People of Faith CT

by Chuck Colbert
Keen News Service
January 18, 2012

A group of nearly 40 conservative religious leaders released an open letter Jan. 12 that seeks to reframe the battle over same-sex civil marriage as a threat to their freedom of religion.

And in a new tactical twist, the signatories say their concern is not that their ministers will be forced to preside at same-sex weddings. Rather, they say, allowing gays to wed would end up "forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations—throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies—to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalence of marital sexual conduct."

The signatories include New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; H. David Burton, presiding bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. It also includes the Bishop of Oakland, Calif., the Most Rev. Salvatore J. Cordileone.

"There is no doubt that many people and groups whose moral and religious convictions forbid same-sex sexual conduct will resist the compulsion of the law and church and state conflicts will result," the leaders caution, in the letter, entitled "Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together."

The signatories say that faith-based adoption agencies would be required to place children with civilly married same-sex couples and that religious employers would be required to extend medical health care benefits same-sex spouses.

The letter, posted on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, holds out marriage between heterosexual couples as the "true definition" that "must be protected for its own sake and for the good of society."

The religious leaders also assert that, in opposing same-sex marriage, they and their followers have been "marked" as "bigots, subjecting them to the full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists."

Nationwide, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has been at the forefront advocating against equal civil-marriage rights for gay couples. One leading opponent is Dolan, whom the pope will elevate to cardinal next month.

Days before conservative religious leaders released their letter, Pope Benedict said same-sex marriage posed a threat to "humanity" adding, "Pride of place goes the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman."

"This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society," he said. "Consequently, the policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself."

Pro-LGBT Catholic advocates reacted swiftly to the pope's harsh words and the open letter.

"The pope has it wrong, but this time he has it diametrically wrong," said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of Mount Rainier, Md.-based New Ways Ministry, a gay positive ministry of outreach with LGBT Catholics, their families and friends.

"The threat to 'human dignity and the future of humanity' comes not from marriage equality but in opposition to it," he added in a New Ways Ministry blog posting.

In an email correspondence, DeBernardo said, the open letters' threat of "compulsion is a fantasy that exists in the conservative religious leaders' heads."

"No one is going to be compelled to do anything," he said. "If religious organizations do not follow government regulations, they will simply not receive government funding," he said.

by Mazin Qumsiyeh
14 January 2012

http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/01/20-puntipoints.html

Palestine is the Western part of the Fertile Crescent: an area that includes Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In this Fertile Crescent the first human agriculture developed.  Here the first domestication of animals (e.g. goats, donkeys, camels) and plants (e.g. wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, olives) happened.

2- This is also where civilization began including development of the first alphabet (by Phoenician Canaanites) and the first laws.  It was where we first developed sciences like astronomy, engineering, and mathematics

3- The original inhabitants of the Western part of the Fertile Crescent were called Canaanites and the original language was called Aramaic which Jesus spoke (he was born in the country called then Palestine and thus he was Palestinian)

4- The old Aramaic language gave rise to derived languages including Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew and this language group is called Semetic languages

5- Arabic alphabet evolved in Southern Canaan (today’s Jordan and Palestine) while the Latin alphabet evolved in Northern Canaan (Phoenicia, present day Lebanon and Syria).  The Alphabet used in Europe today came from our part of the world.

6- The people of Southern Canaan including Palestine endured many invasions of armies with nearly 15 times that local people were ruled by kings or emperors (Persian, Roman, Umayyad, Abbasid, Israelite etc).

7- Local religious ideas evolved over the ages from Cananitic Pagan ideas to monotheistic ideas to Christianity (first century), Rabbinical Judaism (3rd century), Islam (7th Century).,

8- Palestine was always multi-cultural, multi-religious society despite attempts to homogenize it in certain periods (e.g. the Crusaders killed and exiled Jews, Muslims, and Christians of other sects).

9- Jews of today, like Christians and Muslims of today come from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds.  They are thus genetically (biologically) heterogeneous.

10- Before the wave of European Jewish immigration, Palestinians were of various religions: about 85% Muslim, 10% Christian, 5% Jewish and others. For hundreds of years Palestinians of various religions lived in relative harmony.

11- Zionism is a political idea that spread among a minority of European Jews who adapted to the European notions of ethnocentric nationalism and thus claims Jews of today should gather in Palestine and create a Jewish state because of discrimination in Europe.  Socialist Jews and other Jews believed in fighting for equal rights.  Zionists thought that anti-Jewish feelings in Europe serves their interests and thus even collaborated with racists.  There was a transfer agreement between the third Reich and the Zionist movement. Zionists also lobbied Western governments not to take in European Jewish refugees so that they all go to Palestine.

The Abstinence of Courage Comes to Connecticut
By Chuck Colbert / TRT Reporter
January 11, 2012

http://www.therainbowtimesnews.com/

HARTFORD, Conn.--The Catholic archdiocese of Hartford, Conn., is offering a spiritual support program, or ministry, for gay men and lesbians, holding out abstinence, or mandatory celibacy, as key to living a moral life.

News of the program, a chapter of the national ministry called Courage, first greeted readers of the Hartford Courant on Wednesday morning, Jan. 4, and spread quickly over the Internet and through national and other local print and broadcast media, prompting strong reactions from Connecticut Catholics, as well as national Catholic LGBT advocacy groups and organizations that minister with gay Catholics and their families.

“The purpose of the ministry is to support men and women who struggle with homosexual tendencies and to motivate them to live chaste and fruitful lives in accordance with Catholic Church teaching,” according the archdiocese’s press release.

“Through support and spiritual intervention, we can help people with same-sex attraction lead moral and fulfilling lives,” said Robert M. Pallotti, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Diaconate, in the press statement.

By design, Courage is in accord with official Catholic doctrine, which says homosexuality “is more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus, the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Theologically speaking, the Courage ministry also stems from natural law theory, which holds that sex is morally acceptable only when expressed in sacramental marriage and only when sexual intercourse is open to procreation.

Other sexual (including heterosexual) activity - masturbation, artificial contraception, adultery, and sex outside of marriage - are also considered to be immoral under natural law.

During a lengthy telephone interview, Deacon Pallotti readily acknowledged the moral question of sexual activity is the rub for many gay Catholics.

In upholding the Church’s moral teaching, he said, “We know it’s going to be challenge and hard to live this [celibate] life.”

“We know within the Catholic Church there is a struggle about the [moral] teaching,” said Pallotti. Still, “We want to minister in light of that [teaching] for those who want to remain in the Church. We are here to offer them pastoral care and support for them and their families.”

Pallotti also said he expected "blow back" from the gay community.

He got it, as gay Catholics and Hartford LGBT community leaders pushed back, saying the Church’s view is outdated, unsound, and worse yet, harmful.

“It perpetuates a falsehood that gay people are somehow defective, when in reality we are wonderful people created in the image and likeness of God as is all creation,” said Frank O’Gorman, 47, of West Hartford.

Asked about the harm Courage does, he explained, “Many of us, gay Catholics of my generation, believed during our teen and into our 20’s that we were somehow defective and that was a period of great depression.”

“Only when we fully embraced our sexuality as a gift from God were we transformed from people who were walking dead into people who had a light to shine and offer other people,” said O’Gorman, who is a member of Dignity USA.

Medford, Mass.-based Dignity USA is the nation’s oldest and largest LGBT Catholic advocacy organization.

“Courage’s falsehood,” he added, “that gay people cannot live full, loving lives and express themselves [sexually] in a loving way” harms people as a “form of spiritual violence.”

“Religious people, of all people, should not be promoting spiritual violence,” said O’Gorman.

"I am deeply concerned about what seems to be an increase in the roll out of Courage and 12-step [addiction-model] programs in Catholic dioceses across the country," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, Dignity USA's executive director. "These kinds of programs promote exactly the kind of negativity that has been demonstrated to lead to substance abuse, depression, and even suicide."

“It’s bad enough that the bishops are attacking LGBT people politically. Now it seems they are launching a campaign to attack us pastorally, as well,” Duddy-Burke said.

“The main problem I see with the Courage ministry is that it primarily views lesbian/gay people in terms of sexual activity. This approach does not consider lesbian/gay people as whole people, but narrowly defines them in terms of sex,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, writing in a blog posting.

“A ministry which primarily focuses on the possibility of sexual activity is a very stunted ministry,” he added.

Based in Mount Ranier, Md., New Ways Ministry is “a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice” for LGBT Catholics  and of “reconciliation within the larger Christian and civil communities.”

“The direct implication [of Courage] is that who you are is not okay,” said Robin McHaelen, executive director of Hartford’s True Colors, a nonprofit agency that offers services to LGBT teens.

McHaelen also finds off-putting Courage’s “love-the-sinner-but-hate-the sin” perspective, which, she says, hurts kids.

While young people who seek services at True Colors say they generally don’t believe the line of reasoning, McHaelen said, “The fear still lingers. ‘But what if it’s true?’ some youth wonder.”

Courage’s approach, she added, “Is truly, absolutely invalidated, by every mainstream social science, psychological, and mental health organization,” which consider homosexuality as a natural occurrence, a variation of human sexuality.

As early as 1973, for instance, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its codification of mental health disorders.

Linda Estabrook, executive director of Hartford Gay&Lesbian Health Collective (HGLHC), bristled at the press-release language.

“It says gay people are not moral and not living fulfilled lives,” she said. “That is not accurate, along with beyond offensive.

2012 Parish Social Ministry Retreat

This Lent, treat yourself to a day of prayer, fellowship, and renewal.

Saturday, March 10, 9am - 2:30pm
Sisters of St. Joseph Convent, West Hartford

Registration Fee - $35 per person
(Includes Continental Breakfast and Lunch)

Justice for People and Planet:  God's Dream and Ours
Sometimes, no matter how hard we work, society seems to move backwards on issues that are important to us as Christians and Catholics.  It’s easy to become discouraged.

What can we do to stay healthy in this challenging ministry?  What are some practices that can help us hold on to our issues, and ground us in a sense of hope and trust? This retreat will explore some best practices that can sustain us and give us the hope necessary to move forward.  As we reflect on “God’s Dream and Ours,” we will discover ways to care for people and the planet, while maintaining our own energy and balance.

Our Guest Speaker will be Margaret Galiardi, OP.

Margaret Galiardi is a Dominican Sister from Amityville, NY who currently serves as Executive Director of the Spiritual Life Center in West Hartford.  In her long history of justice ministry,  Sr. Margaret has lived in convents that were also shelters for homeless women and their children, for refugees, and for women recently released from prison, and has worked in soup kitchens and shelters.  She also served as Executive Director for the Intercommunity Center for Justice and Peace in New York City. 

Sr. Margaret was a member of the International Commission for Justice, Peace and Care of Creation for the Dominican Order.  She has lectured nationally on ecological theology, developed by the Holy Father, the Bishops, and by emerging ecological and evolutionary theologians. 

Sr. Margaret spent the 2009-2010 year in silence and solitude, living with the Trappist Monks in their monastery on the Lost Coast of Northern California.

Note:  Financial Assistance is available.  Please contact Lynn Campbell for more information:
lcampbell at catholicsocialjustice.org

Register Now!

Space is limited.  Register early.

The Random Horror of the Death Penalty
By LINCOLN CAPLAN
January 7, 2012
New York Times

The Supreme Court has not banned capital punishment, as it should, but it has long held that the death penalty is unconstitutional if randomly imposed on a handful of people. An important new study based on capital cases in Connecticut provides powerful evidence that death sentences are haphazardly meted out, with virtually no connection to the heinousness of the crime.
A number of studies in the last three decades have shown that black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white rather than black. But defenders of capital punishment often respond to those studies by arguing that the "worst of the worst" are sentenced to death because their crimes are the most egregious.

The Connecticut study, conducted by John Donohue, a Stanford law professor, completely dispels this erroneous reasoning. It analyzed all murder cases in Connecticut over a 34-year period and found that inmates on death row are indistinguishable from equally violent offenders who escape that penalty. It shows that the process in Connecticut - similar to those in other death-penalty states - is utterly arbitrary and discriminatory.

From 1973, when Connecticut passed a death penalty law, to 2007, 4,686 murders were committed in the state. Of those, 205 were death-eligible cases (capital murders that include the killing of a police officer, murder for hire, murder-rape and murder committed during a kidnapping) that resulted in some kind of conviction, either through a plea bargain or conviction at trial. The arbitrariness started at the charging level: nearly a third of these death-eligible cases were not charged as capital offenses as they could have been, but as lesser crimes. Sixty-six defendants were convicted of capital murder, 29 went to a hearing for a death sentence, nine death sentences were sustained and one person was executed.
Why was this small group of defendants singled out for death? Did their crimes make them more deserving of execution than all the others?

To get answers, Professor Donohue designed an "egregiousness" ratings system to compare all 205 cases. It considered four factors: victim suffering (like duration of pain); victim characteristics (like age, vulnerability); defendant's culpability (motive, intoxication or premeditation); and the number of victims. He enlisted students from two law schools to rate each case (based on fact summaries without revealing the case's outcome or the race of the defendant or victim) on a scale from 1 to 3 (most egregious) for each of the four factors. The raters also gave each case an overall subjective assessment of egregiousness, from 1 (low) to 5 (high), to ensure that more general reactions could be captured.

The egregiousness scores for those charged with capital murder and those who were not were virtually identical; the nature of the crime bore almost no relationship to how the case came out. Among the 29 who had a death penalty hearing, there is no clear difference in the level of egregiousness for the 17 who got life without parole and the 12 sentenced to death (three eventually had their sentences vacated for various reasons). Among the 32 most awful cases on the four-factor egregiousness scale, only one resulted in a death sentence.

Rather than punish the worst criminals, the Connecticut system, Professor Donohue found, operates with "arbitrariness and discrimination." The racial effect is very evident (minority defendants with white victims were far more likely to be sentenced to death than others), as is geographic disparity. In the city of Waterbury, a death-eligible killer was at least seven times as likely to be sentenced to death as in the rest of the state.

It's time to not only move over AIPAC... let's OCCUPY AIPAC!

http://occupyaipac.org

@occupyaipac

Join us in Washington D.C. March 3-5, 2012 for Move Over AIPAC: Time for a New Middle East Policy!

This not-to-miss weekend will include panel discussions, cultural events, music and poetry, creative protests, Congressional visits, and more!

We will have three exciting plenaries on Palestine, the Arab Spring, and Iran, with a focus on the impact of the Israel lobby in shaping US policy towards the Middle East.

Come join in creative direct action and protest outside the annual AIPAC Policy Conference to show our Congress and President Obama that we do not support the AIPAC stranglehold over US foreign policy.

We will also be hosting a cultural night on Saturday, March 3rd, devoted to the poets, musicians and comedians of Palestine.

Performances will include author of Sharon and My Mother-in-Law Suad Amiry, Palestinian-American poet Remi Kanazi and many more.

It’s time to #Occupy AIPAC, not Palestine!

Stay tuned as we develop our program for this exciting weekend gathering.

Brought to you by CODEPINK.