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New Ex-Offender Program Puts Church Ahead Of State

By Mark Bergen

…major things: “safe and affordable housing, gainful employment, and abuse services.” But with funding from the government, the Out4Life program, Americans United’s Luchenitser wrote to me in an email, “could raise serious Constitutional problems.” Content on its Web site, he continued, suggests “Out4Life is designed to funnel ex-prisoners to churches for reentry programming. If state funds are being used to support this effort, state money could…

Crossing Denominational Lines to Reprimand “Freaky Fraus”

By Kathryn Joyce

…vid Runnion-Bareford, Executive Director of the Confessing Movement in the United Church of Christ, in rebuking one of his fellow churches in the UCC for hosting the ordination of several Catholic Womenpriests, an international initiative to ordain women priests that is unrecognized by the Catholic hierarchy, on July 20 at the Church of the Covenant in Boston, a church associated with the UCC and the Presbyterian church. The womenpriests did not p…

Trump Considers Pulling USA Out Of Human Rights Council; Indonesian President Blames Democracy For Rise of Militant Islamism; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ry has also announced that it was suspending the provision of HIV and AIDS services being offered by at least 40 health centers that the government said were “promoting homosexuality.” Council of Europe: Human rights commissioner calls for legal recognition for same-sex couples The Commissioner for Human Rights published a call for legal recognition of same-sex couples in Europe, saying is a question of “legal equality before the law.” The stateme…

The Duggars To Headline Values Voters Summit

By Sarah Posner

…in a plot to engage in “black genocide” — when in fact black women in the United States disproportionately lack access to reproductive health services.) Chris Smith, a member of Congress, has declared that the UNFPA “remains guilty of shamelessly supporting and whitewashing terrible crimes against humanity.” The UNFPA’s work, according to its statement, “is guided by the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and D…

Church-State Separation Activists Urge Questioning of Kagan

By Sarah Posner

…hether they are pregnant or HIV-positive,” according to the SCA. Americans United notes that Kagan urged then-Vice President Al Gore’s staff not to mention the bill “because this law and a follow-on bill in Congress had sparked conflict between religious liberty advocates and the LGBT community;” During her confirmation hearings to become Solicitor General, Kagan described a memo she wrote as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall as…

Indonesia Allows Abusive Sharia Laws to Stand; Kenyan Priest Joins Challenge to Anti-LGBT Laws; Dominican Republic Bishop Slams ‘Gender Ideology’ at OAS; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…rches to continue “addressing the community’s social and religious needs.” United Kingdom: LGBT Activists Mull Impact of Brexit Vote British voters have called for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, which could undermine EU-backed legal protections for LGBT people in the UK and have an adverse effect on LGBT refugees and asylum seekers. Writes BuzzFeed’s Lester Feder: A united EU voice has helped activists turn back anti-LGBT initiati…

‘Barbaric’ v ‘Progressive’ Islam; Catholic Church Objects to Mexican Court OK For Gay Adoption; Malaysian Court Weighs Boundaries Of Civil and Shariah Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ernational Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Comission, in collaboration with a number of partners, released a study on homophobia and transphobia in Caribbean media, based on analysis from Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica and Saint Lucia. The report’s section on Belize refers to the role played by the Belize Association of Evangelical Churches and its vice president, Scott Stirm, who is a U.S. citizen. And from its section on Jamaica: In addition, pol…

Lynn Blasts White House Meetings with Bible Society President

By Sarah Posner

…ng of the country.” Lynn: I’dd like to save Dubois and Vest some time. The United States was not founded on the Bible. It was not founded on the Koran. It was not founded on the Bhagavad Gita. It was not founded on any holy book. If you read the Constitution and then the Bible you will see major differences. In the Bible there is no Bill of Rights, no representative democracy, no equal branches of government with “checks and balances” and no “We t…

More Pressure on Obama to Fix His Religious Freedom Legacy

By Sarah Posner

…ng, or to refuse to provide services, particularly if they object to those services, particularly reproductive health services. As I wrote in my April report: Citing the World Vision Memo, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which along with other Catholic entities, has tens of millions of dollars worth of federal contracts each year, is objecting to new proposed regulations under an Executive Order, amended by President Obama in July…

SCOTUS Tackles Government Prayer in Greece v. Galloway

By Becky Garrison

…ommittee for Religious Liberty which filed an amicus brief, along with the United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in support of the respondents. According to Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee, “While we do not say Marsh is wrongly decided (and neither did AU), we say that it does not apply to state and local governments, even if it is non-sectarian as AU argues it must be.” In other words, while AU ar…