US churches debating LGBT Issues

for those in the USA: glaad have a tidy run down of the Protestant denominations exploring LGBT inclusion and justice issues, including dates of their conferences over the summer. followed by an article about pat robertson that’ll warm the cockles of your heart*… 😡

Summer Heats Up with Churches Debating LGBT Issues

LB

*don’t look at it too long. might make your blood boil

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yup. good people…

pete has this analogous thing (for something philosophically useful but i can’t remember what it is right now) where he talks about falling in love. it goes something like this:

you can have a list of characteristics, attributes, traits, talents or interests you want in a person and you carry it around looking for someone who’ll fit the bill. but that’s not what you fall in love with. you fall in the love with the person. that is, the human that is made up of those characteristics, attributes, traits, talents or interests and maybe a whole lot of other stuff besides. maybe you fall in love with someone other than what you thought you wanted or needed, who doesn’t match that list you were carrying round at all. when it happens, whether they match that list or not, the list doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. you can’t fall in love with a list of characteristics. what you love is a whole person.

as i see it, what you love is the ineffable them-ness.

and sometimes i get to wondering if community, or indeed church, is no different…

HFASS keeping it absolutely Real

for as far away as they may be, i’m glad Nadia and her people are there. for they tick many boxes on the list. and then there’s the them-ness.

everytime i think i’m done with it all, i am reminded of what matters most…

LB

MARCH OF SOLIDARITY: PUBLIC INVITATION

from the irish times online,

Victims of child abuse in church-run institutions will today hand over a petition to the head of the Conference of Religious of Ireland.

After a silent march through Dublin children’s shoes will be left at the Dáil gates and white ribbons will be tied on the railings outside Leinster House as a mark of respect for those who suffered clerical abuse.

Christian Brother Kevin Mullan and at least one representative from other orders named in the damning Ryan report have accepted invitations to attend.

The organisers of the march Christine Buckley, from Aislinn, John Kelly, Survivors of Child Abuse in Ireland, Noel Barry of Right of Place and former Fianna Fáil Mayor of Clonmel Michael O’Brien will lay wreaths, two black and two white, outside the Dáil.

A spokeswoman for the organising group, Survivors of Institutional Abuse Ireland (SOIAI), said: “The silence will be broken only when survivors intone the names of the 216 institutions as the petition is being handed to Sr O’Connor and Br Mullan outside the Dáil.

“Then 108 white balloons and 108 black balloons, representing the living and the dead of the 216 institutions, will be released into the skies.”

The demonstration begins at the Garden of Remembrance at noon, travels down O’Connell Street and over to Kildare Street.

Organisers urged people to attend and said those who wish to show solidarity should wear a white ribbon and sign and post the Petition of Solidarity, available on the SOIAI website www.irishsolidarity.com