We found that pastors’ health was worse off across the board than the populations where they serve. Their rates of obesity were about 10 percent higher. We looked at other kinds of chronic diseases. High blood pressure rates were about four percent higher, asthma rates also about four percent higher. Their diabetes rates are about three percent higher.
The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples. FF 76, 79-80; Romer, 517 US at 634 (“[L]aws of the kind now before us raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.”). Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification.
Commenting on the Standing Committee meeting’s results, Archbishop Hiltz, said, “For lots of people, it’s very encouraging because there was a lot of anxiety…,” said Archbishop Hiltz of the standing committee’s decision. “… It’s pretty clear, in spite of a request that the Episcopal Church be [asked] to leave, that that was one voice and everybody else said, ‘No, that’s not the way forward.’”
In the antebellum South, the marriages of the vast majority of African-Americans, much like gays today, held no legal standing. Slavery is obviously, itself, a problem–but abolitionists often, and accurately, noted that among its most heinous features was its utter disrespect for the families of the enslaved. Likewise, systemic homophobia is, itself, a problem–but among its most heinous features is its utter disrespect for the families formed by gays and lesbians.
Episcopal chaplain is part on an Iowa National Guard deployment of more than 2,800 soldiers heading to the war in Afghanistan.
A globetrot from Freetown to Osaka to Jerusalem to the virtual house of worship and elsewhere. All your catholic tastes could desire.
Later today the Court in Perry v. Schwarzenegger will issue its written order containing findings of fact and conclusions of law following the court trial held in January and June of this year. According to the court’s media liaison the order will be e-filed between 1 pm and 3 pm tomorrow, Pacific time. There will be no court proceeding associated with the publication of the order.
I was fortunate enough to come upon . . . Archbishop Anthony Bloom’s School for Prayer; it helped me greatly in many ways, especially to find the presence of God in ordinary places, people, events and moments of time. I listened to the advice that Archbishop Bloom once gave to a woman who had been trying to perceive God’s presence for fourteen years and failed to do so. He advised her: