Louisiana Voters Approve Gay-Marriage Ban

By KEVIN McGILL

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Louisiana voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment Saturday banning same-sex marriages and civil unions, one of up to 12 such measures on the ballot around the country this year.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment was winning approval with 78 percent of the vote, and support for it was evident statewide. Only in New Orleans, home to a politically strong gay community, was the race relatively close, and even there the amendment was winning passage. Turnout statewide appeared to be about 27 percent of Louisiana’s 2.8 million voters, somewhat low for a state election.

Read the entire article on the My Way website.

Pro-Life Group: Partial-Birth Abortion Decision Shows Need for Fetal Pain Bill

Unborn children feel pain during the abortion.
Steven Ertelt
September 2, 2004

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A leading pro-life organization says that the recent decision by a federal judge in New York calling the ban on partial-birth abortions unconstitutional points to the need for a bill to help women considering abortion understand the pain such abortions cause unborn children.

The National Right to Life Committee sent a letter to members of Congress on Wednesday urging them to support the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (H.R. 4420).

“[E]very day in the United States unborn children are subjected to trauma that causes them excruciating pain, and that would be illegal if inflicted on animals in commerce or research,” the letter says.

When a woman is considering an abortion “20 weeks after fertilization,” abortion practitioners are required to provide women with information about the pain an unborn child experiences during an abortion.

The woman can then request that the unborn child be given pain medication prior to the abortion, the letter explains.

Read the entire article on LifeNews.com.

Understanding the religious roots of America

Francis Asbury.

300,000 miles on horseback, from the Atlantic to the Appalachians, from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, for forty-five years, he spread the gospel.

This was Francis Asbury, Methodist Circuit riding preacher who was born this day, August 20, 1745.

When the Revolution started, he refused to return to England:

“I can by no means agree to leave such a field for gathering souls to Christ as we have in America.”

He befriended Richard Bassett, a signer of the Constitution, who converted, freed his slaves and paid them as hired labor.
[Read more…]

Bar might tell judges to quit anti-gay groups (including the Boy Scouts)

Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, August 7, 2004, Gina Holland

Atlanta — Judges are on the front line of battles about legal rights for same-sex couples and should never belong to an organization that discriminates against gays, supporters of a proposed change to American Bar Association ethics rules argued Friday.

Judges are already prohibited from joining clubs that discriminate based on race or sex. An ABA panel is debating whether to make groups that discriminate against gays off limits as well.

The ABA, the nation’s largest lawyers’ group, with more than 400,000 members, writes conduct rules for judges and lawyers. States and federal courts generally adopt them, with some changes.
[Read more…]

Secularism and the moral tradition

I just finished an article for Again magazine on Orthodoxy Christianity and the public square. They asked four or five authors to contribute articles on this theme, and it promises to be an interesting issue. Again is repositioning itself for a larger audience and wants to move into examing current issues from an Orthodox Christian perspective. They’ve totally revamped the visuals as well. It looks very promising.

I met the new editor, Doug Cramer, in New York at Clergy Laity who was representing Conciliar Press in the exhibit area. He’s a bright and engaging person. We ended up leaving the Congress for an hour and had coffee on the street somewhere to talk about the magazine and more. Nothing like sitting on the sidewalk talking and drinking coffee. It’s great.

Anyway, you never really know where a piece will end when you start out, but I devoted over half of it to a discussion about secularism vs. the Christian moral tradition, ie: the culture war. As I was discussing that theme here, I was also working on the article. One feeds the other I think. My final conclusion, not definitively proven but explained well enough to be compelling I think, is that secularism in the end is a Christian heresy.

Unfortunately I can’t post it until it is published which will be in September sometime.

Overall the week has been great and also liturgically full. Paraklesis on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening. Vespers of the Transfiguration last night, and Liturgy this morning. I always like this day, particularly the relationship between the Transfiguration and the ancient Jewish Holy Day of the Feast of Booths. The Transfiguration of course occurred on the feast which is why Peter wanted to construct a booth.

By the way, the only place in Matthew where the Greek word describing the light of glory of Christ occurs again is in the description of the garment of the angel that sat on the stone after the resurrection.

I’m also busy working on building up the infrastructure of the parish. I am fortunate in that a professor of patristics just joined the parish who will be teaching at the new Catholic college (Ave Maria) being built nearby. He will help me with adult education. Today another family came by with four children from 5 to 16 years old. They moved here last week. I’m told that during “season” (the time when all northerners come back down south) attendance exceeds 400 people or so. It’s going to be busy.

We need a new web page. GOA internet services has a new program called web-builder, a point and click operation of sorts that lets you pull together a pretty decent looking site in half-a-day or so. I could build one, but I just don’t have enough time for it. I could get someone to build it, but it would take a whole lot of time explaining how I want it done. I just might try the point and click.

They also have a new service called bulletin builder. Basically you download a preformatted bulletin with all the relevant info already included — scripture readings, apolytikia, kontakia, everything . Nice. We’ll switch to that too.

It rained almost all week. Usually when it rains here is drives down hard but ends in an hour or two and then the sun comes back out. This week it rained for hours, and there were almost entire days with no sun. My car ended up getting soaked. It turns out a seal along the floor somewhere was never installed and will all the puddles water worker its way up. I ended up with almost a half inch of water on the floor. I took the car in Monday and got it back today. They ended up resealing the area in the body shop and replacing all the carpeting. Fortunately it was all on warranty. I even got a loaner. All in all, the hassle factor was minimal.