MetaFilter posts tagged with GayMarriage and church

No Marriage Until Gay Marriage Is Legal

reenum — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:21:59 -0800

The Douglass Blvd. Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky has voted to stop signing marriage licenses until gay marriage is legalized by the state.

The Fleeing Finns

sively — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:51:35 -0800

Record-breaking numbers of Finns leave the national church of Finland following a gay rights panel discussion on TV. Last Tuesday, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE aired a panel discussion on gay rights (full Finnish-language broadcast without subtitles), including the rights of same-sex couples to marry in church and to adopt children together, both currently denied under the Finnish law. The conservative, anti-gay stance expressed by some notable representatives of Christian views in the panel has turned into a veritable PR disaster for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. What the media was quick to label a "mass exodus" has further multiplied over the weekend, facilitated by an online service through which registered members of the Church can submit their resignation. Graphs showing the number of Finns leaving the church in the days following the debate (Google translation, but you'll get the idea).

Missionary Position: Facing West

zarq — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:50:00 -0800

Pope Benedict XVI has announced the establishment of a new Vatican department dedicated to tackling what he called 'a grave crisis in the sense of the Christian faith and the role of the Church." The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelisation will (per Archbishop Vincent Nichols,) focus on countries "in which, even though the Christian Gospel has shaped an entire culture," secularism now reigns, in what the Pope termed an "eclipse of a sense of God." Editorial: "Catholicism, the religion that gave the world the idea of the missionary, is struggling on its historic home turf." This council is part of a larger reshuffling of the Vatican hierarchy, which may support the Pope's ongoing anti- abortion and gay marriage efforts: The first President of the new Evangelical Council will be Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, a Vatican bioethics official, whose controversial front page statement in the L’Osservatore Romano newspaper last year condoned the abortion of twins in a nine year-old Brazilian rape victim. At the time, Fisichella headed the institution that helps frame the Catholic church's "pro-life" doctrines, The Pontifical Academy for Life. A Canadian theologian and anti-abortion hardliner, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, will now head the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for Bishops, which evaluates the nomination of bishops and sets the tone for the Catholic Church hierarchy worldwide. “The head of the Congregation of Bishops is a very important nomination; it determines the ruling class of the Catholic Church for the next 20 years,” said Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican expert with the Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale. The appointment is particularly important in light of the abuse scandal, which has called into question the actions of bishops around the world. Victims have accused bishops of covering up abuse or not acting swiftly to discipline priests who have abused minors.
Ouellet has been outspoken against abort ion (calling it a 'moral crime', unjustified even in cases of rape) and gay marriage.

alan — Thu, 25 May 2000 15:10:12 -0800

If it looks like a duck and it smells like a duck and it sounds like a duck it's a . . . . Holy Union?