Wisconsin

Police officers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin are praising parents for turning in a group of children suspected of taking part in a robbery at a BP gas station.

One mother, going by the name Kizzy, couldn't believe her eyes when she turned on the television last week and saw her 15-year-old son in surveillance footage of the mass looting at the gas station. She then went online where officials had posted images of the suspects and identified her other 13-year-old child at the scene as well.

When she asked her children about the crime, they confessed. Kizzy, facing perhaps every parent's most feared ethical dilemma, says she did what she had to do. The next day, she took them downtown and handed them over to the police. more >>

A lesbian minister was suspended from her church duties Thursday and ordered to spend the next 20 days as a time for spiritual discernment. A jury of 13 United Methodist clergy convicted the Rev. Amy DeLong on a charge of performing a same-sex union, which is in violation of church law.

The jury voted 9-4 to suspend the pastor beginning in July. The same jury Wednesday found DeLong not guilty in a unanimous decision of the charge of being a “self-avowed practicing homosexual.”

Her conviction on the same-sex union violation came on a 12-1 vote. more >>

An openly lesbian United Methodist minister will face a jury of her peers on two charges of violating by-laws beginning Tuesday in Kaukauna, Wis.

The Rev. Amy DeLong faces two charges of breaking the denomination’s ban on homosexuality. DeLong reportedly conducted a ceremony in 2009 that wedded a lesbian couple in addition to her admission of a same-sex relationship. She has been involved in pastoral ministry for eight years, according to the United Methodist News Service.

The three-day trial before a panel of 13 of her fellow Wisconsin United Methodist ministers is described in the Church’s Book of Discipline as a last resort, according to the UMNS. more >>

A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary stay blocking the state from utilizing the recently passed bill limiting union’s collective bargaining rights.

Judge Maryann Sumi issued the temporary order Friday, allowing unions representing state employees to retain their bargaining rights over benefits.

The order was given in response to a lawsuit filed by District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. The lawsuit alleged the legislative committee considering the bill violated Wisconsin’s open meeting law by pushing the measure to the floor. more >>

United Methodists are weighing in on the debate over an Appleton, Wis., minister who faces a church trial for her homosexual lifestyle.

The Rev. Amy DeLong is scheduled to go to trial on April 11. Two charges were brought against her – one for conducting a ceremony for the union of a lesbian couple and another for being a self-avowed practicing homosexual.

"This sort of thing goes on regularly," the Rev. Tim Berlew of Memorial United Methodist Church in Greenfield, Wis., who supports DeLong, said recently. "But Amy made it public because she feels the church needs to deal with this." more >>

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has unveiled “friendly atheist[s]” as the new face of its ad campaign. While the billboards are aimed at welcoming national conference goers, the atheist group is planning to expand the campaign to the national level.

The Wisconsin-based foundation is launching the new “Out of the Closet” Campaign to welcome 2010 National FFRF Convention attendees Oct. 29-31, Halloween weekend. The FFRF began setting up the brightly-colored billboards last week to welcome convention attendees arriving in Madison, Wis.

The billboards are also a part of a new national campaign FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says will encourage atheists and agnostics to step out of the shadows and claim their civil rights the same way members of the gay pride movement did. more >>