Without Having Seen: England

A UK court made an excellent ruling today. A law in the UK, passed by parliament and authorized by the Queen in 2007, prohibited organizations from discriminating against homosexual couples - that is, any service or good, not strictly religious, could not be denied to a homosexual couple if it would be permitted to a hetersexual couple. A number of dioceses began to spin-off (secularize) their adoption services, etc., so that those agencies could continue doing good work without the Church having to be implicated. A poor solution by any standards, but an understandable one, too.

The statute contained its own demise, though. In a selfish bid for special status, the statute included a provision that exempted organizations whose purpose was to serve persons of one particular sexual orientation (the homosexualists of course meant their orientation). The homosexualist groups wanted this provision included so that they could exclude and refuse to serve heterosexuals. In an almost inconceivably (these days) fair judgment, the justice who heard a relevant case has ruled today that the same provision provides protection to any organization, provided their mission includes service to only one sexual orientation. The wicked statute is thus effectively gutted, its heart pulled out right through its own loophole.

Read all about it.

This article at the Times (of London) Online is very exciting. It is about Eduardo Verastegui, a very popular Mexican actor who starred, most recently, in "Bella". He is co-owner of a production company called Metanoia, and the article is about how he went from being a not-interested Catholic to a very sincere and devout one - while living and working in the not-too-religious environments of the movie meccas of Mexico City and Hollywood.

As an interesting side note, the article notes that he is going to England to speak to a Catholic youth rally with about 1500 teens expected to attend. I don't know if this sort of thing is yet common in England, as it is getting to be here - I suspect not. In itself, this event is exciting because it means that the Church is stirring in England, one of the most thoroughly secular countries in the very secular West. My gut instinct is that many of the youth waking up the Church in England, responding to their shepherds' calls, perhaps traveled to World Youth Days in close neighbor Cologne, Germany, and in closely akin Sydney, Australia. However He's doing it, the Holy Spirit is sure doing something cool.

What daring times to be a Christian!

(Coincidentally, as I was surfing for a good picture for this post, I came across a picture of the little girl in Bella with whom Verastegui had a life-altering collision. Now that I have little nieces, just seeing the girl's picture made me become very emotional.)