The verdict is in: thirty days in jail plus three hundred hours of community service, counseling and a $10,000 fine.
Ninety percent of mothers report work-family conflicts. Children complain more about exhausted parents than absent parents.
Imagine the pastor of your church telling you that heterosexuality is an abomination, and a sin against God, that it’s in defiance of the Bible, but that the church will still love you even though you are a sinner, and that if you just pray hard enough, and perhaps seek psychiatric attention, you may just be able to be cured of your perversion.
According to the Center for Disease Control, just having a gay straight alliance group in a school dramatically decreases depression, marijuana and alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts and unexcused absences, imagine the positive outcome if an inclusive history were taught.
In fact, the same study found that gay couples tend to be better at resolving conflict and encouraging positive emotions.
The North Carolina Legislature got the amendment on the ballot by a single vote last fall, one vote in the legislature that could ultimately lead to enormous and unpredictable damage. And LGBT couples and families are not the only citizens who would be negatively affected by passage.
The publicity surrounding him was enormous, and he received thousands of letters from all over the nation and even Europe, praising his courage and bravery for coming out.
Think about it. Are you teaching your children to embrace love, embrace acceptance and embrace each other? Or to fear change, fear diversity, fear difference, maybe even fear you? Will they join the bully in the schoolyard? Will they be the bully in the schoolyard?
When asked how long the GMC has held a tenuous relationship with the larger Mennonite conference and ruling bodies, Pastor Amy laughed, “For over 325 years!” The GMC was removed as a conference member in 1997 and again in 2002 for full inclusion of sexual minorities, once for baptizing a gay man and then for ordaining a gay man.
Maybe there's something to this. Last week, I did a bit of "time-traveling". Almost simultaneously, there was a powerful video released called "To My 7th Grade Self". Brilliant idea! If only we could. Our collective minds were in the same place. Telling my 7th grade self to get it together and…