Current Church of Scientology Viewpoints
Although Hubbard's views on homosexuality remain unamended in modern editions of Scientology books, gay Scientologists have argued that Hubbard and the Church have set aside any anti-homosexual views expressed in the past. In 2002 the American Church of Scientology published a press release on its website quoting gay activist Keith Relkin as saying, "Over the years I have worked with the Church of Scientology for greater inclusion of gay people like me, and today represents a milestone in that progress." Paul Haggis, a Hollywood screenwriter and director, publicly left Scientology in October 2009, claiming that the San Diego branch of the Church of Scientology gave its support to Proposition 8. Haggis wrote to Tommy Davis, the Church's spokesman, and requested that he denounce their support for Prop 8. However, the Church disputes this, with Davis stating, "“Church of Scientology San Diego had been put on a list of churches that supported Proposition 8 out in California. It was incorrectly included and named when it should have never been on the list to begin with." Davis also stated that the inclusion of the San Diego branch on the list supporting Prop 8 was the work of a single employee, who was removed from his post and the Church's name taken off the list.
A 2004 article in the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Church defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
Melissa M. Wilcox, writing in the five-volume Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, notes that while present-day detractors of Scientology accuse it of homophobia, government suspicion in the early days of Scientology apparently included accusations of homosexuality. In response to a query by her about the Church's current position, the Church of Scientology in 2005 responded as follows:
- "The Church of Scientology does not dictate sexual preferences. Scientology is a practical method of improving conditions in life and works to increase a person's abilities, give higher IQ and better reaction time, greater ability to solve his problems in life – things of this nature."
An official Scientology website states, "The second dynamic is the urge toward existence as a future generation. It has two compartments: sex; and the family unit, including the rearing of children. A culture will go by the boards if its basic building block, the family, is removed as a valid building block. So one can be fairly sure that he who destroys marriage destroys the civilization."
Read more about this topic: Scientology And Sexual Orientation
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or church:
“I have come to believe ... that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)