NEWS NOTES: February 6, 2012

Here are links to some items you might find of interest:

1) The Bangor Daily News reports that the “Maine Catholic bishop starts ministry to support people attracted to the same sex.”  The announcement of this “Courage” ministry comes just about a week after it was announced that Maine will have another referendum on marriage equality.   For a review of Courage’s ministry, see Bondings 2.0’s blog post about the establishment of such a program in Connecticut.

2) The Vista, the student newspaper of the University of San Diego, a Catholic school reports that “Joseph Colombo, religion professor, passes away.”    According to an obituary on the Gay San Diego website (gay-sd.com), “Colombo served as the first openly gay chair of a theology department at a Roman Catholic University in the United States.”

3)  In the continuing controversy of what to name gay-straight alliances in Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic schools, a letter to the editor in the Toronto Star from Kevin O’Dwyer, President of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, notes that  while Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association has not supported students’ requests, his association, which represents teachers,  “has stated its support for gay-straight alliances (GSAs) and other student-led anti-homophobia groups. ”  Read the latest full reporting on this matter in the Bondings 2.0 blog post from January 28, 2012.