More Than 100 Methodist Ministers Defy Church Rules, Come Out As LGBT

ap577649381886-1125x635A slate of 111 United Methodist ministers have come out as LGBT, challenging their denomination’s ban on “practicing homosexuals” and hoping to influence a major church-wide vote on LGBT issues later this week.

On Monday morning, Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), an LGBT advocacy group within the United Methodist Church (UMC), published a letter signed by 111 ministers openly declaring their dual identity as both clergy and LGBT persons. The effort constitutes a direct affront to existing church policy — which currently prohibits the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” — and comes just one day before thousands of UMC leaders gather in Portland, Oregon, for General Conference, an event held every four years where delegates vote on issues of church governance and theology.  Source

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The eight things Catholics and Muslims agree on

qoran_bible_400x254The document is the result of the fourth Catholic-Muslim colloquium on interreligious dialogue

Senior leaders from the Catholic Church and the Muslim community have issued an eight-point joint statement reflecting their shared beliefs.

The document, which is the result of the fourth Catholic-Muslim colloquium on interreligious dialogue, includes a call for basic human rights to be protected by law, a pledge of solidarity with all those in need, a rejection of all forms of proselytism and a focus on the right of young people to an education that is “respectful of diversity”, reports Vatican Radio.

The communiqué came at the conclusion of a two-day meeting at the Vatican entitled ‘Shared values in social and political life: Christian and Muslim perspectives’. Delegates from a dozen different countries came together, organised by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Jordan’s Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies. They were joined by Pope Francis on the concluding day.  Source

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Philippines bishops: Catholic Church will not stop ‘interfering’ in politics

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Bishops offer olive branch to Duterte

WHILE some of them had earlier questioned the fitness of Rodrigo Duterte to be President, Catholic bishops were now offering his incoming administration “vigilant collaboration.”

“The greatest promise the Church can offer any government is vigilant collaboration, and that offer we make now,” Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said in a statement…

He said several critical, even spiteful, voices had asked the prelates to desist from “interfering” in politics.

“We cannot,” he said, explaining that “it would be a denial of Christ’s universal Lordship were we to desist from reminding his disciples of what fidelity to him—in all things, including political life—demands.”  Source

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E-cigarette poisonings in kids skyrocket, study finds

150318095634-e-cigarette-classic-exlarge-169(CNN)  The number of children under 6 poisoned by nicotine in e-cigarettes rose by nearly 1,500% between 2013 and 2015, and one child died, according to an analysis of calls to the National Poison Data System published in the journal Pediatrics.

More than 90% of the children swallowed the nicotine-laced liquid, known as e-juice, that is smoked inside e-cigarettes. Nearly half of the exposed children were under the age of 2.
The number of children exposed to e-cigarette products each month rose from 14 in January 2012 to 223 in April 2015.  Source
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Philippines election: Rodrigo Duterte in quotes

89644711_89644710The frontrunner in the Philippines election, Rodrigo Duterte, is known for saying things that many would consider unsayable.

But his outspoken style – and his record as mayor of the country’s third biggest city – have made him popular with voters. A vow to kill 100,000 criminals…  Source

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Facebook workers routinely prevented conservative news from trending – former employee

5730df3ac3618875138b45c3Facebook’s news team routinely prevented conservative news stories from appearing in the social media giant’s astronomically influential ‘Trending’ news section, according to a report.

According to a Monday report from Gizmodo, a former Facebook contractor who worked as a ‘news curator’ for the social media giant said that other workers would remove right-wing topics such as Mitt Romney, Rand Paul and the Conservative Political Action Conference from making the site’s Trending news list, even though they were popular enough to qualify.  Source

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Solomons sinking: Five Pacific reef islands swallowed by rising sea levels

572df201c36188f7118b45bfFive reef islands have disappeared from the Pacific’s Solomon Islands and six more have been severely damaged due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, according to new research.

Studying the relationship between sea level rise and wave exposure in the “global sea-level rise hotspot,” a team of Australian researchers found rising waters are taking a significant toll on the islands.

“At least 11 islands across the northern Solomon Islands have either totally disappeared over recent decades or are currently experiencing severe erosion,” according to the study published in Environmental Research Letters.  Source

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Trump Effect – President Obama Issues Executive Order on Transfer of Executive Power…

14328814221_208f745363_oWhite House Version – President Obama has initiated an enhanced transition of power process through an executive order directed toward the assembly of a cross functional transition team from all cabinet members.

Regular Speak Version – In case Trump wins this thing we’d better have an efficient process in place for shredding the evidence, and keeping all executive leadership from prosecution.  Source

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Obama Adviser Admits Manipulating the Public with “Misleading or False” Information Regarding Nuclear Deal with Iran.

119790A senior White House official has caused an uproar among journalists, political pundits and policy officials after he admitted to manipulating the public with “misleading or false” information to garner support for last July’s nuclear deal with Iran.

In a New York Times Magazine profile published on Thursday of President Obama’s foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes, journalist David Samuels writes, “The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal. Even where the particulars of that story are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to take away from those particulars are often misleading or false.”  Source

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