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Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire

By Paul Courtright

…iar Bollywood genre. The musical score crackles with energy. There are any number of reasons why Slumdog has emerged as one of this year’s favorites among American audiences. Perhaps the Oscar nominations reflect India’s rise as a global economic power, as well as a cinematic one. And, while the story is set in India, there is something familiar to American audiences about the kid who finds his way to success and love through struggle in an indiff…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ve won passage of anti-discrimination policies and the extension of health-care benefits, but that a marriage equality bill has stalled in the Legislative Assembly, The Tico Times asked participants in the country’s recent price celebration, La Marcha de la Diversidad, how they see the country’s progress on LGBT rights. Among the responses: Carolina Durán, 25:Things are starting to get more inclusive. Even people who are very tied to their religio…

Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…ze and notoriety of America’s largest denominations, identifying with them carries more cultural baggage than lesser known institutions. It means more in our culture to identify as, say, Catholic, Southern Baptist, or Methodist than it does to affiliate with a more obscure religious institution. This fact might contribute to the reality that those who continue to choose to affiliate as Christian are less likely to identify with the groups that hav…

Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

By J. Lester Feder

…to you or your forefathers.” The ships were the clincher—why would Jews be carried back to slavery in ships if they were living in the desert? This could only refer to the ships that carried Africans to the New World. This didn’t wash with the administrations of Jewish schools, which denied Bethelite children admission. Nor was it accepted by dealers of Torahs and other ritual objects, who refused to sell to Bethel. They were even blackballed from…

An Extravagant Welcome For All: Believe Out Loud, a Faith-Based LGBT Campaign, Launches

By Peter Laarman

…ting for their clergy leaders to initiate a dialogue. According to Charlie Cardillo, principal and creative director at San Francisco-based Underground Ads (the firm that developed the campaign’s messaging), this missing or phantom conversation creates an ideal opening for a subtle intervention. “The advertising gently confronts people,” notes Cardillo, “challenging uncomfortable or ambivalent feelings toward the LGBT community with the most basic…

A Post-Christian America? Not Quite—Though Devoutly to be Wished

By Peter Laarman

…say about Jon Meacham’s Newsweek piece on the fairly sharp fall-off in the number of Americans self-identifying as Christian (in the newly-released ARIS survey), this bloghead initially demurred. I mean, the amiable and well-informed Meacham said what I would have said: on balance, it’s a good thing that the various and dangerous forms of grievance associated with “Christian nation” thinking should now recede. It’s a good thing that more have come…

After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…what’s going on, but too few seem capable of saying it. We now have a fair number of political and civic leaders who are willing to say the word trauma and talk about the all-pervasive violence in this culture, not to mention the extent of mental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roo…

Exclusive: Christian Right Bill Mill, Project Blitz, Hasn’t Gone Away, It’s Just Gotten More Secretive

By Frederick Clarkson

…Judeo-Christian heritage.” Category 3 limits access to reproductive health care and health care for LGBTQ people by allowing religious or conscience exemptions from the law. (These bills don’t directly deal with abortion access, ceding that area to Americans United for Life, which has served as the main bill mill for state antiabortion legislation.) “Opposition to the measures in this category,” the new playbook warns, “will often be well-organize…

Catholic Leaders Offer Criticism, Support to Boxer Pacquiao After Anti-Gay Comments…

By Peter Montgomery

…is is being performed after they successfully launched the propaganda in a number of other countries, hence accepted by religious leaders and groups in these countries. We oppose this sexual deviation being called marriage. In Islam marriage can be only exist between a man and a woman in accordance with the teaching of noble religions, under which the terms and conditions have been stipulated. New Zealand & Polynesia: Anglican Church Group Propose…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…tion on the bill, I was greeted by a few orange-wearing folk. They were outnumbered by anti-abortion activists, wearing blue, and I felt a little intimidated—so much that I texted a friend for moral support. Once I had registered, I walked back through the main hall to a table set up for those opposed to the bill. A woman stationed there greeted me, “What is up with the blue people?” she asked. “It’s like we’re contagious. Have you noticed how the…