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Why Did Vandals Try to Destroy a Holy Tree?

By Joseph Laycock

…ours massive quantities of the herbicide Velpar onto the Treaty Oak, a 500-year-old tree with a canopy that spread 127 feet. Like the Holy Thorn Tree, the Treaty Oak had historic and social significance. According to legend, the tree had long been a site for diplomacy among Native American tribes and it was here that city founder Stephen F. Austin signed a treaty establishing boundaries for Texas settlers. With tremendous effort and money, an outr…

A Church Group, a Lawsuit, and a Culture of Abuse

By T.F. Charlton

…church leaders told her her husband had been “tempted” to molest their 10-year-old daughter because Taylor hadn’t “met [her] husband’s needs physically.” Fairfax pastors instructed her to allow her husband to move back into the home and “make sure [she] had physical relations with him regularly,” and to lock their daughter’s bedroom at night. The abuse allegations include physical as well as sexual abuse. Larry Tomczak, the only defendant explici…

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

…killer sentenced The man convicted in April of killing a teenager at last year’s pride celebrations in Jerusalem has been sentenced to life in prison plus 31 years. The convicted murderer, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, had only weeks before the killing been released from prison after a ten-year sentence for stabbing three people during a pride march in 2005. Moldova: Human rights activists fight proposed propaganda law Human Rights Watch released…

Conservative Catholics Unhappy About New Book on LGBTs and The Church; and More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…le were whipped in Aceh for crimes ranging from gambling to drinking. Last year a 20-year-old woman was publicly caned for standing too close to her boyfriend. Accused of breaking Islamic sharia law, which forbids couples to become intimate, she was the 14th person to be flogged in her province. Panama: Marriage equality lawsuits provoke debate; First Lady will attend pride celebration A marriage equality lawsuit filed last month has “provoked hea…

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

…h’s threat of excommunication. That would have been unthinkable only a few years prior. Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, today hailed as a gay rights heroine for her fierce advocacy of marriage equality, all but welcomed the opposition to same-sex marriage by then Cardinal of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio (today Pope Francis). When Bergoglio branded the same-sex marriage bill “the Devil’s Project,” Kirchner delivered…

Its the Spiritual Economy, Stupid: Why the Gay Marriage Fracas Isn’t About Either

By Nick Street

…eally complete without Paul’s finger-wagging in Romans—the stitching that holds together the disparate parts of the Good Book will have subtly but irrevocably loosened, along with the Bible’s centuries-old grip on American public life. Of course, religious conservatives can’t frame their proposed amendment to California’s constitution as a referendum on taboos that were originally part of a set of religious practices that included stoning and anim…

What Did Pope Benedict Know and When Did He Know It?

By Patricia Miller

…, especially those on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. That same year, Ratzinger stripped Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of much of his authority after he allowed gay Catholics to celebrate mass at St. James Cathedral and allowed Catholic hospitals in his diocese to perform contraceptive sterilizations. Shortly thereafter, Ratzinger declared homosexuality an “intrinsic moral evil.” At the same time, as Alexander Stille noted in Th…

Christmas Candy Jesus, Black Magi, Jewish Xmas

By Michael J. Altman

…no electricity. I’m dreaming of a simple Christmas. ‘Simple Gifts’ is this year’s holiday theme at the White House. A new survey from a Christian research group finds that only 37% of Americans include Jesus in their Christmas festivities. One small group of Christians think this enough to warrant executing Santa. Jolly ole St. Nicholas’ home town was in Turkey and the town of Demre is cashing in on their favorite son. The story of the nativity th…

Inventing Jesus: An Interview with Bart Ehrman

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…hat’s one kind of source. I look at the Apostle Paul. His writings were 20 years after Jesus’ life, but Paul himself converted to be a follower of Jesus within a year or two at the latest of Jesus’ death—which means that people were telling enough stories about Jesus for Paul to convert a year or two later. All of that shows that the mythicists who claim that Jesus was made up 30 years later in Egypt, or some other claim—that simply can’t be righ…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…hip hop are the devil’s music with no redeeming features. But the growing number of artists and outlets for Christian rap (like the Web site Holy Culture) are challenging many stereotypes and perceptions about how entertainment and evangelization mix to bring a distinctly Christian message to young folks today. And in the recent efforts by conservative Christians to shape the content of educational textbooks in Texas, country and western music ha…