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  • Monday, July 31, 2006

    Funeral Picketers Sued by Dead Marine's Dad

    Traffic slows outside of Arlington National Cemetery on July 7, as members of Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church protest the funeral of Army 1st Lieutenant Forrest P. Ewens. The church believes that because of America's acceptance of homosexuality, God is punishing the country by killing U.S. servicemen in the Middle East.
    (CBS)Funeral Picketers Sued By Marine's Dad
    WASHINGTON, D.C., July 28, 2006
    This article was written by CBSNews.com intern Brian Goodman.

    On Friday, July 7, Army 1st Lieutenant Forrest P. Ewens was buried at a respectful ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery, which many consider to be the most hallowed ground in the United States.

    But the peace was disrupted by protests from members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. In a cordoned-off area by the entrance to the cemetery, they carried signs with anti-gay and anti-American slogans and proclaimed that Ewens' death in Afghanistan on June 16 was another sign of God's impeding doom on the nation.

    Westboro has taken what it calls "love crusades" to military funerals across the country. The church was not protesting at the funeral because Ewens was gay, but because he died, in their view, serving a country that has incurred the wrath of God by accepting and tolerating homosexuality.

    Now the father of a slain serviceman whose funeral was disrupted is suing the church in an attempt to fight back against what he views as the abuse of military families with a message of hate.

    'Sins Of The Flesh'

    Westboro Baptist Church was founded by Fred Phelps in Topeka, Kan., in 1955. The church — unaffiliated with any mainstream Baptist organization — has always "preached against all forms of sin," as its Web site says. Church members began demonstrating against homosexuality 15 years ago. According to Phelps's daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, Westboro believes that America is damned to eternal punishment because the country is accepting of homosexuality and other "sins of the flesh."

    "When you see a people who have risen up with one voice to say 'it's OK to be gay,' you are looking at a doomed people," she said. "They have crossed the line."

    Westboro gained notoriety when members held an anti-gay rally outside the funeral of Matthew Shepard, who was brutally murdered in 1998 in Wyoming due to his sexual preference. Westboro later attempted to get a plaque commemorating Shepard's "entry into hell" erected in a Wyoming park.

    The church of about 100 members is made up primarily of Phelps's supposed family. Westboro directs most of its preaching against homosexuality and America's acceptance of gays, whom Phelps-Roper calls "the bottom rung on the depravity chain."

    Church members picket at high profile locations, and have appeared at memorials for the victims of Sept. 11 and the 12 West Virginia Sago coal miners who died last January.

    Westboro views the deaths of American servicemen in the Middle East to be one of the many ways God is enacting his vengeance and judgment on the nation. The church has therefore taken to protesting at military funerals to get that message out.

    "Our job," Phelps-Roper stated, "is to put this cup of his wrath and fury to the lips of this nation and make them drink it."

    For the first time since members of Westboro began protesting at military funerals, someone is using the courts to stop them. A distraught father has filed suit in Maryland against what he views as a gross violation of privacy and intentional emotional abuse.

    On March 3, 2006, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder was killed in the Al Anbar province of Iraq. His father, Albert Snyder, buried him on March 20 at St. John's Catholic Church in Westminster, Md.. It was supposed to be a peaceful, private ceremony.

    But the funeral was interrupted by members of the church. "The protesters — Westboro Baptist Church — showed up with their signs, their hatred," Snyder said.

    According to Snyder's attorney Sean Summers, the demonstrators bore their infamous "God Hates Fags" signs, as well as a lesser used "Semper Fi Fags" sign, particularly offensive to the dead Marine's family.

    Though Phelps-Roper maintains that the protesters "were hundreds — hundreds — of yards from where the funeral was," Snyder was forced to travel past them to enter.

    "To be honest with you, I tried not to focus on (the protest), and more on my son," he said.

    But according to the lawsuit, the church's presence was emotionally damaging to the already grieving father. Postings by Phelps-Roper on the church's Web site following the protest that claimed Snyder "taught Matthew to defy his Creator, to divorce, and to commit adultery," and "raised him for the devil," further added to the father's pain.

    The lawsuit says Westboro knowingly violated Snyder's privacy, defamed him and was an intentional infliction of emotional distress against the bereaved father.

    In addition to general damages, the lawsuit is seeking punitive damages against the church to act as a deterrent against future protests,

    Phelps-Roper feels this is a misuse of the judicial system. "Their stated purpose is to tie this little group — the servants of the living God — up in litigation," she said, "not caring what the merits are … or if they could possibly prevail."

    Snyder says that he wants to spare other grieving families from Westboro's activities. "My hope is that they'll stop doing what they're doing."

    'God Loves Everyone'

    At Arlington, Pastor David Foote of Franklin, Penn., saw the protest and attempted to engage the demonstrators. He told them that "God loves everyone," prompting church members to descend upon him in a hail of insults.

    "A lying, false prophet — that's what this is," Phelps-Roper told CBSNews.com, and dismissed him as a "dumb-ass" and a liar.

    Foote was in Arlington to pay his respects to Army Spc. Jonathan Kephart, killed near Baghdad on April 9, 2004. Seeing the contempt demonstrated by the church for both the dead and the living was troubling to the Baptist preacher.

    "Christians don't talk the way they talked to me," he said. "We show respect to each other."

    By Brian M. Goodman
    ©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    Many of us who live in southeast Kansas -- only a hundred-some miles south of Topeka know Fred Phelps and his family quite well; we are embarassed for the bunch of them.

    Saturday, July 29, 2006

    Homeless Woman Pleads Not Guilty in Library Fire

    You may recall on June 22, we reported here that someone, at that time unknown, had set fire to the gay book collection in the Chicago Public Library. The woman who did it has now been apprehended by Chicago Police. PAT]

    July 26, 2006

    FROM STNGWIRE REPORTS



    A homeless woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges alleging she set fire to books in the gay/lesbian and African-American sections of a Chicago Public Library facility in the Lakeview neighborhood.

    Erica Graham, 21, homeless with a last known address the 3100 block of N. Broadway, pleaded not guilty to one count each of attempted aggravated arson and criminal mutilation of library materials, according to Cook County State’s Attorney’s office spokesman Andy Conklin.

    A status hearing in the case was slated for Aug. 18 before Criminal Court Associate Judge Dennis J. Porter, Conklin added.

    Graham is accused of setting fire to books at the John M. Merlo library branch in June. Prosecutors stated during Graham’s bond hearing last month that she thought a librarian was rude because the librarian wouldn’t allow her to sleep in the library, and because she and her boyfriend were not allowed to be on the same computer at the same time.

    Graham -- whose bond was set at $75,000 -- said she did not know the title of the book she set on fire, but went to a section on the second floor because it was in a remote part of the library, prosecutors said.

    Library personnel found a small fire on the second floor of the Merlo branch at 644 W. Belmont about noon on June 13, and were able to extinguish it themselves, according to library spokeswoman Maggie Killackey. The fire damaged 90 books in the gay/lesbian section, and 10 books in the African-American section, Killackey said. No one was injured, she added. The library had to be evacuated due to the fire at the time it occurred; but since has been restocked and re-opened.

    Friday, July 28, 2006

    Straight Kansan Loves His Rainbow Flag

    This man is our hero! A straight businessman who respects his gay clientele no matter what. (See followup report on Thursday, August 10.)

    Barbara Wilcox, PlanetOut Network
    published Wednesday, July 26, 2006

    A bed-and-breakfast owner in Meade, Kansas, has created a tempest with the rainbow Pride flag, a gift from his son, that he hoisted three weeks ago next to the Stars and Stripes over his establishment.

    J.R. Knight and his wife, Robin, moved to town two years ago to run the Lakeway Inn, "midway between the infamous 'Boot Hill' in Dodge City and the fabled 'Land of Oz' in Liberal," as their Web site states.

    Knight received the rainbow flag from his 12-year-old after a trip to a nearby museum about the Wizard of Oz. The flag reminded the boy of "somewhere over the rainbow."

    Knight says he knew the flag stood for gay rights ("I'm not an idiot"), but also for a lot of other things, like unity and friendship.

    People in the town of 1,600 apparently went ballistic. But Knight dug in his heels. He claims a radio station threatened to pull the Lakeway Inn's ads if he did not remove the flag. Quite a few "sweet Christian people" sincerely told him the flag stood for sin. A pastor told him it was as inappropriate as hanging women's panties on a flagpole. Knight joked that he might consider it.

    "I told him, 'How about I go to your church and take down everything about Jesus?' It's the same thing."

    While the Lakeway Inn has lost local restaurant business over the controversy, Knight says hotel patronage is up. He's on two major highways -- Hwy. 54 east/west and Hwy. 23 north/south -- and has, he says, the only alcohol license for 40 miles.

    "Any gay or lesbian people that do stop by will be treated with the best service I can give you," Knight told KWCH-TV reporter Tucker Jankosky of Wichita. "When this rainbow flag shreds, I will buy another one, and another one, and another one. Just like my American flag, I'll buy another one."

    He told Gay.com: "I wasn't flying it in people's face, but anymore I kind of am, because people need to learn."

    Thursday, July 27, 2006

    Will the Episcopal Church Survive the Year?

    The Church of England newspaper made this comment in its issue of Friday, July 28:

    Episcopal Church on verge of split
    Number: 5830 Date: July 28
    By George Conger

    The Episcopal Church retreated further into ecclesiastical anarchy this week with fears mounting that the institution as it now stands will not survive the year. The latest development concerns four California bishops who have filed legal charges against a fifth — the Bishop of San Joaquin — seeking to depose him out of fear he may lead his diocese out of the Episcopal Church.

    Other dioceses and parishes have already made clear their intention to quit, including the Diocese of Fort Worth in Texas, while a parish in the Diocese of San Diego has quit the Church in protest at the actions of last month’s General Convention. The largest parish in the Diocese of West Texas has warned it may quit, while the Bishop of Central New York has filed a lawsuit and is seeking an emergency injunction to gain control of a Syracuse parish’s assets for fear it may leave as well. Meanwhile the Bishop of Arkansas has given permission to his clergy to begin performing blessings of same-sex unions, so long as the blessings are pastoral and not sacramental. In the California case the Bishops of San Diego, Los Angeles, California and Northern California have charged that Bishop John-David Schofield, California’s only Forward in Faith bishop, will “abandon the communion of this Church.”

    The Diocese of San Joaquin rejected the charges, saying “these allegations are neither relevant nor justified.” In April 2005, Christ Church, Kansas’ largest congregation, seceded from the Episcopal Church, purchasing its property from the diocese for $1 million, and moving under the oversight of the Church of Uganda. On July 24, the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Fort Worth, voted to withdraw “its consent … to be included in the Seventh Province of the Episcopal Church.” The American Church’s 110 dioceses are divided into nine geographical provinces. Under the constitution of the Episcopal Church, a diocese must give its consent to be included in a Province. Fort Worth’s vote this week effectively removes the diocese from the Province. Critics of Fort Worth have objected to this, arguing that while the constitution allow for a diocese to give its consent to membership in a Province, it is unclear if the diocese has the power to withdraw that consent.

    Across the state in San Antonio, Texas, the rector and vestry of Christ Church — the Diocese of West Texas’ largest congregation, announced they are making plans to disassociate themselves from The Episcopal Church over the actions of the last two General Conventions, as soon as the Primates and Archbishop of Canterbury provide a way forward. In the Diocese of San Diego, St John’s Church in Fallbrook, California, voted at a parish meeting on July 17 to secede from the diocese and move under the oversight of the Church of Uganda, citing The Episcopal Church’s innovations of doctrine and discipline that put it at odds with the majority of the Anglican Communion and Christian world. The defections are likely to continue as the divisions in the Church show no sign of being healed. On July 19, Bishop Larry Maze of Arkansas controversially wrote to his clergy giving them permission to bless same-sex unions. While Bishop Maze conceded that sacramental blessings of same-sex unions violated Church law and the recommendations of the Windsor Report, a pastoral provision for blessings did not.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Church of England Newspaper, Religious Intelligence Ltd, Fourth Floor, Central House, 142 Central Street, London EC1V 8AR
    Telephone: 020 7417 5800 Fax: 020 7216 6410

    So, what is going to become of us? It is really very, very sad that a handful of dissident parishes seem dead set on wrecking our church.

    Saturday, July 22, 2006

    Episcopal Bishop of Arkansas Gives OK on Exploring Blessing Ceremonies for Gay Couples

    The Episcopal bishop of Arkansas has given the green light to congregations that want to explore offering blessing ceremonies for gay couples and has notified clergymen in the diocese that some congregations are ready to do that.

    One of them is St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in west Little Rock, which is to have a blessing ceremony for a couple in September. In addition, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville has invited same-sex couples to consider exploring such a ceremony.

    “The Episcopal Church continues to be in the forefront of the effort to assure that gay and lesbian persons are made welcome in our churches and are afforded equal treatment by society at-large,” starts the 428-word letter by Arkansas’ bishop, the Right Rev. Larry Maze. “There is not agreement across the church in how to achieve those ends.... It is my belief that seeking ways of recognizing and blessing faithful, monogamous same-sex relationships falls within the parameters of providing pastoral concern and care for our gay and lesbian members.”

    “In the weeks ahead, those congregations that have been addressing the possibility of such blessings will likely move forward,” Maze wrote in a letter dated Wednesday.

    The bishop, who will retire later this year, was out of town and unavailable for comment.

    Gays in the church have been at the epicenter of rifts between liberal and conservative groups within the 2 million member national denomination since its 2003 triennial convention. Maze was among bishops who approved the election of an openly gay man, the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Convention representatives also passed a resolution in favor of churches exploring the option of blessing same-sex couples.

    Conservative leaders condemned the American church’s actions. Leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is part, met in 2004 and produced the Windsor Report, which asked that the American church not consecrate any more gay bishops or perform same-sex unions.

    This year’s triennial convention in Ohio was watched by Anglicans around the world, some of whom believe that the U. S. church’s continued standing in the Anglican Communion depended on its response to the Windsor Report.

    On the last day of the nine-day convention, deputies and bishops passed a resolution advising dioceses not to elect another gay bishop, but they didn’t explicitly address the issue of blessing gay couples.

    Maze, bishop of the state’s 14, 000 Episcopalians, sent his letter to clergymen in the state’s 55 churches notifying them that several churches are close to performing such blessings and acknowledging that beliefs differ widely on whether that is appropriate.

    The Rev. Ed Wills of St. Michael’s in Little Rock said a couple has been going through the same counseling process he uses for couples planning marriage. They have a tentative date in September for their blessing service, which would make them the first in Arkansas to have an Episcopal service of blessing.

    Wills said he wanted the couple to experience what any couple would experience in preparing for a lifelong commitment and not to become a media spectacle or a novelty. Wills said Maze’s letter does not reflect a change in the bishop’s thinking. “He has said all along that we were moving in this direction,” he said. “Nothing has changed.” St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville passed a resolution last September expressing its support for performing such ceremonies.

    Its rector, the Rev. Lowell Grisham, and Wills said their churches had been waiting until the outcome of the national denomination’s triennial convention in June before asking Maze whether they could proceed.

    Grisham sent a letter to parishioners July 14 saying St. Paul’s will offer blessing ceremonies, and he invited same-sex couples in committed relationships to explore the possibility.

    Wills said it is important for a congregation to be part of the decision-making because the blessing of any couple is always rooted in the community. “God is about community, about belonging, about relationship,” he said. Couples are blessed within that community “not just so that they can be special but that they can be a blessing to other people.”

    Grisham’s and Maze’s letters noted that blessings are neither weddings nor same-sex unions and have no legal standing in Arkansas. Grisham explained that they are a local observance in each church, not an approved formal rite. That puts them in the same category as other informal, local blessings, such as the blessing of animals near St. Francis’ feast day, the blessing of the fleet in a coastal parish, or the church’s blessing this Sunday for a young man about to join the Peace Corps.

    Grisham said no couples have requested a blessing yet, but he predicted that the church will perform one before the next general convention in 2009. Couples will go through a period of counseling, just as couples do before marriage.

    “Our expectation is that anyone who enters into a covenant with our blessing rites would be making a lifelong vow characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful honest communication, and the holy love that enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God,” he said, echoing the words of the 2003 resolution.

    “My gay friends are very sensitive about the notion that we’ve been blessing animals for years and find it so difficult to bless their relationships,” he said.

    News of the letter also appeared Wednesday on the Web site of The Christian Challenge, a bimonthly publication calling itself “the only worldwide voice of traditional Anglicanism.” Editor Auburn Traycik reported the letter in a commentary that was repeated on other conservative sites.

    Traycik called the move “a study in the incrementalist tactics of liberal revisionism, which approaches an overthrow in church teaching in steps designed to be as non-threatening as possible, in this case, congregation by congregation.”

    Grisham said the ceremony is inevitable, not only at St. Paul’s but in the denomination. “I think its universality is as inevitable as desegregation,” he said.

    Wednesday, July 19, 2006

    What We Knew All Along is Now Official: Chicago PD Tortures Arrestees

    Evidence Chicago police tortured suspects
    By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer

    Special prosecutors investigating allegations that police tortured nearly 150 black suspects in the 1970s and '80s said Wednesday they found evidence of abuse, but any crimes are now too old to prosecute.

    In three of the cases, the prosecutors said the evidence was strong enough to have warranted indictments and convictions.

    "It is our judgment that the evidence in those cases would be sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Robert D. Boyle and Edward J. Egan wrote.

    The four-year investigation focused on allegations that 148 black men were tortured in Chicago police interrogation rooms in the 1970s and '80s. The men claimed detectives under the command of Lt. Jon Burge beat them, used electric shocks, played mock Russian roulette and started to smother at least one to elicit confessions.

    No one has ever been charged,** but Burge was fired after a police board found he had abused a suspect in custody. His attorney has said Burge never tortured anyone.

    The report released Wednesday also faulted procedures followed by the Cook County State's Attorney's office and the police department at the time of the alleged abuse, saying they were "inadequate in some respects" but had since improved.

    Mayor Richard M. Daley was the state's attorney during part of the period investigated.

    Daley's office did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday. A police spokeswoman also did not immediately return call seeking comment.

    Boyle and Egan said they found three cases with enough evidence to seek indictments, including one involving the man whose abuse allegations led to Burge's firing. The man, who was convicted of killing two police officers in 1982, claimed Burge and two detectives beat and tortured him with electric shocks.

    "Regrettably, we have concluded that the statute of limitations would bar any prosecution of any offenses our investigation has disclosed," the prosecutors said. The statute of limitations on the allegations is three years.

    They also said they believe there was abuse in other cases but that the evidence wasn't as strong.

    Several people who claimed to have been abused or tortured by Chicago detectives have filed civil lawsuits against the city and police department, and the report could bolster their legal claims.

    There had also been a legal battle over the release of the report. The Illinois Supreme Court eventually denied a request from a former prosecutor, listed in court documents only as "John Doe," to block portions of the report from being released.

    In May, a United Nations anti-torture panel said the Chicago investigation needs to go farther than it has. The panel said the United States should ensure that law enforcement officials who mistreat suspects are punished.


    Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

    Footnote: ** But of course not! Chicago police are never called to account for any wrong doing where abuse of prisoners is involved, and it is foolish to think they ever will be. Its a simple routine: police beat the hell out of whomever (they claim) committed some crime, make things almost impossible for the person to contact anyone who can accept a complaint on same, then after three or five years the person gets out of custody and files his complaints but is told, 'Sorry, but the statute of limitations has expired, we cannot do anything now.' Whether or not the person did the crime for which he was accused is not important, police have already made the decisions on that! Chicago is such a rotten area to live in for just that reason alone ... I am sure glad to be away from there.

    Sunday, July 16, 2006

    The Gay Games Going on in Chicago

    Here are some guys we can be very proud of!

    THE GAY GAMES

    Why a Gay Games?
    To the tens of thousands of participants and visitors to Chicago, it's more than just politics and athletics, it's a celebration


    By Josh Noel
    Tribune staff reporter

    With every stop the Gay Games have made across the globe for the last 24 years, a simple question has followed.

    Why do gay people need their own Olympic-style competition?

    "It's a fair question from the straight community," said Derek Liecty, a longtime member of the Federation of Gay Games board of directors. "But the gay and lesbian community already knows the answer."

    The answer, it turns out, is equal parts political, social and, oh yes, athletic.

    For Esera Tuaolo, the Games are an antidote to the nine years he spent as a professional football player with a secret life.

    For gay-rights activist Rick Garcia, they are about letting the straight world know that gay people can indeed play basketball--or do any number of things that don't include the color pink or Cher's music.

    For Sandra Urquiaga, they mean she can play a competitive game of women's flag football without worrying about sideways glances from teammates while her partner cheers her on.

    The seventh Gay Games -- affectionately known to fans as the Gaymes -- officially began Saturday night when athletes from 65 countries including the United States streamed onto Soldier Field for opening ceremonies. With international flags flying and sustained cheers from the crowd, the mass of athletes filled up most of the field. Over the next week they will compete in 30 sports, including the typical (track, swimming) and the not so typical (same-sex pairs figure skating and country dancing).

    Held every four years, most recently in Sydney, the Games bring top athletes alongside novices to compete for gold, silver and bronze medals. But everyone gets a medal just for showing up, and that, advocates say, is the point.

    The heart of the Gay Games is not just winning or even being surrounded by gay people (5 percent of the competitors are straight), participants and organizers say. It is self-empowerment in a world where homophobia has dropped precipitously but is far from gone.

    "What the Games mean depends on which America you live in," said Rex Wockner, a San Diego-based journalist whose work appears in dozens of gay newspapers. "If you live in a place where you can't walk down the street holding hands or kiss your partner goodbye at the airport, a gay Olympics is really something to treasure and remember for a lifetime."

    The Games were founded in San Francisco in 1982 by former Olympian Tom Waddell, who died in 1987 of AIDS-related complications. In Gay Games circles, he is discussed with reverence.

    Popularity on the rise

    Most observers agree that the conditions leading gay athletes to create a place where they could compete openly and without stereotyping have improved since the first competition -- but not enough for the Games to disappear.

    Instead, the popularity of gay athletics is booming.

    Year-round gay sports leagues exist throughout Chicago and other major cities, while Olympic-style events are springing up around the world -- the Sun Games in Madrid, the PrideGames in Manchester, England. Later this month, a new event called OutGames will be staged in Montreal, where the Gay Games were to be held until a falling-out between local organizers and the Gay Games' governing body killed the deal.

    The attraction of a gay Olympic-style event, participants say, is no different than what inspired the World Maccabiah Games for Jewish athletes, the Special Olympics or the Senior Games -- commonality.

    Some say the payoff can be even greater for gay male athletes than for lesbians, who may be more likely to find acceptance when they participate in sports.

    "We were always the tomboys growing up and athletics was our outlet," said Marcia Hill, 48, of Albany Park, who will compete in the Gay Games softball tournament. "A lot of times, gay men weren't athletic growing up, and they're just getting into it now because it's finally safe and fun for them.

    "I'm working with four guys who haven't picked up a bat since they were 8 years old because they hated Little League. They didn't know they could enjoy playing softball."

    Participants acknowledge that sexuality doesn't mean much when swimming 100 meters or throwing a softball, but it can make a difference at other times. Take the on-field chatter, for example.

    "How often do heterosexual guys make comments about hot chicks on the playing field?" asked Charlie Carson, vice president of operations for the Federation of Gay Games. "How does that make people feel who aren't interested in talking about hot chicks, but who want to talk about hot guys? It maybe sounds facetious, but it's amazing how much homophobia is still in the locker room."

    Indeed, advocates point to the relatively few numbers of professional athletes who are openly gay. After tennis great Martina Navratilova and basketball player Sheryl Swoopes, the list gets short. It's also particularly light on men.

    Years of keeping quiet

    During his nine-year football career in the 1990s, mostly with the Minnesota Vikings, Tuaolo said he had to keep quiet about the man he calls his husband, and with whom he is raising twins. Tuaolo, 38, said he never told anyone in the National Football League he was gay -- no coaches, no teammates.

    "Every time the topic of homosexuality came up, I saw hate and rage," he said. "Calling someone a `fag' is the worst thing you can do in football."

    The irony of kicking off the Games in what is traditionally a den of masculinity was not lost on the nearly 300-pound former defensive lineman, who was slated to sing the Gay Games anthem, "Take the Flame," at the opening ceremony.

    "It's the first opportunity I've had to march into Soldier Field as a gay man and as a gay athlete," he said last week. "It's going to be incredible."

    Even those who had opposed bringing the Games to Chicago in 2006 are lining up to support the event now. Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, feared city organizers wouldn't have enough time to raise money and plan for the Games. Though still skeptical, Garcia said he wants the Games to succeed because "they dispel a lot of myths and stereotypes."

    Events such as the annual Pride Parade often come off in the media as flamboyant and extravagant -- which they certainly are at times. But those images can push gays and lesbians further from mainstream America, Garcia said, while the sight of 10 gay men playing basketball looks perfectly normal.

    "It makes your neighbor look like something other than a walking sex machine," Garcia said. "Suddenly you are seeing gay people in sports you usually don't identify with gay folks. I have nothing but the highest regard for the Gay Games."

    Controversy often follows the Gay Games, but even that can end up working in their favor. As the suburb of Crystal Lake wrestled over whether to allow the rowing competition to take place there, an emotional debate erupted in which critics of homosexuality spoke freely.

    But airing the issues ultimately tends to lead to greater tolerance, said Gay Games officials, who predict that by the time the competition is over, many residents will wonder what all the fuss was about.

    "I've seen this all before," said Carson, of the Gay Games board. "For the most part, what people remember is that the experience of the Games turns out positively. What they carry with them in the end is that this wasn't such a big deal. And to the people participating, they remember it forever."

    jbnoel@tribune.com
    Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

    Friday, July 14, 2006

    40 Years Ago Today: Richard Speck, the Mass Murderer


    Richard Speck, police mugshot in 1965.

    A mass murderer, Richard Speck, in July of 1966, killed eight student nurses in a single night in their south Chicago townhouse. He was eventually caught and died in 1991 in prison.

    Born in Monmouth, Illinois on December 6, 1941, Richard Speck was the youngest child in a large family. His father died while he was very young, and Speck's mother remarried. Speck's stepfather was a heavy drinker who despised Speck and often made him the target of his drunken belligerance.

    Raised primarily in Dallas, Texas, Speck dropped out of school and became a father at the age of 19. He had started committing small crimes while in his early teens, and by the age of 20 had amassed a forminable criminal record. Eventually wanted by the authorities in Texas on suspicion of several others, Speck eventually fled the area, coming to the Chicago, Illinois area with the hope of finding work.

    While in Chicago, he stayed with his sister and brother-in-law. He attempted to find work on the city's southeast side, which in 1966 was a major seaport. His efforts proved fruitless, and Speck spent much of his time hanging out at dingy taverns, drinking and passing the time. The union hall where he had registed for a job as a merchant seaman was directly across the street from a townhouse where several student nurses lived. They all worked at South Chicago Community Hospital, a facility that was about one mile away. During his stint in the area, Speck had seen them coming and going from the house.

    On the night of July 13, 1966, Speck spent the early portion of the evening at a bar called The Shipyard Inn. He was staying in a rooming area above the bar. About ten-thirty, having consumed several drinks, he donned dark clothes and departed for the townhouse, about a 30 minute walk. Once there, he managed to open the screen door, walk upstairs, and began talking to several nurses that were home. He told them that he would not hurt them and merely wanted money to go to New Orleans, where he ostensibly had plans to catch a boat.

    After approximately one hour, however, Speck began binding the nurses with bedsheet strips that he had torn with his switchblade knife. Frightened into submission by the knife and gun Speck carried, the nurses put up little resistance. Though there were only a few nurses when Speck first arrived, there were now seven, others having arrived home from work or dates.

    Finally, two more nurses, Mary Ann Jordan and Suzanne Farris, arrived in the townhouse shortly before midnight. Speck was caught off guard and encounted resistance from them. In another room, he killed them violently with his knife, stabbing them repeatedly. He also killed another nurse who he had brought into the room.

    The savage butchery never stopped. Speck took each nurse from the upper bedroom where they had been bound and brought them, one by one, into various rooms of the townhouse. He killed each of them, most by strangulation, some by stabbing. After each killing, he washed his hands in the bathroom on the upper level.

    During times when Speck was out of the bedroom, however, a nurse named Corazon Amurao had managed to slither under a bunkbed and hide. Speck apparently forgot that Cora had done so, and he left the townhouse at about 3:30 a.m. on July 14, having murdered 8 of the nine nurses he had encountered that night.

    Through a bizarre chain of events, Speck was captured after a massive manhunt. He was tried and convicted in 1967 of the murders and originally sentenced to die. The prosecution, led by Assistant State's Attorney William J. Martin, presented such a solid case that the jury took only 49 minutes of deliberating to find Speck guilty. However,with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to abolish the death penalty in 1972, Speck would not be executed. He was instead resentenced to 8 life terms. Though he would come up for parole several times, he was never released from prison. He died in December of 1991, a day short of his 50th birthday.

    I remember this guy quite well. After the murders were over, Speck decided to hide out in a near north side hotel where he in his drunken stupor, attempted to commit suicide. Although police by this time had been tipped off to his identity -- if not his name -- and searched intensely for him they were unable to find him. When he unsuccessfully attempted his suicide, the hotel desk clerk called for an ambulance and Speck was taken to Cook County Hospital. It was in the hospital that one of the emergency medics on duty recognized the tatoo on his arm and told police. This was about a day or two following the mass murders.

    About 1985, while Speck was in the Statesville Prison (a maximum security prison outside of Chicago, near Joliet, Illinois that a rather notorious videotape was sent anonymously to Channel 2, WBBM-TV, CBS in Chicago. A reporter at that time for Channel 2 -- Bill Kurtis, now of A&E fame, was assigned to review the videotape and report on it. The videotape showed a homosexual sex-orgy going on in the Statesville Prison and considerable drinking by several prisoners, including Richard Speck. Speck was both being sodomized by other prisoners and fellating some of them. Speck said "if they knew how much fun I would have when I was sent here, they probably would have figured out some way to give me the death penalty instead." . Everything was possible in Statesville in those days, and Speck had benefitted by hormone treatments which had given him a HUGE female breast, which he shook at the videocamera while making his brag about 'all the fun I am having while in here.'

    That videotape was responsible for a major overhaul in the management of Statesville, with about half the staff either getting fired or resigning. Speck died in 1991 with full-blown HIV/AIDS, and a liver condition brought on by drinking all the time he was there in prison.

    Monday, July 10, 2006

    Amplifying the Mainline

    UCNews: June - July 06
    Amplifying the mainline
    Rich Bogart photo illustration
    This article kindly supplied to the blog by Reverend Howard Bredesen, my cousin-in-law in Coffeyville.

    Over the past nine years, prominent Religious Right leaders have appeared more than 40 times on the major Sunday morning new talk programs. But the principal leaders of the UCC, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), American Baptist Churches, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Reformed Church in America, among others, haven't appeared once. Why?

    By J. Bennett Guess
    June - July 06

    On Easter Sunday, April 16, NBC's "Meet the Press" hosted its annual installment of "Faith in America," where seven religious commentators spent an hour discussing the state of religious life in this country. Representing the "Christian perspective" were a conservative Roman Catholic priest, a liberal Roman Catholic nun and a charismatic Pentecostal pastor. Not a mainline Protestant leader among them.
    It was at least the second consecutive year that "Meet the Press" had snubbed the 35-member- body National Council of Churches by excluding any representation of its mainline communions. A year earlier, NBC had invited the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a charismatic evangelical and a Roman Catholic priest to discuss the same topic. Again, no Episcopalians, no Presbyterians, no Lutherans. And certainly no one from the UCC.
    Meanwhile this year, over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer's "Late Edition" spent about 10 minutes on Easter Sunday talking about Christian voters. Blitzer's guest? Jerry Falwell.
    If you've noticed lately that a news interview with a United Methodist bishop is just about as likely as a UCC commercial on network television, then you're starting to get the point.
    Media Matters, a media research organization, has crunched the numbers and what they've found isn't heartening: Mainline, mainstream denominations — even though they account for more than one-quarter of church-going Americans — are rarely, if ever, visible on national news programs.
    "Despite the fact that mainline churches are at the heart of the American landscape," says the Rev. Robert Chase, the UCC's communication director, "they continue to be silenced, or perhaps just ignored, when it comes to media conversations about religion in America."
    "At the beginning of the 'Meet the Press' show, host Tim Russert asked the panelists, 'Were people more religious at the founding of our country and were we more divided on moral issues back then than we are now?'" Chase recalls. "Ironically, there was no one present to represent those historic, mainline Protestant traditions that have been so prominently at the center of American life since its earliest days."
    No news is no news
    Unfortunately, the lack of "mainline" coverage has become routine.
    Last December, when 115 mainline religious leaders were arrested in Washington, D.C., during a last-ditch effort to draw attention to federal budget cuts affecting millions of low-income Americans, the major news networks didn't cover the story.
    In February, during the World Council of Churches' 9th international assembly in Brazil, many prominent mainline leaders, including UCC General Minister and President John H. Thomas, issued a strongly worded apology to Christians around the world for not doing more to prevent the U.S. war in Iraq. In March, mainline clergy gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand an end to government curtailment of church-oriented travel to Cuba. And, in April, Church World Service, a broadly ecumenical relief organization, called on the U.S. Senate to adopt a "compassionate" immigration reform policy. In each instance, the major news organizations ignored the stories altogether.
    However, in March, when Falwell chided a Minnesota city for allegedly evicting the Easter Bunny from a public venue, Associated Press covered it. And, about the same time, when Pat Robertson referred to Muslims as "satanic," Newsweek ran a story. And, in New Orleans, despite the millions of relief dollars raised by mainline denominations and the thousands of deployed volunteers now working there, it was Franklin Graham who landed an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live" to talk about his ministry there, along with Campus Crusades for Christ, which was profiled by CNN's Anderson Cooper.
    When and if mainline Protestantism attracts media attention, it usually centers on declining membership or squabbles over homosexuality, says Robert Wuthnow, a sociology professor at Princeton University and author of "The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism" (University of California Press, 2002). On April 3, he gave a lecture in Indianapolis on the role of mainline Protestantism today.
    The unreported reality, Wuthnow believes, is that mainline churches still wield quiet influence on American public policy. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he says, evangelicals found their voice and journalists, in turn, began flocking to cover their every move.
    Wuthnow says he and others have been left wondering, "What about mainline Protestants?" Even in recent years, Wuthnow says, mainline church advocacy has played a favorable role in several public policy decisions, including successes in environmental justice, international debt relief and corporate responsibility. But credit for these victories often goes to evangelical or Roman Catholic leaders, he says.
    Jubilee 2000 is cited by Wuthnow as an example. The debt relief campaign resulted in $34 billion in debt forgiveness for developing nations. "Mainline churches were hardly noticed in this effort by the media," he says.
    Why the snubbing?
    While some suggest the pervasive public silence is linked to decades of mainline decline, others suggest a more-sinister plot.
    The Rev. Peter Laarman, former pastor of Judson Memorial Church (UCC/American Baptist) in New York and now director of the national Progressive Religious Partnership, believes the silencing is the direct result of a coordinated, decades-old strategy by so-called "neo-con" organizations, most notably the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), to disrupt mainline churches, discredit their national agencies and "decapitate" mainline leaders.
    The rise of the Religious Right not only depended on its ability to attract more political power, Laarman says, but its growth in influence also required a squelching of mainliners' longstanding clout. Because these more-moderate churches stood at the literal center of America's heartland and held significant sway on public opinion, their Christian credentials needed to be undermined. (More than 50 percent of members of Congress still belong to mainline Protestant churches.)
    Articulating a thesis once put forward by theologian John B. Cobb, a United Methodist, Laarman says the mainline church enjoyed remarkable success through the 1970s: The Vietnam War, long opposed publicly by mainline leaders such as the UCC's William Sloane Coffin, had been ended. The sin of racial segregation had been exposed through the help of more-courageous mainline clergy. Civil rights legislation, advocated by mainline church agencies, was being enacted. The ordination of women was growing in practice and acceptance, and a "liberationist" reading of the Bible — not biblical fundamentalism — was gaining prominence.
    "These were not only significant cultural milestones but certain moral victories for the mainline church, and the mainline church became a victim of its own success," Laarman believes. "After the 1970s, a significant part of the mainline church went to sleep."
    "But then it was torpedoed by this offensive [from the IRD] that it didn't see coming," Laarman says. "Unbeknownst to most people, there was a huge counter thrust that was well-funded and well-organized. Of all the vehicles of the Right in the last 40 years, its success at dividing the mainlines is its best and least known success. These [divisions] are not indigenous reactions within these communions. These are being orchestrated by the IRD."
    IRD: 'Looking to divide and destroy'
    Founded 25 years ago, IRD works through a three-pronged programmatic strategy referred to as "United Methodist Action," "Presbyterian Action" and "Episcopal Action," whereby it routinely hounds mainline leaders as "bureaucrats and elites" and portrays elected heads of mainline communions as rejecters of true Christianity.
    According to Laarman, IRD's goal is a simple one: Portray mainline church leaders as anti-Christian, anti-American fools, and by so doing, cripple any mantle of respect or credibility their words or actions may have, either within their own denominations or within the public at large.
    IRD's website ird-renew.org reveals how its attacks are most often personal, and how its stated commitment to "promoting democracy and religious freedom" often fails to include any respect for the democratic processes that are hallmarks of mainline Protestantism.
    Randall Balmer, an evangelical Christian and professor of American religious history at Columbia University, is writing about IRD in his newest book — which he describes as "an evangelical's lament" — called "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Destroys America" (Basic Books, 2006).
    Balmer, who attended last year's annual meeting of the IRD's Association for Church Renewal — which includes the UCC's Biblical Witness Fellowship — says there's a noticeable air of "triumphalism" among IRD enthusiasts.
    "They feel confident that these issues of sexuality will be the means for retaking control of these [mainline] denominations," says Balmer, the son of an Evangelical Free Church minister. "I don't think it's overstated to say it's a conspiracy. They have this huge degree of support. What has really impressed me in the course of writing this book is the kind of infrastructure that the neo-cons have built over the past decades."
    The Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, says there is a growing body of evidence that groups like the IRD are working to "deliberately divide and undermine institutional churches."
    "This is a concerted effort, not just against the National Council but the mainline churches themselves, to erode the confidence in leadership of these churches," Edgar says.
    The NCC and the World Council of Churches were early targets of IRD and became the subject of an IRD-inspired segment on CBS' "60 Minutes" in 1983, when it reported IRD's allegations that both the NCC and WCC were using mainline members' offerings to "promote communism." However, in December 2002, when "60 Minutes" Executive Producer Don Hewitt was asked on CNN's "Larry King Live" to name any show he regretted during his 36-year career, Hewitt named just one: the story berating the ecumenical church bodies, calling the allegations "a lot of nonsense."
    "In the mainline churches, we are genetically nice and we tend to be pleasant people, so we have tended to overlook the IRD, which is spending secular money to destroy the fabric of mainline institutional churches," says Edgar, a United Methodist minister. "A lot of us wanted to pretend that wasn't happening, but these false prophets have been working diligently to spoil the well."
    Increasingly, the UCC — once outside the public spotlight and therefore able to avoid much of the IRD's attention or resources — has found itself receiving more of IRD's scorn.
    About nine months ago, when clergy and lay leaders from the UCC's Missouri/Mid- South Conference met in a St. Louis church basement to discuss how IRD might be intentionally working with so-called "renewal groups" to sow discord and ultimately take churches out of the denomination, an IRD staffer flew from Washington, D.C., to listen in on the conversation. In March, when Thomas gave a lecture at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, his alma mater, that included comments about IRD's attacks on mainline churches, an IRD representative again traveled from Washington, D.C., to attend, tape and transcribe the speech, unbeknownst to Thomas (even though he had provided a copy to United Church News for posting on its website.)
    "IRD is using church members, and even outside groups, to disrupt and ultimately control the mainline to promote its own political agenda," Thomas said at Gettysburg.
    In response, IRD's Steve Rempe describes Thomas as having "an advanced case of paranoia," according to an April 7 article in The New York Times, which wrote about Thomas' increasing efforts to shed light on the IRD.
    Thomas says its time for mainline churches to question IRD's motivations and, ultimately, to defend our churches from attacks.
    "We need to be more active in protecting our churches from this kind of behavior," Thomas told The New York Times. "We need to differentiate between loving critics and critics who are looking to divide and destroy."
    Edgar describes IRD as purposefully "unfair and unbalanced."
    "They send people to every one of our governing board meetings," Edgar says. "They only pick up on negative comments and nothing in the positive sense. I do think it's time for those of us who have been the brunt of IRD attacks to not be silent."
    "I'm very proud of what John Thomas has done," says Edgar. "It would be more helpful if more of our mainline leaders would do the same. There really is a need for other leaders to stand up and point out these conspiratorial organizations, like the IRD, that are intentionally corroding the integrity of faithful people and faithful churches."
    'Reframing complex issues'
    Edgar, whose new book "Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right" (Simon and Shuster, 2006) will be available in late September, suggests four reasons why mainline churches find it difficult to get their messages picked up by the media and heard by the masses.
    First, he says, we're genetically long winded.
    "In the mainline church, a lot of our leaders are not comfortable reframing complex issues with short, snappy answers, so we tend to allow the far Religious Right to give the short slogans while we give the 20-minute long answers," Edgar says. "And that doesn't play to radio and television."
    Second, elected mainline leaders are accountable to larger, cumbersome church bodies in ways that many Religious Right leaders are not, so mainline leaders are often more cautious when they speak.
    "When you are so independent that you have no hierarchy or constituency, or any defined body like a General Conference that meets every few years, you can say whatever you want, no matter how outrageous it is," Edgar says. "Mainline positions are rational and generally moderate in their sway and that often is not newsworthy, but still we have a responsibility to confront misinformation and outrageous statements."
    Third, mainline leaders have been shy to seek the spotlight.
    "Mainline leaders typically don't have big egos," Edgar says, "but we need to get good leaders like John Thomas, [Presbyterian Stated Clerk] Clifton Kirkpatrick or [ELCA Presiding Bishop] Mark Hanson on these shows."
    Fourth, in response to IRD attacks, mainline leaders have focused more on internal management and less on external communication.
    "It's time for mainline church leaders to spend less time trying to hold their organizations together, and speak instead about those issues that God cares about — that God cares about the poor, God cares about justice, God cares about the stewardship of the earth," Edgar says.
    'We need fresh approaches'
    Chase says that UCC members — incensed by TV networks' decisions to refuse to air UCC advertising — need to see the bigger picture.
    "We now know that it's not just the about the TV commercials," Chase says. "It's about the need for religious freedom and diversity of voice in the marketplace of ideas."
    That's why Chase is utilizing a specialized UCC website to draw attention to how mainline churches are being overlooked in the media. Many within and beyond the UCC have been using the site to contact TV network executives about the need for more-balanced religion coverage.
    The issue resonates with many mainline Christians, Chase says, because it transcends traditional Left and Right fault lines. Mainline church leaders — be they liberal, conservative or moderate — are being left out across the board, he says.
    The Rev. Michael Livingston, a Presbyterian who is serving a two-year term as NCC president, is urging mainline church leaders to "tell our story, by any means necessary."
    Speaking in Cleveland on March 27 to members of the NCC's Communications Commission, Livingston lamented the media attraction to Religious Right organizations, saying the work of CWS, Lutheran World Relief and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, among others, largely goes unnoticed.
    "Mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches have been pounded into irrelevancy by the media machine of a false religion," says Livingston, who is executive director of the International Council of Community Churches.
    Livingston challenged communicators not to mimic the Religious Right, but to devise new strategies for increasing visibility.
    "We need fresh approaches to telling our story," he says.
    However, Livingston recognizes that seeking publicity is not necessarily the job of a mission worker, nor should congregations undertake ministry only to gain the spotlight.
    "But it is the job of some of us to tell the story," he says, "so that the noise we hear so persistently and loudly; the noise that divides, that blames, that ridicules, that labels — is not the only reality, is not the thing that comes to mind when one thinks of 'church' or 'Christian.'"
    Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-Calif.), whose father was a Lutheran minister, says diverse religious _expression helps society to craft common priorities — and the mainline perspective needs to be heard.
    "The mainline church respects the goal of promoting and protecting common values shared among many faiths while still respecting the separation of church and state," Capps says. "This is why it is so vitally important that the mainline church remain engaged in public conversation about the role of religion in American life."
    Rebecca Bowman Woods, news editor for DisciplesWorld magazine, contributed to this story.
    Media lessons For savvy mainliners
    IF YOU'RE NOT ON TV OR THE INTERNET, YOU DON'T EXIST. If the UCC's Stillspeaking Initiative has taught us one thing, it's this: To be culturally relevant, you've got to be culturally engaged. If in doubt, just ask Martin Luther, who creatively used the just-emerging printing press to usher in the Protestant Reformation. But that was 1539, not 2006.
    TALK ABOUT THE FAITH, NOT JUST ISSUES. "Nearly all public expressions of Christianity in America today bear little or no relation to what Jesus of Nazareth said and did. Reclaiming Jesus is a central concern," writes the Rev. Peter Laarman, a UCC minister and editor of "Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel" (Beacon Press, 2006).
    LEARN HOW TO BE 'THE GOOD GUEST.' Become the most reliable interviewee a reporter could hope for. Build a track record. Be available. Return phone calls promptly. Say 'yes' to requests. Have a sense of humor — and timing. Speak in short, simple sentences, not soliloquies. Above all, get some media training; it's invaluable.
    THINK AND ACT IN HOURS, not days or weeks. Learn how the news cycle works. Anticipate tomorrow's issues. Your excellent op-ed or "letter to the editor" on last week's headline won't get much play; instead, write it today and send by email. Remember, the early verb gets the squirm.
    HARNESS YOUR EGO FOR GOOD. Let's face it: The notion that you — and not someone else — should be speaking about important issues of faith and public policy requires some degree of ego. But that's okay. "We need to be a little more aggressive and a little more nose-to-nose if we're going to be heard," says the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.
    RETOOL CHURCH COMMUNICATIONS for broadcasting, not print. "We're much more comfortable with the written word, so most of our communications staff is less inclined to know the producers of television shows or talk radio," says Edgar. "We need to change that."
    INVEST IN TOOLS OF THE TV TRADE. "When Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or James Dobson is asked to appear on one of these programs, they simply go to their basements, turn a few knobs in their studios and they're on the air," Edgar says. "If a mainline Protestant leader would get an invitation, they would have to go to the [network] studio. Our people are simply less available."
    REACH OUT TO BROADCASTERS. "Even if you don't expect to be heard, make a phone call, send an email. That way you become familiar and they get to know you," says Connie Larkman, a UCC communicator and a former executive producer in TV news. "At least you're waving the flag, 'Our church is out here.'"
    DON'T BURN BRIDGES. No matter how irked you may find yourself, maintain composure and build collegiality, even when a reporter woefully misses the mark. Point out inaccuracies, if appropriate, but resist the urge to take all complaints directly to editors or producers. The reporter isn't likely to forget — or disappear. Respect the relationship. Next time around, you'll be glad you did.
    FEAR NOT. DON'T BE A WIMP. "We sideline ourselves," says the Rev. Robert Chase, the UCC's communication director. "There are times when you have to stand up and speak boldly, especially when there are those that would question our faith in God or our belief in the Bible. Don't be afraid to say, 'Enough!'"

    Saturday, July 08, 2006

    US Claims Will 'Get the Truth' in Matter of Rape of Teenage Iraqi Girl

    U.S. asks to exhume remains of Iraqi girl
    By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press Writer

    U.S. investigators have asked Iraqi authorities to help them navigate cultural sensitivities to exhume the body of a teenager allegedly raped and murdered with her family by American soldiers, a military official said Saturday.

    U.S. Maj. Mark Wright said U.S. authorities are aware that Islamic tradition has strict rules governing exhumation and could require religious leaders to become involved in the investigation.

    "You want to be aware of these cultural issues while at the same time making sure that the accused receives proper justice," Wright, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, told The Associated Press.

    Muslim tradition generally frowns on exhumations, considering them desecration of the remains.

    However, Ahmed Taha, the uncle of the dead teen, told AP Thursday that relatives were eager to cooperate with investigators and would allow them to exhume the body of the alleged rape victim, Abeer Qassim Hamza. Her parents and sister were also slain.

    Ex-soldier Steven D. Green was arrested last week in North Carolina and has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of murder.

    Four soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment have been taken to a U.S. military camp in Baghdad for questioning, Wright said. He would not say if those soldiers had been arrested, but another U.S. official said Saturday that several more soldiers would soon be charged. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

    Based on interviews and records, the U.S. military now believes the woman who Green is accused of raping and killing was between the ages of 14 and 20, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Friday. While the military initially said she was 20, Boyce said he has seen documents that indicate she was 14.

    Wright said officials are also considering whether certain parts of a standard Western autopsy would be taboo in Iraq and if a religious leader or family members should be present to ensure cultural barriers are not crossed.

    He said U.S. military commanders in Iraq are working with the family's relatives to expedite the investigation, but that it was not immediately clear whether Iraqis or Americans would have custody of the woman's remains.

    U.S. officials are concerned that the alleged rape-slaying, which occurred March 12 near Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, will strain relations with the new U.S.-backed government and increase calls for changes in the agreement that exempts American soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts.

    Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has demanded an independent investigation into the case, which followed a series of allegations that U.S. troops killed and mistreated Iraqi civilians.

    According to an FBI affidavit, Green and at least two others targeted the teenager and her family for a week before the attack, which wasn't revealed until witnesses came forward in late June.

    The soldiers drank alcohol, sodomized some young Iraqi boys in their checkpoint, changed clothes to avoid detection and headed to the victims' house, about 200 yards from a U.S. military checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death", a Sunni Arab area south of Baghdad known for its violence, the affidavit said.

    In the week since the allegations came to light, the military has remained tightlipped even amid growing cries by Iraqi leaders for a fair investigation.

    President Bush, speaking on CNN's "Larry King Live" last Thursday, said the Iraqis should understand that the allegations will be handled "in a very transparent upfront way."

    "People will be held to account if these charges are true," Bush said. "We will get to the truth of this one way or another."

    In the chow halls and barracks, many soldiers remain convinced that the alleged rape and killings in Mahmoudiya were aberrations and that most American service members respect the rules of war.

    "These crimes are against all the Army values, so if you don't have any of those values, you shouldn't even call yourself a soldier," said Staff Sgt. Ahmand Brown, 28, of Flint, Mich.

    In the aftermath of claims that Marines killed civilians in the western town of Haditha in November, the U.S. military in Iraq ordered all personnel to undergo values training.

    The Army has also paid greater attention to its rules of engagements, which determine when a soldier can use deadly force. But a bad soldier is a bad soldier, no matter the training, Brown said; a soldier can never rape women nor sodomize boys or men under any circumstances.

    Green, who served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., received an honorable discharge and left the army in mid-May. He was discharged because of an "anti-social personality disorder," according to military officials and court documents.

    But even before the rape/sodomy-murder allegation surfaced, the military was investigating an incident in which three soldiers from the same battalion were killed by insurgents near Youssifiyah. Two of them apparently were abducted and slain, with their bodies mutilated.

    U.S. officials insist they have no evidence that the incidents are related.

    Associated Press Correspondent Ryan Lenz is embedded with the 101st Airborne Division in Tikrit, Iraq.

    Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

    Episcopalians on the Breach

    Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury,"First Among Equals" in Anglican Communion
    U.S. church in battle with Anglican Communion

    There's a new spin on an old joke making the rounds. It's about a beachcomber who finds a bottle in the sand and opens it, freeing a genie who gratefully grants one wish. The beachcomber asks for peace in the Middle East.
    The genie calls that an impossible task and asks for an alternative wish. "Okay," says the beachcomber, "restore harmony to the Anglican Communion." The genie thinks for several seconds and then says, "Let's go back to that Middle East thing."

    But for millions of Anglicans, and especially Episcopalians - the American branch of the global Anglican community -- it's no joke. The challenge now is to restore peace and unity or to at least keep the Episcopal Church a full-fledged member of a denomination with 77 million faithful in 160 countries.

    In a way, it is a dispute that pits the Episcopal Church -- with its 2.3 million members divided into 111 national jurisdictions (dioceses) -- against Anglicans nearly everywhere else. Of the 37 other provinces, or church territories, around the world, 22 already describe their relationship with the Episcopal Church as "broken" or "impaired."

    The basic issue is one rocking several other Christian bodies: gay rights.

    The crisis for Anglicans has been brewing for several years, but it came to a boil two weeks ago when Episcopalians, who meet nationally only once every three years, held their 75th general convention in Columbus, Ohio.

    Even a carefully worded warning by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the titular head of the Anglican movement, did not ease tensions.

    In a letter to delegates, Williams, who is considered first among equals among Anglican primates but cannot dictate policy like the Pope, outlined a grim choice for the U.S. church: Renounce gay bishops and same-sex unions or risk demotion to a "church in association," without a vote in Anglican affairs.

    Instead, delegates defied a recommendation by a committee Williams appointed and refused to declare a halt on the election of gay bishops. They called only for "restraint." They also voted not to "repent," as another recommendation asked, for the elevation of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. His installation three years ago made him the first openly gay bishop anywhere in the Anglican world.

    Moreover, the convention did not even vote on a proposal to stop blessing same-sex unions, yet another recommendation by the Williams committee.

    If that weren't enough to widen the splits within the denomination, delegates elected Katharine Jefferts Schori, the liberal bishop of the Nevada diocese, to a nine-year term as presiding bishop of the U.S. church. The church's national headquarters are in New York, and when she is formally installed here this fall, it will make her the first female primate anywhere in the Anglican world.

    About a dozen dioceses, ranging from Pittsburgh to Fort Worth, Tex., have announced that because of gay rights or Schori's election, they may leave the Episcopal Church and ask Williams to let them affiliate with Anglican jurisdictions more ideologically in tune with them. Theologically, there are no rules that would bar them from doing this.

    Of the world's 38 Anglican provinces, only Canada and New Zealand have elected female bishops, and in the United States, six dioceses have announced that they won't accept Schori as presiding bishop. The Episcopal Church began ordaining women 30 years ago, something that still steams many conservatives, and three dioceses -- Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Calif., and Quincy, Ill. -- still refuse to recognize female priests at all.

    Because of the lengthy, convoluted process involved in making any major policy changes, the gay rights dispute is likely to go on for years -- not even the next scheduled Episcopal general assembly in 2009 is likely to bring peace.

    In the meantime, the hubbub and confusion goes on.

    It was something the Rev. James Cooper, rector of Trinity Church, the Wall Street landmark, addressed in a letter he wrote his flock last week.

    "I hear people asking, 'What is really going on? And where does Trinity stand?'" Cooper wrote. Basically, he said, Trinity stands with the liberals and is continuing its dialogue with people who disagree.

    "For now," Cooper concluded, "let us remember this debate has been with us for more than a generation, and we have of course maintained and grown our ministries in this period, even while we are engaged in this conversation."

    No mention anywhere of a genie.

    Thursday, July 06, 2006

    An Ignominious Anniversary

    From the TV Barn Blog by Aaron:

    If you don't have the Logo network, here's a segment you've got to see.

    One year ago at the end of June, ABC preemptively cancelled a summer reality series entitled, "Welcome to the Neighborhood," in which an eclectic mix of families competed for a house on a cul-de-sac in a conservative part of Austin, Texas. You remember it because I wrote about it. Though there was a Korean family, a black family and other diverse families competing for the house, the spotlight cast on the Wrights, a gay couple with an adopted child.

    We'll let the "Advocate Newsmagazine," as seen on Logo,
    take it from there. You definitly should watch this 15 minute video which did not get aired on ABC.

    Wednesday, July 05, 2006

    We Should Have Equal Adoption Rights

    Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby co-convenor David Scamell wants equal adoption rights

    RELIGIOUS GROUP USES DUBIOUS RESEARCH IN SUBMISSION TO NSW GAY ADOPTION INQUIRY.

    The Australian Christian Lobby has quoted research by a discredited psychologist and anti-gay campaigner in its submission to the NSW Adoption Act Review, currently looking at the issue of gay adoption.

    The submission references a US study by Dr Paul Cameron which supports the Christian Lobby’s position that adoption laws should not be changed to allow same-sex couples to adopt, except in “exceptional circumstances”.

    However, Cameron has been expelled from the American Psychological Association and the Nebraska Psychological Association and been discredited by the American Sociological Association, according to reports in The Boston Globe, The Advocate and the website of the University of California’s psychology department.

    A spokesperson for the Christian Lobby told Sydney Star Observer he was unaware of Cameron’s history and that the matter would be looked into.

    In its submission the Christian Lobby said it was “not suggesting that homosexual couples are somehow less loving or less committed to a child than a heterosexual couple”. But children in same-sex parented families “cannot witness the interaction of the sexes or benefit from the approaches to parenting that a mother and father bring … Research outlined below indicates that the child suffers as a result.”

    The submission quotes Cameron’s findings that children of homosexuals would “be more frequently subjected to parental instability”, “have poor peer and adult relationships”, “be more apt to become homosexual”, “be unstable (have emotional problems and difficulty forming lasting bonds)”, and “be sexually precocious and promiscuous”.

    Cameron is the founder of the Family Research Institute. According to that organisation’s website it was formed “in 1982 with one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality”.

    In one of his pamphlets, Getting The Facts: Same-Sex Marriage, Cameron says “gay marriage harms everyone it touches – especially children. Not only does it place homosexuals at increased risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, but it also subjects them to an increased threat of domestic violence.”

    Cameron claims in another article on his website, Homosexual Rape And Murder Of Children, that the majority of people who commit rape and murder are gay.

    In his article The Psychology Of Homosexuality, Cameron says “most homosexuals eventually learn to immerse themselves in faeces”, are “about a third more apt to report a traffic ticket or traffic accident”, and “three times more likely to admit to having made an obscene phone call”.

    In July 2005 The Boston Globe reported the American Psychological Association expelled Cameron in 1983 after some of its members complained about the methodology he used in his research. Last year a spokesperson for the APA said, “We are concerned about Dr Cameron because we do believe that his methodology is weak.”

    In 1984 the Nebraska Psychological Association issued a statement saying it “formally dissociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr Paul Cameron”, the newspaper reported.

    The American Sociological Association issued a resolution saying: “Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism.”

    In an email to The Boston Globe Cameron referred to homosexuals and those who support them as “death marketers” who were attempting to “destroy the US from within”, the newspaper said.

    “Those of us at FRI [Family Research Institute] are determined to do our best to oppose these death activists.”

    The adoption inquiry is being conducted by the NSW Department of Community Services (DOCS) and is looking at whether to extend some adoption rights to same-sex couples.

    At present the law does not allow the non-biological parent in a gay or lesbian relationship to adopt their partner’s biological child, nor does it allow gay men and lesbians to be recognised as step-parents.

    Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby co-convenor David Scamell said he believed it was in “the best interests of the child in a same-sex-parented family to assure both parents have legal recognition so their relationship with their children has that degree of certainty and protection”.

    Scamell said it was common for conservative Christian groups who put forward arguments about same-sex families to use research by doctors who are “either backed by Christian groups or have been discredited by their professional peer bodies”.

    A spokesperson for DOCS said they would be “carefully considering submissions and will examine the validity of any research quoted before providing advice to the [Community Services] minister [Reba Meagher]”.

    In OK its Not Okay to be Gay For Most People

    This story was printed from The OU Daily.
    Site URL: http://www.oudaily.com.

    Gay in OK
    by Amanda Turner
    July 05, 2006

    Oklahoma City's 19th annual gay pride festival was held Saturday and Sunday under the slogan "We ARE The People." And though many danced, cheered and celebrated their pride at Sunday's parade, several gay students say it is an ongoing struggle to gain acceptance from family and peers.

    "I have found that being taken seriously as a group of people is a true issue that many face," said Bret Gaither, psychology senior and former president of the OU's Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgendered and Friends student organization.

    Celebrated internationally, the annual gay pride events commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York City, which launched the gay rights movement. The movement has helped gain many civil rights for non-heterosexuals over the decades, but prejudice against homosexuals in Oklahoma still exists, said Paul Robert Thompson, co-chair of the Oklahoma Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.

    Reluctance to fully accept non-heterosexuals into society is hypocritical, said Thompson, who is also a co-chair of Pride Inc., the group that organizes Oklahoma City's annual gay pride celebration.

    "It's amazing to me that so many of our state leaders brag about Oklahoma being on the cutting edge and going into the future technologically, yet socially we're still deeply rooted in 1895," Thompson said. "You can't have both."

    As a member of the "Bible belt," Oklahoma is one of the more socially conservative states in the country, and one of 20 states that have passed amendments banning gay marriage. The state has also repeatedly reelected U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Tulsa, an outspoken critic of homosexuality who described his own political platform as "God, gays and guns." As recently as June 6, Inhofe told the Senate that he was proud there had never been a gay member of his extended family.

    Such an environment is not always friendly to gays. Gaither, who rode on the Stand Out Magazine float in Sunday's pride parade, said strangers regularly pass judgment.

    "I get told I'm going to hell quite often," he said. "It really makes me sad that people feel they have to impose their beliefs."

    Graduate student Sean McElroy said that although he doesn't take what sidewalk preachers say very seriously, he suspects they may be voicing what others silently believe.

    "The real problem is people who will act nice to you, but basically think the same thing," he said.

    James Bentley, music education sophomore, said that it is ignorance that leads many to oppose not just the practice of homosexuality, but homosexuals themselves.

    "I think they believe that being gay is somehow contagious and that if you hang out with gay people you in turn will be gay," Bentley said. "Like, if you hang out with tall people you'll be tall? Many of these misconceptions come from fear of the unknown. It's similar to something like believing in Big Foot. Since people don't know that much about the truth they assume what society or the majority tells them to, which is a shame."

    McElroy said there is a misconception that all gay people are promiscuous, which some use as a platform to condemn homosexuality. He said he has found that monogamous gay relationships are even more unsettling to those same critics.

    "It's mostly unacceptable in a conservative state like Oklahoma to be in a gay relationship, but strangely, it seems to be even more frowned upon to be in a monogamous gay one," he said. "So a lot of people in monogamous relationships tend to stay in the background of society. Most conservatives don't realize there's thousands of people all around them who are gay and living in long-term, loving relationships."

    Though Oklahoma on a whole remains less accepting than places like New York or California, Bentley said he has found the OU campus to be a safe environment for people to be openly gay or bisexual.

    "Many of the issues we face at OU are similar to that of everywhere else," he said. "Acceptance into the college society, facing prejudice from some people and learning how to deal with such pressure. I feel that OU is a very open community and is very accepting of all people regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation."

    Gaither said it often surprises him which people are bothered by his sexuality.

    "I have had many situations where an elderly man may be very open and friendly about it and someone who is supposedly liberal be against it," he said.

    McElroy, who grew up in Tuttle, said he has found Norman and Oklahoma City to be much more progressive than more rural areas.

    "I remained 'in the closet' until after I graduated high school, as the only person to ever come out at my high school had his car set on fire by the football team," he said. "It's a very clear message in those areas: you're not wanted if you're gay."

    Thompson noted that there are a handful of local churches that openly welcome homosexuals and do not try to change them. McElroy identifies himself as a Christian and said that while he has resolved his orientation with his faith, his family has not.

    "My family is not accepting," McElroy said. “They told me in no uncertain terms that they never want to know anything about it. That's very discouraging, because if I do find someone special, I can't share that with them. I really don't look forward to the day when I have to make a choice about where I spend Christmas."

    Both McElroy and Gaither have made their choice about where they will eventually live; both said they definitely plan to move out of state after they receive their degrees. Bentley said he is undecided, but may also eventually relocate.

    Thompson said that Oklahoma’s less-than-accepting attitude toward homosexuals makes living here less appealing for many talented young people.

    "A society that is repressive is not going to attract creative, intelligent people and hold them," he said. "Oklahoma continually educates people on taxpayer dollars only to have them move away."

    McElroy said events like this past weekend’s Pride festival offer comfort and reassurance to those who do live here, whether or not they plan to stay.

    "Sometimes, you can feel very alone if you're gay," he said. "It's reassuring to know we exist, and in such numbers, at events like this.”

    2006 The OU Daily

    Tuesday, July 04, 2006

    A Package of Fireworks From Our Good Friends in North Korea

    It seems our good friends in North Korea send us a nuclear warhead on Tuesday. The 'fireworks' were intended to reach us about the same time as the NASA launch took place. Trouble is, the warhead was defective, a total dud. It never got here, and apparently did not explode either. Had the 'fireworks' arrived safely and gone off as intended, then spam/scam -- indeed the entire telephone network -- would have been the least of our worries, I am sure.

    Monday, July 03, 2006

    Is Church of the Godless a Liberal Thing?

    Church of the Liberals-Godless?
    By Tom Proebsting

    There's been a lot of recent talk about the church of the Liberals as being Godless. These are strong, if not, presumptuous words, and they are being thrown about recklessly. This slanders concerns millions of hard-working and sincere liberal Americans. It is likely that the label was originally meant for the leaders and policy makers of progressive politics. But the author of the mud-slinging is inadvertently plastering the average-Joe liberal by association.

    Why is liberalism being accused of Godlessness? Conservatives and liberals basically want the same goals for America, but they see a different way to get there. To be different is not always a bad thing and it borders on a dangerous principle, if not on blasphemy, to specify a political dogma as Godless.

    Where does Godless fit into liberalism? From the Bible? Since our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and principles, the Bible is the place to start and to try to discern what is Godless and what isn't.

    No less than an authority by the name of Jesus Christ said we must feed the hungry, aid the poor, shelter the homeless, and to comfort the sick and the imprisoned. Is it not the Democrats, historically the party of the liberals, which does these things? President Franklin Roosevelt gave to the needy with his New Deal programs and President Lyndon Johnson extended these aids with his Great Society agenda. Most Democrats today are in favor of a nationalized health plan and for prison reform.

    Jesus stated that we must give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's. The Democrats legalized the graduated income tax and believe today that every working citizen, including the super-rich fat-cat, should give to the government. After all, the government gives to its people.

    Jesus said to turn the other cheek. This can be interpreted as avoiding war and revenge at all costs. He also said to love, not hate, your enemy. Today, many liberals want America out of the two wars in Asia. It seems most conservatives want the US to get involved in most any armed conflict so it can flex its military muscles or to seek revenge on some past wrong.

    Jesus said nothing about gays, according to the Bible. So why do some
    conservatives squawk about gay rights and gay marriage in the concerted effort to suppress both? All men are equal in the eyes of God and Jesus.

    Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world and that it will come in
    the future. Then why do many conservatives label America as a 'Christian nation?' Liberals see America as it truly is-a secular nation.

    Jesus did not regard persons, meaning that people were equal in his eyes. He did not have bias against any person due to his or her race, nationality, color, sex, age, or any other arbitrary different. Jesus spent much of his time ministering to women and children as well as to men. He spoke to beggars, lepers, and laborers as much as to political and religious leaders. Civil rights and affirmative action are the domains of the liberals. Thomas Jefferson, an early Democrat, wrote, "All men are created equal."

    The liberals are not perfect, but when you line up their core beliefs with those of Jesus Christ you cannot subsequently label them as Godless. To do so is a difficult line of reasoning to follow.

    © Copyright 2003 by YourSITE.com

    Saturday, July 01, 2006

    Episcopalians Shaken by Division in Church

    Watch for this article in the July 2, 2006 (weekend) edition of the New York Times.

    Episcopalians Shaken by Division in Church
    By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

    Their parish, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year, is solid and strong. It has 3,000 members, a historic stone building in good repair and a well-loved minister.

    But to the Episcopalians at St. Luke's Parish in Darien, Conn., who gathered with their pastor to grapple with the past week's news about their denomination, it was as if their solid stone church had been struck by an earthquake.

    To them and to many Episcopalians around the country, the long-vulnerable fault line running under the Episcopal Church had cracked wide open in one week. Six traditionalist dioceses and some individual parishes announced plans to break from the Episcopal Church because they could not live with a church that permits an openly gay bishop and ceremonies for same-sex unions.

    In an opposing jolt, the Diocese of Newark named an openly gay priest as a candidate for its bishop, defying a plea for restraint just passed by a vote of the bishops and delegates at the Episcopal Church's triennial convention.

    And the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, weighed in with a plan of seismic implications to ask all 38 regional churches in the Communion to agree to a covenant that could limit each church's autonomy. Those that do not agree could be given second-tier status in the Communion.

    "So in other words," Martha Cook, a university professor and member of the vestry at St. Luke's, asked her pastor at the gathering, "the conservatives could literally take over our rightful spot in the Communion, and the majority of the American church would be on the outs?"

    The pastor, the Rev. David R. Anderson, answered that while it was far from settled, "the scenario the traditionalists were seeking could actually come to pass."

    "The vast majority of the Episcopal Church would be considered the 'off brand,' " Father Anderson said.

    Bewildered conversations like this took place in many Episcopal parishes last week.

    For parishes that identify with the right or the left pole on the issue of homosexuality, allegiances are clear. But the vast majority of parishes are somewhere in the middle, with members on each side of the debate who feel connected to the Episcopal Church and to Anglican tradition, said the Rev. William Sachs, a St. Luke's member who was recently named director of the new Center for Reconciliation and Mission at St. Stephen's Church in Richmond, Va.

    "What's really going on in the pews of Episcopal churches is they don't necessarily want to align with either side," Father Sachs said. "They want to get on with life. They want this thing resolved."

    The six dioceses that announced their intention to break away — Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Central Florida, San Joaquin, Calif., and Springfield, Ill. — had long threatened to bolt, and they constitute a small minority of the Episcopal Church's 110 dioceses and 2.3 million members.

    But what really rattled the pews was the "theological reflection" issued in London on Tuesday by the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury. He has written of his liberal views on homosexuality, but as primate of the Church of England, the "mother church" of the Anglican Communion, his primary task is finding a theologically justifiable route out of a seemingly irreconcilable conflict.

    But some Episcopalians said they were shocked because the archbishop's statement came just six days after the Episcopal Church convention passed a resolution intended to mend fences with the Anglican Communion. The archbishop's statement raised the prospect of "ordered and mutually respectful separation" between churches that could not come to agreement, suggesting to many Episcopalians that they would eventually have to choose sides.

    Donna Robinson, a parishioner at St. James Episcopal Church in Dallas, said: "Our church is kind of waiting to see what happens and trying to stay out of it until our backs are against the wall. I'm kind of dreading that part. I don't know what we'll do."

    Frances Hart, a worshiper at St. Edwards Episcopal Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., said she had been e-mailing people and reading everything she could from each side.

    "The middle, where I am, seems to be losing members," Ms. Hart said. "Quite frankly, I can't figure out why they can't get back to the middle."

    Leaders of the Episcopal Church warned everyone not to jump to conclusions. They said it was possible for a covenant to be written broadly enough to encompass all sides, and for unity to be restored.

    The Episcopal Church's presiding bishop, the Rev. Frank T. Griswold, said, "We must never forget that God can always surprise us."

    The parishioners at St. Luke's met in a lounge hung with an oil portrait of a rector who served the church from 1863 to 1912. Everyone in the room was white, many white-haired — a group atypical in the context of the global Anglican Communion, in which the typical member is now black, young and living in Africa.

    "I used to be Communion über alles," said Judy Holding, a student at Yale Divinity School and a chaplain at Greenwich Hospital, "but now I'm asking, at what price Communion?"

    Ms. Holding said later: "At a certain point for me, it's not worth the price. I would not sign that covenant if it means we have to compromise Christian love and social justice."

    Father Anderson asked how many in the room had even heard of the Anglican Communion before 2003, when Anglican archbishops in places like Nigeria and Uganda began protesting the election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.

    Only a third of the 30 parishioners in the room raised their hands.

    David Kelley, whose parents were also St. Luke's members, told the gathering, "All this business of consulting with other churches in the Communion, I'm not aware of the African churches consulting with us."

    But several St. Luke's members made it clear that they cherished their church's ties to the Anglican tradition. Charlie Barnett said: "I, for one, get a great deal of comfort knowing we are a part of a worldwide expression of Christianity. The Book of Common Prayer is very important to me."

    This is true for many Episcopalians, said David Hein, chairman of the department of religion and philosophy at Hood College in Frederick, Md., and a co-author of "The Episcopalians."

    "We want to be in communion with the see of Canterbury, because that's really the link with Anglican history and theology and spirituality," Professor Hein said. "It gave us Samuel Johnson and John Donne and the great theologian C. S. Lewis. The Anglican tradition is very much a trans-Atlantic phenomenon."

    Father Anderson closed the gathering with a brief sketch of Anglican history. Queen Elizabeth gave the church the Book of Common Prayer, he told them, and the church came to be distinguished by its flexibility.

    "We've never been bound by common belief, but by common prayer," he said. "Anglicans have always had a generous openness. I just feel that now there's a cold wind blowing. As someone here said tonight, it feels un-Anglican to me."

    Brenda Goodman contributed reporting from Atlanta for this article, and Laura Griffin from Dallas.

    Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company