READ the Letter written by GOProud, Tea Party Patriots and the New American Patriots, urging Republicans stay away from Social Issues

GOProud, Tea Party Patriots and the New American Patriots put this letter together in push Republicans away from social issues:

The letter's signatories range from GOProud's co-founder and Chairman Christopher Barron — a member of a group encouraging Dick Cheney to run for president — to Tea Party leaders with no particular interest in the gay rights movement.

As of Sunday evening, the letter had 17 signatories. They include tea party organizers, conservative activists and media personalities from across the country, including radio host Tammy Bruce, bloggers Bruce Carroll, Dan Blatt and Doug Welch, and various local coordinators for the Tea Party Patriots and other tea party groups.

"When they were out in the Boston Harbor, they weren't arguing about who was gay or who was having an abortion," said Ralph King, a letter signatory who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member, as well as an Ohio co-coordinator.

Here's the letter

GOProud And Tea Party Urge Republicans To Avoid Social Issues (Letter)

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Black Males are falling deep into Social and Economic Degradation,

This hurts to read. Just when I thought things were getting better for Black men, I see this info:

Ever-increasing numbers of African-American boys and men are headed "toward in an ever-deepening pit of social and economic degradation," Bob Herbert writes in a searing op-ed that should be read by every concerned citizen in the country. Herbert writes with sorrow and passion about the full-blown crisis in the black community, the continuing descent of huge numbers of black males out of our public schools and into joblessness, poverty and incarceration.

In New York City and Philadelphia the on-time graduation rate from high school for African-American males has fallen to 28%. Nationally it is under half, at 47%. Over half of black men without a high school diploma have spent time in prison by the time they are in their mid-thirties. The statistics are clear. Black men and boys are losing ground in education, jobs and most do not marry or form stable families of their own. Herbert talks about the scourge of joblessness:

The astronomical jobless rates for black men in inner-city neighborhoods are both mind-boggling and heartbreaking. There are many areas where virtually no one has a legitimate job.

There's more, but I'll stop there. I know I shouldn't, but I do feel some guilt. I was lucky, my friends were lucky. That could have been us if we wasn't careful.

There has to be a way to remix this problem. They need their spirits lifted to get up, get out and do something. We are failing somewhere. Hopefully, we will figure this out soon.

What was the First Interracial Embrace in Comic Books?

It was in Teen Titans #26, in 1968. The embrace was between the new members, Mal and the psychic, Lilith.

This happen when the super teens decided to abandon their costumes to become social justice activists.


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Will there be any discussions about Diversity, Social Justice or Race Relations at the National Equality March?

I was looking at the schedule of events for the National Equality March and I noticed there were no workshops discussing race relations or diversity.

I was hoping this event would present opportunities for such conversations, but so far, I'm not seeing any time devoted to those matters.

Maybe I missing something, but I think it's imperative to have these discussions at this march. One of our major problem areas is the lack of outreach to communities of color. Plus, many LGBT communities of color continue to feel alienated from the overall LGBT family.

Why not take this time to address those issues and create some action steps to improve our relations? This is the perfect time, the perfect place. In order to achieve any of our goals we need to be an united and welcoming front.

As I said, maybe I missed it, but I hope it gets addressed someway, somehow.

The End of Evangelicals?

I'm shocked about this info, however it makes so much sense. In an article from Christian Science Monitor, the writer believes that within 10 years, evangelical Christianity will suffer a great collapse.

Here are some of the talking points:

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

Fascinating, I wonder if they will see their failure. I hope they think about that.

Thanks to Queerty for posting this