we never saw that coming. we had no idea. you know i personally went through a struggle with us i went through all the typical questions that are being asked the parents ask themselves you know did i do something wrong to cause this i was worried about my son i was thinking about grandchildren. well part of the problem for my son tim being gay was that he's actually a very traditional guy the faith was always very important to him even from when he was little when i was studying for the ministry i remember he would set up the little animals you know as as though they were in church and he preached to them.

you know i was hearing a lot of messages from the church in particular that homosexuality was you know not compatible with what the bible taught and i would actually just. pray to god you know make me normal you know if this is a phase i'm going through just to get away you know i wanted it to end and i would literally you know many nights crying myself to sleep because it was something i was so upset over you know and eventually i did come to the realisation that this is just who i was this is who i was born to be. i think the truth is hard to suppress and the truth is that homosexual relationships. do have carry with them risks of health problems my. channel and physical health

problems and other these other social pathologies the truth is people are not born gay the truth is that homosexuals sexual orientation can change and. and i don't i have faith that the truth cannot be suppressed forever. and. it's mom's me all far away because she's afraid of us. i was just thinking it so funny that parents are always so free to strangers. when the people that i needed to really be afraid of are like the other kids in my class and teachers and never for talk to me in schools like. it's got to go well president putin and russia come under a lot of criticism for a law that prohibits the advocacy of homosexuality or i guess the homosexual lifestyle and we join the critics of the law but we observe that there are

a number of laws in the united states that can be criticized along exactly the same laws it's another the national level but many of our states are provinces have laws that prohibit the advocacy or positive depiction of homosexuality in the educational system for young people states like utah which hosted the two thousand and two winter olympics have statutes that prohibit very similarly to the russian statute the advocacy of homosexuality other states me about it states such as arizona texas and alabama likewise prohibit that kind of advocacy but go even further than the russian law or the utah law and for example the arizona law instructs school teachers in the public school system to demonstrate to students that there is no safe mechanism or safe way to have quote unquote homosexual sex which is simply untrue. well alabama and texas instructs school teachers to

tell pupils young people that homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle and also instructs them to say that homosexual sex in private is a crime in those states which is not true since two thousand and three the us supreme court has said states cannot make consensual private homosexual activities between two adults across. grove in texas i think that. it was definitely hard being gay i knew probably when i was about five that i. had the feelings and knew that i was interested in guys but i didn't know what exactly it was and as i went through high school and stuff i started to realize more that i just wasn't the same as anyone else and so i kind of was in the closet all during my high school years and through the college years just because i didn't

know what to expect i didn't want of the stigma of there's gay john and i feel like in the south that's kind of what happens with the g.l.b. teach immunity is they get that label on and in massachusetts when i came up here and started telling my friends and stuff that i was gay they said ok what's your point like you're still john to us so i think that being in massachusetts you're able to be a little bit more free with who you are you're able to walk down the streets with the person that you love and basically being able to hold their hands where even in the big cities in texas i feel like you still kind of have to worry as to what may happen with you with someone that isn't ok with your sexuality and ok with what you're doing possibly coming upon you and. basically getting gay bashed. there are now seventeen states and the district of columbia where lesbian and gay people can be civilly married on the same times as straight people there are fifty states in

our country seventeen out of fifty is still a minority but it's approaching half of the states in this country on the other hand the southern part of the united states and most of the central part of the united states do not recognize same sex marriage that includes indiana state in the midwestern part of the country first of all cheese bread and whatever else first you know. yeah we. where's mine. peter hostage and she sticks with a large body whatever purely. which. is yeah if you know what i mean. in the state of indiana right now we have never gay marriage same sex marriage has never been legal public and party is trying to hide and is trying to push through a ban on gay marriage so that when marriage becomes more accepted on a federal level as it already has

a mistake indiana will be one of the most difficult states to pass if you want to protect the conservatism of indiana and what they call family values. family research council believes that marriage should continue to be defined as the union of one man and one woman there's a lot of confusion about the issue of same sex marriage i like to explain that marriage is not simply a civil institution and marriage is not simply a religious institution at its heart marriage is a natural institution rooted in the order of nature itself it is only because it takes one man and one woman to make a baby to create a new human being that there is public interest in the sexual relationships of adults at all and therefore. relationships of a type of

a type that is structurally incapable ever under any circumstances of resulting in natural procreation such as a homosexual relationship simply do not serve any public interest and therefore should not be treated as marriages. well i actually spoke. with a jury obviously. a very religious person. so this is a. i got this for you but it's not over jesus it's have got so don't be a prisoner of your religion maybe. don't be a prisoner of your religion. you know many people ask me about what about the bible what about those passages in the bible that talk about or seem to talk about homosexuality you know first of all i don't believe that these passages that people quote. are talking about how it's committed loving homosexual relationships now

that they're talking about how it's rape for instance and the genesis passage it talks about rape clearly and it talks about inappropriate sexual behavior and natural sexual behavior where heterosexual people would engage in homosexual activity which was unnatural for them and of course that's not appropriate talks about temple prostitution where male acolytes look prostitutes themselves to have sex with men in the temple context of course all of these things are inappropriate . but the bible i don't think really talks about loving homosexual relationships at all. oh i.

have to tell you that where ever i go. and mostly united methodist churches i am so encouraged by the welcome we got by all but also by the encouragement we get people telling me you know we're praying for you we're behind you. just a month ago i was at the beginning to the united methodist church in new york and there was one older lady who came up to the front and she said i want you to know that i am so angry at my church the united methodist church for defrocking you. i am actually using that word now as a cuss word. and then she said in front of everybody what the frock is going on with my trip. so by the time my son called me in two thousand and six right after he got engaged with dad

would you do my wedding there was no doubt in my mind and i said absolutely son it would be a joy and it was only after i had said yes to him. that i begin to think about what that means for me as a minister of a church who prohibits gay marriage no united methodist ministers are not allowed to perform same sex marriages and you know the methodist churches are not allowed to host same sex weddings. i came to the conclusion you know after wrestling with this that if the church was going to fire me that's what they had to do but i was going to do this wedding. this was more important. than my job and my career as a minister. in

the crosshairs as israel appears to be preparing for still another assault on the gaza strip on this edition of cross talk we asked how it got to this point and what israel hopes to achieve. it was a. very hard to take. once again there was a plan that had that big hair. calling. the first place.

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i think we need to teach classes more on sexual acceptance instead of sexual you know sexual behavior and s.t.d. and stuff like that that's all scare tactics stuff i think school impacts you so much. i don't remember ever thinking about killing myself because of being bullied i just don't i just it was part of my life. it gave me pretty thick skin it also made me sensitive i think to people that had it worse than i did. it being bullied for being gay is the worse it gets for me in my life there's people that have it ten times worse. i remember exactly the statistics are you get to say something like every twenty seconds somebody attends this identity it's something like every forty seconds somebody please country. anything like l g b t q teenagers the rate is like to be percent more once you don't have a support network it's like seventy five percent more. if you're less than i need

it to forty one without ever feeling like i need to go there suicide or it's. because of that subject you know nothing because i mean i'm always i mean clichy know it's really tough or whatever i think. you know it's really. been that it really is that. it's really is at all just he ability. you know that we we go through like every day if you know we're really lucky each half pretty supportive

group of friends and family he's him. although like whatever it is around here you know we still kind of support it or whatever another you know like have a great family. blah whatever i. just cannot imagine feeling so low and well. powerless and emotional it's just that that's the only option you know and i think that it. it's really sad that people feel that way. for me especially having gone through that severe depression and contemplating suicide the support of my family was incredibly important that really helped me get through a lot of that a lot of those feelings and overall it's really important my family is very close

and i can talk to them about anything you know i can call one of my siblings or my parents or do i have a big decision to be used to be made or if i'm feeling down and it's my support structure so does incredibly important and i think that that has the decision that my dad made was very difficult and he went really. took it to an extreme really risking his not just his job his career his livelihood doing what he did and that has made our family a lot stronger. so i said to the jury if i want you to know if i am going to be

a united methodist minister tomorrow. that i will continue to do ministry with all of god's children excluded with all of god's children and i also want you to know that i can no longer be a silent supporter but i will be an advocate speaking with and for our l.g.b. team members and brothers and sisters in the church and i want you to know that i think what we're doing. in the name of the church with our book of discipline is discriminatory and it is hate speech. because so many so many of our brothers and sisters in the community including my son to. have been harmed and hurt so much and god is not going to stand for that. one. and this one is the three of us.

i am a very spiritual person and i believe in our country one of the things the foundation believes our country is a right to whatever your belief is in a higher power there are ok so i'm not going to take someone's belief away so if there are seven baptist or their evangelical pentecostal and they believe that we're going to hell because we're being i think they have every right in the world to believe that you know just like i have every right in the world to believe that i'm not going. to take you closer to the students with. the. experience with souls. respect each other's differences and beliefs while i allow a human to have the same rights it's not a religious issue you know if they are made the evidence but atheists that are straight can get married atheists that are straight can get married in our country it is not a religious that ship is only

a religious issue when it comes to gay men or two lesbians i want to get married. i why it's probably about ten years after i left for college not going to church and when i was looking to go back to church it was really something that sense of community that i missed. we started to research and look for a church that was going to accept us and so there is a movement within the united methodist church called the reconciling movement and that's a group of churches really across the whole country. that accepts gay people you know believe that gay marriage should be something that that should be offered by the church except a pastors even though these are contrary to the united methodist churches teachings and doctrines and so i. went to a church that really welcomes us and has other gay couples in fact the pastor there himself is gay and is on track to being ordained as

a gay as an openly gay pastor so that you know we feel welcome there and we feel at home there so that that's a very secure feeling and we're happy to have found that church. say he's. here by. all the city he's. still. one of the niceties this. is. the least of the jesus. got in trouble for being friends and friendly with people who were discriminated against and who are judged by others including institutional religion serious tax collectors prostitutes lepers these are people who jesus called friends and he was. fourth

heads a lot bigger than some of you have very you know that his same type. of the worst things that people there are said to me and things that have been said by christians by people who are speaking in the name of jesus christ who use words like say ten possessed or evil were doomed for destruction in the most horrible things that can be said and that's you know that's that's part of my experience in my life also extremes. of acceptance and of judgment and then also a whole lot in the middle. so how are you feeling right now. a little nervous. little calm a stressful day but i think it off for a while. so what do you love the most about alex

i love that he challenges me. i love that he's going to put up with a lot of my b.s. which i think is important a relationship i mean i think we can include the audio i mean i'm not investing all the time and do it if. it's going to take forever to transcribe me and i am the only one doing it and you're barely posting the bike right away. ok i think we definitely thrive a.t.v.'s and it's only five minutes ok. yeah. and. we were married two years ago. it was kind of a conscious decision for us we knew that. in the end of becoming a state that with legalized gay marriage was not going to happen anytime soon we wanted to wait we felt like us getting married was a conscious decision of love and that we wanted to show that commitment in front of our friends our family so we were not willing to wait so basically we did what any

other couple would do and we decided where we want to get married which was last i guess it also is not a state that recognizes legal gay marriage. yes we have no more rights now because we got married and we did two years ago and we cannot have gym memberships together we can't go and be you know next can in the hospital and there are exceptions to every rule but the majority wise we can't we can't all taxes together can't share the same legal last name unless we petition to do that core we own a business together which is very difficult we have to like do loopholes through that you know traveling together we traverse family troubles family together we are each other's next of kin there are so many different ways we can give each other social security one of us should die for and be beneficiaries of life insurance all these things we can list ourselves as those but when we would die if we become ill our families could step in and take those privileges away from us. there are polls

that show that when people are simply asked a straightforward question about sexual behavior do you believe that a man having sex with a man or a woman having sex with a woman is morally right or morally wrong most americans still believe that it's morally wrong no one likes to be attacked verbal way or accused of being hateful or big it is the effect is that people with conservative views while they may not change their mind they become silent they are afraid to speak out. because of the thing you have built. you know. what i mean we owe. it to time. to learn these. you know like now oh that's right that's what the rule you.

really want to me to get on message because three of my children turn to. so my daughter debbie she's lesbian. my son tim of course he's gay and my son's girlfriend is gay as well now. hate for hate only intensifies the hate that is in this world the cycle of hate never stops and there are so many examples in this world that we could name right now where the cycle of violence and hate never stop it goes from generation to generation somebody must step up. and stop the cycle of violence and it can only be done. with love.

this is what we do we kill people and break things we can see something is simple as people playing a soccer game we can see individual players and if you see the ball. you can almost see is facial expression you can see is a mouth open and crying out. maybe cursed. or maybe he asked. for forgiveness for. there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or in.

serious serious of a global basis try to. say people are going to be going to want to end your life or destroy the teaching every minute of. the time they know how i laughed no weapons at my own wife but have. most of us think that's setting time. squeezes most elite moments. sometimes for nothing which. is silly and it simple changes it's not just eat up the story he's giving jobst if you see a stage take the pizza but speech was still.

stands. this is about making the business survive. and. corporations don't love their parishioners told hate corporations have no feeling. corporations don't care about you or me corporations only care about profit. people come to untouched forests and leave massively for the sake come on. we're not going to quit we will not stop until it is done what is more precious music more moon.

of us the means die in four days of the israeli offensive in gaza twenty two children are among them israel is pressing on with the assault the spy the international calls to end the violence the. ukraine officials confirmed nineteen troops have been killed after coming under attack by anti-government forces in the country's east. look a militia stepped up their fight following the continued bombing of residential areas in defined ukrainian cities. culture coming up this hour berlin and washington fall out of love fest germany expels the top u.s. intel it's.