Just when you think the world can’t get any smaller. Remember Chris? He was the fella outside an Obama townhall last week in Phoenix with a semi-automatic rifle strapped to his back as a part of staged act to demonstrate his right to bear arms. Guess where this guy goes to church? Yes that’s right. Pastor Steven L. Anderson’s Faithful Word Baptist church in nearby Tempe Arizona. Pastor Anderson’s been getting a lot of press lately for preaching death to Obama and homosexuals. Fancy that. Watch the video below demonstrating the linkage between these two men…

Thanks to an intrepid sleuther at Crooks & Liars for discovering the linkage.

Tulsa mayoral candidate Anna Falling is making a creationism exhibit at the Tulsa Zoo the centerpiece of her campaign, taking precedence over more traditional issues like violent crime, city budgets and infrastructure problems.

“It’s first,” she said to calls of “hallelujah” at a rally outside the zoo. “If we can’t come to the foundation of faith in this community, those other answers will never come. We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city.”

Falling, who has founded several Christian nonprofit groups and is a former city councilor, also said the next mayor needs to appoint people to boards, authorities and commissions who will “honor God.”

“We will also look for people who want to characterize the origins of both man and animals in a way that honors Judeo-Christian science that proves God as the creator,” she said.

When asked whether she meant that she would recruit Christians to serve the city, Falling said she was talking about “people committed to their churches.” When asked whether she meant Christian churches, she said, “churches, yes.”

I suspect folks who attend synagogues or mosques are simply out of luck.

From Falling’s blog:

What are we doing today to recognize the Creator and call upon Him to intervene in our city struggles? How are we to pursue the Creator’s plans for us – plans to prosper us and not to harm us? Unless God’ s people come together in this city to under gird our leaders and our city in prayer – we will continue to decline as a community.

More in the video below:

You can find out more about Anna Falling or leave her a comment on her blog.

Catholic Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz said that gays could serve as priests in the Catholic Church provided they passed the required academic and psychological tests.

From The Philstar News Service (quotes in bold translated from Tagalog):

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said the Church imposes no ban on effeminate or those perceived to be gay men who want to be priests.

“They are the same just like everybody. So there’s no discrimination,” Cruz said in a radio interview this morning.

He said it all depends on how the person controls his sexual urges when he is already in the seminary or convents.

“Just like gay people we as priests also have to fight the temptation towards women,” Cruz said.

He noted that there are gay priests serving in the Churches but they have passed the required academic and psychological tests.

The archbishop said there are many heterosexual men who have not been allowed to enter the seminaries because they failed to meet these requirements.

This is not the first time Cruz has voiced support for the gay community, having favored the rights of gays to join religious processions.

From the Manilla Standard…

But Dagupan-Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz disagreed, saying he did not oppose gays joining the religious procession as long as they acted with dignity and wore formal dresses.

“If they are devotees, they are religious and they look decent, I believe they have the right to join in,” Cruz said.

“I think it would be better for us to see gays who act formally and decently in the Santacruzan rather than young and beautiful women who are not clean and [are] immoral,” he said.

I am try so desperately hard to avoid jokes about heterosexuals unqualified to be priests and unclean, immoral women. But I must resist. 🙂

In any event, this is as “gay friendly” an attitude we are likely to get from the church in one of the most Catholic countries on the planet. Bravo Father Cruz! Bravo!

Visit the Archbishop’s blog…

Note: Thanks to my husband for providing the translations…