REVOLUTION NYC : STAND UP.

Ok, so i know its super short notice, but if you are reading this and live in NYC please come out to stand vigil with us, Wednesday April 22.

Here’s the deal:

The UN is trying to pass this “declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity ” (see below), basically saying that no one should be discriminated against because of anything, including their sexuality.  predictably, the Catholic Church has decided that despite their belief that they are for runners of social justice, that they need to block this declaration, because it  seems to be in opposition to their stance that gays are not entitled to get married or have equal rights or equal love from God do to their sinful nature.

WHAT WE’RE DOING……..

In conjunction with our friends at Soulforce (remember “7 straight nights”?), we will be standing vigil outside the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See.  We hope to be scene and spark interest so that we may speak out against this wretched idea of blocking a resolution of equal rights  for ALL humans.

TIME LINE:

9-9:30am; gathering at Marble Collegiate Church (1 West 29th Street) and walk to vigil site.

10am- 4pm; Vigil , Prayer, Conversations and Public Education

Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See, 26 E. 39th st

hope to see you there. remember this is a NON VIOLENT campaign. you are welcome to come and go as you need to.  any amount of time on the line is wonderful.  and if your interested in some civil disobedience, i think there will be an opportunity for that.

Come out and join us please.  Jay and i will be there, not sure who else. We would love to have you with us.  This is an opportunity to live out the ideas and actions we preach and believe in.  Please STAND with us.

And if your the praying type, we wouldn’t mind if you tossed a few our way Wednesday and Thursday.

here is the UN STATEMENT:

1. We reaffirm the principle of universality of human rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose 60th anniversary is celebrated this year, Article 1 of which proclaims that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”;
2. We reaffirm that everyone is entitled to the enjoyment of human rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, as set out in Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 2 of the International Covenants on Civil and Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as in article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
3. We reaffirm the principle of non-discrimination which requires that human rights apply equally to every human being regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity;
4. We are deeply concerned by violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms based on sexual orientation or gender identity;
5. We are also disturbed that violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatisation and prejudice are directed against persons in all countries in the world because of sexual orientation or gender identity, and that these practices undermine the integrity and dignity of those subjected to these abuses;
6. We condemn the human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity wherever they occur, in particular the use of the death penalty on this ground, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the practice of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary arrest or detention and deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health;
7. We recall the statement in 2006 before the Human Rights Council by fifty four countries requesting the President of the Council to provide an opportunity, at an appropriate future session of the Council, for discussing these violations;
8. We commend the attention paid to these issues by special procedures of the Human Rights Council and treaty bodies and encourage them to continue to integrate consideration of human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity within their relevant mandates;
9. We welcome the adoption of Resolution AG/RES. 2435 (XXXVIII-O/08) on “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity” by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States during its 38th session in 3 June 2008;
10. We call upon all States and relevant international human rights mechanisms to commit to promote and protect human rights of all persons, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity;
11. We urge States to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.
12. We urge States to ensure that human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are investigated and perpetrators held accountable and brought to justice;
13. We urge States to ensure adequate protection of human rights defenders, and remove obstacles which prevent them from carrying out their work on issues of human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity.

Teacher Invites Class to Gay Wedding

 

Here is a great article i came across.

Most of the seventh grade students will be at the Commitment ceremony.

 

by : susan dominus

In the fall of 2008, the supporters of Proposition 8, a ballot initiative meant to ban gay marriage in the state of California, fell on a lucky break: video of first graders whose class parents had arranged for them a trip to city hall, where they celebrated their female teacher’s marriage to another woman, a ceremony over which the mayor of San Francisco presided. Gay-marriage opponents cried indoctrination, and the ensuing controversy provoked so much outrage that it has been considered important in squashing opposition to the ban. (The California Supreme Court is currently weighing the constitutionality of the proposition.)

 

In Harlem a week ago, a 32-year-old math teacher handed out slips of paper inviting the entire seventh grade of Columbia Secondary School to his upcoming ceremony, where, the names on the invitation made clear, he’d be celebrating his commitment to another man. The teacher, Chance Nalley, rarely wastes an instructional opportunity but said that, in this particular instance, he wasn’t trying to make an educational statement.

“They kept asking if they were invited,” he said of his students at Columbia, a selective public school that specializes in math, science and engineering. “Originally, I said no. But when I found a venue that turned out to be big enough I said, ‘O.K., you can come.’ I invited their parents, too.”

A famously strict teacher — his boss says he is regarded by students with a mixture of “love and fear” — Mr. Nalley kept his sexual orientation to himself at the previous public school where he taught, the Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy in the Bronx. “They respected my authority, and I’d have hated for their prejudices to interfere with my working relationship with them,” he explained.

But Columbia Secondary, which operates in a partnership between the Department of Education and Columbia University, is a much smaller school, whose mission statement includes a commitment to diversity (more than half the students are black or Hispanic, 45 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunches).

With his principal’s support, Mr. Nalley, who started at the school when it opened in 2007, felt comfortable coming out to students during a diversity workshop that fall.

“A lot of the students were shocked at the time,” said the principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera, “shocked that he said it, and shocked that it was true. For many students, it was a huge eye-opener — it was the last thing they would have thought about Chance.”

Two parents told the principal that they didn’t want Mr. Nalley teaching their children. Dr. Maldonado-Rivera explained that since the school had only one math teacher at the time, if they wanted their children to take math, they didn’t have a choice. The children stayed, and since then, neither Dr. Maldonado-Rivera nor Mr. Nalley has heard a word from them.

More recently, two other parents sent e-mail messages to Dr. Maldonado-Rivera to complain about Mr. Nalley’s invitation. Dr. Maldonado-Rivera explained to them that he saw the school as an extended family and that the invitation was in that spirit. And that was the end of the controversy, such as it was.

There have, however, been some questions. One student asked about the legality of two men marrying. Mr. Nalley explained that New York State does not, in fact, allow it, but that he was thinking of the ceremony as a wedding celebration, if not a legal contract. When another student asked why gay marriage was not legal in New York, Mr. Nalley responded, “I really don’t know.”

He is expecting about two-thirds of the school’s 96 seventh graders at the ceremony, on April 4 at St. Paul’s Chapel on Columbia University’s campus (he had to hire an extra security guard because so many children were coming). Four seventh graders, approached at random on Friday, said they planned to be there.

Were they surprised to learn he was gay?

“He’s not gay,” said Japhet Guzman, 12.

“No,” agreed a lanky 13-year-old who walked with a bit of a tough-guy swagger, “he’s not gay. He’s bisexual. Why don’t you ask him?” (Mr. Nalley confirmed this.)

Within hours of that diversity workshop last fall, the kids said, the whole school had heard the news about Mr. Nalley.

“I was really surprised,” recalled the 13-year old boy. “It didn’t change anything about what we thought about him, though.”

Raven Franklyn, another student, added, “It showed he trusts us.”

And they apparently trust him: Mr. Nalley said six students have come out to him this year.

Every once in a while, Mr. Nalley does catch an earful of the homophobia that’s obviously rampant in seventh-grade boys trying to prove their machismo. For example, he said, seventh grade is the age when kids start saying everything is “so gay.”

“When I hear that, I just say to them, ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ ” said Mr. Nalley.

After that, he doesn’t hear it again.

E-mail: susan.dominus@nytimes.com

 

your thoughts?

should teachers come out to their classes?

Was it inappropriate for him to invite them?

 

 

 

We’re Not Anti-Law

Sermon by Pastor Jay Bakker at Revolution Church NYC.  From March 29th, 2009.

Study Resources:

Romans 8:23

Romans 7:22-25

Nightline Debate: Does Satan Exist?

School can expel lesbian students.

This is just sad…  the Los Angeles Times is reporting that a Lutheran school in California has the right to expel students based on their sexual orientation.  I’m not going to go into the legal aspects of the case; I’m just going to say this is a poor decision made by an organization that is supposed to be a champion of Grace and unconditional love.  Christ did not call on us to make distinctions and divisions in society based on the type of “sin” we happen to be engaged in.  Rather, Christ called us to love one another unconditionally, our neighbor as ourselves.

January Newsletter.

Greetings from Brooklyn!

I hope that the new year has been a good one for you all so far. Like much of the nation, we here in Brooklyn are filled with hope and optimism amidst difficult times. We all watched on Tuesday as part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was realized. The day before, at the Brooklyn MLK day celebration, a group from Revolution witnessed some of the history of that dream, as we listened to Minnijean Brown-Trickey, a member of the Little Rock Nine. She captured the moment, by saying she had no words in regards to an African American being elected president. She continued by saying that anything she said would be a cliche. We all were struck by wonder and optimism in her words. After the ceremony, some of us went for some hamburgers across the street, and Mrs. Brown-Trickey was there as well. I thanked her for her sacrifices and commitment to the dream.

On Sunday at Revolution we had our annual MLK day service. It was the first one I was able to speak at while here in Brooklyn. I really enjoyed the preparation for this sermon, as I got to reflect on the words of one of my heroes in the context of Tuesday. We are pleased to announce that the sermon will be sent to the Library of Congress, which is collecting sermons preached on the Sunday before the Inauguration. 

We here at Revolution continue to follow Jesus’ prayer of “On earth, as it is in Heaven” not only in the work of human rights but also in the work of taking care of God’s creation. This month, we will host another film screening educating us on environmental issues. The film is called Mountain Top Removal- it is a documentary about coal mining in the Appalachia Mountain region. Some of the negative impacts of coal mining on the environment are highlighted, including the geological changes that occur and result in flooding and pollution and the impact these practices have on the people living there. The screening will be at The Lazy Catfish (593 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, NY) on Sunday, February 8th at 7pm. Suggested donation is $10 (to benefit Revolution and Haw River Films). For more information please click here. Along these lines, we will start a new Bible study this month based on the newly published Green Bible, which has verses pertaining to the environment highlighted in green. For more information on this, along with other interesting muses, check out the RevolutionNYC Staff Blog. 

Like all of us these days, Revolution is in financial need. If you consider this your church, whether on-line or here in Brooklyn, we ask for your continued support. Click here to donate now.

In Grace,

Jay Bakker

Tuesday is Coming: The Video.

That’s right, VIDEO!!!  Special thanks to Clint for capturing yesterday’s sermon.  Please enjoy!

Tuesday is Coming: A Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

We are very excited to present to you our special tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on this historic pre-Inauguration Day Sunday.  

From now on, we are also going to begin including links and study notes pertinent to our sermons here on the blog, which you can find below.  We hope you can use them to make more of what Jay and Vince bring to you every week.  

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Dr. King’s Six Steps of Non Violence

Dr. King’s Six Principles of Non Violence

And Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech: