Shawano, WI – Liberty Counsel is representing the Wegner family after school officials at Shawano High School censored and punished Brandon Wegner, a 15-year-old, for writing an op-ed article explaining the Biblical view of homosexuality and supporting natural mother-father adoption. Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the school demanding it apologize for its unconstitutional and irrational censorship and humiliation of Brandon.Brandon quoted several verses from the Bible regarding homosexuality. After Brandon wrote this article he was pulled into hours of meetings with school administrators and staff, without his parents’ knowledge. This caused him to miss exam preparation classes and at least one exam. Brandon was hauled before the superintendent on charges that he had violated the school’s bullying policy. Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. When Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he “had got to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”
Brandon’s opinion was a part of an editorial page which presented viewpoints both for and against homosexual adoption, each articulated by students. After the school newspaper was published in the local town paper, a homosexual in the community complained to the school. School officials then censored Brandon’s article forcing him and his classmates to pull the page out of the newspaper before distribution at the school. In a statement, the school “sincerely apologized” – not for allowing the topic to begin with, but only for the Biblical viewpoint presented by Brandon. The First Amendment protects the opinions of all, including student journalists.
Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said “The bullying at Shawano High School is by Superintendent Todd Carlson and the school officials, not the student, Brandon Wegner. The school officials have displayed blatant intolerance of a view on homosexuality held by many people. The school’s actions are shocking and unjustified. The superintendent should immediately apologize and stop the bullying.”
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Martin Beckford of the Telegraph has spent the week in Jamaica with the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu. In Saturday’s Telegraph he has two articles: Dr John Sentamu: Church must avoid being ‘too middle class’ …While the focus has often…
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By Andrew Carey, CEN
Church of England bishops this week have placed themselves in a difficult position. By leading opposition to the benefits cap of £26,000 they’ve taken a highly divisive position. They risk alienating churchgoers and stand accused of interfering in party politics. It is all very well to hark back to the days when the Church of England was regarded as a more effective opposition than the Labour Party to Margaret Thatcher’s far more modest reforms and cuts.
With news that Britain’s debt stands at one trillion pounds, albeit with public spending beginning to come under control, it is clear that there is much more pain to come for all of us. The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, John Packer, was wrong in tabling this amendment in the first place. It is not just that I disagree with him. A clear case can be made for the fact that the medium- and long-term effect of these changes will be to bring inflationary housing rents down and that the pain felt by some families will be temporary. Yet in reforming welfare, the government also needs to demonstrate to the long-term unemployed that work pays better than benefits.
We do no favours to some families, trapped in welfare dependency, by pretending that living on the dole can be a way of life. It is simply an unsustainable position both for these families and workers who must sometimes wonder whether work really pays.
Bishop Packer was wrong to table this amendment because he has crossed a line from warning about the possible consequences of government policy to interfering in the political process. I do not believe that this is the role of Bishops. The fact is that when they cross this line, they become political leaders, rather than moral leaders.
The onus is now on Bishop Packer to make an economic and social policy argument about where he believes welfare savings can be found and how reform can be accomplished.
Let me add that I do not believe the five bishops in the House of Lords on Monday evening were wrong to vote against the government nor to make a moral argument that children will be the first to suffer from the benefits cap. It is in the active step of opposition by tabling an amendment that Bishop Packer has stepped across the line.
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A year ago arrivals on the outskirts to Kano had to pass a sign forbidding alcohol consumption and banning women from riding on motorbikes. Now it is gone.
Kano may be the sixth-biggest Muslim city in the world—after Karachi, Jakarta, Dhaka, Cairo and Istanbul—but it is far from the most conservative. Women lift their hemlines to get on the back of achabas, motorbikes that are the main source of transport. Mini vans carry both sexes to their destination. It is possible to get a cold beer to wash away sand inhaled during a day on the edge of the Sahara.
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From NARTH
Current discussions of homosexual sexual orientation change are unavoidably occurring within a sociopolitical climate that makes nonpartisan scientific inquiry of this subject very difficult. In light of this reality, a few considerations are crucial for accurately understanding the sometimes contradictory opinions regarding the possibility of sexual orientation change. First and foremost, it is important to recognize that how change is conceptualized has vast implications for our thinking about change. Some of the more ardent proponents and opponents of homosexual sexual orientation change may view change in strictly categorical terms, where change is an all-or-nothing experience. Proponents and opponents with this view differ only in the direction of their desired outcome. Proponents of change understood in categorical terms may view a homosexual sexual orientation as a lifestyle choice that merely needs to be renounced. Opponents who take this viewpoint, on the other hand, may conceive of sexual orientation as essentially hard wired and simply not modifiable. NARTH does not support either of these perspectives.
NARTH believes that much of the expressed pessimism regarding sexual orientation change is a consequence of individuals intentionally or inadvertently adopting a categorical conceptualization of change. When change is viewed in absolute terms, then any future experience of same-sex attraction (or any other challenge), however fleeting or diminished, is considered a refutation of change. Such assertions likely reflect an underlying categorical view of change, probably grounded in an essentialist view of homosexual sexual orientation that assumes same-sex attractions are the natural and immutable essence of a person. What needs to be remembered is that the de-legitimizing of change solely on the basis of a categorical view of change is virtually unparalleled for any challenge in the psychiatric literature. For example, applying a categorical standard for change would mean that any subsequent reappearance of depressive mood following treatment for depression should be viewed as an invalidation of significant and genuine change, no matter how infrequently depressive symptoms reoccur or how diminished in intensity they are if subsequently re-experienced. Similar arguments could be made for any number of conditions, including grief, alcoholism, or marital distress. The point is not to equate these conditions with homosexuality, but rather to highlight the inconsistency of applying the categorical standard only to reported changes in unwanted same-sex attractions.
Rather than pigeonholing homosexual sexual orientation change into categorical terms, NARTH believes that it is far more helpful and accurate to conceptualize such change as occurring on a continuum. This is in fact how sexual orientation is defined in most modern research, starting with the well known Kinsey scales, even as subsequent findings pertinent to change are often described in categorical terms. NARTH affirms that some individuals who seek care for unwanted same-sex attractions do report categorical change of sexual orientation. Moreover, NARTH acknowledges that others have reported no change. However, the experience of NARTH clinicians suggests that the majority of individuals who report unwanted same-sex attractions and pursue psychological care will be best served by conceptualizing change as occurring on a continuum, with many being able to achieve sustained shifts in the direction and intensity of their sexual attractions, fantasy, and arousal that they consider to be satisfying and meaningful. NARTH believes that a profound disservice is done to those with unwanted same-sex attractions by characterizing such shifts in sexual attractions as a denial of their authentic (and gay) personhood or a change in identity labeling alone. Attempts to invalidate all reports of such shifts by presuming they are not grounded in actual experience insults the integrity of these individuals and posits wishful thinking on an untenably massive scale.
Finally, it also needs to be observed that reports on the potential for sexual orientation change may be unduly pessimistic based on the confounding factor of type of intervention. Most of the recent research on homosexual sexual orientation change has focused on religiously mediated outcomes which may differ significantly from outcomes derived through professional psychological care. It is not unreasonable to anticipate that the probability of change would be greater with informed psychotherapeutic care, although definitive answers to this question await further research. NARTH remains highly interested in conducting such research, pursuant only to the acquisition of sufficient funding.
To summarize, then, those who are highly pessimistic regarding change in sexual orientation appear to have assumed a categorical view of change, which is neither in keeping with how sexual orientation has been defined in the literature nor with how change is conceptualized for nearly all other psychological challenges. NARTH believes that viewing change as occurring on a continuum is a preferable therapeutic approach and more likely to create realistic expectancies among consumers of change-oriented intervention. With this in mind, NARTH remains committed to protecting the rights of clients with unwanted same-sex attractions to pursue change as well as the rights of clinicians to provide such psychological care.
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From The Telegraph
Two of Britain’s most revered non-believers have come to blows over plans to build a £1 million “temple for atheists” in the City of London.
Alain de Botton, the philosopher and writer, has proposed constructing a 150ft tower in the heart of the capital’s financial district to celebrate atheism as a positive force.
However, the idea has been condemned by Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author, as a waste of money and a contradiction of terms.
"Normally a temple is to Jesus, Mary or Buddha, but you can build a temple to anything that's positive and good," de Botton told The Guardian.
"That could mean a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Because of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens atheism has become known as a destructive force. But there are lots of people who don't believe but aren't aggressive towards religions."
Dawkins has hit back, saying: "Atheists don't need temples. I think there are better things to spend this kind of money on. If you are going to spend money on atheism you could improve secular education and build non-religious schools which teach rational, sceptical critical thinking."
de Botton’s proposed temple is designed to celebrate more than 300m years of life on earth. Each centimetre of the tower's interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet. The exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.
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From the NSS
Children & Families Minister Tim Loughton MP has said that he is not convinced there is any need to regulate Britain's madrassas, despite clear evidence of abuse.
The Minister was responding to concerns expressed by the National Secular Society about child protection in Islamic schools. This followed a BBC investigation which revealed that over 400 allegations of physical abuse (and 30 of sexual abuse) were made at Britain's madrassas in the last three years. Only 10 cases went to court, and of these only two apparently led to convictions.
A senior prosecutor has suggested that these figures were likely to represent only the 'tip of an iceberg'. Nazir Afzal, the chief crown prosecutor for the North West of England, has commented that the figures represent "a significant underestimate".
UK madrassas are attended by more than 250,000 children from Muslim backgrounds every day for lessons on the Quran and Islamic culture.
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By Peter Saunders, CMF
Many people think that homosexuality is a biological characteristic like race or sex – biologically fixed and genetically determined.
They think this because this is the view that has been successfully propagated by the gay rights lobby for decades in order to provide a justification for arguing that ‘homophobia’ is a form of discrimination akin to racism or sexism.
This belief has also been behind moves to treat discrimination against 'practising' homosexuals as a human rights issue by pretending that homosexuals are a biological category like 'women' or 'asians' whose distinctive features are genetically determined rather than just a group who have simply made a certain life-style choice.
But in fact the strength and direction of erotic attraction, although relatively stable in some people, can be quite changeable in others – it is often not fixed at all.
Similarly identical twins often have different sexual orientations proving that, although sexual orientation may have some genetic influences, it is not genetically determined. There is, in other words, no such thing as the gay gene.
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It lasted just under 5 hours. Wow. I saw the last four sets.
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