Elton John To Congress: HIV Stigma Is Still The Greatest Threat To Stopping AIDS
Elton John testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee today to argue against so-called sequester caps on federal spending for HIV/AIDS. Via the Washington Times:
Music legend and advocate Elton John said the stigma of persons infected by HIV/AIDS, particularly in the LGBT community, is the greatest threat to fighting — and one day stopping — the disease. Sir John told a Senate Appropriations panel that some African societies marginalize or penalize gay members of their communities, hampering efforts to keep those with HIV/AIDS from gaining much-needed drugs. “They go underground, and the disease is spread even further,” he told the foreign operations subcommittee chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican. He struck a religious stance, too, saying Jesus “would be appalled at the way people are being stigmatized” and credited Pope Francis with preaching compassion. Sir John appeared before Congress to testify in support of a global-health fund that fights poverty and diseases like AIDS and malaria abroad.
The moment seen above with fellow testifier Pastor Rick Warren came as cameras flashed while the pair took their seats. Warren then joked that if he and Elton were to kiss at that moment, "It would be the kiss heard 'round the world." Elton's opening statement is below. In the second clip, Warren digresses from HIV/AIDS funding to lecture the committee on religious liberty.
A coalition of Catholic and Protestant leaders has united to call all Christians to an unwavering defense of the truth of marriage, rooted in nature as well as faith. "We affirm strongly and without qualification, following the clear testimony of holy Scripture, that marriage is a unique and privileged sign of the union of Christ with his people and of God with his creation — and it can only serve as that sign when a man and a woman are solemnly joined together in a permanent union,” reads a joint statement between Catholic and Protestant leaders. “If we are to remain faithful to the Scriptures and to the unanimous testimony of Christian Tradition, there can be no compromise on marriage.” Nearly 20 Catholics and evangelical Protestants signed the statement, “The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage.” Signatories represent the ecumenical coalition Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), which is an initiative of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. The statement will debut in the March issue of First Things magazine.
Signers of the statement include popular megachurch pastor Rick Warren and longtime gay marriage foe Maggie Gallagher, as well as prominent conservative Catholic intellectuals George Weigel and Robert George. Timothy George, a Southern Baptist and dean of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School; Mark Galli, editor of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today; and J.I. Packer of Regent University also endorsed the statement. The signers say they “do not dispute the evident fact of hormonal and chromosomal irregularities, nor of different sexual attractions and desires.” But they say that in legitimating same-sex marriage, “a kind of alchemy is performed, not merely on the institution, but on human nature itself.” “We are today urged to embrace an abstract conception of human nature that ignores the reality of our bodies. Human beings are no longer to be understood as either male or female,” it says. The result, it says, will undermine society by eliminating any moral compass except that which the state declares to be the norm, to the exclusion of all others.
"The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage,” comes from the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together, a coalition formed in 1994 under the aegis of former Nixon aide Charles Colson, an evangelical, and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest. One of their goals was to encourage the two Christian communities to overcome their historical suspicions and doctrinal differences in order to battle what they saw as a growing moral laxity in the U.S. Discussions on a document on same-sex marriage began in June 2013 — the same month the U.S. Supreme Court required the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages — according to Russell Reno, editor of First Things and a member of ECT; Reno provided a copy of the declaration to RNS. But Reno said the members first had to agree to set aside their differences on the legitimacy of divorce and contraception, for example, and even whether marriage is a sacrament.
A group of faith leaders is urging the Obama administration to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming LGBT anti-discrimination action. Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion. "We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need," the letter states. The Hobby Lobby decision has been welcomed by religious-right groups who accuse Obama of waging a war on religion. But Tuesday's letter is different: It comes from as group of faith leaders who are generally friendly to the administration, many of whom have closely advised the White House on issues like immigration reform. The letter was organized by Michael Wear, who worked in the Obama White House and directed faith outreach for the president's 2012 campaign. Signers include two members of Catholics for Obama and three former members of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. "This is not an antagonistic letter by any means," Wear told me. But in the wake of Hobby Lobby, he said, "the administration does have a decision to make whether they want to recalibrate their approach to some of these issues." [snip] To these religious leaders, Hobby Lobby ought to prompt the White House to reexamine the way it weights religious rights against other priorities. Liberals opposed to the decision, on the other hand, argue it creates a slippery slope to more and more carve-outs from important legislation for claims based on faith. This executive order could be the next battleground for those competing points of view.
We still don't even know the actual wording of the executive order. By the way, among those "general friendly" faith leaders that signed the letter are Father Larry Snyder, the CEO of Catholic Charities, and Stephen Schneck, the head of the Institute for Religion & Democracy, which in March viciously denounced the United Methodists for refusing to ostracize clergy that conducted same-sex marriages. Just a couple of weeks ago Schneck's group declared that the Presbyterian Church had sealed its doom by allowing pastors to conduct gay marriages. These guys are "generally friendly"?
We cannot allow another ENDA-sized loophole in this executive order or it will be useless.
Since Uganda's anti-gay law was signed recently, it's been amusing (and maddening) to watch various religious right characters scurry for cover. When nobody was watching, the holier-than-thou set have been visiting Uganda preaching their extreme anti-gay views. Now that people are appalled at Uganda's life-in-prison-for-homosexuals law, the "evangelical" right-wing preachers are laying low or rewriting history.
Below, Fiore calls out Scott Lively, Tony Perkins, Rick Warren, and Bryan Fischer. Great clip.
The 27-year-old son of the Rev. Rick Warren, one of America’s most influential religious leaders, committed suicide, Mr. Warren said in an e-mail released on Saturday to staff members and congregants at his 20,000-member Saddleback Valley Community Church. Rick Warren said in the e-mail that his youngest son, Matthew, had “struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts.” After a happy evening with his parents, the e-mail said, “in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.”
As they typically do, wingnut sites like Michelle Malkin's Twitchy have harvested a bunch of tweets from random unknown people which they claim characterizes "the ghoulish left."
Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.
Zack also has a list of Rick Warren's long history of anti-gay douchebaggery.
More American Christian Groups Named As Fomenting Anti-Gay Hate In Africa
As been exhaustively documented on this blog, for years US-based evangelical groups have been lobbying governments across Africa to create or increase penalties for merely existing as a homosexual person. These shining examples of Christian Love™ have resulted in the persecution, imprisonment, rape, and even murder of LGBT people across the continent. Today Britain's Times newspaper added more names to a evil rogues gallery already known to us.
Conservative U.S. Christian groups are setting up fronts in Africa to fight for anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation to promote their fundamentalist convictions, a report by a Boston research group said Tuesday. It accuses evangelical stars such as Pat Robertson and Rick Warren as well as Catholic and Mormon groups of setting up institutions and campaigns in Africa that are "fanning the flames of the culture wars over homosexuality and abortion by backing prominent African campaigners and political leaders." [snip]
Kaoma's report identifies groups belonging to a loose network of right-wing charismatic Christians. They include Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the Catholic Church's Human Life International (HLI) and the Mormon-led Family Watch International. All have launched or expanded offices in Africa over the past five years. Robertson's organization has spawned the Zimbabwe-based African Center for Law and Justice and the East African Center for Law and Justice in Kenya.
"By hiring locals as office staff, ACLJ and HLI in particular hide an American-based agenda behind African faces, giving the Christian Right room to attack gender justice and (the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people) as a neocolonial enterprise imposed on Africans and obstructing meaningful critique of the U.S. right's activities," the report said. Anti-gay laws passed in Burundi in 2009, Malawi in 2010 and Nigeria in 2011.
Uganda's so-called "Kill the Gays" law, which would levy the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," was thought to have been defeated after Kaoma and Political Research Associates exposed the legislation's American instigators in 2009. But it was reintroduced in Uganda's Parliament this February. That was a year after the killing of David Kato, of Sexual Minorities Uganda, who was found bludgeoned to death in his Kampala home. Amnesty International has reported an increasing intolerance in Africa that has resulted in "harassment, discrimination, persecution, violence and murders" against homosexuals in Africa.
Much more on this repulsive story will doubtlessly be coming. (Tipped by JMG reader Straight Grandmother)
I posted this news as an update to yesterday's post, but in case you didn't return to that entry, here's what Politico reports: "Contrary to reports on Pastor Rick Warren's call yesterday, there will be no joint Mitt Romney-President Obama appearances anywhere before the debates, campaign officials tell POLITICO."
Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren To Host Forum With Obama And Romney
UPDATE: The Obama campaign said today that the president will NOT appear at the Saddleback event.
Pastor Rick Warren, whose 2008 inauguration invocation for President Obama caused great anger among progressives, will next month host a forum with the president and Mitt Romney.
The forum would be similar to one he hosted four years ago with Obama and then-GOP presidential nominee McCain. In 2008, Warren interviewed the candidates separately -- with Obama going first, followed by McCain. The Arizona senator was sequestered in a room, unable to watch or listen until it was his turn on stage. Most of Warren's questions focused on broad themes. For instance, he asked Obama to define marriage. "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman," Obama said at the time -- though he has since said he believes same-sex couples should be allowed to wed. The format for this year's event is expected to mirror what took place four years ago and will again take place on the Saddleback campus in Lake Forest, Calif.
Warren plans to use a lottery to distribute 5000 tickets to attend in person. He claims his 2008 event drew one of the largest television audiences of that campaign.
"The key sticking point for evangelicals and actually for many is the issue of the trinity. That’s a historic doctrine of the church — that God is three in one. Not three Gods, one God in father, son and Holy Spirit. Mormonism denies that. That’s a sticking point for a lot of Catholic Christians, evangelical Christians, pentecostal Christians because they don’t believe that. Now, they’ll use the same terminology. But they don’t believe in the historic doctrine of the trinity. And people have tried to make it other issues, but that’s one of the fundamental differences." - Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, speaking on ABC's This Week.
Pastor Rick Warren Denounces AFA's Bryan Fischer For HIV Denialism
"For the past eight years we have worked with thousands of churches around the world and in America who have ministries to those infected and affected by AIDS. No one deserves this illness, and we must not ignore those among us who are infected or affected by HIV and AIDS. There are numerous ways to acquire the virus – sexual activity, blood transfusions, being born to an HIV positive mother, dirty needles – but what matters isn’t how a person became infected as much as how we will respond.
"People with living with the virus are people that Jesus created, loves, and died for. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan teaches us that when you find someone bleeding on the side of the road, you don’t say 'Was it your fault?' You just help them in love! Let’s be very careful about what reality we deny; lives are at stake." - Pastor Rick Warren and his wife Kay, in a statement issued to Warren Throckmorton regarding Bryan Fischer's recent denial that HIV causes AIDS.
Warren's statement notes that many people have died in Africa due to the HIV denialism promoted by Peter Duesberg, the discredited scientist now embraced by Fischer. RELATED: President Obama created a still-lingering firestorm of ill will when he tapped Warren to conduct the prayer at the 2008 inauguration. Warren is close friends with Uganda's Martin Ssempa, the chief proponent of his nation's still-pending "kill the gays" bill, although Warren has issued a statement condemning the legislation. While we welcome the above-linked statement to Throckmorton, critics maintain that Rick Warren's AIDS ministry in Africa may actually be worsening the situation due to his relationships with those who persecute homosexuals.
BACKGROUND: Evidence Of Scott Lively's Complicity In The Murder Of David Kato
Yesterday Ugandan LGBT activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death in his home just weeks after his photo was emblazoned on the cover of a local newspaper with the accompanying headline "HANG THEM!" The newspaper articles and Kato's murder came after months of international outrage over Uganda's proposed and still-pending "kill gays" bill, legislation that orders the death penalty for homosexuals in some cases and life imprisonment in others.
The inspiration for Uganda's gay death penalty bill, and surely, Kato's murder, arises from the work of American evangelists, chief among them the repulsive anti-gay activist Scott Lively, whose infamous book The Pink Swastika blames the rise of the Nazi Party and the Holocaust on gay men. One year ago, the New York Timesprofiled Lively's hand in Uganda's burgeoning pogrom against homosexuals, which began after Lively hosted a three-day meeting attended by thousands of Ugandan police, teachers, and politicians.
The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.
“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality. “That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”
Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh. Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.
Yesterday Scott Lively's "nuclear bomb" against Ugandan gays went off in the form of the iron bar which crushed the skull of David Kato. In some countries, it's possible that Lively would be under arrest today. Also complicit in this murder is Peter LaBarbera, who for years has worked to publicize and praise Scott Lively's evil agenda. Then there's Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, who last year paid lobbyists $25,000 to convince members of Congress to block a planned resolution denouncing Uganda's gay death penalty bill. And let's not forget Pastor Rick Warren, who supported, funded, appeared with, and publicized the work of Uganda's leading anti-gay activist, Pastor Martin Ssempa.
Today we mourn David Kato, a brave LGBT activist who paid the ultimate price in defense of his brothers and sisters. But we've also got start looking at some serious legal remedies to the actions of American anti-gay activists in other countries. Outside of the United States, many legals systems are not so constrained by the American concept of freedom of speech. What can we do to leverage that difference to end this madness? Lawsuits? The Hague?
In response to his "desperation" end-of-2009 plea, the mindless pensioners under Rick Warren's spell dug deep into their piggy banks and forked over $2.4M in under 24 hours.
The Rev. Rick Warrren, who campaigned for the passage of California's antigay Proposition 8, has received $2.4 million in donations after making an end-of-the year plea to parishioners to help fill a gap in his southern California megachurch's budget. On Saturday, Warren announced at his Saddleback Church that all the money had come from individual donations of less than $100. "We're starting the new decade with a surplus," he said. "It came from thousands of ordinary people. This was not one big fat cat."
Whee! Another $2.4M for Jeebus' BFF! What to buy, what to buy? Another mansion? Another campaign to kill homos?
Uganda's "Kill Gays" Backer Martin Ssempa Responds To Rick Warren
Box Turtle Bulletindirects us to this new video from Rick Warren's former BFF, Pastor Martin Ssempa, who is mighty pissed about Warren's late-but-welcomed denouncement of Uganda's "kill gays" bill. BTB's Jim Burroway points out that Ssempa outright lies when he claims that child rape is not against the law in Uganda.
Rick Warren has sent an emergency email to his followers, claiming that unless his Saddleback megachurch gets $900,000 by the end of today, something terrrrrrrible will happen!
“Dear Saddleback Family,” begins today’s missive from Warren. “THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER unlike any I’ve written in 30 years. Please read all of it and get back to me in the next 48 hours. “I have thrilling news to share with you below but first some seriously bad news: With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we’ve stayed close to our budget all year. Then… this last weekend the bottom dropped out.
“On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive - leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow.” The church does not make its financial information public, so it’s impossible to tell just how big of a hole in the boat this $900,000 represents. A spokeswoman for Warren said the church does not release detail on its finances, so it’s hard to put the shortfall in context. (Suffice to say it may not represent a terribly significant portion of Saddleback’s annual budget, and that his personal appeal may well close the hole, and then some.)
