A recent meditation retreat for "brown and black youth from Hampshire College" at a same-sex couple's "Zen Buddhist home temple" in Westhampton, Massachusetts is what led neighbors to file a complaint about an existing garden shed that was built several years ago within a 20-foot setback required by the local zoning code, says the couple who hosted the retreat. Neighbors' complaints about trespassing, dumping on their property, and that the couple's driveway "looks like a parking lot in Springfield" with "suspicious cars and people" are just covers for racism, the couple says, according to MassLive.com.
"[T]here is no truth, no real mercy, and no authentic compassion, in blessing a course of action that leads persons away from God," Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote in a column for Catholic Philly, responding to suggestions in Germany that the Catholic Church could bless same-sex unions. "This in no way is a rejection of the persons seeking such a blessing, but rather a refusal to ignore what we know to be true about the nature of marriage, the family, and the dignity of human sexuality."
