Search for "cheap airline tickets to italy from los angeles phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…ok pictures with her phone as we attempted the warrior pose. Was I back in Los Angeles? Why wasn’t this different? The staff—all devotees of the Ananda movement, a Hindu spiritual fellowship founded in northern California during the late 60s—only reinforced feelings of familiarity. There was Jemal, the dreadlocked, Yale-educated monk who waxed philosophic about the “sublime” benefits of a celibate lifestyle. There was Shivani, a Jewish girl from O…

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

By Ed Simon

…ork of its titular character, a metaphysical noir detective who lives in a Los Angeles that exists in a space equally with the dimensions of Heaven and Hell. As with Dogma and Good Omens, Constantine engages a certain “bureaucratizing of the sacred,” an understanding of the transcendent realm as reminiscent of the political, social, legal, and economic structures which define our lives. This is, of course, not substantially different from how, dur…

Oscar Watch: Why Spike Jonze’s Her Is Not About Technology

By Daniel Pecchenino

…r future is its absence of sacred space. Anyone who has spent much time in Los Angeles knows that it’s hard to go a block without seeing a Catholic church, synagogue, Protestant chapel (be it Korean, African-American, or conservative Iowan), storefront iglesia, Mormon ward, ashram, or some building owned by the Scientologists. The City of Angels was also home to one of the strangest and most important evangelists of the 20th century, Sister Aimee…

How Long Does It Take a Man of God to Admit Child Rape is Wrong?

By Joanna Brooks

…mes published a front-page story reporting that Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles sat on reports of felony-level sexual abuse of children by priests for almost 15 years before he took action, and that the Los Angeles Catholic diocese waited at least 14 years before reporting abuse to law enforcement. The LA Times report was based on letters written by Mahony in 1986 and 1987 recently entered as evidence in a civil suit. More documents will be…

“Papers Please”: The Legal Battle Over Church Sex-Abuse Files

By Omar Shamout

…here, not all judges have ruled in the victims’ favor. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles finally released the 12,000 documents it agreed to make public as part of a 2007 sex-abuse settlement in which the archdiocese and its insurers paid a total of $660 million to over 500 victims. Ray Boucher was the lead plaintiff’s attorney in the civil suit against the L.A. Archdiocese. He says the nearly six-year battle to make the files public was difficult fo…

Indonesian Court Rejects Religious Conservatives’ Bid To Criminalize Gay Sex; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…les’ marriages On December 14 the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for refusing to recognize the unions of same-sex couples married in other countries: The ECHR accepted that Italy’s choice not to allow same-sex marriages could not be condemned under human rights law, but the crux of the case was that the couples had not been able to obtain any kind of legal recognition for their unions. The case was launched by six same-sex couples…

A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…

Australia’s Harsh Refugee Policies Stirring Backlash; Malawi Court Sides With Pastors To Lift Moratorium on Sodomy Prosecutions; Uzbek President Says God Has Taken Gays’ Reason Away; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ims by opponents of LGBTI rights Michaël Vermeulen, a Buddhist inspired philosopher who studies philosophy, medicine and religious sciences at the University of Leuven in Belgium, on common myths at the center of debates around LGBTI equality. The Guardian has published photographs from Pride marches from around the world. Australia: Some religious leaders oppose harsh refugee policies Lester Feder and Soudeh Rad at BuzzFeed published an in-depth…

Istanbul ‘Haven of Sorts’ For LGBT Syrians and Iraqis; Cayman Islands Affirm Marriage Ban with ‘Holy Bible Evidence’; No Room for LGBTs in Malaysia’s ‘Islam-Based’ Human Rights Policy; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…various family configurations, won the prestigious Andersen Prize in 2012, Italy’s top nod for children’s literature, even as a popular Catholic magazine cited it as a book to avoid. “In Italy, it’s as if morality is the prerogative of the church,” Ms. Pardi said, “and so some principles are never put into discussion.” A book that shows that there is “room for all becomes very threatening, especially because it’s told in a simple language that sho…

Win For ‘Natural Family’ Crowd at UN Human Rights Council…

By Peter Montgomery

…tly “do not have any form of registered partnership for same-sex couples.” Italy could appeal to the Grand Chamber of the court, which it did successfully in a 2011 case about crucifixes in public school classrooms, a case in which “Italy relied on considerable support from other states where religion plays an important role in public life…” Reuters reported that support for same-sex unions “has risen in Italy, especially after another predominant…