Jul 18, 2003   | COMMENTS     

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson urged his nationwide audience to pray for God to remove three justices from the Supreme Court so they could be replaced by conservatives. “We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court,” Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club.” Robertson has launched a 21-day “prayer offensive” directed at the Supreme Court in the wake of its 6-3 June vote that decriminalized sodomy. Robertson said in a letter on the CBN Web site that the ruling “has opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest.” The same letter targets three justices in particular: “One justice is 83-years-old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?” Judging from the descriptions, Robertson was referring to Justice John Paul Stevens, who was born in 1920, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had colon cancer surgery in 1999. Robertson said on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that the identity of the third justice is Sandra Day O’Connor.

ACLU files separate suit against city over Family Day
HONOLULU (AP) — In the second lawsuit filed against the city and county of Honolulu over this month’s Family Day event, the American Civil Liberties Union accused the city of reserving entertainment at the event for “fundamentalist Christians.” The suit filed in Circuit Court Monday seeks an injunction ordering an account of the city’s spending on the event and a halt to similar celebrations in the future. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of a range of Honolulu residents, from a minister to a ceramics instructor all of whom thought the July 5 Family Day festivities crossed the church-state line. The plaintiffs cited a musical segment of Family Day that included nine separate performances by Christian groups, while children’s entertainment at the Keiki Stage in Kapiolani Park had a stated purpose to “save souls.”

Activists seek new law in anti-gay minister’s hometown
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Outsiders often assume this community is a conservative place where social change occurs slowly. After all, a Kansas law specifically criminalizing gay sex remained on the books this year, after most other states had repealed theirs. And among the Kansas capital’s 122,000 residents is the Rev. Fred Phelps, whose church has offended people across the nation with anti-homosexual pickets and signs with slogans like “God hates fags.” But Topeka also is home to activists seeking an ordinance that would protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination. The City Council narrowly rejected such a proposal last year, and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force has made enacting an ordinance its priority. Activists, cheered by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated state laws against gay sex, plan to revive their proposal, perhaps this coming fall.

Gay rights protester interrupts Anglican synod
LONDON (AP) — The Church of England briefly halted a general assembly meeting Saturday after gay rights protesters took over the stage to protest the case of an openly gay clergyman whose appointment as a bishop divided the church. The seven demonstrators included protest leader Peter Tatchell, who held a poster with the words “Church of hate stop crucifying queers.” About half of those at the synod meeting in York, northern England, left while Tatchell spoke about Rev. Jeffrey John’s decision not to take up a new post as a bishop. Several Anglican bishops from around the world wrote to oppose John’s selection, saying the appointment violated church teaching that gay sex is “incompatible with Scripture.” “You can see the voice of bigotry and unreason here today,” Tatchell said. “Your ears are deaf and your eyes are blind. You do not witness the suffering of gay and lesbian people.”

Anglican Church deals with divisive appointment aftermath
LONDON — The unity of the Anglican Church is significantly diminished after an openly gay canon and bishop-nominee Jeffrey John has factionalized the churches senior leadership, according to a report in the Guardian. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Anglican Church, has championed the issue of open gays in the ministry. “Unity is a gospel imperative when we recognize that it opens us to change, to conversion. When we realize how our life with Christ is somehow bound up with our willingness to abide with those we think are sinful and those we think are stupid ... the luxury of separation is really death, the pain of unity is really life for us,” he said. Though John has stepped down from the position of Bishop of Reading a week ago saying he wanted to avoid doing anything to divide the church, the issue of openly gay clergy is a growing issue within the church.