The EU’s high court has ruled that homosexuals living in “civil partnerships” must experience the same pension rights as those living in heterosexual marriages (euobserver.com, May 10, 2011).  When the French Secretary of State for Health commented that homosexuals are a “high risk group” for HIV/AIDS, her statistically accurate comments resulted in calls for her resignation, noting that she was “stigmatizing” homosexuals (Lefigaro.fr, May 4, 2011).

Memorial Day, declared officially by the United States Congress in 1971 as a national holiday, is observed in the U.S. on the last Monday of May. It is a day on which Americans commemorate the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. The observance of this day began soon after the end of the American Civil War and was initially known as Decoration Day—a day when people would decorate the graves of the fallen soldiers.

Queen Elizabeth II recently made the first visit to Ireland by a reigning British monarch in 100 years.  Also, and in a highly unusual move, the Queen was accompanied by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Some want to know it all when it comes to the Bible. Having a right and balanced desire to learn and grow in scriptural knowledge is good. It can help us grow in our relationship with our Creator. But this same desire becomes lopsided when the emphasis is on trying to understand subjects where God has purposefully withheld key details, or where the Bible is simply silent. As we seek to learn more about God and His way of life, we need to learn how to seek and use knowledge rightly. How can we do this?

On May 10, 2011, the 2.3 million member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to allow the ordination of practicing homosexual ministers, removing the requirement that they live in “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”  (CNN.com, “Presbyterian Church U.S.A. to allow gay and lesbian clergy,” May 10, 2011).