Protesters Disturb Gay Mass

This is an article I found in The Sydney Morning Herald today. Read and weep.

Protesters disturb peace of longtime gay Catholic mass

JACQUELINE MALEY

February 27, 2010

ON FRIDAY nights, gay Catholics from across Sydney attend St Joseph's in Newtown. Like all Catholics, they take Communion during mass and tea after it.
They have done so for years, with the quiet support of the deeply conservative Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.

But this week St Joseph's gay ministry was threatened by a Catholic group set up on Facebook who vowed to stop its ''sacrilegious gay masses''.

Last night the group protested at the church, bringing attention to this small forum of compromise forged between the doctrine that condemns homosexuals' sex lives and the faith they love.

The dispute highlights a global dilemma faced by the church. While social attitudes soften towards gays, Catholic catechism is firm: under no circumstances can gay sex acts be approved.

St Joseph's priest, Father Peter Maher, said ''there is nothing in the Catholic faith that says gays and lesbians don't have rights to take communion''.

But last night's protesters, who rallied support via a Facebook page, say the mass undermines Catholic teaching on ''human love and the family''.

Father Maher said the weekly 8pm mass was a normal service where gay and lesbian parishioners were welcome. It is advertised on the website of Acceptance Sydney, a gay Catholic group.

The Herald understands Cardinal Pell was initially concerned the service was being promoted as a ''gay mass'' but after a discussion with Father Maher he gave it his support.

The Herald was unable to make contact with the protesters.

Cardinal Pell said: ''Everyone is welcome to attend any public Mass.''

Up The Cross

"Kings Cross is many things - part village, part ghetto, part state of mind," wrote the late Rennie Ellis in 1971. He along with Wesley Stacey, documented the melting pot that was the Cross during Sydney's coming of age.

It was a time when American G.I.s were coming the Cross on R&R and the notorious strip was teeming with colourful characters. Students, hippies, gangsters, poets, philosophers, prostitutes, junkies, tourists, cops and many others could be found trawling Darlinghurst Road on a Saturday night.

Ellis and Stacey captured these gregarious activities and each of their photographs, currently on display at the Museum of Sydney, truly tell a story.

Take for example, the beautiful Carlotta, one of the surgically enhanced "girls" that featured in Sammy Lee's famous Les Girls troupe. Or the snake writhing across the shoulders of a topless stripper (the worst part, she told Ellis, was feeding the snake "such cute little mice".)

These photographs show Kings Cross as the headquarters of the drop-out-generation, a tantalizing mix of neon lights and pulsing music. Not so much has changed since 1971.

We Can Set It Right.

I saw Boy and Bear and Hungry Kids of Hungary tonight at the Monavale Hotel. Each band had everyone dancing.

Everyone knows the Boy and Bear song, 'Mexican Mavis' but they also had many other good tunes, like 'The Storm'. The intensity of their performance was evidenced by the drummer's profuse sweating and a drunken punter's repeated exclamation of "fuzzy man peach, I want you".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH9ifwkPZO4

Go watch the video for 'Mexican Mavis', its ace.







Hungry Kids played some old stuff and some new stuff, including the danceable and extremely catchy 'Scattered Diamonds'.

Three Songs Beginning With 'O'

O.NE. by Yeasayer

http://www.jonkmusic.com/2010/02/yeasayer.html

One Life Stand by Hot Chip

http://syntheticsound.blogspot.com/2010/02/hot-chip-one-life-stand-review.html

Odessa by Caribou

http://discohands.blogspot.com/2010/02/caribou.html

Schubert

Franz Theodore Florian Schubert (1763 - 1830) was an Austrian composer. Growing up, Schubert's family lived in two rooms in which the mother gave birth to twelve children over fifteen years. Five survived.

He wrote over 600 Leider and nine symphonies before dying at the age of 31 from an "unconfirmed" illness.

This Is England

Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands war and skinheads.

This was England in 1983.

Shaun and his friends wear the skinhead uniform of a Ben Sherman shirt, suspenders, Doc Martins and a shaved head. Its all fun until Combo arrives, espousing his ultra nationalist views and racist sentiments.

Combo opposes immigration and has a violent way of dealing with “Pakis” and “Niggers”. He attends National Front political rallies, a party which later splintered off into the British National Party, now headed by Nick Griffin. The BNP were challenged by the courts last year on the grounds of racial discrimination, and have since scrapped their policy of only accepting Caucasian party members for a better public image.

The BNP want to restore England’s overwhelming white population as it was before 1948. Their plan is to deport all immigrants, legal and illegal. They offer financial incentives to people willing to return to their “Third World” countries.

They won two seats in the European Parliament in 2009 and held 0.7% of the popular vote in the last UK general election.

This Is England is a reminder of the perils of nationalism. Its ugly, just like a bad 80s perm.

I wish I had a suntan.

I love Super 8 film. This is why I got really excited when I saw the video clip for Lust for Life by Girls.

This song makes you feel happy especially when you're sort of drunk and waiting for a train that will probably never come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuoTjYYqe4c