—– Connecticut Church Creates Stir With Gay Exorcism Video (John Christoffersen/The Associated Press; June 24)

BRIDGEPORT: The video shows the 16-year-old boy lying on the floor, his body convulsing, as elders of a small Connecticut church cast a “homosexual demon” from his body.

“Rip it from his throat!” a woman yells. “Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!”…

It’s nearly impossible to say how often similar exercises occur in churches nationwide. But Kamora Herrington, who runs a mentoring program at True Colors and has worked with the youth, said she believes it’s fairly common.

“This happens all the time,” she said. “This is not isolated.”

Robin McHaelin, executive director of True Colors, an advocacy group for gay youths, said her organization is aware of five cases in recent years in which youths in her program were threatened with exorcism.

In one case, she said, a child called to report that his caregiver had called a priest who was throwing holy water on his bedroom door….

The Rev. Roland Stringfellow, a minister in Oakland, Calif., said he was subject to demon casting in the 1990s when he was at a Baptist church and was struggling with his sexuality. He said he was put in front of the church as members shouted “demon of homosexuality come out of him.”

“It caused nothing but shame and embarrassment,” Stringfellow said….

To learn more about exorcism, see the entry I posted on June 20 as well as the related links.

For more about the bizarre attempts of some Christians to cure gays of their homosexuality, see the entry I posted on July 15, 2006.

—– Unrest In Iran Sharply Deepens Rift Among Clerics (Nazila Fathi and Michael Slackman/The New York Times; June 21)

TEHRAN: A bitter rift among Iran’s ruling clerics deepened Sunday over the disputed presidential election that has convulsed Tehran in the worst violence in 30 years, with the government trying to link the defiant loser to terrorists and detaining relatives of his powerful backer, a founder of the Islamic republic.

The loser, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate reform candidate who contends that the June 12 election was stolen from him, fired back at his accusers on Sunday night in a posting on his Web site, calling on his own supporters to demonstrate peacefully despite stern warnings from Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that no protests of the vote would be allowed. “Protesting to lies and fraud is your right,” Mr. Moussavi said in a challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei’s authority.

Earlier, the police detained five relatives of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who leads two influential councils and openly supported Mr. Moussavi’s election. The relatives, including Mr. Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, were released after several hours….

—– Iran Bans Prayers For “Angel Of Freedom” Neda Agha Soltan (Damien McElroy/The Telegraph; June 22)

Iran’s regime has issued a ban on memorials for a young woman whose death has become the focal point of protests against the clerical regime.

Neda Agha Soltan, 27, was dubbed the Angel of Freedom after a video which appeared to show her being shot by a government sniper was posted on the internet….

The Iranian authorities have now sent out a circular to mosques banning collective prayers for the woman.

—– Call To Execute Iran Protest Chiefs (The Guardian/The Press Association; June 26)

A senior cleric has urged for Iran’s protest leaders to be punished “without mercy” and said some should face execution.

The call by Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami indicated a harsh new turn in the regime’s crackdown on demonstrators two weeks after its disputed presidential election.

Hardliners have ordered long sentences and hangings before, and some fear those awaiting trial by a judiciary whose verdicts reflect the will of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face severe punishments.

“Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution,” Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a ranking cleric, said in a nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University.

Mr Khatami said those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were “at war with God” and should be “dealt with without mercy”….

Since the election, opposition protesters repeatedly have clashed with security forces who arrested hundreds of people, including journalists, academics and university students. At least 17 people have been killed, in addition to eight members of the pro-government Basij militia.

—– Iran: Now The World’s Leader In Jailing Journalists (Catherine Lyons/Opinion L.A./The Los Angeles Times; June 26)

In just the last 13 days since the disputed June 12 election, Iran has become the world’s leading jailer of journalists.

A report released Tuesday by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran listed the names of 23 Iranian journalists who have been arrested and detained by the government. Additionally, more than 100 political personalities and members of the reformers’ presidential campaigns have also been arrested. The group confirmed 31 dead (though only four named), many of whom were students like Neda Aghasoltan, now the face of the opposition movement.

The report also revealed that many of those arrested were detained in their own homes by plain-clothed police officers — and many were not participating in protests when arrested.

In a blatant disregard for freedom of speech, a right Iran vowed to protect when it signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, government officials raided the Kalameh Sabz on Monday, June 22 — a reformist newspaper owned by opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Every person in the office at that time was arrested (CPJ estimates that number to be around 25 people), bringing the total number of Iranian journalists arrested up to about 40 — most of whom are still in custody….

—– Man Who Starved Baby Son May Get New Trial (Dave Wedge/The Boston Herald; June 25)

Killer Attleboro cultist Jacques Robidoux was defiant on the stand in his 2002 murder trial, but now claims he was mentally incompetent and may get a new trial.

The jailed religious fanatic, who is serving life for starving his 18-month-old son to death in 2000, argues in new court pleadings that he didn’t get a fair trial because his competency was never evaluated.

“God told him in an explicit directive to stop feeding his baby. He was unable not to follow this command because he believed man’s law was secondary to God’s law,” Robidoux’s lawyer, Janet Hendricks Pumphrey, wrote in court papers. “He believed no harm would come to his child if his food was restricted, and he believed that if his child died, he could resurrect him.”…

Robidoux and his wife, Karen, followed a twisted “vision from God,” allegedly experienced by another member, that ordered them to switch Samuel from solid food to a breast milk-only diet.

The boy slowly starved to death over two months.

Karen Robidoux was convicted of manslaughter.

For more details about this case, see the entry I posted on July 2, 2002 as well as Theist File #1298.

Add Jacques Robidoux’s name (admittedly rather tardily) to the ever-lengthening list of murderous theist parents that now includes Leatrice Brewer, Elizabeth Tevenan, Michael Miller,Marie Moore, Joseph Henry Hagerman, Valeria Maxon, Katrina Spriggs, Nelly Vasquez-Salazar, “Cristos Valenti”, Robert Blair, Avi Kostner, Elizabeth Duman, Samara Laverne Spann,Teresa Gilman, Rebekah Amaya, Christina Miracle, Andre L. Thomas, Brenda Drayton, Lashuan Harris, Liset Hernandez, Magdalena Lopez, Paula Eleazar Mendez, Tonya Vasilev, Dena Schlosser, Deanna Laney, Susan Smith, Mark Barton, William Gartlan, Karen Duncan, Hemu Vasrambhai, Michelle Huisman, Barbara Downey, and Bridget Stovall as well as the infamousAndrea Yates….