ARCHBISHOP AKROFI, PRIMATE of WEST AFRICA ordains the first three women as priests in Ghana and announces his plans to retire in 2012



The Rev. Mrs. Stella Bentsi-Enchil, Rev. Mrs. Alberta Kennies Addo, and Rev. Ms. Susanna C. Naana Ackun.

¨The Anglican Diocese of Accra has ordained the first three women deaconesses as priests of the Anglican Church of Ghana.¨

¨The three are the Reverend Mrs. Stella Bentsi-Enchil, the Reverend Mrs. Alberta Kennies Addo, and the Reverend Ms. Susanna C. Naana Ackun.

In a sermon, the Archbishop and Primate of the Church of the Province of West Africa and Bishop of Accra, the Most Rev Dr Justice O. Akrofi, reminded the new priests of their call to fulfill the vision of God for mankind....¨ read it all, HERE

The Most Revd. Dr Justice Ofei Akrofi, the Archbishop of the Church of the province of West Africa and Bishop of Accra. He announced that he would retire in October 2012 HERE

 ·  Thanks to Ghana to Ghana, HERE
 ·  Thanks to Ghana Nation, HERE

THE INCLUSIVE EVOLUTION/REVOLUTION IS NEAR: Yes, we like you and are like you and hope that you like us too!

¨Evolution¨ por alfonsozt

From the ¨Department of Reality and Justice = Equality¨  

I´m  glad to know that most healthy heterosexual folks are evolving and  adjusting to a broader/inclusive world view and realizing the truth of the composition of mankind and the human sexual reality surrounding all of us...understanding/acknowledging the basic nature of both you and me is a very important thing...no more fidgeting, no more running for cover and no more avoiding reality by playing daily charades of denial and pretend, no more blame or shame, no more ¨using others¨ to portray ¨being¨ people that we are not...best of all, acknowledging all oneanothers with our eyes open and doing justice by agreeing that we all have a basic right to exist equally is a very blessed advancement in the human family...being individually, transparently, responsible for ones own personal character is best done in the full light of basic truth...no to shadowy secrets to hide behind...not for anybody.

I knew this already.  I´ve suspected it would only be a matter of time before we stopped hiding out in plain sight of one another and all came out from wherever it was that we were/are.  I´ve always known my/our everyday brothers and sisters, best friends, coworkers and fellow citizens would grow out from under and get over the nonsense of marginalizing themselves/others, our loved ones and friends.  I knew the bold lies, taunts and slanderous nonsense that is often preached and carelessly spewn at Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender members of everyones human family would lead to doubt...self doubt and cultural change..another human rights evolution.

Really.  It´s been my experience, with over six decades of awareness (breathing in and out) and witnessing people around me that many folks accepted, loved or at least liked me and people like me for exactly who we were/are!  Yikes, authenticity-- the REAL thing!  Humanity is now quickly forgetting the ¨name-calling¨ part because LGBTI people are now emerging as face-to-face brothers, sisters, coworkers and everyday best friends. Sure, some of you have been extra suspicious of us and/or been even flat-out annoyed with ¨Gay people¨ and felt inconvenienced that we expected, and sometimes insisted on being treated equally.  Sometimes we´ve made you think and take note that we are different than you thought we were/are.  Sometimes you´ve made us think and take note that you are different than we thought you were/are! It´s been a difficult time for all of us to see exactly who we are, but,  now justice for all means not one of us must be left out and/or automatically outcasted and despised!  Time to relax and do the right and natural thing by putting fear aside and focusing on ¨what is¨ as opposed to what some demand ¨should be¨ in other peoples lives.

ALERT:  We are nothing new and neither are you. Most of us have been sitting, standing, laughing, crying, celebrating, mourning, voting, succeeding/failing, and glad handing/hugging right next to the rest of you for lifetimes!  Forever it´s been clear that we accept you in most everything you do...it´s time to return the acceptance, the compliment, the favor and add a small measure of freely given joy and respect too.

LGBTI are like you and we like you too and I see it´s nearing the time when you like us equally too.

¨More than 60 percent of American adults say it would not matter to them if a candidate for president was gay, according to a new poll from Pew Research for the People and the Press. Thirty-three percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support a gay candidate....¨  please read it all,   HERE


·  Thanks to The Pew Research
·  Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing

AIDS TURNS 30 TODAY: Remembering my dear friends lost to AIDS

AIDS — the most destructive epidemic in recorded history — turns 30 today

¨On this day, June 5, in 1981, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta published a report of five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. All of the men were described as “homosexuals”

“We pause to mark the thirty years we have been fighting HIV/AIDS.” said President Barack Obama, in a statement on Friday. “As we remember people in our own lives we have lost and stand by those living with HIV/AIDS, we must also rededicate ourselves to finally ending this pandemic — in this country and around the world.” HERE

Today, just like most every day, year after year for decades, I fondly remember my beloved friends and loved ones lost to AIDS...they were dear friends who added unmeasureable amounts of knowledge, joy, happiness, adventure and sharing of themselves to my life and in the lives of many around them.  Each of these generous men, and they all were kind and loving men, were filled with the positive force and innermost healthy energy that true and lasting friendships are often made of...each vital and vulnerable in every way as they lived their lives authentically each day...I feel them all around me today and I can still see and feel those smiling beings who added/add so much to my life, thank you God for these friendships: 

·  Richard Tanner Boyer
·  Albert John Breen
·  Phillip Stout
·  Bob Mazzochi
·  Roberto Sandoval
·  Jerry Timmons
·  Jorge Cordova
·  Bob Huth
·  Dan Sharp

May Richard, Al, Phil, Bob M, Roberto, Jerry, Bob H, Dan and Jorge rest in peace and rise in glory 
Lord hear my prayer

SURVIVING THE ANGLICAN ANGST: Many members of the worldwide Anglican Communion want transparency now! The sick secrets and manipulating must stop!

Attention: Estimado CoE Archbishops, Province Primates and Global South/Gafcon schismatics

The time has come. You, all of you, must be held fully accountable for the fear, hate, difference and general nonsense/descension many of you have brewed at the Body of Christ.  The progressively spiritual sickness/bile that some have ignorantly, and quite regularly, spewn from pulpits into pews is no longer acceptable or believable religious ¨care¨ anywhere.  Many of you must revise your leadership skills.  Some of you have gone way too far by destroying family, parish and diocese lives with your self-imagined and selective Scriptural notions of holylike ¨purity¨ and right  (yours) vs. wrong (others).  A few of you have become dangerous bullies, bigots, despots and thieves...criminals at church.  The Archbishop of Canterbury has taken to throwing tantrums HERE, issuing snide comments and ill-advised threats because of his insistance that all be obedient to him and also sign his punitive and ¨dreaded¨ covenant HERE.

We, most all of the worldwide we´s, would like to nurture and embrace common sense living and loving with healthy spiritual standards that promote/ encourage wisdom, honesty (individual as well as collective) and truth when respecting Gods commandments.  Most of us have become willing to become responsible for our very own personal character....to love one another, to serve one another, to help one another and not abuse one another in a more authentic stewardship ¨calling¨ than demonizing and marginalizing our *other* Anglican family members.    

The vast amounts of mischiefmaking engineered by religious/politico leaders throughout the Anglican Communion is running way out of control.  Anglican Bishops secretly and selfrighteously ignore the harm they do to other human beings. They often promote dangerous/dishonest life choices (force lies) and support death threatening ¨religious¨ social issues/laws initiated against heterosexual women and LGBT Anglicans/others in hate crime stained places such as Jamaica, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, England, Zimbabwe and The Middle East/beyond.

+Rowan Williams and others, stop the deceit, stop the manipulating of truth and exclusion/prohibition against *marked* and marginalized Anglicans at The Anglican Communion.

The Church of England is dripping with the poison of deceit: The church has allowed itself to become infected by the prejudice and homophobia...

...deliberations of the group appointed to select a new bishop of Southwark were marked by ¨acrimony and manipulation.¨ HERE

¨The church urgently needs to find the courage to deal with the poisonous culture of prejudice against women and gays.¨

¨Last week, a leaked memorandum revealed that the deliberations of the group appointed to select a new bishop of Southwark were marked by acrimony and manipulation. The same day the House of Bishops' meeting in York failed to agree new guidelines to evaluate whether a gay priest was fit to be appointed bishop, guidelines seemingly designed to prevent Jeffrey John from being appointed.

There are in the House of Bishops five who are gay. Other bishops are their friends and are actively supportive of gay and lesbian priests and lay people in the church. When the new guidelines were being discussed, it appears that not one of the gay bishops had the courage to say to his brothers: hang on, I'm gay? Nor did any of the gay-friendly bishops present have the courage to say: hang on, some of you may not know who among us is gay, but I have several good friends in this room who are.


There are 13 bishops who are gay in The Church of England and none are publicly open about their sexuality

The Church of England has 13 bishops who are gay. None are publicly open about their sexuality and, as far as I know, none have been open about their sexuality in the process of being appointed bishop. Until last year, potential bishops were never interviewed so there was no opportunity to ask the question or volunteer the information.

The church has created an impossible dilemma for itself. No candidate who is gay or has been involved in a same-sex relationship in the past is going to willingly volunteer this information. It is rightly a personal matter and in secular society, irrelevant to someone's capacity to perform their work. Secular employment best practice sets an example that the Church of England would do well to adopt. The process of appointing bishops should be transparent and open...please read it all, The Reverend Colin Coward HERE


The Archbishop of Canterbury has been ¨creating impossible dilemmas¨

Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and the Arch­bishop of York, Dr Sentamu have been straining every legal sinew to exclude openly gay bishops — even celibate ones — from their number at The House of Bishops


The Archbishop of York has been ¨straining every legal sinew¨

¨..The trouble is that, at the moment, a whole world of grammar is being invented with the express purpose of keeping gay people out of senior church positions. From the dreaded Anglican Covenant (whose purpose seems to be much the same) to this new advice, our Church is construct­ing its ground rules specifically to exclude homosexuals. And there is another phrase for that: institution­alised homophobia...¨  please read it all, The Reverend Dr Giles Fraser HERE

(emphasis and photos added by Leonardo Ricardo)

HERE

· Thanks to The Church Times, United Kingdom
· Thanks to the Reverend Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral and Director of the St Paul’s Institute
· Thanks to The Guardian, United Kingdom
· Thanks to the Reverend Colin Coward
· Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing, radmagan

NORTH AMERICAN ANGLICANS ALIGNED WITH GLOBAL SOUTH LUST FOR POWER: ¨...they beat up a small vulnerable segment of society in order to accrue as much earthly power as is possible.

Old Birds of a Feather-- selfrighteous bigots, liars and thieves (at Church)

Here we have a direct quote from the one who, believes if you say something long and loud enough everyone will believe it:

¨...It is Coward and the Church of England's homosexuals (and TEC's) along with their refusal to be obedient to scripture that is destroying the Anglican Communion. It is why GAFCON/FCA exists. It is why there is a Jerusalem Declaration and why a Covenant will not hold the Anglican Communion together. It is why Primates of the Global South will never sit down again with Katharine Jefferts Schori or attend another Primates meeting. They will never be seen in the same room with her. The only time they will be seen on US soil is to announce the date for the next GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem or to converse with ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan.¨    HERE


·  Thanks to Real Anglicans, sidebar
·  Thanks to Fred Schwartz

OUT-OF-TOUCH/KENYAN ARCHBISHOP WABUKALA: The Church in Kenya has lost respectability because it is not impartial or consistent



Out of touch Anglican Church in Kenya Archbishop Eliud Wabukala recently was elected as Gafcon schismatics chairman 

¨The actions and omissions of the Church leadership over the past five years point to a deepening crisis. The church seems unable to find the voice of the populi, which should concern the hierarchies of the Pentecostal, Anglican and Catholic denominations.¨

¨...It is time for the clergy to do some soul searching if they hope to redeem themselves and their place as the moral and spiritual compass for the highly politicised Kenyan society. Their stand on the nominees for Chief Justice and deputy does not help matters. It is against the grain again. Opinion polls show that the majority of the country is satisfied with the choices.

Their opposition, without offering clear reasons for their objection does not show the clergy to be transparent. Are they opposed to Dr Mutunga because he is a Muslim? Or if they have a problem with the nominees marital statuses, let them be candid about it. Obfuscation in philosophical and ideological terms isn't good enough. But that is what can be gleaned from their statement that the judiciary needs to be led by people with a "judicial philosophy that reflects natural law, the Kenyan religious and African cultural values, including our universal respect for life, our recognition of the importance of family wellbeing and our appreciation of the role of religion in public and private life."

The church will only regain its respectability as an arbiter in the political arena if it is seen to be impartial and consistent. The clergy cannot wake up one morning to lecture the country about morality and respect for the constitutional principles and keep quiet when the same are broken or other illegalities are committed. Where were they when President Kibaki flouted the constitution by unilaterally nominating Justice Alnashir Visram and Professor Githu Muigai? Strange that they should find offence where the President and Prime Minister have already agreed...¨ HERE

ANGLICAN CHURCH LEADERS HAVE LOST THE TRUST OF KENYANS

Kenya´s Anglican bishops led by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala (seated, 2nd left)

¨According to the Synovate post-referendum poll, only 19 per cent of those interviewed said they fully trusted Church leaders, compared to 17 per cent who said they fully trusted politicians.

And it gets worse -- 38 per cent said they don't trust Church leaders at all, a bigger number than the 22 per cent who said they don't trust politicians at all. But Church leaders dismissed the notion that their credibility had suffered...¨   HERE

·  Thanks to All Africa, sidebar
·  Thanks to Three Rivers Episcopal, sidebar
·  Thanks to Behind The Mask, sidebar
·  Thanks to The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)

WE SALUTE THE COURAGEOUS ¨KUCHUS¨ of UGANDA: Celebrating The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2011

We especially honor the brave  ¨Kuchu¨ Heros of  Uganda

The International Day Against Homophobia and transphobia (IDAHO) has published dozens of pictures from events which took place around the world on its Facebook page. Among the events documented are ones taking place in China, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh, Israel, Belarus, Fiji, Kenya, Trinidad & Tobago, USA, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uganda. Many other country IDAHO pages also have lots of photos.
HERE

Ugandan Anglican David Kato, victim of Homophobia, RIP HERE

·  Thanks to The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2011
·  Thanks to LGBT asylum news

DISPROPORTION: ¨A friend of mine years ago said that the Commandment against adultery was way over legislated while the Commandments against killing and stealing remain under enforced...

Brothers grieving in Iraq

¨Many people these days, when asked what Christianity is all about, will answer opposition to homosexuality, opposition to pre-marital sex, and opposition to abortion. Resurrection and undying redemptive love hardly seem to get any attention at all in the public forum, or even among the religious themselves. This preoccupation with the mysteries of the bedroom is disproportionate...¨  Doug, Counterlights Peculiars

¨...God, like any parent, takes the sex lives of His children seriously, that they should be responsible and do no harm to themselves or to anyone else. At the same time, God like any parent, is concerned first and foremost with His children's welfare, that no harm should come to them. Also, the truly self-sacrificial aspect of being a parent is, in the end, letting the offspring go out into the world and make their own lives for better or worse.

We all must make our way through a world where greed, predation, and aggression are crowned with success, where death, and the fear of death, ultimately rule (Santa Muerte). It seems to me that God has far bigger and more urgent things to worry about than peeking into everyone's bed sheets. God is more concerned with matters like these which happen somewhere on earth daily...¨ please read it all, HERE
·  Thanks to Doug
·  Thanks to Counterlight´s Peculiars, sidebar

¨The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave¨: Obama Declares June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Pride Month

Barack Obama, President of the United States of America

President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a proclamation recognizing June as Gay Pride month.

“The story of America's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community is the story of our fathers and sons, our mothers and daughters, and our friends and neighbors who continue the task of making our country a more perfect union,” the proclamation said.

June is widely recognized throughout the world as Gay Pride month.

The president touts his own record supporting the gay community and advancing gay rights in his proclamation, including repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the 1993 law that bars gay and bisexual troops from serving openly, efforts to wipe out discrimination in federal housing programs, and passage of a gay-inclusive hate crimes law.

The president also called attention to the 30th anniversary of the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, saying he's committed to eradicating the disease...¨ HERE

¨Land of Lincoln¨ The Great State of Illinois

Illinois becomes the sixth state with legalized civil unions.·

¨Long lines are expected to form early Wednesday at the Cook County Clerk's downtown office of vital records as couples from across Chicago gather to be part of a historic moment — the issuing of the state's first civil union licenses. The doors will open at 7:30 a.m. and the clerk's office will celebrate what it calls "the momentous occasion" by awarding a special gift package to the first couple to get a license. Adding to the festive atmosphere, about 20 local businesses will be supplying gifts that will be raffled off to other couples in line. As with marriage licenses, couples will have to pay a $35 fee and wait one day before they can hold a civil union ceremony. Couples who are already registered as domestic partners in Cook County but want to enter into a civil union will get a $20 discount and their domestic partnership will be automatically dissolved.

New/approved civil unions laws in Hawaii and Delaware have not yet gone into effect...¨ HERE
 
· Thanks to On Top Magazine, sidebar
· Thanks to U.S. President Barack Obama
· Thanks to Gay Pride Month, June
· Thanks to The Great State of Illinois
· Thanks to Joe.My.God., sidebar