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Pope Francis Opens Holy Doors; Trump Calls For Closed Borders

By Anthea Butler

…trong statements against Isis (Da’esh) and support for refugees landing on Europe’s shores, mercy is a much needed commodity for Pope Francis as he wrestles both with church issues and a world that is convulsing with problems. These two events pose important choices at the end of a tumultuous year in the world of religion. Will fundamentalists like Isis, Trump, UKIP, Pegida, and a host of other right wing hate groups dictate their hatred to the wo…

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Blames Gays For ISIS; ‘Christian Nationalist’ Sworn In As Guatemala’s President; Vatican Resists Civil Unions in Italy; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ery other type of union.” Meanwhile, in Italy, the last country in Western Europe that does not legally recognize same-sex couples, the parliament is preparing to debate civil unions legislation. AFP reported that this week that the legislative battle “has opened with a group of Catholic senators proposing prison terms for couples who use overseas surrogate mothers to have a child.” In a move branded “indecent” by Italy’s biggest gay rights group,…

Why Won’t the President Say “Islamic Terrorists?”

By Paula Cooey

…much bandied about not just on the political far right in the U.S. and in Europe, but also in more mainstream media outlets. What would specifically Islamic terrorism look like? And does terrorism take particularly religious forms? If ISIL or Al-Qaeda seek to establish what they view to be some form of religious state through violence, is this Islamic terrorism? If other Muslims counter that these versions of Islam are not true Islam and if schol…

What Good Is It for Union to Gain the World, But Forfeit Its Soul?

By Yazmine Nichols

…some white middle-class people can live high on the hog, take vacations to Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privilege, then they are ‘liberal’. But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull off that liberal mask […]. They feel sorry for the so-called underprivileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges. Last week, Chris Hedges wrote a column in which fellow semina…

Broadcast Officials in China Censor Gay TV Characters

By Peter Montgomery

…y LGBTQ faith-based organization in the region. It works primarily in Anglophone countries but has plans to expand further in Africa, with additional focus on Francophone regions. There is no group or organization in the region that addresses the needs of LGBTQ and MSM Muslims. Mambaonline.com published an interview this week with a lesbian couple whose marriage in December generated media coverage that led to both positive and negative responses,…

Civil Unions Battle Heats Up in Italy; Church Leaders in Malawi Defend Criminalization of Homosexuality; Report on LGBT Student Group Sparks Backlash in Indonesia; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…weight and where gays have grown impatient as other traditionally Catholic European countries have either allowed same-sex couples to marry or legally recognized their civil unions.” The coalition government of Premier Matteo Renzi is pushing for the legislation, which includes the right of inheritance, to receive the pension of his or her deceased partner, or to make medical decisions about a partner in hospital. But one provision of the bill, to…

Anglican Bishops Punish Episcopal Church Over LGBT Inclusion; Secularization’s Role in Moving Latin America ‘Beyond Machismo’; Greek Orthodox Bishop Says Gays Deserve Respect; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…anti-LGBT violence to today, when “Latin America stands, alongside Western Europe and the United States, among the most progressive regions on LGBT rights.” Encarnación writes that both home-grown activism and international pressure have played a role: Last but not least has been the timely intervention by several individual foreign nations, most notably Spain. After 2005, when Spain became the first Roman Catholic nation to legalize same-sex marr…

Tragic Violence in Libya: No Excuse for Perpetrators—or for Provocateurs

By Haroon Moghul

…ome hopelessly imbricated in the actions of anti-Muslim bigots here and in Europe. But this violence isn’t a simple response to American policies (nor is this evidence of a congenitally Islamic inability to accept criticism), and cannot be dismissed as such. There are a few points to keep in mind as we try to understand how an amateurish fourteen-minute film produces such a dramatically disproportionate and wholly offensive counter-reaction. First…

What Did the Puritans Have Against Christmas?

By Bruce David Forbes

…ists, Methodists, and Quakers. However, other colonists came from parts of Europe not affected by Puritan opposition, and they brought their Christmas celebrations with them, unhindered: Germans, Scandinavians, and the Dutch who founded New Amsterdam (later New York). So Lutherans, Catholics, and the Dutch Reformed celebrated Christmas, along with the Church of England that continued restrained Christmas observances. As a result of this mixture, i…

Are the Pews Half Empty or Half Full? Lessons From 734 A.D.

By Carlos Wilton

…fueled by millions of returning G.I.s, eager to leave the moral horrors of Europe and the Pacific behind them. Navigating what they perceived as perilous waters between the twin reefs of fascism and communism, G.I.-generation parents looked to the church for moral instruction for their children. Sunday Schools boomed along with their babies, but when those children came of age, it was straight into Woodstock, Vietnam War protests and “Don’t trust…