An Open Letter from Soulforce to Jan and Paul Crouch, founders of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the Evangelical Christian broadcasters who are featured on Lighthouse Television, TBN’s affiliate in Uganda, including: Matthew Crouch, Joyce Meyer, Andrew Wommack, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, and Franklin Graham:

By now you are well aware of the anti-homosexual bill pending before the Parliament of Uganda. We urge you to denounce this bill. Use your personal friendships with President and Mrs. Museveni, with MP David Bahati (your Christian colleague who proposed this bill) and with Stephen Langa, (the Ugandan Christian organizer behind the bill) to take a public and passionate stand against it.

The media are blaming the visit to Uganda by three of your colleagues for this despicable and truly un-Christian law. In fact, for years you have used your Lighthouse Television programs, your radio broadcasts and your massive public meetings to warn Ugandans of the so called “threat homosexuals pose to Bible-based values and the traditional African Family.”

In no small part, you are already responsible for the current call by Ugandan leaders to enforce the old law condemning lesbian and gay Ugandans to up to 14 years in prison. This new law increases that sentence to life imprisonment and even death by hanging. Denounce this new bill or the blood of lesbian and gay Ugandans will be on your hands.

It isn’t just the “liberal media” who are condemning the bill. (Read More)

Excerpt from Daily Telegraph (London)

The president is now taking spiritual guidance from no less than five different pastors, whom he phones for advice at moments of stress or when making big decisions.

But a year after the incendiary rantings of Rev Wright threatened to derail Mr Obama’s presidential campaign, revelation of the “dial-a-prayer” sessions has prompted critics to declare that he has a new “pastor problem”.

That has enraged Obama supporter Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a New York organisation which campaigns against the “ex-gay” movement in the church, which insists that homosexuality is nothing more than a sinful lifestyle choice.

He told The Sunday Telegraph: “I think Obama’s got another pastor problem. There’s a tendency to surround himself with these anti-gay preachers which is very offensive. These are people who believe that we are sinful and sick and that you can pray away the gay.

“The notion that Obama can’t find a pastor in America who doesn’t have these outrageous extreme beliefs is baffling to many of us.”

Campaigners say that by talking to those with the views of Bishop Jakes, the president sends the wrong message to his gay supporters who had hoped for a new tone from the White House after eight years in which George W. Bush used wedge issues like opposition to gay marriage to drum up conservative votes.

Mr Besen said: “He’s giving credibility to people who are virulently anti-gay and promoting discrimination. The president has given these homophobes his stamp of approval. He has given them a platform. By elevating these extreme elements, he’s hurting our community.” He suggested that Mr Obama should consult Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay head of the American episcopal church, whose ordination sparked a split in the worldwide Anglican union.

“Why not have Gene Robinson in that five?” he said. “There’s a person of courage and integrity and the kind of international leader that Obama should look towards. It’s very disappointing.”

George W. Bush longed to escape his daddy’s shadow, while Barack Obama has turned to shadowy preachers in his long search for a father figure. His filial approach to faith began with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and has now taken a sharp turn right.

The New York Times reports that the president has surrounded himself with a cadre of clerical crackpots known as the “Circle of Five.” These holy men are: Rev. Joel Hunter, former head of the Christian Coalition; anti-gay Bishop T.D. Jakes; the ex-gay loving Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell; and Jim “waffling” Wallis, a protean progressive. The only Obama shaman who isn’t shameless is the civil rights era preacher Rev. Otis Moss Jr.

Rev. Jakes refers to homosexuality as “brokenness” and has claimed that he wouldn’t hire a sexually active gay person. But it seems T.D. can’t even keep his own son off the D.L. (down low). His “sexually broken” heir was arrested earlier this year for cruising a Dallas Park in search of gay men.
(Read More)

The stepson of antigay megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes was arrested by Dallas police on Jan. 3.

According to KTVT-TV, police accuse 29-year-old Jermaine Jakes of exposing himself to undercover vice detectives at Keist Park. Here’s the arrest warrant, which says Jakes was one among several men observed in a wooded area of the park.

We live in an age when same-sex-attracted men in tolerant communities can date and become intimate in much the same normal fashion as heterosexual men — through work, community organizations, religious groups, local bars, or the Internet.

What drives men — particularly in less tolerant communities — to seek sexual interaction in less safe or illegal locations?

Is it the thrill of a risk?

Is it a product of antigay indoctrination which dictates to gay men from an early age that unsafe or illegal sex is their only option?

Or is it, as ex-gay activists will no doubt assert, the inevitable “lifestyle” of anyone who practices honesty regarding their sexual orientation?