NEWS BRIEFS

Baptist leaders to host sex summit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Southern Baptist Convention leaders are hosting a summit in Nashville that will focus on sex.

The topics will include pornography, teen sex, homosexuality and how pastors can talk to their congregations about human sexuality.

The Rev. Russell Moore, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president for the Southern Baptist Convention, says the summit’s theme is a timely one.

Panel topics include discussions on the gospel and homosexuality and the gospel and ministry in a sex-saturated world. The sessions will also focus on how the “gospel shapes a person’s sexual identity, redeems sexual desire and sets free people held captive by sin.”

The summit will be held April 21-23. The event’s main sessions will be streamed live on the Web for people who cannot attend.

Kansas opponents seek protections

TOPEKA, Kan. - Gay-marriage opponents are urging Kansas legislators to approve new legal protections for bakeries, photographers and others who refuse for religious reasons to supply goods or services for same-sex weddings, anticipating that federal courts could soon strike down the state’s ban on such unions.

But gay-rights advocates said the bill backed by social conservatives and the Kansas Catholic Conference would permit individuals, businesses and groups to discriminate against gays and lesbians and encourage government officials to ignore court rulings favoring gay marriage.

Federal judges in Oklahoma and Utah recently struck down bans in those states, which are under the jurisdiction of the same federal appeals court as Kansas.

Under the bill, no individual, business or religious group with “sincerely held religious beliefs” could be required by “any governmental entity” to provide services, facilities, goods, employment or employment benefits related to any same-sex marriage or domestic partnership.

  • The Associated Press

Carter writing book on women’s rights

NEW YORK - Jimmy Carter’s next book will be a defense of women’s rights and an attack against those who use religion to deny them.

Simon & Shuster announced Tuesday that the former president’s A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power will be published March 25. The publisher says Carter will draw upon observations from his worldwide travels as he condemns abuses of women and girls and the alleged distortions of religious texts cited as justification.

The 89-year-old Carter has written a wide range of books since leaving office in 1981.

  • The Associated Press

Immigrant fasters going nationwide

WASHINGTON - Immigration reform advocates who fasted more than three weeks last fall on the National Mall say they’re taking their campaign nationwide.

Religious leaders of the “Fast for Families” say they’ll visit more than 100 congressional districts during the next 10 weeks to rally support for legislation that offers undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

The Senate passed an immigration bill last summer.

The Rev. John McCullough, president of the Church World Service, says “We are prayerfully and powerfully demanding that the House act now.” - The Associated Press

Religion, Pages 12 on 02/01/2014

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