Orwellian

This is what its like to live in Canada these days:

"We have been waiting for six and a half years and the day has finally arrived, somebody is going to try to silence Free Dominion using the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Moments ago we found this in Free Dominion's mailbox:


July 16, 2007

File 2006057

Ms. Connie Wilkins
c/o Free Dominion
2033 Unity Rd.
Kingston, ON
K0H 1M0

Dear Ms. Wilkins:

I am the investigator designated under Part III of the Canadian Human Rights Act to investigate the complaint of Ms. [name omitted at this time] against Free Dominion. As the investigator, it is my responsibility to gather the evidence in relation to the complainant's allegations and, once the investigation is complete, to report on my findings to the Members of the Commission.

The report will include a recommendation for the disposition of the complaint. I can recommend that a conciliator be appointed, if the evidence supports the allegations in the complaint, or that the complaint be dismissed, if the allegations are not supported by the evidence. I can also recommend to the Commission that a settlement be approved if the parties reach an agreement during the course of the investigation.

I am currently awaiting your full response to the allegations which is due on 18 July 2007.

I would like to draw your attention to section 48 of the Canadian Human Rights Act which allows the parties to settle a complaint in the course of investigation. I would be pleased to discuss the possibility of a settlement with you or your representative at any time.

You can reach me at the address and telephone number indicated at the bottom of the first page of this letter. My direct line is 999-999-9999 and my email address is OfficersName@chrc-ccdp.ca. Please note that there are security and confidentiality risks in sending information by email.


Yours Sincerely,


Officer's Name
Investigator "

The Orwellian part? This is a Human Rights Commission.
posted by maggie at 3:31 PM | Link |  

Rhode Island Gov. Vetoes Bill that Forces Insurers to Cover Unmarried Infertility

Is this Constitutional? Probably, because the Supreme Court precedents making legitimacy a suspect class are rights of the child, not the parents:

"R.I. Governor Blocks Infertility Bill
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 19, 2007


PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Gov. Don Carcieri has vetoed a bill requiring health insurers to cover infertility treatments for unmarried people, saying they shouldn't be forced to subsidize out-of-wedlock births.

The Republican governor, who opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions, warned that eliminating the marriage restriction would also drive up health care costs.''As a matter of public policy, the state should be encouraging the birth of children to two-parent families, not the reverse,'' he said in a written statement Thursday announcing his Wednesday veto.

Two weeks ago, Carcieri permitted another bill to become law without his signature that required insurers to increase the age cap on eligible women to 42 from 40. It also required insurers to pay for infertility treatments after a couple fails to conceive or carry a pregnancy after one year of trying, instead of two.

But Carcieri balked when Democratic Rep. Edith Ajello's bill went one step further and eliminated the marriage requirement.Ajello, a prominent supporter of gay marriage, said her legislation could benefit heterosexual couples who choose not to wed, lesbian couples barred from marrying in Rhode Island and single women. She said infertility treatment can cost as much as $20,000, making it prohibitively expensive without insurance coverage.

''I do think it's an issue of civil rights, of discrimination, of not looking at people with an equal eye,'' Ajello said. ''I think we get into a very potentially dangerous situation when we decide who should have children and who shouldn't.''

UPDATE: Oops. I see Eve beat me to this one.
posted by maggie at 3:20 PM | Link |  

R.I. GOVERNOR BLOCKS INFERTILITY BILL: Associated Press

Gov. Don Carcieri has vetoed a bill requiring health insurers to cover infertility treatments for unmarried people, saying they shouldn't be forced to subsidize out-of-wedlock births.

The Republican governor, who opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions, warned that eliminating the marriage restriction would also drive up health care costs.

''As a matter of public policy, the state should be encouraging the birth of children to two-parent families, not the reverse,'' he said in a written statement Thursday announcing his Wednesday veto.

Two weeks ago, Carcieri permitted another bill to become law without his signature that required insurers to increase the age cap on eligible women to 42 from 40. It also required insurers to pay for infertility treatments after a couple fails to conceive or carry a pregnancy after one year of trying, instead of two.

But Carcieri balked when Democratic Rep. Edith Ajello's bill went one step further and eliminated the marriage requirement.

more
posted by Eve at 12:41 PM | Link |  

MARKET-FRIENDLY VS FAMILY-FRIENDLY AGENDA?: Ross Douthat

here
posted by Eve at 3:39 AM | Link |  

THE FUTURE'S OPEN WIDE: "Paleo-Future" blog on population control

[and yeah, the idea that human ingenuity generally triumphs over demographics is to some extent a caution against the demographic-crash models as well. --ELT]

...Today Norman Bourlag, probably the greatest living American, received the Congressional Gold Medal. Mr. Bourlag received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 after becoming an integral figure in the "Green Revolution."

While Paul Ehrlich was advocating forced birth control and spiking foreign food aid with antifertility drugs, Norman Borlaug was figuring out how to literally save a billion people using technology.

Below are excerpts from Ehrlich's third nightmare scenario. Ehrlich thought it would get so bad so quickly that the Pope would give his blessing to abortion by 1974.

more
posted by Eve at 1:56 AM | Link |  

THE MAN WHO'S ESCORTING DON JUAN TO HIS BRIDE: Ross Douthat on "Knocked Up"

[1. I note that my best friend's reaction to the premise of this movie was the intensely skeptical one described below; 2. Post title credited to the Pet Shop Boys; 3. Bold text is my emphasis. --ELT]

...The sharpest critique of Apatow's movie that I've heard came from a woman I know, who argued that the debate about abortion is somewhat beside the point: The film's central implausibility isn't that Katherine Heigl's Alison would keep the child, but that she would keep the man. I think most people would agree that the leads' never-quite-resolved mismatch is, as Denby puts it later in his essay, "the weakest element in the movie"; the question is whether it's something to be forgiven with a laugh or endured with a shudder. I forgave it and laughed my way through the movie, but then again I'm a man; my friend was one of those less-amused young women Denby has in mind, and she argued (persuasively) that you could easily read Knocked Up as a film about the awful things that a woman will accept to ease the terrible vulnerability of pregnancy. Only a deep, unsettling and not-at-all-funny desperation, in her view, could explain why Alison would accept as a boyfriend (and presumably a husband) a man as gross, insensitive, underemployed and immature as Seth Rogen's Ben--a guy, she pointed out, who goes on a profane rant in a crowded restaurant when Alison tells him that she's pregnant, tries to beg a blowjob from her on their second date, invites her over to fast-forward through porn movies to help him get his dot-com smut empire off the ground, abandons her to rescue his bong during an earthquake, and so on and so forth, with precious few romantic gestures thrown in to mitigate his blundering. (He gets a job, eventually reads some baby books, and ... that's about it.) His rants are funny, sure, and he's basically good-hearted, but would you want your daughter to marry him? Or more aptly, would you want your daughter to be so freaked out by her pregnancy that she felt like she had to make it work with him?

more (and more)
posted by Eve at 1:50 AM | Link |  

CHILDSTATS.GOV BURIES THE LEDE: Mickey Kaus

Childstats.gov Buries the Lede: The rate of teenage childbearing for blacks has been cut by more than half since its peak in 1991. It's now substantially lower than the teen birthrate for Hispanics. Though I'd like to credit welfare reform, causality here is complicated--new birth control technologies (e.g. Norplant) and fear of AIDS are big potential factors. And nationwide welfare reform didn't happen until 1996. ...

If you want to find evidence of a sociological impact for welfare reform, look at this chart. It shows that the percentage of black children living with two married parents jumped from 33 percent in 1996 to 38 percent in 2002 (when the Census changed the definition of "black"). Meanwhile, the percentage of black children living with "mother only" fell from 53 percent to 48 percent. ... Those figures still aren't very promising--the percentage of white children living with two married parents is 76 (and for Hispanics it's 66). Still, the improvement for blacks is significant. Why isn't welfare reform to blame? If a single mother is going to have to work, it makes sense to team up with another breadwinner. ...

P.P.S.: If greater condom use is (as the AP suggests) a big explanation for the decline in black teen births, doesn't this mean that the unavailability of condoms (or lack of education in their use, etc.) is no longer even a remotely plausible explanation for the still-low percentage of black two parent families? Obviously, the problem isn't lack of access to birth control technology--black teens are using it. Presumably they don't forget about it when they become young adults. ..

link if you scroll down to Wednesday, I think.
posted by Eve at 12:55 AM | Link |  

Sheila Rauch Kennedy on Annulments

For someone who is not Catholic she has some strong opinions about Catholic sacramental theology. . . LA Times op ed here:
posted by maggie at 8:03 PM | Link |  

Religious Liberty Watch: English bishop found guilty of illegal discrimination

From the BBC. The comments from the gay right leaders in U.K remind me of the New Jersey Legislator who said (during the civil union hearings) to Prof. Robby George: "You have religious liberty. Your religious liberty is to go out of business." Of course this is only . . . Great Britain:

"Bishop loses gay employment case

A gay man has won his case for unlawful discrimination after he was refused a youth official's job by a Church of England bishop.

The employment tribunal said John Reaney, 42, was discriminated against "on grounds of sexual orientation" by the Hereford diocesan board of finance. Mr Reaney, from Colwyn Bay, Conwy, said he was "delighted" at the decision.

The Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Rev Anthony Priddis, said he was "naturally disappointed" and may appeal.

During the tribunal in Cardiff in April, Mr Reaney said he was questioned by Bishop Priddis on his previous gay relationship during a two-hour meeting on 19 July 2006
It came after he was told he had emerged as the outstanding candidate for the job during an eight-man interview, the hearing heard.

Mr Reaney, whose case was supported by Stonewall, also told the tribunal he was left "very embarrassed and extremely upset" following the meeting and said he felt like "a total waste of space".

During his evidence, Bishop Priddis said he had made clear to Mr Reaney that a person in a committed sexual relationship outside of marriage, whether they were heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or transgender, would be turned down for the post.

But the tribunal found that the bishop should only have considered the present lifestyle of Mr Reaney, who is single, and he should have not questioned his future relationships.

Delivering the judgement, the tribunal said the case would now be listed for a remedy hearing. "The respondents discriminated against the claimant on the grounds of sexual orientation," said the judgement.

Mr Reaney, who had already worked in two other Anglican dioceses, where he had been praised for his achievements, said he was delighted. He said the case "demonstrated to many lesbian and gay Christians working for God within the Church of England that they are entitled to fair and respectful treatment".

But speaking to a news conference in Hereford on Wednesday, Bishop Priddis said: "I still think the decision I made was the right one." "I regret the polarisation of view which takes place when these things happen," he said, adding he had made the decision after a "great deal of prayer and contemplation".

'Not exempt'
Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said the verdict was "a triumph for 21st Century decency over 19th Century prejudice". "We're very happy for John," he said.

"The tribunal has rightly made clear that the Church of England cannot discriminate against gay people with impunity. No-one, not even a bishop, is exempt from the law."

Under the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, it is illegal to discriminate against people as a result of their sexual orientation, but the law does contain an exemption for organised religion.

Rev Richard Kirker, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said the bishop should resign. He said: "This is a just outcome. The church has brought this humilation on itself. The case need never have been brought if the church was not institutionally homophobic."
posted by maggie at 7:51 PM | Link |  

New Study: Babies and Monetary Policy

From the NBER: papers.nber.org/papers/W13263

"Fertility and the Real Exchange Rate
Andrew K. Rose, Saktiandi Supaat
NBER Working Paper No. 13263
Issued in July 2007

We use a quinquennial data set covering 87 countries between 1975 and 2005 to investigate the relationship between fertility and the real effective exchange rate. Theoretically a country experiencing a decline in its fertility rate can be expected to have higher savings, lower investment, a current account surplus, and accordingly a real depreciation. . . We find a statistically significant and robust link between fertility and the exchange rate. Our point-estimate is that a decline in the fertility rate of one child per woman is associated with a depreciation of approximately .15% in the real effective exchange rate."
posted by maggie at 12:16 AM | Link |  

Canadian Pastor Faces Legal Penalties for Letter

Its shocking, really shocking (to civilized norms, I'd like to say, but will have to settle for "to me") that a person can be dragged before a government tribunal for publishing a letter to the editor. . .in Canada! Thank God for the First Amendment. Story here.

UPDATE: The version in the Globe and Mail reports more on the letter's contents and also that a professor is the person responsible for bringing this case. It doesn't surprise me and that's in itself chilling:

"Hearing begins for Alberta pastor who wrote anti-gay letter
DAWN WALTON
July 17, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070717.RIGHTS17/TPStory/National

CALGARY -- Darren Lund was shocked when he first read a letter five years ago in an Alberta newspaper written by a local pastor who urged people to "take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness" of the "homosexual machine."
Two weeks later, the former Red Deer high-school teacher and now university professor was devastated to hear the news: A 17-year-old local gay youth was followed home and asked, "You're a faggot, right?" before allegedly being beaten by another young man.

Nobody was ever charged in the case, but Prof. Lund, who teaches education at the University of Calgary, was convinced letters like the pastor's could cause harm. He filed a complaint against the pastor with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, which yesterday began hearing evidence.

"I do stand on the principle that I think the letter did expose people to hatred and I think the government, if it's serious about its human-rights legislation, needs to make a ruling in this case and I think it's very clear what they need to do," Prof. Lund told reporters outside the hearing room.

Rev. Stephen Boissoin wrote the controversial letter, which was published on June 17, 2002, in the Red Deer Advocate under the headline, "Homosexual Agenda Wicked."
The letter reached out to youth struggling with their sexual identity by suggesting "enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied." It also blamed the "militant homosexual agenda" for corrupting youngsters and recruiting them to the gay lifestyle. "From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators," Mr. Boissoin wrote. "Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them," the letter continued, "are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities."
posted by maggie at 10:17 AM | Link |  

Federal Court: ERISA Trumps State Law on Partner's Benefits

A federal court ruled last month (decision here) that opposite sex couples in Massachussetts may not sue their employers for discrimination because they provide benefits to ss couples, because the employer's plan was governed by federal ERISA law not state law. A July 13 365gay.com story reporting on the ruling notes that this has implications for ss benefits (including ss couples who are married under Massachusetts law):

"Ruling Could Have Serious Impact On Partner Benefits

(Boston, Massachusetts) A federal court ruling in Boston, involving an unmarried opposite-sex couple, could have serious consequences for gay and lesbian couples. The case involved a man who sought benefits for his female domestic partner but was rejected by his employer, Partners Healthcare, even though it provided coverage to unmarried same-sex partners.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination had ruled that Jason Webster was the victim of bias based on his sexuality but U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro ruled the commission had no authority to investigate the case.

Tauro, in his written ruling, said that federal law trumps the tougher Massachusetts anti-bias statute. Sexuality is not covered under federal law. Because Boston-based Partners pays employees’ medical bills itself instead of purchasing outside health insurance it falls under the federal employee benefits law known as ERISA Tauro ruled. He said that ERISA plans are governed by federal anti-bias law, not state statutes. States, he ruled, cannot "tell plans [under ERISA] who can and must be beneficiaries. If courts allowed such results, differing state laws could quickly make it difficult to administer a fair, uniform plan."

Webster had the support of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the law firm that won the 2004 Massachusetts decision legalizing gay marriage, in his lawsuit.
Partners began covering the same-sex partners of its workers before gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts. It continued to offer the insurance after gay marriage was legalized because a large number of its employees lived in neighboring states where same-sex couples could not marry.

That Tauro ruled companies under ERISA need not comply with state nondiscrimination laws GLAD argues the decision creates a loophole leaving same-sex couples in jeopardy.

"The present action could have profound repercussions for all lesbians and gay men who are employed and in committed relationships whether married or not," said GLAD attorney Nima Eshghi. "We don’t believe [the federal law] should give employers a free pass to avoid state anti-discrimination laws."

©
posted by maggie at 9:46 AM | Link |  

Updates Corrections

From Lynn Gazis-Sax:

"1) UCC backs gay marriage: Chuck Currie, a blogger who is also a minister in the UCC, says that this decision was actually made in 2005, but for some reason the news is being recycled now.

2)From Man of the Flesh to Man of the Cloth: You'd think, since this one's in the NY Times, that it would be accurate, but the Episcopalian blogger at Episcope went and talked to the guy's pastor and it turns out that his degree of progress toward becoming a man of the cloth is seriously overstated."

posted by maggie at 10:50 AM | Link |  

Three Parents Better than Two? Plus Custody Pre-nups

Dueling, or perhaps complementary, op eds in today's New York Times. Elizabeth Marquardt (well known to marriagedebate readers from the Family Scholars blog) writes about the recent Pennsylvania case creating three legal parents for a child. "The rule of two" once applied to both marriage and parenthood. Now?

When 3 Really Is a Crowd
By ELIZABETH MARQUARDT

SOMETIMES when the earth shudders it doesn’t make a sound. That’s what happened in Harrisburg, Pa., recently.

On April 30, a state Superior Court panel ruled that a child can have three legal parents. The case, Jacob v. Shultz-Jacob, involved two lesbians who were the legal co-parents of two children conceived with sperm donated by a friend. The panel held that the sperm donor and both women were all liable for child support. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, “I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child’s support and are also entitled to visitation.” . . .

Supporters of the rulings argue that if two parents are good for children, aren’t three better? . . .What is the harm if other American courts follow Pennsylvania’s example? For one thing, three-parent situations typically involve a couple and a third person living separately, meaning the child will get shuffled between homes, and this raises problems.

A few years ago, along with Norval Glenn, a sociologist at the University of Texas, I compiled the first nationwide study of children who grow up in so-called “good” divorces — that is, families in which both divorced parents stay involved in the child’s life and control their own conflict. We found that even these children must grow up traveling between two worlds, having to make sense on their own of the different values, beliefs and ways of living they find in each home. They have to grow up too soon. When a court assigns a child several parents, some of whom never intend to share a home, they consign that child, at best, to a “good” divorce situation.

Of course, sometimes the three adults might want to live together, which leads to a different set of concerns. As one advocate of polygamy argued in Newsweek, “If Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy.” If more children are granted three legal parents, what is our rationale for denying these families the rights and protections of marriage? America, get ready for the group-marriage debate.

And these are merely the worries if the three parents cooperate. But, as the Pennsylvania case shows, they may not. Conflicts will undoubtedly arise when three parents confront the sticky, conflict-ridden reality of child-raising, often leading to a nasty, three-way custody battle. Even if they part amicably, they may still want to live in three different homes. In that case, how many homes should children travel between to satisfy the parenting needs of many adults?

. . . .If we allow three legal parents, why not five?

Fortunate children have many people who love them as much as their parents do. But in the best interests of children, no court should break open the rule of two when assigning legal parenthood.

Elizabeth Marquardt, a vice president of the Institute for American Values, is the author of the forthcoming “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor.”

James Miller's new idea is that engaged people should negotiate child custody decision before they are married or have children. Because (as Elizabeth points out) its a mess afterwards. (BTW, I don't agree with his proposal):

"NYT July 16, 2007
Preparing for a Broken Home
By JAMES ANDREW MILLER

A FRIEND from business school, just engaged, boasted recently not about the virtues of his wife-to-be but about the Byzantine process he and she had gone through in constructing what he considered the finest of prenuptial agreements, as if there were some sort of poetry in the laborious detail involved in dividing assets and wealth. Months earlier, another friend, who had separated from her husband, told me she’d decided to go back with him, but only after the two of them had constructed a “post-nup” that left no doubt as to how their finances would be divided should they break up again.

I suppose both kinds of agreements are understandable in an era when so many marriages fail, but it seems sadly clear to me that both couples, for all their meticulous planning, had overlooked and ignored the most important point of all. Dividing up money and assets after a marriage falls apart can be a mess, but it’s often nothing compared with the agony and emotional torment of a custody battle — dividing up the children. . . .

In the world of child custody, however, there are few certainties.

Such battles are often waged before judges who have unpredictable points of view about child custody. There are so many different types of custody schedules and ways of calculating what’s fair to parents and children alike, that fathers, especially, stand a good chance of getting stuck with a plan they don’t like — one that leaves them feeling like a second-class parent. Given crowded court schedules and a shortage of judges to hear cases, many custody battles can take up to a year or more to reach a conclusion.

Once a case is finally heard, neither parent can be certain of legal precedent or anything else that might steer the proceedings toward a mutually agreeable outcome. A custody evaluator or a judge can never understand a family’s situation or individual children as well as the parents themselves do. Some couples have found that by the time the court has heard their custody case, many of the precious dollars divided between them in their prenup have found their way to the lawyers.

Absent a pre-arranged custody plan, the children in a divorce almost always start one custody schedule and then, once a court order is signed, must adapt to a new one. Worse, they may find themselves being used by one side or the other (or both) as bargaining chips or even strategic weapons.

For a parent, being without one’s children at such a time, and having to watch from the sidelines as they are overtaken by anxiety and uncertainty, can make the custody battle by far the most traumatic aspect of the divorce experience.

With a custody schedule outlined before marriage, children could have a single structure for their new lives from the moment their parents separate. They would know where they will be and when, they wouldn’t have to witness their parents arguing about the details, and they might not be subjected to custody evaluations or, worse, be required to testify in court. . ."


James Andrew Miller is the author of “Running in Place: Inside the Senate” and co-author of “Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live.”

posted by maggie at 10:15 AM | Link |  

From Man of the Flesh to Man of the Cloth

Kind of leaves me speechless. I say nuffink!:

NYT, July 15, 2007
Man of the Flesh to Man of the Cloth

". . .After 30 years of sowing the wildest of oats, Mr. Boyer, 54, has searched his soul and chosen, to the surprise of family and colleagues, to seek a priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

From his work in the rented villas of the San Fernando Valley, where hard-core sex films are shot, he has moved just a short distance west, to the Church of the Epiphany, which is guiding his transformation from pornography star to preacher.

The psychic distance, however, has been vast. In January, the lumbering 6-foot-3 performer was greeting fans on the red carpet of the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, along with the superstars of pornography like Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy.

In June, he was carrying the Holy Bible and a text titled “Gospel Light” to a live Internet show where he preached on the relative evils of pornography. “Is pornography a sin?” he asked on the show, which is aimed at people in the sex industry. “Probably. Definitely,” he answered, a response that reflected his own ambivalence as much as a desire not to alienate his audience. “So is eating carrot cake until you’re sick to your stomach,” he continued. “And so is punching somebody in the face. That’s a sin.” . . .

He has tired of performing in sex movies, but even now doesn’t condemn it. “Not one time did Jesus refer to pornography, or homosexuality,” he observed on the Internet show, which he began as a co-host in May. “Jesus could have commented. He didn’t.”

Still, to pursue a new path as a religious leader, he had to make a clear choice. At the end of January, Mr. Boyer, who is married to a recently retired adult-film star, Liza Harper, announced his own retirement and gave up directing and performing in hard-core movies, he said, for good. “I don’t enjoy it anymore,” he said at the time.

. . . And as recently as January, on the same day that he was making his documentary about spirituality, he still performed in a sex film.

At a shoot in a luxury suite at the hotel where the adult video convention was held, he watched a football game while a first-time performer, Gianna Ferrari, had sex with him. “My mind’s not there,” he said afterward.

The contradiction between giving up pornography and feeling its attraction was still apparent in June, four months after retiring. “I love sex,” he said. “I love performing. I love the combination of the two. I could go back and do it again, but I don’t think I would. I had a passion for that. I put it there. Now I’ve channeled my passion to a different place.”

Giving up pornography is only one step on a long, difficult road to becoming a priest. In February and March, Mr. Boyer studied at a religious retreat in Big Sur, then prayed at a cathedral in San Francisco. He returned to meet with his priest and with the second-ranking official of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, Bishop Suffragan Chester L. Talton, to gain approval to establish a ministry among sex workers.

The process to priesthood will take several years. Mr. Boyer began by being confirmed in the Episcopal Church this year. He is undergoing training to become a deacon, which will allow him to conduct most aspects of ministering short of the sacraments. To become a priest, he must study in a seminary for approximately two years and his candidacy must be approved by the diocesan bishop.

J. Jon Bruno, bishop for the Los Angeles Diocese, said Mr. Boyer’s path to the priesthood would not be precluded by who he was. “I wouldn’t put up an immediate impediment because of someone’s past life,” he said. “There’s no exclusion in the gospel for anybody.”

posted by maggie at 8:54 AM | Link |