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It Gets Better: Gay Mormons Hold Conference in DC

By Joanna Brooks

…headlines last year after having been called to a leadership position in a San Francisco LDS congregation. They’ll gather as local Mormon conservative activists in Maryland also organize this weekend—acting individually and without involvement from LDS Church headquarters—gathering signatures in support of a ballot initiative to overturn a recently-passed marriage equality law. But for this group of pioneering LGBT Mormons a key focus rather than…

American Bishops Pushed Rome on Nun Crackdown

By Sarah Posner

…s elected Pope. He quickly appointed the then Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco to his old post as CDF prefect. Significantly, the soon-to-be Cardinal Levada was also chairman of the doctrinal committee of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). According to sources in Rome and Washington, his successor at the conference’s doctrinal office – the then Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut – was the man who formally petition…

Evangelical Star Rob Bell Comes Out For Marriage Equality

By Nicole Greenfield

…atest step in Bell’s “search for a more forgiving faith,” a process Kelefa Sanneh detailed in The New Yorker last November. Bell first truly rocked the conservative Christian world in 2011 by questioning the existence of hell in his book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Six months after its publication, he resigned from Mars Hill. Although the reasons behind, and the consequences of, Bell’s departu…

New Resource for LDS Families with Gay Children Links Acceptance and Health

By Joanna Brooks

Last week, the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University released new materials designed to provide LDS families with a clear picture of the connections between family acceptance or rejection of gay young people and the kinds of health outcomes and life chances those young people will experience. The booklet has been designated as a “Best Practice” resource for suicide prevention—the only one of its kind for LDS people—by the Su…

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

By Frances Kissling

…heir wrists, are more lauded for their courage than Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent nearly 15 years under house arrest. Months before the election is the perfect time for the CHA to press its case for an exemption from the policy, which would not only allow it freedom from following the law on contraceptive insurance, but also to assert without scrutiny that any number of health services violate its religious beliefs. In her intervi…

Obama Administration Gives Free Pass for Faith-Based Groups to Discriminate

By Sarah Posner

…n in employment decisions by grantees.” After the 2011 hearing, Scott told San Francisco Chronicle reporter Bob Egelko that Holder was “obviously ‘embarrassed to try to explain the policy’” and that Obama could repeal the OLC memo via executive order but had made no effort to. The responses to Scott’s question finally reveal the straightforward answer CARD has long sought. Although it was unclear at the time exactly how the Obama administration wa…

How Will We Teach About Sikhism After the Tragedy?

By Laurie Patton

…oting not by shutting their doors, but by opening them. The Sikh temple in San Jose held an open house and gave out free head coverings. Over five hundred people gathered for a vigil at the gurdwara in Plymouth, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. This weekend, many Sikh temples have issued an open invitation to all to come and worship, in a concerted effort to welcome and educate America about their traditions. Hospitality is a key element o the Sikh…

Is the Episcopal Church a Bain Capital Investor?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…s described it as “deceiving.” Romney’s, according to fact checkers at the San Jose Mercury News, the Washington Post, and USA Today, was only slightly less mendacious; the continuing falsehood about cuts to health care providers spun by the Romney campaign as cuts to Medicare beneficiaries noted as among the larger whoppers propagated in the speech. It seems unlikely that the GOP candidate would flat-out lie about investment by the Episcopal Chur…

Episcopal Church Removes Bishop Who Split Following LGBT Inclusion Vote

By Elizabeth Drescher

…arolina is the fifth to succeed from the Church, following the Dioceses of San Joaquin in central California; Fort Worth, Texas; Quincy, Illinois; and Pittsburgh, PA. A pastoral letter from Jefferts Schori to members of the Diocese, however, made clear that The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, as with other dioceses voting to secede, “continues to be a constituent part of The Episcopal Church, even if a number of its leaders have departed.” S…

Supreme Court Will Hear Challenges to Anti-Equality Laws

By Elizabeth Drescher

…r couples, attempting to bypass challenges before the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco sponsored by marriage equality advocates. No announcement has been made on whether the court will review the case. Meanwhile, four years after a bare-knuckle battle to pass the California anti-marriage equality Proposition 8, and in the shadow of a presidential campaign in which a Mormon candidate and his conservative Catholic running mate echoed the same sort…