Obama Appoints Trans Man as Religious Adviser

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - President Obama is appointing a transgender man as one of his advisers on religious matters.

The recent White House press release announced Barbara Satin as a member on the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He is the Assistant Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, an activist organization for LGTB "rights."

Known only by his "trans" name, Barbara Satin is an 82-year-old man whose first name is actually David and who has openly represented himself as a woman since 1996. He's been a trans activist for the last 20 years.

He spoke in an interview about how he was brought up Catholic and was even in a minor seminary in the late 1940s in the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese. He dropped out of the seminary, joined the Air Force and got married. He had three children with his wife and worked in public relations with a big corporation, even becoming the chairman for the Bishop's Council in the archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul. He has since left the Catholic Church and joined the United Church of Christ.

Obama appointed two others as members of the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships — Naseem Kourosh and Manjit Singh. Kourosh represents the Bahá'í religion, an offshoot of Islam from the mid-1800s. Singh represents the Sikh religion begun in India in the 15th century.

Included among Obama's appointees is Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. who has been appointed for another two-year term as an adviser to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Reese was the senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, and editor-in-chief and associate editor of America magazine.

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