of men and boys were hanged for homosexual activity in Georgian England. Before the advent of modernity, women in Europe were also vulnerable to execution if convicted of lesbianism. The history of churches' treatment of gay people has for over a thousand years been a history of hatred, persecution and death. To this day, standard Christian textbooks devoted to moral theology and commenting on homosexuality are usually trite treatises because of their complete silence on the long-standing brutality meted out to homosexuals by churches, whether Roman Catholic, Anglican or Protestant. For homosexuals, the history of the Christian church has been a kaleidoscope of harrowing horrors. Their fortunes have now changed. Physical violence has mutated into rhetorical violence, although there are still nine countries today where homosexual behavior is punishable by death.¨
read it all, click HERE

·A Praise and Tribute to The millions of brave, weak, strong and martyred Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender victims of fear, ignorance, hate, exploitation and unthinakable abuse...thanks to our loyal and trustworthy families and our dear friends on the celebration of Gay Pride and the 40th Anniversary of THE STONEWALL RIOTS·

·Thanks to Wikipedia
·Thanks to Executed Today, right side bar
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to Good News for Gays, Phillip Kennedy
·Thanks to Father Jake Stops the World, Archive

NIGERIA/AKINOLA ALERT: ¨The most casual of gestures could be a death sentence...¨

¨Today, 26 June, a report from the LGBT African Coalition says that three homosexuals were arrested by the Edo State police command in Benin City, Nigeria. They were paraded like common criminals and displayed on television. The command Public Relations officer has said they would be charged to court as homosexuality is a criminal offence in Nigeria.¨ read it all By Colin Coward+, Director at Changing Attitude, United Kingdom, click HERE


¨Few Nigerian LGBT activists are free to speak out in a country which already has repressive anti-gay legislation on the statute book.¨ Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude, Nigeria

¨The report does not say that the three men were engaged in homosexual activity. Being homosexual is enough to be arrested as a criminal in Nigeria. Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria has asked the group in Benin City, Edo State to investigate and find out how we support can be given to their fellow brothers. The Coalition calls on all human rights activists everywhere to speak up against this injustice.¨ Colin Coward+, Director Changing Atitude U.K., click HERE

Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola and accomplices pontificate that Gay people are ¨lower than PIGS¨ and ¨the children of LGBT people are HOOLIGANS¨ and he and his House of Bishops ·CANA/NIGERIA· endorse ¨brutal penalties¨ against anyone ¨advocating¨ for lesbian and gay people.



¨Gay Christians in Nigeria are urging international action against a new repressive law which is being backed by the Anglican church in the country.

The proposed law, that would impose brutal penalties on shows of affection between lesbian and gay people, or even on those who would advocate for lesbian and gay people, has already been condemned by more than 250 Christian leaders from the US, as well as the church in Canada and Christian in the UK. However, the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria is giving it his support.¨ read it all, click HERE

Anglican Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, Bishop of Asaba and Archbishop of Bendel, Nigeria
thinks preaches ¨...rapid changes that are in direct contradiction to the tenets of Christianity. Especially the global emergence of fast lane theologians and revisionists who deny the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, mass fraud, embezzlement of public fund by those in government, homosexuality, lesbianism and the wanton destruction of lives and property.¨

·Conservative Christians want to use Nigeria as an example to other African countries to demonstrate that anti-gay legislation can be passed which criminalizes all affection and activity between LGBT people· Ekklesia

¨When will the blame go to repressive, illogical and arrogant inhuman policies?¨

¨...and the sexual code between blacks and whites in America has similar roots in the anti gay codes too.

Black sexuality (especially that of black males) raised the same violent and visceral responses in white males that gay males do in straight folks:

Don’t speak,
don’t touch, look away…

One couldn’t know how a person was going to react to the most casual of gestures.

It could be a death sentence…

In enacting these laws, Africa is throwing it’s weight at a group of people without the political or social clout to fight it. Gays and lesbians have to depend on the whims of straight people, who are taught to hate them...

I find this bears witness to the writer’s of history. All men, all presumably heterosexual…For that reason alone, I find all this religious instruction and dictation highly suspect, because the SAME groups of people end up being outlaws because of it. Women and gay people…

Always punished, suppressed and regarded as dispensible and unworthy of freedom or self determination. Always women, and gay people the most abused and oppressed in the world. In Africa, there are far more pressing problems…most of which have been CAUSED by this same suppression.

When all else fails, systems of government, educational access, health and safety, workable and creative ideas…

blame the gays.

Blame the Jews.

Blame women.

Blame…blame…blame

When will the blame go to repressive, illogical and arrogant inhuman policies? A commentary by Regan DuCasse, read it all, click HERE

Gay Christians in Nigeria CNN's Christian Purefoy reports on a gay church in Nigeria defying prejudice and harrassment, Video link below

Gay Church in Nigeria defies prejudice and harrassment, click HERE

·Thanks to Republicoft.com
·Thanks to Ekklesia
·Thanks to Regan DuCasse
·Thanks to Colin Coward+
·Thanks to Davis Mac-Iyalla
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to Christian Purefoy, CNN
·Thanks to Rainbow Church, Lagos
·Thanks to Changing Attitudes, Nigeria
·Thanks to Changing Attitudes, U.K. at the right sidebar

UPDATED DAILY/ROUNDHEAD ALERT: The North American anglicanlike ACNA gather to fortify & glorify prejudice and HATE at Bedford, Texas

Bob Duncan and the ¨Chapman Memo¨ HERE

TEC deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan, but he now preaches ¨difference¨ in Texas at the inauguration of the ACNA which is NOT part of the worldwide Anglican Communion or recognized by the Archbishops of Canterbury or York nor the Anglican Consultative Council as a authentic ¨Anglican¨ Church or Anglican Church Province.


THE BUZZARDS HAVE COME IN FOR A LANDING AT THE ACNA!

Breaking Bigots and Blowhards: There you have it! After years of conniving (IRD) HERE , plotting (Chapman Memo) for TEC Properties and financial resources HERE, angling Anglicans(Primates Meetings) HERE, spewing ¨Hooligan Children¨/¨Evil Imported Homosexuals¨ HERE, lieing (as needed) HERE , deceiving and crying victimhood (poor and garishly overly-brocaded dears), these, tiresome-grim, sorry/bitter old men HERE and their clutching grandstanding accomplices and not-so-secret financial backers HERE, have finally managed to declare themselves another faux Anglican cluster of ¨continuing¨ congregations HERE,...a cluster, of unassociated/not in Communion with the REAL Anglican Communion international Provinces...They believe their group of GAFCON Communion signers are made up of squeaky clean puritans, and Anglo Catholics (the kind that play pretend really well), who are MORE MORALLY CORRECT than those of us at the body of Christ...fortunately, their purity pogrom is not authentic, in deed or spirit, this is a group of everyday haters in pointy hats, accompanied by rabid and sometimes greedy excluders, NOW they are grouped together for all to see.


ENDLESS REFORMED SELFDECEIVING at the ACNA!

Ironically, this reformed, further reformed, and most of all, most REFORMED more reformed butt-covering gang of diluted pontificators are under the illusion they are spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ while selectively abusing/twisting the Scriptures and by demonizing, demoralizing and excluding LGBT Christians and often Heterosexual Women and Children HERE at all levels of Churchlife.

How can this be? What happened to their personal integrity amongst the clergy at ACNA?

Deposed Bob Duncan and pals/accomplices pose in Texas at the inauguration of the ACNA...Amongst the self-proclaimed extra Holy is holy padre Schofield, left of center, a vision, and illusion, in PAPAL pure white...he is also the deposed bishop of TEC diocese of San Joaquin!

These men, most whom had been ¨called¨ to ministry, and agreed/swore oaths and vows to serve The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada and her people with peace and love and devoted LOYALITY decided instead to participate in a hatefilled campaign of sedition against the voice of The General Convention and The Anglican Canadian Church instead. The voice of The General Convention and the voice of the Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, are the authoritive voices, that reflect the high standard of Christian fellowship that WELCOMES EVERYONE at Church and into all levels of Churchlife.


Some of these ¨holy men¨ are VOW BREAKERS. Their ¨WORD¨ and ¨WORD OF HONOR¨ mean little to nothing to them as they ¨BURN OTHERS¨ when SELF-IMAGINED PURITY or poaching on TEC/Anglican Church of Canada REAL property is at stake!

I am happy the renegades are leaving as they continue to harm others at The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada...they seem to enjoy their abusive ministries and the trouble they generate throughout the wider Church and as they instigate ¨witch hunts¨ and dangerous ¨demonizing¨ which boldly taints/condemns other Anglican Communion members, our families and our friends with words such as ¨evil¨ and ¨criminal¨ and ¨lower than pigs¨ directed at us.

Leave us now gentlemen, perhaps one day, you´ll find your way home and you´ll find self-accountability for your malicious action of destructiveness...we will be here ¨with the door open and the light on¨ doing the best we can to love our neighbors, all of OUR neighbors, even those who continue to attempt to harm us... people like some of YOU (who come here lurking, I have a meter).

UPDATED TUESDAY AFTERNOON
ACNA numbers already plummeting?" read it all, at The Episcopal Cafe, click HERE

and/or

¨Running the number on ACNA¨ read it all, click HERE

THEY´VE NEVER BEEN GOOD WITH NUMBERS

The Network's Imaginary Congregations
From Christianity Today:¨ read it all, at the archives of Fr. Jake´s Blog, click HERE

UPDATED WEDNESDAY MORNING

¨Duplicity, thy name is ACNA¨

¨...An organization founded on deceit cannot endure. To accomplish their egotistical goals, they have lied to everyone about nearly everything.

Even if the various groups do not turn to cannibalism, the dishonesty will drive people away. There is a limit to how much dishonesty one can tolerate. There is a limit to how much abuse one will endure from leadership. The laity will leave, sooner or later, for other pastures.

But, they won't take the property with them!¨ read it all, from James at The Three Legged Stool, click HERE

·Thanks to Preludium, at the right side bar
·Thanks to Thinking Anglicans, at the right side bar
·Thanks to Photos from the ACNA website
·Thanks to ¨Following the Money¨ Jim Naughton
·Thanks to Episcopal Cafe, at the right side bar
·Thanks to RNS, at the right side bar
·Thanks to Daniel Burke
·Thanks to Father Jake/Archives/Anglican Extremists
·Thanks to James, The Three Legged Stool, at the right side bar

ATTENTION IRANIAN DICTATORSHIP: We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. Stop all violent action NOW!

The FACE of DESPERATION! Running out of CONTROL?

¨The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.


As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.


Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.¨ President Barack Obama, read it all, Stop The Violence, click HERE


UPDATED: Unknown and Maybe Unknowable

Estimates of the number of deaths Saturday in the violence in Iran range from 10 (Iranian state media) to 19 (CNN) to much higher (maybe 150). None of the numbers has been independently confirmed.¨ read it all by David Kurtz, click HERE

FURTHER UPDATE:

¨Today, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the presidential candidate who has come to represent the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, issued a formal statement.

Although he denounces the "lies and fraud" of the leadership, particularly in the recent election, he views the fraudulent election as only as the symptom of something far more serious. He describes a revolution gone wrong, a revolution that was originally based on attention to the voice of the people but has resulted in "forcing an unwanted government on the nation." Read it all, ¨Mousavi's New Revolutionary Manifesto¨ by Gary Sick, click HERE

¨Mir Hossein Mousavi, the presidential candidate who has come to represent the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people¨

UPDATED: PRAYERS ASCENDING FOR NEDA of IRAN



·Thanks to The Courageous Iranian Innocents
·Thanks to Albawaba.com
·Thanks to President Barack Obama
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to Gary Sick
·Thanks to David Kurtz
·Thanks to Daily Kos, at the right side bar
·Thanks to The Daily Beast, at the right side bar
·Thanks to Talking Points Memo, at the right side bar

LEONARD PITTS: There's no expiration date on hate

¨It is jolting to recall that I once thought we were living in the last days of creatures such as this.¨


·"Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me." -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, about President Obama


·"I hate gay people." -- Tim Hardaway, former NBA star


·¨A Third World country." -- Tom Tancredo, former Colorado representative, speaking of Miami


·"She's frightening. And she's racist¨ -- Dennis Baxley, former executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida, speaking of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

·¨Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." -- Glenn Beck, talk show host, to Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim.


·"Fifty years ago they'd have you hanging upside down with a (expletive) fork up your (expletive)." -- Michael Richards, comedian, to an African-American in his audience.

¨Last week, a man with a rifle walked in and opened fire, fatally wounding security guard Stephen Johns. Other guards shot the intruder.¨


¨Authorities say the shooter, James von Brunn, was an avowed racist and anti-Semite well-known to the pustular netherworld of white supremacy and to those who monitor it. He believed the Holocaust a hoax and America a "Third World racial garbage dump." He believed this, even at 88 years of age. "It's time to kill all the Jews," he wrote in one e-mail. And can you imagine what might have happened had he managed to shoot his way past the guards?¨


¨It is jolting to recall that I once thought we were living in the last days of creatures such as this. My only excuse: It was the 1970s and I was young, raised on civil rights marches and Norman Lear comedies.¨


·Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria and CANA American branch, State of Virginia, outside Washington D.C., pontificates in public that the ¨children of LGBT people are Hooligans¨ and the CANA NIGERIAN House of Bishops endorses anti-human rights legislation to jail, up to five years, LGBT citizens, and their families and friends for gathering in public places·

¨Kids like me felt, with the offhand smugness of youth, that we were harbingers of a new world too enlightened to ever again hate people because they were. We were past all that.¨


¨Or so we thought. Because what a shock it is to wake up 40 years later in a world where the intercultural dialogue we thought we'd mastered has become a shrill circus overrun by haters and opportunists, a world where on any given day one might be assaulted by the casual anti-Semitism and homophobia that afflict so much of the African-American community, or the racist patter of a washed-up TV star who has mistaken freedom of speech for freedom from thought, or the gassy posturing of political and media figures who happily, disingenuously trivialize the rawest wounds of the American experience for ratings and political position.¨


¨We act as if it were all a game, as if it means nothing when people of position and visibility spew garbage, validating and galvanizing the unhinged and the disaffected who need little encouragement to believe all their problems are caused by Them. We act as if we do not toy with fire when people of authority claim white Christians are a victimized minority or Hispanics a threatening and faceless Other.¨

·Maggie Gallagher ¨Defends Marriage¨ from LGBT Citizens·

¨We act as if we were not heirs and witnesses to a blood-soaked history that tells us exactly where this hate some of us so fecklessly stoke will logically, inevitably lead.¨

·¨Focus on Families¨ doesn´t think LGBT ought have families. One wonders where Pastor James Dobson thought beloved LGBT children/adults came from in the first place?·

¨Hate groups standing now at record numbers. One dead. Ten dead. Six million dead.¨


¨I've always liked the Holocaust Museum because it is a stark reminder in an era where too many are in a hurry to forget. And so it was even quiet and locked up tight. Behind yellow tape it sat, scene of a hate crime authored by an old man who thought he was great because his skin was pale. An American flag drooped limply at half-staff -- as if tired of waiting, waiting for the last days of creatures such as this.¨

read it all, click HERE


·May the American flag soon fly with great untainted glory and without the hate/fear generated/mongered smudges and the river of blood stains instigated by bigots, blowhards and crude opportunists·

UPDATED SUNDAY June 21, 2009

I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help feeling as if the murder at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the assassination of the abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., and the slaying of three police officers in Pittsburgh — all of them right-wing, hate-driven attacks — were just the beginning and that worse is to come.¨ read it all, By Bob Herbert, New York Times, click HERE

·Thanks to Leonard Pitts
·Thanks to Miami Herald
·Thanks to Kansas.com/opinions
·Thanks to Tips-Q, at the right side bar
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to Bob Herbert
·Thanks to Daddy B. Strong, at the right side bar

MARTYRS ALERT: ¨Stop the pain and move into joy, peace, and fulfillment¨ at The Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion

Competition Between Martyrs


¨What an easy trap that can be for us. We are out to show others how victimized we have been, how much we hurt, how unfair life is, and what a tremendous martyr we are. And we won't be happy until we do!¨


¨If we find ourselves trying to prove to someone how much we've been hurt or if we try to top someone else's pain, we may want to stop and figure out what's going on.¨


¨The reward is learning to stop the pain and move into joy, peace, and fulfillment.¨


"Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent." M.McLaughlin


·Thanks to The Episcopal Church
·Thanks to The Anglican Communion
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to M. McLaughlin
·Thanks to Codependents Anonymous
·Thanks be to God