A mega-church pastor in Georgia USA filed court papers on Monday categorically denying luring young men into sexual relationships. Another Georgia megachurch pastor admitted that he's gay. A British advertising watchdog has pulled an ad showing two male priests about to kiss. A Ugandan court ordered a local magazine called, creatively, Rolling Stone, to stop publishing the names of gay people.
CNN reported that in responses to four suits accusing him of coercing young men into sexual relationships, prominent Georgia pastor Eddie Long denies the claims and asks that the suits be dismissed.
"The plaintiff's claims of sexual misconduct are not true," each of the four responses filed by Long's attorneys says. The responses, each about 30 pages, offer a point-by-point response to each of the allegations and claims in the lawsuits. The documents were posted on the website of CNN affiliate WSB.
Four members of Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church -- Anthony Flagg, 21; Maurice Robinson, 20; Jamal Parris, 23; and Spencer LeGrande, 22 -- filed suit against Long and the 25,000-member megachurch in September, claiming he used his position as their spiritual counselor to pressure them into sexual relationships.
MORE AT:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/02/georgia.pastor.sex.lawsuits/
ABC’s Voice of America reported that the pastor of a Georgia megachurch with thousands of followers, who was twice married and is a father of four, is speaking out about his recent decision to publicly declare he is gay.
"I know a lot of straight people think orientation is a choice. I want to tell you that it is not," Jim Swilley said in a video shot in the nondenominational megachuch Swilley founded 25 years ago.
Though Swilley said coming out was a decision he's struggled with since childhood, he made the announcement last month not for personal reasons -- he said he hopes to save lives.
The 52-year-old founder of Church in the Now in Conyers, Ga., said he's coming out to help stem the recent tide of gay suicides in America and won't be swayed by some hateful messages that have been written about him online.
"To think about saving a teenager, yeah, I'll risk my reputation for that," he told ABC News before tearing up. "As a father, thinking about your 16-, 17-year-old killing themselves."
Online, those hateful messages have been drowned out by an outpouring of support. Swilley has recently reached his 5,000-friend limit on Facebook and his wall is adorned with praise for his decision to come out.
MORE AT:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/megachurch-pastor-reveals-gay/story?id=12030163
The Independent reported that an ice cream company has been banned from using an ad showing two priests about to kiss just a month after being ordered to pull a campaign featuring a pregnant nun.
The latest Antonio Federici ad, which appeared in Look magazine, showed two priests in full robes eating from a tub of ice cream "in a seductive pose as if they were about to kiss passionately", the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.
Accompanying text read: "We Believe in Salivation".
Defending the ad, the company said it did not mock Catholicism but "reflected the grave troubles they considered affected the Catholic Church".
Antonio Federici was a Catholic company, but would continue to produce advertising that challenged the Catholic Church while it believed it remained troubled, it added.
Upholding six complaints about the ad, the ASA noted the ad used the text "We Believe in Salivation" in reference to the taste of the product and to the image of the priests.
MORE AT:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/ice-cream-seductive-priests-ad-banned-2117670.html
CNN and Canadian Press both report on a temporary injunction issued by a court in Uganda ordering the publication Rolling Stone (unrelated to the U.S. magazine of the same name) to stop publishing names of photos of people it claims are gay.
Last month the tabloid published the names of 100 supposedly leading gays and lesbians in the country accompanied by a yellow banner reading "hang them." On Monday it published a second list and photos of people it said are gay and urged that they be reported to the police. The gay rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit that led to the temporary injunction. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 23. Last year Uganda came under heavy criticism as a bill was introduced that would have imposed the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" and life imprisonment for gays. It is reported that some American evangelicals have promoted the anti-gay agenda in Uganda. Uganda is mostly Christian and, according to CNN, a Pew poll reported that almost two-thirds of the country's Christians favour making the Bible the law of the land.
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