Tag Archives: Minneapolis

The Wild Reed: A Catholic Presence at Gay Pride

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Every year at this time, Michael Bayly at features a post on “A Catholic Presence at Gay Pride”, in his own city of Minneapolis – St Paul. This year, the celebration for Twin Cities queer Catholics will have been particularly sweet, after their twin successes in off last year’s attempt to entrench marriage discrimination in the state constitution, later capped by the success of equal marriage legislation. Bayly and his Catholic colleagues, both LGBT and straight allies, were heavily involved in both efforts, and reaped the rewards of many years of hard work towards full LGBT inclusion and equality in church.

Catholics for marriage equality, MN

Here’s the introduction to this year’s report. (Read the full post at The Wild Reed – then dip into recent history, and see the earlier versions, for 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007)

I spent most of last weekend (June 29-30) in Minneapolis’ Loring Park at the Twin Cities Pride festival. I helped staff the CPCSM/Catholics for Marriage Equality MN booth and participated in Sunday’s parade down Hennepin Avenue in the heart of Minneapolis.

Giving the recent advances in marriage equality at both the state and federal levels, our theme this year was “Catholics Celebrating Marriage Equality!” We altered our banner to reflect this theme and gave out hundreds of stickers bearing this message (above left). These stickers were very popular.

Above and below: As well as giving out our “Catholics Celebrating Marriage Equality” stickers, we also invited visitors to our booth to complete a questionnaire so as to help us discern our future direction and focus as an organization. Questions included:

• What do you think is the most pressing area of concern for LGBT people in the Roman Catholic Church?

• How would you describe your relationship to the Church?

• Where do you currently find affirmation and spiritual nourishment?

-continue reading at The Wild Reed

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Transgender man will be ordained Catholic Priest in Minneapolis

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Religious leaders of a relatively unknown branch of Catholicism plan to ordain a transgender man to the priesthood on Saturday in Minneapolis.

One of only a half-dozen or so transgender clergy members in Minnesota, Shannon T.L. Kearns will set about starting the state’s first North American Old Catholic Church congregation following his ordination at Plymouth Congregational Church.

Established in 2007, the North American Old Catholic Church is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, though Kearns says he hopes to attract disenchanted Roman Catholics to his new, more liberal-leaning Minneapolis congregation.

“Church should be a place that welcomes all people and should be about working for justice in the world,” Kearns said during a recent interview. “That’s just a really important message to get out.”

The North American Old Catholic Church describes itself as “tradition rich with progressive Catholic values.” It ordains women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as married and divorced people, according to its website. It also touts “social justice” concerns such as gay rights, women’s rights and being good stewards of the environment.

The group grew out of the Old Catholic Church, which split from the Roman Catholic Church after the First Vatican Council in the late 1800s approved the idea of papal infallibility (the pope is not wrong when he speaks about doctrine).

– more at StarTribune.com.

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In Sleepy Minnesota Suburbs, Church Ladies Launch Gay Marriage Crusade

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The southwest Minneapolis suburbs of Minnetonka and Eden Prairie bring to mind Garrison Keillor’s tales from Lake Wobegon: They’re lined with well-maintained homes and tree-lined roundabouts, and home to residents of largely German and Scandinavian ancestry. But the ladies of these towns have quietly begun a revolt — one fought with rainbow flags and a Minnesota nice attitude.

The women, mostly in their 40s and 50s, come from different political parties, religious views, and backgrounds, but they’ve united to fight what many of them call an embarrassment to Minnesota: a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage that will appear on the ballot this November. Minnesota is the 31st state to include such a measure on a ballot, despite a strong LGBT community in Minneapolis, which was named the “gayest city in America” by Advocate Magazine in January 2011.

Throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul, pro-gay activism is the norm — conservative lawn signs are strikingly few. The state’s liberal, urban voters have been fighting the amendment for over a year now. Minnesotans United for All Families, a coalition of 520 businesses and religious organizations based mostly in the Twin Cities, has raised $3.1 million to fight the ban.

But in the bedroom communities of Eden Prairie and Minnetonka, billboards promoting right-wing candidates and talk show hosts frequently pop up between car dealerships and golf clubs. A sudden proliferation of rainbow flags has made these neighborhoods into unexpected battlegrounds in the state’s marriage fight

-full report at Advocate

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Local Churches Front And Center In Gay Marriage Movie

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It’s one of the most shopworn cliches of the gay rights movement—the angry religious leader, usually Christian, denoucing LGBT people as “perverts” or a danger to the stability of society.

Even in Minnesota, that trope has continued to play itself out with the state’s Catholic bishops helping lead the charge to pass a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The state already has a similar law on the books, but the amendment would make it hard for a future legislature to reverse it or for a court to find the law unconstitutional.

One local filmmaker, though, wants to change that.

“The religious right owns faith when it comes to issues like this,” Matt Peiken  told Patch. “There’s an imbalance here that I wanted to correct.”

–SW Minneapolis Patch

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