I’m confused. Is it being taught that acceptance of homosexuality is a religious quality?

Last I checked, I couldn’t care less if religions accept it as a valid lifestyle as long as it doesn’t affect laws that would repress my harmless expressions.

More and more I’m thinking the world needs a Gay Pope. Not these closet cases who sin in their hearts and hide their passions. The time has come to for each of you heterosexuals to make a statement. Have sex with someone of your gender, all of you, to prove your support of gay rights. I have given you a challenge.

Get back to me next week and tell me how it went.

Now Consi will probably look up something in the court documents and spank me with it,

And after the spanking???

Time to get cracking!!

Here seems to be the issue:

From the booklet that was going to be taught:

“Although “transformational ministry� promotes the message that religious faith and acceptance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual sexuality are incompatible, that message is countered by the large number of outspoken clergy and people of faith who promote love and acceptance.�

This implicitly implies that those religions that endorse transformational ministries are bad, while those religions that accept homosexuality are good.

Judge Williams quoted court case Larson v. Valente as precedent saying:

The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.�

If the pamphlet is going to mention religion at all it can’t take sides.

The time has come to for each of you heterosexuals to make a statement. Have sex with someone of your gender, all of you, to prove your support of gay rights. I have given you a challenge.

Get back to me next week and tell me how it went.

Angelina Jolie turned me down, dammit. 

And after the spanking???

Naughty Zoot! 

This among other things is why I hate the law.

Those repugnant bastards (excluded my man SEB)with their heavily starched judge robes can just massage their anuses with their gavels.

Consigliere, perhaps you can correct my understanding of this:

You said, “This implicitly implies that those religions that endorse transformational ministries are bad, while those religions that accept homosexuality are good.”

I would have thought that this implies that religions that endorse transformational ministries are wrong.

There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the idea that homosexuality can be changed through ‘faith.’ Although there is anecdotal evidence for it, there’s anecdotal evidence for lots of things that aren’t supported by the scientific evidence.

(Personally, I’d like to see just one nice simple randomized study—with a control group for a change—that shows any degree of change in homosexuals. And while we’re at it, let’s not take their word for it, shall we? Let’s measure arousal to same-sex material.)

So, what I’m saying here is that the judge seems to have assumed that this is a value judgment when this would certainly not be the case by any scientific measure. So it isn’t that these ministries are bad, they’re just wrong.

They never fail to find some obscure excuse to discriminate against someone else.

Erik Stanley, an attorney for the groups that filed suit, said the curriculum excludes the viewpoints of former gays and those who believe that “same-sex attraction can be overcome.”

Are there any verifiable instances of heterosexuals who have become homosexuals, thereby proving that “opposite-sex attraction can be overcome?”

And, is it wrong for homosexuals to tolerate heteros?

If the pamphlet is going to mention religion at all it can’t take sides.

Well, Consi, we know what side you’re on, and we’re on the other side.  This case is emblematic of the wrongheadedness and backwardness of some, not all, religious viewpoints.

That said, I have to agree with you.  Mentioning religion at all was, given the current political climate, honest and informational, but a tactical error.  If they just wanted to teach sex ed, they should have stuck to science, which should be sufficient to defenestrate prejudice, and left the religious perspectives, tolerant and bigoted alike, alone.

“Although “transformational ministry� promotes the message that religious faith and acceptance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual sexuality are incompatible, that message is countered by the large number of outspoken clergy and people of faith who promote love and acceptance.�

I don’t see this as necessarily calling one or the other view “wrong” or “bad.” It’s simply, “These people say this; those say that.”

Let’s turn it around, shall we?

“While a large number of outspoken clergy and people of faith promote a message of love and acceptance of gay, lesbian and bisexual sexuality, that is countered by the message of the “transformational ministryâ€? which says such sexuality is incompatible with religious faith.”

Having engaged in that exercise, I can see why they might put the two views in the order they did, because the original version certainly has a better flow than my attempt at reversing the order…

Regardless, religious opinions don’t belong in a sex ed class.