ReligionDispatches.org

Kathryn Joyce.

A new report documents the trend of evangelicals like Rick Warren exporting sexuality issues to Africa, whose clergy, in turn, support the minority antigay view in mainline denominations, weakening them. The author of the report speaks with RD at length about what he found. 

Mary E. Hunt.

A first person account of the recent National Equality March on DC. The future of LGBT advocacy is young and strong.

Jonathan L. Walton.

Is the house that King built trying to end it all?

Sarah Posner.

Not dead yet. Again.

David Gillespie.

I would hope that as thousands of my fellow GLBTQ citizens celebrate this day for which they have so long worked, and so hard, that they not lose sight of the cost which has come with it.

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

If adding sexual orientation to the hate crimes law saves just one life, it brings redemption (and safety) to us all. 

Nick Street.

An experiment in right-wing Christian social thought, Uganda is poised to pass anti-gay legislation. Will the US Senate leverage its weight in opposition?

Joanna Brooks.

While many Mormons would like to forget the Church’s history of discrimination against blacks, an Apostle’s recent statements comparing the post-Proposition 8 Mormon backlash to the Civil Rights-era harassment of black voters have brought that painful past back into the spotlight.

Mary E. Hunt.

While the Catholic Church is touting its warm welcome to conservative Anglicans, it’s also a simple union of those who reject gay and women’s ordination.   

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

Here’s hoping the president will do the right thing in the wake of this week’s promises to LGBT Americans.

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

This weekend’s premier religious right gathering saw same-sex marriage score low in a poll. Has something significant happened?

Rev. Irene Monroe.

In what is likely a first, an Episcopal church in Cambridge that serves a primarily African-American community has blessed the union of two women—one of whom is the mayor of the city. Our correspondent was one of the officiants.

Jori Lewis.

The idea of transgender Christianity shocks people on both sides of the divide: conservative religious reject any kind of gender variance and the LGBT community can be suspicious of organized religion. In all of this, trans-Christians are forging a new spirituality.

Frances Kissling.

Though he was never one to wear his religion on his sleeve, Sen. Kennedy’s liberal record of working for social justice falls squarely within the Catholic tradition.

Eric Reitan.

Reflecting with mixed emotions his decision to leave the church of his childhood over its inability to accept gays, the author recalls his own words, that “Scripture calls us to look beyond Scripture, to God and to our neighbor,” and wonders whether he should return to the church; indeed, whether such a thing is possible.

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

A new campaign from the religious right, “The Civility Project,” aims to solve difficult social issues with politeness. What’s the real agenda here?

Robert P. Jones and Daniel Cox.

Despite worldwide calls from conservative Anglicans that the American church is choosing to “walk apart” from the wider community, the numbers don't agree—at least not in America.

Daniel Schultz.

A recent US News & World Report piece claims that “the churches most open to homosexuality are shrinking fastest.” A closer look at the numbers reveals a different picture.

Jonathan L. Walton.

How sad and ironic that the revocation of citizen’s rights via Constitutional bans, is not on the SCLC’s radar. Is it a Movement or Museum?

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

While many expected LGBT issues to be at the forefront of controversy at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stunned some participants by taking aim at narrow notions of salvation.

Paul Gorrell.

The Obama administration has gone from indifference to actively promoting religious opposition to the civil rights of gay Americans, comparing same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia. Only when “pink dollars” were pulled did the president approach the LGBT community. A former priest suggests how to make Obama listen.

Gastón Espinosa.

Obama won, in part, by flipping the vote of Latino evangelicals back from their support of Republicans in ’00 and ’04. This switch, argues Prof. Gastón Espinosa, is due to a combination of targeted and aggressive outreach to evangelicals, the candidate’s ability to talk about his faith, and a compromise on the abortion and gay rights issues.

Peter Laarman.

In this meditation on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots an ordained minister, while eulogizing his own outlawry, notes that God’s goodness is evident in the way in which new and seriously maladjusted queer youth are still rising up to bring new energy and edge to the movement.

Nick Street.

What would “a tranny hustler,” peeking through a rip in the stocking of space-time, think of our world 40 years later? What will the next Consciousness Revolution look like?

Louis A. Ruprecht.

Over the past few decades a form of “tolerance” has been achieved in many parts of American life. What sort of achievement is this?