Is An Italian Expose On Gay Priests Actually An Offensive Gay Stereotype Lie Pretending To Be True In Order To Attack The Vatican, Evangelical Lutheran Church Reinstates Seven Gay And Transgendered Pastors Twenty Years Later, Ted Haggard Says He Over Repented And That Encounter With Male Prostitute Was Massage Gone Awry

The editors of the right-wing Italian magazine Panorama denies it is out to “defame” the Catholic Church and says its current cover story containing revelations of the generously active gay sex lives of several priests based in and around Rome’s Holy See is accurate and that the periodical has the names and addresses of the priest protagonists the piece is built on. Several Vatican sources as well as some Italian gays have expressed doubt as to the validity of the article, suggesting the salacious story was a fabrication meant solely to attack and embarrass the church. Gay activist Aurelio Mancuso, former president of the Italian gay movement ArciGay, argued that the news magazine, owned and operated as a part of the media empire of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is exploiting the gay issues to systematically attack the church, saying that “this is a squalid political and cultural operation; in order to attack the Catholic Church you propose a vision of the homosexual community that is stuffed with stereotypes.” Sunday, the daily newspaper ll Giornale – also owned by Berlusconi – reported on the existence of a website, venerabilis.tk, which is “dedicated to homosexual Roman Catholic priests” as further proof that openly gay priests not only exist, but enjoy an active sex life. The Vicariate of Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, said that the Panorama piece was an obvious effort “to create scandal and to defame all priests” suggested the quoted Father “Carlo,” who alleges that 98-percent of the priests he knows are in fact gay is an example of the magazine’s manufactured maligning of the church exploiting clichés about gay men.

Sunday, seven San Francisco-area gay and transgender pastors were welcomed back into the national Lutheran church after being barred for twenty years from serving in the denomination. The “Bay Area Seven” were members of two San Francisco churches, First United and St. Francis that in 1990 defied the policy in place at time that permitted gay men and women to become Lutheran pastors contingent on a vow of celibacy. The two churches regarded the policy as discriminatory, and as a result of their defiance, were expelled from the denomination. Their reinstatement is the result of a national Evangelical Lutheran policy change in 2009, whose general assembly voted to allow gay men and women, in committed relationships to serve as clergy members.

The sad, strange Ted Haggard, forced to resign as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and to leave New Life, a mega-church he founded, after admitting that he both bought methamphetamine from and enjoyed at least one sexual encounter with a gay prostitute now says he “over-repented.” Haggard, who has formed a new church, St. James, says that in the midst of his “crisis” he was willing to accept too much guilt and that he was born to preach. Drawing odd analogies and speaking in the third person, Haggard says “Tiger Woods need to golf. Michael Vick needs to be playing football. Ted Haggard needs to be leading a church.” As for the initial allegations and subsequent acceptance that they were true, Haggard now contends that his encounter with the male prostitute was a massage that went “awry” and that he does not have same sex attractions.