Defying orders from the country's largest Boy Scouts council, members and adult volunteers of the youth organization chose to wear their Boy Scouts uniforms while marching in Utah's gay pride parade last Sunday.

The Utah Pride Festival Parade took place 10 days after the Boy Scouts delegates voted by 61 percent to lift the organization's ban on openly gay members at its annual meeting in Grapevine, Texas.

The Great Salt Lake Council had forbidden Boy Scouts members from wearing their uniforms in the pride parade due to the organization's guidelines, which prohibit advocating a political or social agenda. more >>

Neal Humphrey, pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in north Utah, recently resigned as a member of the executive board of the Trapper Trails Council, charging that the Boy Scouts' new membership policy excludes evangelical churches and other Christian denominations.

On May 23, after a controversial challenge, 1,400 delegates of the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America voted overwhelmingly to lift a longstanding ban on homosexual youth in the organization.

"They are asking us to endorse something that the Bible says is sin…And we will not follow the Scouts in endorsing sin," said pastor Humphrey in one report which noted that he delivered his resignation in a letter to Trapper Trails Executive Allen Endicott. more >>

Although they have yet to find his body, officials from California's Yosemite National Park have declared a Sacramento teenager who was reportedly swept away by a nearly 600-ft waterfall in the park on Saturday as most likely dead.

The teenager, Oleg Kalman, 19, had visited the park with a youth group from the Second Slavic Baptist Church in North Highlands, Calif., on Saturday. While swimming in the Merced River just before 3 p.m., according to officials, he got caught in the strong currents of the river's fast-moving waters which drove him downstream and over the waterfall.

Despite a frantic search and prayers from his family, the teenager remains missing. more >>

The Pennsylvania Pastors Network, a group of clergy seeking to uphold the moral principles of the Bible, is advising Christian parents to pull their children out of the Boy Scouts of America, following the organization's decision to lift its more than 100-year-old ban on gay members.

"We've seen the leadership of the Boy Scouts of American crumble under pressure from homosexual activist groups and we know this because the BSA leadership just a couple of years ago was adamant that they would not allow homosexual members or leaders into the organization," said Sam Rohrer, president of PPN, in a statement.

In May, BSA delegates voted 61 to 39 percent in favor of the amendment that lifted the ban at the National Annual Meeting in Grapevine, Texas. The ban on openly gay adult leaders is still in place. more >>

An atheist group has announced plans to create a hotline help number for the benefit of those who have decided to leave religion but are struggling to find support.

Recovering From Religion, a secular company seeking to provide people leaving their religious views with various resources, hopes to raise $30,000 by June 30 for "The Hotline Project."

"Recovering From Religion is launching a brand new campaign to start The Hotline Project. With your help, the Secular Movement can provide a valuable service for people struggling with their faith, with nowhere to turn," reads an entry on their website. more >>

When 27-year-old Shavaughn Robinson returned home at about 6 p.m. last Tuesday her family noticed nothing unusual. She washed some clothes and read books to her 4-year-old son.

And in her last post on her Facebook page on May 28, she was a doting mother in search of a summer program for her son, Antonio Wilson Jr.

"Attention all parents in the 804: Antonio Wilson will be starting preschool in a few months and we are looking for a summer program to put him in as preparation. We are looking for a classroom type setting so he can get used to having a teacher and for him to be there most of if not all day. Any suggestions? S/N~ Bam is going to Linwood Holton but they only have summer stuff for kindergartners," she wrote. more >>