Exodus: Live Out Loud

California Marriage Bill Supporter Assaulted

From Protect Marriage:

In a violent display of intolerance, an opponent of Proposition 8 attacked and seriously injured a man who was volunteering on Sunday for the initiative to define marriage as between and a man and a woman.   

Prop. 8 supporter, Jose Nunez, 37, was brutally assaulted while waiting to distribute yard signs to other supporters of the initiative after church services at the St. Stanislaus Parish in Modesto.   

The assailant grabbed about 75 signs and yelled at Nunez accusingly, “What do you have against gays!”  Although Nunez replied that he had nothing against gays, he was attacked anyway.  The assailant punched Nunez in the left eye and ran off with the signs.   

Nunez, his eye dripping with blood, walked into a building on church grounds where a fellow parishoner called 911.  Police and paramedics responded to the scene. 

Nunez, who suffered a bloody eye, serious wounds to his face, and a scratch to his knee, was rushed by ambulance to a local hospital where he received 16 stitches under his eye.

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School Rejects Christian Books

From NBC-4 of Maryland:

A group of high school students that wants the Fairfax County School System to allow library books that offer a Christian perspective on homosexuality demonstrated Thursday.

The students said they are asking that their viewpoint gets the chance to sit on bookshelves and be read.

Dozens of students from throughout Fairfax County gathered at West Springfield High School. They said that they tried to donate books that promote an evangelical Christian perspective on homosexuality to their schools but were turned away.A schools spokesman said the books were rejected because of school system regulations. Among other things, the books were not age appropriate and there were no reviews of the books.

"We collected reviews for all of the books, multiple reviews, presented them to the librarian, and honestly, she didn't even look at them," said South County Secondary School student Ashley Traficant.

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Gay Advocates Begin Tour of Christian Campuses

Five members of the gay activist group Soulforce held hands Wednesday afternoon and stood to face about 50 Liberty University students behind the school's DeMoss Hall in Lynchburg.

They had just returned from donating five gay-affirming Christian books to the school's library, and Caitlin MacIntyre invited onlookers to join them in singing "Amazing Grace."

"No thanks," one student said.

Across the sidewalk, students paged through Bibles as the hymn's familiar first verse filled the air.

Liberty student Lawanda Sowell said she was searching for passages to describe her belief that homosexuality is a sin.

"They believe in what they believe because they are blind," she said.

The song ended, and the two groups stood opposite each other with two different opinions on how to interpret the role of homosexuality and the definition of marriage in the Bible.

Liberty was the first of 15 planned stops at faith-based institutions on Soulforce's annual Equality Ride, a national bus tour meant to encourage an inviting environment for any on-campus gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender students.

"Nowhere in the Bible does it say, 'homosexuality is sin,'" said Soulforce member Nicholas Rocco DeFinis.

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