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Australian Prime Minister, Church Leaders Resist Marriage Push; South Korea’s Anti-Gay Christians Block Pride Parade; Morocco Arrests Men for ‘Obscene Act’ of Kissing; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…vening. The men arrested for “an obscene act” had reportedly kissed at the site in an act of solidarity with the feminist protest. The government blamed the incidents on foreign provocateurs: The interior ministry denounced what it said was “a series of provocations and harassment carried out by foreign organisations who deliberately violate Moroccan laws… to undermine morality.” Homosexuality is considered a crime in Morocco. Article 489 of the p…

The Ethics of Everest

By Michael Schulson

…erous. It’s also iconic—the world’s preeminent adventure sports pilgrimage site. And that iconic status somehow makes it easier for us to overlook that danger. The results are ethically fraught. Is the risk worth the reward? Are affluent climbers culpable for Sherpa deaths? Is $2,000-$6,000, the going salary for Sherpas, fair pay for one of the most dangerous jobs on earth? The power imbalance between locals and foreigners is especially apparent t…

Wanted: Your Vote

By The Editors

Religion Dispatches, your favorite indie religion site (and go-to source for awkward dinner conversation starters) is nominated for a 2015 Webby Award in the Religion & Spirituality category. We are thrilled! The Webbys are the Oscars of the Internet. We’ve been honored with a Webby nomination a number of times before and it never gets old. But… we confess we’re starting to nurture a bit of a Susan Lucci complex — always a nominee, never (yet) a…

Before Oprah, There Was the “Hour of Power”: Crystal Cathedral Pastor Robert H. Schuller Has Died

By Cathleen Falsani

…rystal Cathedral — the “first-ever all-glass church,” according to the web site. The building, with its 10,000 panes of glass, seating for more than 2,700, and one of the world’s largest instruments — the Hazel Wright organ —was completed at a cost of $18 million and dedicated in 1980. In 2011, after mounting financial problems and infighting among church staff — including a rift between Schuller and his son (and heir apparent) the Rev. Robert Sch…

Jewish Studies Is a Free-Speech Zone, and It Needs to Stay That Way

By Aaron Hughes

…Studies and in my disciplinary home, Religious Studies, to be “discursive sites.” By this, I mean a glance at them reveals where the field is, what topics are hot and what are not. When I looked recently at the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS)’s online openings, I was shocked to see a job announcement for the Executive Director (ED) of the Hillel at Brandeis. I had never once seen such an announcement, in all the years I have been looking at…

Why Don’t Republicans Want to Allow Pastors to Endorse from Pulpit?

By Daniel Silliman

…nt their pastors to be able to endorse political candidates. An increasing number of Americans say they want more religion in politics. Pew reports that nearly half of Americans say churches should express their views on political issues. There are still many who support the idea of separating church and politics, of course, but it’s not like this law is actually working. One doesn’t have to look further than Houston to find pastors engaged in pol…

Is The Episcopal Church Driving Drunk?

By J. Terry Todd

…nson went to rehab during his episcopacy). An editorial that ran on the website of the American Anglican Council called the incident “[s]ad for the Episcopal Church that has fallen so far away from godly discipline and order.” The right-wing Anglican blogosphere was more direct: “The most recent outrage (and there have been many) of a drunken bishop killing a cyclist, then fleeing the scene of the crime and hiding behind a gated community so she w…

Jews and Muslims Join Forces for Academic Freedom

By Rebecca Alpert

…ed that the opposition was based on inaccurate information found on one website, discoverthenetworks.org, a product of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The site is still in operation today. This experience was my wake-up call that right-wing Jewish organizations are using our campuses to promote a specific political narrative about Israel and Palestine, using threats, intimidation and donor monies to further their goals. At the beginning of this…

“Nobody Is Innocent”: David Gushee on Sexual Ethics, Suffering, and Full Inclusion for LGBT Christians

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…me a long time and I hope that my regret for the long journey is clearly communicated in the book. I am sorry it took me so long to put it all together. It’s like being in a movie where someone is trying to crack a safe and there’s six numbers and you have to get all six numbers right for the safe to open. I think that’s what’s happened for me. Finally, all six numbers came up and I was able to open the safe and I could see this in a new way. Tha…

When Satire is Redundant

By Holly Welker

Eleven or twelve years ago, I wrote for a website of Mormon satire called the Sugar Beet, modeled on the Onion. Every writer there but me was active and had a temple recommend, so both personal conviction and editorial policy meant that there were a few topics that absolutely couldn’t be mocked, but any other aspect of Mormon culture was fair game. Some of the pieces I wrote had titles like “Vegas Win Attributed to Obedience to Law of Tithing” (…