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Openly Gay Mormon Appointed to LDS Church Leadership Position

…n LDS congregation in San Francisco. Before receiving his call to serve in San Francisco, Mayne had been attending an LDS congregation in Oakland, where Mormons have been especially active in efforts to repair damage to interfaith and LDS-LGBT relations since the LDS Church’s heavy involvement in California’s 2008 Proposition 8 campaign. Mayne was also in a committed, monogamous relationship with his male partner. About a year ago, Mayne decided t…

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Burma Bans Time Magazine’s “Buddhist Terror” Issue

…ession. Many of us were heartened by this change and by the return of Aung San Suu Kyi to political life. Hundreds or thousands of political prisoners, 250 of them monks and nuns, remained in Burma’s jails. Along with many others I pressed the new government to release these men and women, who had contributions to make in the rebuilding of society. Several of us were also able to go to Burma and begin to set up training programs in basic skills of…

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When the Church’s LGBTIQ Loss is the World’s Gain

…t. She continued her ministry through the Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco and then developed the Spectrum Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns in the Bay Area that she directed for a decade. All of this was during the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In 1991, she accepted a call to co-pastor the Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, NY. Heterosexism reared its ugly head and she was eventually barred…

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Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

…ang Dipertua Agong is Malaysia’s monarch and responsible for defending the sanctity of Islam. He said the screening of such a movie would also be an insult to the Yang Dipertua Agong, who is the head of religion defending the sanctity of Islam in the country. ‘What is their intention, in promoting the movie and wanting to show it,’ Nordin told the Malaysian Insight. ‘It is as if there is an agenda to make homosexuality something acceptable. ‘We ur…

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Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

…h ultra-Orthodox men interfering in your travel, you can just take another airline. If only it were as easy for female employees affected by the numerous lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement to find a better job. *Correction: This post originally indicated that gender separation was due to concerns about women’s menstrual cycles. To read more about gender separation among Haredi Jews in Israel and in the U….

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What the Lost Finale is Really About

…soul) damned.” To be lost is not merely a geographic problem for marooned airline passengers, or for men unwilling to stop and ask for directions—it’s a spiritual and moral condition. These days a google search turns up over 500,000,000 hits (that’s half a billion); not too surprising for a basic and often-used term. Similar numerical results come from google searches on terms like “run” and “hide.” Meanwhile, “found” yields over 1.3 trillion hit…

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The Religious Implications of Nudity

…ance-enhancing drugs. The sense of freedom and fun (and free food, even if airline food) was exhilarating. The airport has now become a place of horror. Do they have full-body scanners? I wonder as I’m herded into a long, bovine line. Abattoir or boudoir? Why is this bothering me so much? Don’t Touch Me There Even cursory reflection reveals my embodiment issues are buried deep in my religious upbringing. I was a teenage fundamentalist. That remark…

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Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

…at help to explain why he can’t countenance the existence of god. “Up Your Santa Claus Lane,” which describes Jillette’s response to his mother’s death, cannot fail to move. The devotion to family throughout puts to shame those who populate our headlines with the divine injunctions misguided parents cite to punish their children too severely. Penn may be an atheist, but he would not sacrifice his family, even for “God.” Few will be surprised that…

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What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

…an ad in a local shop or community center. Last minute emergency? Call the airline right away to see about possibilities for accommodating your needs. Likewise, if one is ardently anti-abortion for moral reasons, rather than only focus on making it illegal, prevent it by limiting unwanted pregnancies: help ensure adequate, healthy sex education and contraception are available to those who need or want them. Work to make affordable, quality prenata…

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Religious Kids Are More Selfish: The Stickers Don’t Lie

…the sticker test to 1,170 kids at schools in six cities—Amman, Cape Town, Chicago, Guangzhou, Istanbul, and Toronto. “Altruism was calculated as the number of stickers shared out of 10,” they write. The researchers also gave the kids another test, in which they watched videos of people hurting other people, and then judged (a) how mean the bullies were, and (b) how much punishment the bullies deserved. Then Decety and his collaborators went to th…

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