Anti-LGBT Rio de Janeiro mayor Marcelo Crivella has announced that the translated edition of the Marvel comic book series Avengers: The Children’s Crusade would be removed from the literary festival Riocentro Bienal do Livro so as to protect the city’s children from what he described as “sexual content for minors.”
The so-called “sexual content”? A one-panel kiss between two male characters, Wiccan and Hulkling, who are in committed relationship. Both characters are clothed in the scene.
Crivella made the announcement on Twitter, in a video where he says, “Books like this need to be wrapped in black sealed plastic with a content warning displayed on the outside.” In ordering the removal of the title, he claims that the city’s authorities are “protecting the minors of our city.” In the text of the tweet itself, he describes the contents of the comic as “content that is unsuitable for minors.”
Crivella’s tweet followed an Instagram post from Rio de Janeiro councilman Alexandre Isquierdo, decrying the book and complaining that it was “spread[ing] homosexuality to CHILDREN!” (Emphasis his.) The sale of the book, he complained, was “an absurd crime.”
Officials at the Riocentro Bienal do Livro festival have refused to comply with the Crivella ‘order. Turns out the majority of outlets didn’t have the comic in stock in the first place, and the one that did reporting that copies had already sold out two days earlier.
In his General Conference address to the body of the Mormon Church, President Dallin H. Oaks reiterated the position of the Church’s anti-LGBT stance on same-sex marriage and “gender confusion” as outlined in a 1995 “revelation.”
“Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose many of the current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage or to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women. We know that the relationships, identities, and functions of men and women are essential to accomplish God’s great plan.”
Oaks went on to talk about the opposition the Church faces when it stands firm on these social issues and of course “Satan” cane into the mix.
“Our positions on these fundamentals frequently provoke opposition to the Church. We consider that inevitable. Opposition is part of the plan, and Satan’s (the Adversary’s) most strenuous opposition is directed at whatever is most important to God’s plan. He seeks to destroy God’s work,” he said.
“He also seeks to confuse gender, to distort marriage, and to discourage childbearing—especially by parents who will raise children in truth,” Oaks said.
Although the Proclamation presents no new doctrines or policies, it provides an official statement of the church on gender and sex.
Doctrinal assertions
Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.
The family is ordained of God and central to God’s plan.
All human beings are created in the image of God.
As a beloved spirit son or daughter of Heavenly Parents, each person has a divine nature and destiny.
Gender is an essential characteristic of human identity before, during, and after life on Earth.
“In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan.”
“Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”
God will hold parents accountable for the way in which they fulfill responsibilities to their families.
“Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.”
Items of counsel
God’s commandment to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.
Sexual relations are sacred and properly take place only between a man and a woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.
Procreation is divinely appointed, and therefore life is sacred and an important part of God’s plan.
Parents have “a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.”
Parents’ responsibilities toward their children include rearing them “in love and righteousness,” providing “for their physical and spiritual needs,” and teaching “them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens.”
Happiness and success come through following the teachings of Jesus and through “faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”
“By divine design fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.”
“Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”
“Fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”
Citizens and officers of government should “promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.”
Warnings
Those who commit adultery or “abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God.”
Disintegration of the family will bring “calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
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In 1975, the Brigham Young University Psychology Department administrators organized a Board of Review for Psychotherapeutic Techniques to recommend “policies governing the use of sensitive treatment techniques” on campus. Within a year, the review board had assembled a list of eight therapies being used at BYU which “could conflict” with church teachings. However, most of the therapies were not stopped (including electric shock, vomiting aversion, and the use of pornographic materials).
Gary Bergera interviewed Gerald Dye, chair of the University Standards office, in February 1978, and Dye reported what the “set process” was for “homosexual students referred to Standards” for counseling:
They are asked to a personal interview with Standards…to determine the depth or extent of involvement; previous involvement, if any, of offender; does the student understand the seriousness of the matter; if the branch president or bishop [is] aware.
The individual’s branch president or home bishop is contacted.
Standards is to determine if the offense is serious or not
a. serious: repetition; anal/oral intercourse.
b. less serious: experimential [sic]; mutual masturbation.
Action taken.
If determined to be serious, the student is expelled.
If less serious, the student may remain at BYU on a probationary basis.
Standards also acts as an intermediary between the student who remains and counseling service; Students who remain are required to undergo therapy. [164]
Although “therapy” was required for homosexual students, Dye promised Bergera that “no student working through Standards will ever undergo aversion therapy” He lied.
Gay men were referred there by bishops, stake presidents and, for BYU students, the standards committee. Teen boys as young as 15 were sent there by their bishops. BYU students were told that they’d either have to go through the “aversion therapy” or leave BYU. This torture went on for 15-20 years.
A mercury-filled tube was placed around the base of the penis to measure the level of stimulation he experienced when viewing nude images of men and women.
Shocks, given in three 10-second intervals, were then administered in conjunction with certain images.
Others were given chemical compounds, which were administered through an IV and caused subjects to vomit when they were stimulated.
When discovered the Mormon church stopped all conversion practices at BYU and refereed its homosexual students and other gay church members to Evergreen International located in Salt Lake City, Utah, whose stated mission was to assist “people who want to diminish same-sex attractions and overcome homosexual behavior” and the horror stories persisted of abuse and torture.
Although it functioned independently of any church, Evergreen was religiously based on the teachings of the LDS Church. Though not affiliated with the Church, the organization adhered to its teachings “without reservation or exception.” Evergreen had emeritus general authorities on its board of trustees and taught LDS Church principles to Latter-day Saints and ecclesiastical leaders by working with the Church as well as by hosting various events, such as firesides (informal evening gatherings of church members), workshops, and conferences.
On September 19, 2009, Bruce C. Hafen, a general authority of the LDS Church, spoke at Evergreen’s annual conference at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, a venue owned by the LDS Church.
This little seen documentary was part of a Masters Thesis project at a Major University in the Northwest. And chronicles the stories of the tortured men who experienced the brutality at the hands of the Mormon Church
Authorities investigating a paramilitary Christian sect for child sexual abuse say they looking into whether the New Mexico group brought children into the country illegally. Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace told The Associated Press Tuesday that investigators found numerous children during a Sunday raid of the armed Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps in remote Fence Lake.
During the raid, authorities arrested three sect members in connection with a child abuse and child sex abuse investigation. A former group member was arrested in Truth or Consequences. Sect co-leader Deborah Green was arrested on charges that included failure to report the birth to child abuse and sexual penetration of a minor. Peter Green, also known as Mike Brandon, faces 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child on suspicion of raping a girl “at least four times a week” from the time she was 7, according to court documents. – The Albuquerque Journal
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps (also known as the Holy Tribal Nation, the Free Love Ministries, or the Life Force Team) as a hate group. The “Christian fundamentalist”, Biblicist, theocratic cult was founded in 1981 by James and Deborah Green (sometimes collectively referred to as the Generals; and has a military structure, partially based on the original pattern of the Salvation Army.
An excerpt from their website on the 2015 ruling that made same-sex-marriage legal in all 50 states reads:
The June 26, 2015 decision to make same-sex marriage the law of the land came not from Satan, but from God! WHAT?? That’s right. We have, for years, told you this. We have said time after time—over the years—that unless America, and specifically “the church,” did not REPENT of their evil ways, God would use “pink terrorism” to: #1—call His true people OUT of the “Babylonian Jesus” churches, and AWAY from the worship of America (which is idolatry); #2—seal Satan’s people in their evil, damnable ways.
AS THE FALLOUT from the Pink Stink Sodomite (PSS) bomb settles over this godless America, things are yet to take their final place. Christians and non-compliant non-Christians can still raise HELL! We expect this. This is the whole reason…to get Americans off their lazy behinds and on to the frontlines TO FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT. Fight not against God/His Word, but fight against the evil satanic principalities, powers, the rulers of darkness of this world, and against wicked spirits in high places, i.e., family, church, and state (Eph. 6:12).
Coming just shortly after the cancellation of TLC’s 18, 19, 20 and Counting over the Josh Duggar sexual abuse/incest scandal comes another slam for TLC with the show they used to replace the Duggars with which happens to be another “Christian” family with 10 children who belong to the same “Quiverfull” cult.
The patriarch of a family featured on the TLC reality television show “The Willis Family” was arrested Friday and charged with rape of a child stemming from an alleged sexual encounter around 12 years ago, authorities said. Toby Nathaniel Willis, 46, was arrested in Greenville, Kentucky, by agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the bureau said in a statement. The TBI said Willis traveled to Kentucky “in an effort to avoid law enforcement.”
The law enforcement agency said authorities began investigating Willis on Aug. 29, and agents “developed information Willis had a sexual encounter approximately 12 years ago with an underage female.” More details were not released. The TBI said the investigation remains ongoing. Willis is featured in the TLC show about a musical family in Nashville. The network apparently removed the show’s page from its website Saturday. TLC did not immediately return requests for comment.
Willis and his wife Brenda — like Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar — are Quiverfull parents, adherents to a Christian dominionist sect that encourages married couples to produce as many offspring as possible in order to raise an army of believers. The word “Quiverfull” comes from the Old Testament Psalms of the Christian Bible. Psalm 127 says, “Children are a blessing from the Lord…happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.”
The Duggar family has had problems of its own, with eldest son Josh confessing to molesting underage girls — including his sisters — as a teen. Then Josh was revealed to have cheated on his wife through the website Ashley Madison. When reached for comment about Willis’ arrest, a spokesperson for TLC said, “We are shocked to hear this news.”
A spokesperson for TLC said, “We are shocked to hear this news.”
Shocked, shocked I tell you!
TLC really does stand for Touch Little Children, doesn’t it?
A new and very creepy animated cartoon from the Jehovah’s Witnesses instructs their cultist children how to give their classmates the “good news” about how their gay parents are going to hell before they themselves die of appendicitis or measles because they aren’t allowed to see a doctor.
The mother proceeds to tell the child why same-sex couples are going against the will of Jehovah by comparing gay marriage to a terrorist trying to get through airport security… and telling the daughter that “people can change,” a subtle nod to the widely debunked notion that gay people can turn straight, something JWs believe regardless of the evidence against it. What an awful message to teach your children. That the only way gay people can be truly happy is to deny themselves a loving relationship. That people can just “turn off” the gay switch. That there’s anything wrong with a family that doesn’t resemble your own. That the TSA won’t allow you to bring a bag full of gay genes through the metal detector
When asked to comment about the JW’s cartoon. The Lutheran Church of America’s longtime claymation star Goliath responded: “Gee Davey. What a bunch of scumbags.”
Nora Crest, is a former top female Scientologist who worked with members like John Travolta and Tom Cruise. In an interview with Daily Mail, Cresttalks about the three horrifying years that she endured in Scientology’s Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) all because she kissed another girl. The RPF is another name for a secret labor camp in a remote Southern California suburb beyond the eyes of the cult’s general populous.
“We would stand in an empty trash can while various people poured buckets of iced water over your head and were shouting at you about what crap you were. The rooms had bugs and cockroaches. The bunks were dirty mattresses with rusty springs dating back to the ’50s, she really needed to get a new King Mattress. Disgusting conditions become the norm and you think that’s what you deserve and that you are what they say you are: a worthless piece of shit.”
Crest continued with more painful details. They would be starved and when given food it would be a battle to get some. “We’d be made to wait in line for the food to be distributed, there’d be around 250 people. When the doors opened, there was large stands of burger and fries and people would be diving at them, it was like a scene from Lord of the Flies, elbowing, punching each other, ripping hamburgers from one another, screaming in each others’ faces, then running off with the food to corners of the room like rabid animals and eating it quickly.”
I was doing a Scientology (RPF) routine where you learn to use verbal and physical commands to move a person from one wall across the room to the other. I was working with a man in his 40s and over 200 pounds in weight.
‘He was becoming increasingly frustrated with not being able to move me across the room and became suddenly violent, picking me up off the ground and slamming my whole body repeatedly into the concrete wall. Two of my ribs on the left side dislocated from my frame, and cracked, and one on the right fractured. I was still made to work,’ says Nora.
Crest begged to leave the camp, but the only way out was to admit she “was a degraded human being.” The RPF also continued to incessantly interrogate Crest with thousands of questions regarding her stance on the Church, making sure she wouldn’t speak out if she were to leave.
“It was one of the worst days of my life and I had to wait for three months for their decision while being convinced to stay on a daily basis. They’re telling me that I’m useless and I’m only ever going to be a hooker on the outside, I’d have nothing.”
‘They threatened to split my family up and that I could never speak to my mother or sister. Ultimately, I changed my mind and decided to stay, they’d broken me again
But then things got even worse.
‘I was put in the laundry unit (with another girl) and we were having fun, someone saw this and thought I was trying to seduce her, so they ordered me to do a confessional with an E-Meter, which would show if I’m telling the truth. I was asked all these questions if I’d kissed her, touched her, talked naughty words to her. I started laughing. I put down the E-Meter and said: “This isn’t Scientology”, and tried to leave the room, but they were stopping me. More and more people came into the room..
‘I was being kicked and punched, my face was covered in blood, but I just ran. I ran to the security at the base, who held me there until an RPF officer came to see me. Next day, I was told by the commanding officer that I was a piece of s**t and would be heavily punished.
Not being able to take it any longer and escaped the Scientology prison by drinking a bottle of bleach in an act of desperation. After she was released from the hospital, she “was forced to sign a waiver” that said she wasn’t going to sue to speak out against the Church. “I said it all to the camera,” she said. “I didn’t care, I just wanted to go home.”
Crest now lives with her husband, Cameron, and their two sons, Landon and Nick.
“This can’t be allowed to happen to another person, hence why I’m speaking out,” Crest said.
Just one year after approving an LGBT nondiscrimination law (albeit a weak one.) the Mormon Church would rather let hate crimes go unprosecuted against its own flock than let gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people get protection of hate based crimes under the law because Mormon leaders say the bill would upset the “balance” church leaders called for in 2015.
A spokesman for the LDS elders said in a statement. “Interests from both ends of the political spectrum are attempting to alter that balance. We believe that the careful balance achieved through being fair to all should be maintained.”
Utah’s limited hate-crime legislation currently contains no list of protected classes, which means that SB 107 would not only protect LGBT citizens but would also do more to protect religious expression in the state.
“We’re here [in Utah] because Mormons were lynched, Mormons were persecuted, Mormons were driven out of states,” Said the bill’s author Republican state senator Rep. Stephen Urquhart, who is Mormon. “That’s worthy of protection.”
The bill easily cleared committee two weeks ago, but Urquhart said the church has “effectively snuffed out” discussion with its public comments about “balance.”
Meanwhile Gov. Gary Herbert, a practicing Mormon, was cautious in his approach to the hate-crimes bill, telling the press, “If I kill you, you’re just as dead whether I hated you or I love you and killed you. I don’t understand how that works. Certainly, I think it’s worth a discussion, but we keep creating categories.”
The Mormon Church’s opposition to SB 107, and its recent controversial policy change prohibiting any child who primarily resides with same-sex parents from being baptized until they are 18 and only then if that child “specifically disavows the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage. “ Is enough for Senator Urquhart to question his faith.
“When I was a child in a dark situation, the Mormon Church shined a light in my life,” Urquhart said at his press conference last Thursday. “But since then, that light has flickered.”
While performing as the opening act for Bingo on the Waffle House circuit in Iowa Mike Huckabee went off on a woman who accused him of supporting child abuse because he’s defended the Duggar family. Huckabee raged: “You are abusing the reputation of a Godly family that has been through hell!”
Huckabee then went on to say that the media were the REAL child abusers for reporting the story in the first place.
Earlier this week we reported about Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, a Catholic Cardinal from the Dominican Republic who brazenly called James “Wally” Brewster, Barack Obama’s gay nominee for U.S. ambassador to the Caribbean nation a “maricón” (which is translated to mean “faggot”)
Well it turns out that the homophobe Cardinal is facing accusations of pedophilia taking place in his diocese, as well as evidence of a his covering them up.
Dominican Todayreported that the “Santiago Office of the Prosecutor on Wednesday announced it awaits the Immigration Agency to specify whether Catholic priest native of Poland, Wojciech (Alberto) Gil, accused of pedophilia by several families, left the country with another identity.” Gil managed to flee the country after the accusations began to draw attention to the small village of Janico. Two minors from the village have also left the country, although it has not yet been determined whether they did so in the company of the priest.
Lopez Rodríguez’s diocese announced that the priest has been placed on suspension, effective May 30. Although ASKARBENT noted that said suspension was not reported until July 3 only after the accusations began to draw attention and long after the Priest in questioned managed to escape the country.
In 2002 when about the sex abuse scandals emerging in U.S. Catholic churches, Cardinal Lopez Rodríguez blamed them on the “tolerant” public policies promoted in the United States and alleged that they would never occur in the Dominican Republic because they had a ban on “effeminate” men in the clergy (unlike the U.S.):
