Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, our executive director, recently published an article on The Huffington Post entitled “Seeking the True Church”

The recent Christmas holidays found a fair number of Americans in church, some for the first time, some for the only time of the year and some as a regular practice (at least once per month). The scripts for Protestant worship services, children’s plays about the birth of Jesus and the plight/blessing of Mary are familiar to many. These narratives come out of the Bible. For those of us born into the Christian tradition and community, the Bible is integral in bringing us into a new relationship with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yet, we Christians are not called to actually believe in the Bible; we are called to believe in the living God witnessed to by the writers of the Bible. We are supposed to believe in the transforming power of living life like Jesus lived it even though few of us come close. Jesus requires a lot of giving up in a culture steeped in getting.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post & help us spread the word with your e-mail lists.

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, our executive director, recently published an article on The Huffington Post entitled “How to Stop the Perfect Storm of Hate in Uganda”

In my most recent HuffPo post, I reported on sexual minorities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people) and their families, friends and co-workers in Uganda who are standing at the intersection of a rapidly advancing perfect storm.

This deadly storm started with funding and support from fundamentalist/evangelical politicians and key influencers in the United States, part of whom reside within The Family in our own Congress. If you Google them, you will find that some of them are back-tracking now like sand crabs to avoid negative publicity and investigations into the use of their tax-free status to interfere in the policies of foreign governments.

But the damage is done.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post & help us spread the word with your e-mail lists.

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, our executive director, recently published an article on The Huffington Post entitled “Would Jesus Discriminate?: Responding to Uganda’s Gay Death Penalty Bill”

If David Bahati succeeds in passing the death penalty for homosexuals in Uganda, we need to pray for our own deliverance in the United States. Analysts tell us that at least 10 African nations will follow his lead immediately. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Uganda are already in hiding or on the run. Children, women and men infected with HIV/AIDS are being denied treatment. Zimbabwe is already on a parallel track. We don’t think of Bahati in the same way that we think of Mugabe of Zimbabwe — one smiles and says he loves gay people. The other reeks of violence. Yet, they are the same wolf at our door.

If Bahati succeeds, we will have allowed him to set the gold standard for wide-spread consumer adoption of sanctioned genocide of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. He and his USA-based radical fundamentalist/evangelical cronies have achieved critical mass in Uganda (more than 90 percent of the people say that homosexuality is a sin and a crime). His message has been clear, consistent and unwavering — the three tenants of great marketing.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post & help us spread the word with your e-mail lists.

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, our executive director, recently published an article on The Huffington Post entitled “A Gay Firing Fiasco & Opportunity at Belmont University.”

I’ve been thinking this week about the abrupt resignation/termination of a young, successful women’s soccer coach at Belmont (Baptist) University in Tennessee. She is a lesbian with a partner. They are having a baby. She told her team about the baby and was immediately removed from duty or removed herself from duty under duress.

Her student-athletes were devastated, asked the administration to reinstate her and, when denied, held protests on campus. The media got involved. A major donor called for her rehire. The President issued an apologetic statement for his failure to comment sooner, soothing in tone, but with no reinstatement commitment.

So, things are a bit of a mess at Belmont.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post & help us spread the word with your e-mail lists.

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, our executive director, recently published an article on The Huffington Post entitled “Coming Out Is An Act of Love.”

I am grateful for the life and vision of a pioneer named Dr. Rob Eichberg. He wrote Coming Out is an Act of Love and co-founded The Advocate Experience, a really intense workshop on learning to live with full integrity.

Our family attended a series of Experience workshops after my son, Joshua, came out in 1988 in Abilene, Texas. Joshua and my partner, Sue, went to a workshop led by Dr. Eichberg. My daughter and I went to a workshop led by Eichberg’s colleague, Honey Ward, who continues to lead them today. I am grateful for Honey and her skill in blowing open the closet in which I was living out my fundamentalist Christian religion. I believe I would have lost my faith in God without her intervention. I know I would have lost my son.

Until the Advocate Experience, I confused God with religion and religion with truth. A tragic mistake.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post & help us spread the word with your e-mail lists.