Crossdressers-Haven.com

Hi girls
I was thinking tonight about a wonderful old friend Lynwood who most would call a flaming faggot. When I lived in Boston in the early seventies I met Linny,as all his friends called him. He worked as a nurse in a nursing home.
Linny was the most wonderful person I ever knew. He was caring, funny,kind, generous and didn't have a mean bone in his body. Unfortunately Linny contracted AIDS in 1984. There were no effective treatments back then and he died a gruesome,horrible death at age 36.
Then we have good Christians like Reverand Fred Phelps, a Baptist minister from Topeka Kansas. He and his followers were at the funeral of Matthew Shepard. The gay man who was beaten and left tied to a fence to freeze to death a few years ago. Matthews Mother was thrilled. Reverand Phelps also has his most loving and Christian website. Godhatesfags.com.
Karl Marx said it best ladies "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand."
One other quote from Karl Marx." Democracy is the road to socialism." Karl Marx was a pretty smart man I would say. Hugs.


Love
Auntie Jeannie

Religion in America
A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

The report from The Program on Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., surveyed 54,461 adults in English or Spanish from February through November of last year. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.5 percentage points. The findings are part of a series of studies on American religion by the program that will later look more closely at reasons behind the trends.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.
"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.

Catholics on the decline in Northeast

In the Northeast, self-identified Catholics made up 36 percent of adults last year, down from 43 percent in 1990. At the same time, however, Catholics grew to about one-third of the adult population in California and Texas, and one-quarter of Floridians, largely due to Latino immigration, according to the research.

Nationally, Catholics remain the largest religious group, with 57 million people saying they belong to the church. The tradition gained 11 million followers since 1990, but its share of the population fell by about a percentage point to 25 percent.

Christians who aren't Catholic also are a declining segment of the country. In 2008, Christians comprised 76 percent of U.S. adults, compared to about 77 percent in 2001 and about 86 percent in 1990. Researchers said the dwindling ranks of mainline Protestants, including Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians, largely explains the shift. Over the last seven years, mainline Protestants dropped from just over 17 percent to 12.9 percent of the population.

Organized religion playing less of a role.

The current survey, being released Monday, found traditional organized religion playing less of a role in many lives. Thirty percent of married couples did not have a religious wedding ceremony and 27 percent of respondents said they did not want a religious funeral.

About 12 percent of Americans believe in a higher power but not the personal God at the core of monotheistic faiths. And, since 1990, a slightly greater share of respondents — 1.2 percent — said they were part of new religious movements, including Scientology, Wicca and Santeria.

The study also found signs of a growing influence of churches that either don't belong to a denomination or play down their membership in a religious group. Respondents who called themselves "non-denominational Christian" grew from 0.1 percent in 1990 to 3.5 percent last year. Congregations that most often use the term are megachurches considered "seeker sensitive." They use rock style music and less structured prayer to attract people who don't usually attend church.

Researchers also found a small increase in those who prefer being called evangelical or born-again, rather than claim membership in a denomination. Evangelical or born-again Americans make up 34 percent of all American adults and 45 percent of all Christians and Catholics, the study found. Researchers found that 18 percent of Catholics consider themselves born-again or evangelical, and nearly 39 percent of mainline Protestants prefer those labels. Many mainline Protestant groups are riven by conflict over how they should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships, salvation and other issues.

Pentecostals stay steady.
The percentage of Pentecostals remained mostly steady since 1990 at 3.5 percent, a surprising finding considering the dramatic spread of the tradition worldwide. Pentecostals are known for a spirited form of Christianity that includes speaking in tongues and a belief in modern-day miracles.

Sorry to hear about your friend who died of AIDS. As you said there were no effective treatments back then, and that is science, not religion.
As for the young man who was and others like him who have been beaten and left for dead or out right beaten to death, while I don't condone the church making a mockery of celebrating their death, I don't know that the perps that committed the crime were members of that or any other church. They were just ignorant bigots who probably loved watching lesbian porn, (aren't they gay too) but you never hear of them getting assaulted because they prefer same sex relationships, or at least I've never heard news reports about it. Not much different than racist bigots lynching some one because of the color of their skin, except the KKK also carries the same flag that I have seen in churches, and yet they hate the creation of the Creator they say they love. I had no choice in what color I was at birth, nor did anyone else. That was God's choice, and if I judge them it's like I'm saying God made a mistake.
If you are gay or lesbian, that is your choice, be it nature or nurture, and it's still not for me to judge. I also have a choice as to whether to participate in the same activity or let you do your thing and I'll do mine. It's mutual respect. which this world needs a lot more of.

Jeannie, if you were in Boston in the early seventies, we probably saw each other at Bunratty's or The Rathskeller, or maybe Punters' Pub. Or were you more of a Pough and Stars kind of Gal?

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. - Jesse Ventura


I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me. - Jesse Ventura