GAY TRUTH

Margaret Somerville is Professor of Bioethics in the School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia . Her most recent book is  Bird on an Ethics Wire: Battles about Values in the Culture Wars . It seems that the only issue in relation to same-sex marriage on which politicians can agree is that the debate which would surround a plebiscite must be civilized and mutually respectful. To have any chance of achieving that "tone", we need first to identify what the issues are and where we disagree. Homosexuality is not the issue in the debate. Sexual orientation is not a "life style choice" as some opponents of same-sex marriage argue. Whatever its origins, which is scientifically uncertain, it is an innate way of being and a matter of personal morality, not one attracting public or legal disapproval or disrespect. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a grievous wrong and must be prevented. And committed same-sex couples h...

The majority of the Church of Scotland ’s presbyteries have voted to allow local congregations to appoint ministers in same-sex civil partnerships. The measure is likely to be brought to the Kirk’s General Assembly in May for final approval. The denomination’s 46 presbyteries voted 32 to 14 in favor of the measure, with the Kirk revealing the results on the same day that the new law legalizing same-sex "marriage" in Scotland came into effect. The General Assembly instituted a two-year moratorium in 2009 on homosexual issues within the Kirk. In 2011 the moratorium was lifted and a theological commission was created to consider the ordination of openly and actively homosexual clergy, the blessing of same-sex unions, and to allow homosexual ministers and deacons ordained before May 2009 to be given pastoral responsibilities. The 2009 moratorium came after a firestorm of controversy leading up to the General Assembly’s decision to approve the appointment of openly ...

WASHINGTON, DC , January 27, 2014– The US Catholic bishop from Illinois who held a public exorcism on the same day the state governor signed into effect a controversial same-sex “marriage” bill has defended his actions as the “loving” thing to do. “You really have to understand what love is all about. Love is really to seek the best for people. By being opposed to the redefinition of marriage , and being opposed to things that are sinful, that’s actually a very loving thing,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Springfield Diocese told LifeSiteNews.com in a video interview during the March for Life in Washington, DC. It was in November that Paprocki held the  rare public exorcism , an event that he  defended  as a prayer to God to cast out the influences of evil in the state. The service, held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception , was called “Prayers of Supplication and Exorcism in Reparation for the Sin of Same-Sex Marriage.” During an announcement ...

NORTH NICOSIA , Cyprus January 27, 2014  – Until yesterday, Northern Cyprus was the last jurisdiction in Europe to have kept homosexual activity on the criminal law books. In a bill passed Monday by its legislature, the region overturned its British colonial-era law outlawing sexual activity between two men. But they have not over-ruled God's law against the sin of homosexuality. Section 171 of the criminal code carried a punishment of up to five years for male homosexual acts. Female homosexuality is not included in the statute. The new law has yet to receive the formal ratification of Northern Cyprus’ leader. Northern Cyprus is a disputed territory since the withdrawal of British rule in 1960. It is called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus only by Turkey , which annexed the territory and expelled the ethnic Greek population in 1974, triggering decades of conflict. Northern Cyprus declared independence from the Republic of Cyprus , an EU member state , in 1983. ...