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Turkish Police Move Against Activists Who Defied Pride Ban; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…cted to the worst forms of spiritual abuse by groups of individuals at the time that they require unconditional support and affirmation. This has the added complication that their once safe place of refuge, their church, becomes a place of turmoil and pain, where those they have trusted are the source of their abuse. “The most damaging practice is often the misuse of scripture during times of prayer ministry, where passages are quoted that can mak…

Mexico moves toward national marriage equality; Greek govt announces civil partnership legislation; Pope warns against ‘secularism and relativism’; Global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…and the percentage will likely drop later on, the paper notes. Still, the numbers are significant, said Stonewall Scotland director Colin Macfarlane. “The fact that nearly 500 same-sex couples have married since January shows just how important equal marriage is to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people,” he told the Daily Record. “There can be no denying that the policy of equal marriage has been a huge success.” It will take at least two year…

The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon

By Nathan Schneider

…mmunity that I can lead them to more familiarity with a very great text. A number of times you bring up Thomas Jefferson’s abridgement of the Gospels. He seems to be someone who, in some ways, you’re identifying with but also making very different choices from. I don’t have the luxury of just snipping out the parts of the Bible I don’t like. Whereas I greatly admire Jefferson and the Enlightenment figures for their courage in blasting through so m…

A Secret History of Satan

By W. Scott Poole

…I think that I probably would have also, in a longer book, spent even more time on folklore, especially urban legend. I did manage to include a discussion of the Jersey Devil that connects those stories to misogynistic assumptions about women and their bodies. Readers will also find a discussion of the Proctor and Gamble legend that still gets recycled, the bizarre rumor that an unnamed P&G executive appeared on a talk show (at one time the claim…

Black Churches are Burning: Is It the 1990s All Over Again?

By Katie Day

…uld happen. This ripple-that-might-be-a-wave of church burnings comes at a time when nerves once again are raw: this time, the outrageous murder of innocent church folk in the familiar activity of gathering for a bible study. Once again, this racist act shocked and offended all Americans, of whatever political, religious or ethnic stripe. Presidential leadership has again helped frame the public’s response: in his eloquent eulogy for the Rev. Clem…

The Religious Case Against Religious Discrimination in Cakeshop Case

By Patrick Hornbeck

…like Phillips’s. But, as survey after survey has demonstrated, substantial numbers of Catholics, and to a lesser extent evangelicals as well, are not following their denominations’ leaders down this particular road, and there is a growing number of religious institutions that have embraced marriage equality and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in the public square. Cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop make it clear that the boundaries of a national settleme…

Dispatches From the Rhodian Shore: A (Tough) Love Letter to Religious Studies

By Todd LeVasseur

…cology approach to religious studies, they’re still outliers, massively outnumbered by the majority of programs that do not teach such courses (or possibly offer a token elective course on religion and nature/ecology) or train scholars to teach and research such content. The above data points, all published in the last two months, strongly suggest that Glacken’s analysis was spot on: we are geographic, and thus geologic, agents to the point of now…

Along Came a Spider: What the Pope Doesn’t See

By Anthea Butler

…y, as many of the dioceses in the United States become uninsurable and the number of Catholic churches dwindles. As membership shrinks, the number of ordinations decreases, and the coffers dry up, perhaps the Vatican and its leadership will be forced to look at its decrepit, hierarchical structure, and fix it. I doubt it, however. Like the spider who crawled across Pope Benedict’s robes this weekend in Prague, everyone except the Pope can see the…

Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

By Ali Olomi

…ive daily prayers. In other words, al-Isfahani, who recorded the life of a number of mukhannathun like Tuways, saw no contradiction between his gender expression and his Muslimness. From al-Isfahani we read of al-Dalal, ibn Surayj, and al-Gharid—all mukhannathun—who lived rich lives in early Muslim societies. Notably absent from al-Isfahani’s records is any state-sanctioned persecution. Instead, the mukhannathun are an accepted part of society. In…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…rth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dresses from time to time in private; someone who identifies as gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female); someone who is just taking hormones but not undergoing any surgical modifications; or someone who is undergoing or will undergo full sex reassignment surgery, including genital modification. Such differences vary according to socioeconomic status, age, and cultural context, b…