Yup. Apparently they are even formally recognized as a church and as such have tax exempt status with the IRS.
Interestingly, their creed is apparently adopted from the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, while the remainder of their tenets seem to be adopted from various sources, including Buddhist teachers such as Thich Naht Hahn, Christian writer C.S. Lewis, and New Age teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra.
Now there’s a good entry in the man vs. bear saga that explains why I felt so strongly about it.
If a woman says she’s prefer the bear to a man, the men who ARE like the bear and would have her by force if necessary won’t give a damn, but the ones that aren’t, who might be available to form an emotional bond with her, will have their patriarchal wound reinforces and thus be turned off.
So what that statement is really doing is reinforcing the patriarchy. It’s just another way of saying “men are all the same and nothing will ever change that.” It practically guarantees a continuation of the status quo and eliminates all possibilities for healing.