Homosexuality

With a major protest against same-sex marriage coming up on Sunday in Paris, France, the country's Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Thursday that he is contemplating banning the opposition group French Spring.

Valls said in a Thursday radio interview with France Info that he is contemplating banning the group, which has modeled its name after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, due to recent statements made by the group in reference to the French government.

Valls said that he takes the recent comments by the activist organization as a "call to violence." more >>

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released a statement expressing their support for the Boy Scouts of America after the youth organization voted to allow openly gay members.

Released not long after the resolution to change the membership policy was passed on Thursday, the LDS statement spoke of the longstanding history between the church and the BSA.

"For the past 100 years, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has enjoyed a strong relationship with Boy Scouts of America, based on our mutual interest in helping boys and young men understand and live their duty to God and develop upright moral behavior," reads the statement. more >>

A Christian legal group described the Boy Scouts of America Executive Committee's decision on Thursday to change its longstanding membership policy and allow Scouts to be of any "sexual orientation or preference" as a rejection of its freedom to promote values that the group has held for the last century.

"Sadly, the Boy Scouts Executive National Council's decision disregards not only the nearly 19,000 Americans who signed a petition urging BSA to 'uphold the values that have defined the organization for over 100 years,' but also the millions of Americans who have supported the program," stated Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman shortly after the decision.

"Those promoting the agenda to change what the Boy Scouts have always been won't rest until there is complete acceptance of any sexual preference for both leaders and members. With its decision today, BSA has rejected its freedom to promote and practice the values that have served to shape our nation's boys into leaders for the last century," Cortman said. more >>

Sixty percent of the 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts voted to allow openly gay members, but not leaders yesterday, in a predictable change to the 103 year-old civic organization. What are the possible outcomes? Litagation? Most likely. Defections? Definitely. The response by faith groups who are the most vested with the Scouts-the Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons)- remains varied.

More telling is that seventy percent of those who operate Scouting units are faith-based organizations that will most likely not be able to host the Scouts in the future because the language in the resolution prohibits them from being who they are-organizations that hold religious beliefs.

These groups will no longer be able to "give definite attention to religious life" because if they did they would violate the injunction not "to promote or advance any social … position or agenda." Any orthodox Christian organization that adheres to Biblical definitions of marriage, family, and sexuality will no longer be able to teach their beliefs because the Scouts position now defines a religious belief as a prohibited "social position." more >>

After a contentious challenge to their membership policy, 1,400 delegates of the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America youth organization voted overwhelmingly to adopt an amendment that effectively lifts the ban on homosexual youth in the organization on Thursday.

The ban on gay adult scout leaders will remain.

Sixty-one percent of the delegates voted in favor of the resolution while 39 percent voted against it at the organization's National Annual Meeting in Grapevine, Texas. more >>

One of the largest Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations in the United States is presently weighing the possibility of leaving the denomination due to theological differences.

First Presbyterian Church of Houston, founded in the early nineteenth century and with an estimated 3,600 members, voted earlier this year to enter a discernment process over the possibility of seeking dismissal.

James T. Birchfield, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church, told The Christian Post that the congregation wants to consider where they stand in relation to the views of PC(USA). more >>