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Trayvon Martin and American Exceptionalism

By Anthea Butler

…even have the courtesy to check Trayvon’s phone for his mom and dad’s telephone numbers because it’s just a black criminal’s body to them. While Zimmerman the trigger man slept in his bed, the police ordered a drug and alcohol test for Trayvon’s lifeless body. A black body that was representative of evil against the whiteness of George Zimmerman. I hesitated to write about this story, because there are many good stories about Trayvon and his pare…

Yes, It’s Worse To Be Gay in Russia

By Chrissy Stroop

…resulting from false equivalence can be just as damaging in international comparisons as in domestic politics. The American LGBT community and its allies can continue to fight for improved conditions in the US while recognizing that the current conditions in Russia are substantially worse than those in the US. Meanwhile, careless statements to the effect that things in Russia are comparatively not so bad can only serve to damage the prospects for…

Swiss Priest Sacked for Blessing Lesbian Couple; Mormon Equality Advocate Excommunicated; Pope-Backed Anti-Gay Referendum Fails; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…passports if the country confirms a couple’s parenthood. Nepal: Government committee recommends marriage equality The Washington Blade reports, “Nepal could become the first Asian country to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples if its government accepts the recommendations of a committee that studied the issue.” A translated copy of the recommendations the Washington Blade obtained from gay Nepalese Parliamentarian Sunil Babu Pant, who found…

Religious Exceptions Not So Exceptional According to New Study

By Patricia Miller

…country.” While most Catholic health care institutions have accepted the accommodation, a number of the nation’s 260 Catholic institutions of higher learning as well as Catholic nonprofits are seeking a broader exemption that would in effect bar their insurers from providing contraceptive coverage as specified under the accommodation designed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a consolidated case…

Vatican Reverses Anti-Liberation Policies in Mexico

By Ruth Chojnacki and Jennifer Scheper Hughes

…ate, an ancient institution revived by Vatican II. In 2000, 341 of Mexico’s 800 deacons served the Diocese of San Cristobal, the largest number of deacons in any Catholic diocese in the world. Vatican suspicion of Bishop Ruiz’s liberationist pastoral strategy resulted in a failed attempt to remove him in 1993. The deacon program came under particular scrutiny after the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, with reports that Maya catechists defied th…

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

…DS divided churches: congregations angrily debated whether or not to use a common communion cup and if heterosexual marriage was biblically based. As the decade progressed, coverage shifted from medical reports on the epidemic’s spread to feature stories on its human toll. Inasmuch as people with AIDS asked, Why me? and the unaffected wondered, What should I do?, religion suffused many stories. Reporters increasingly explored how religious folks m…

Clergy May Soon Find Taxes Soaring As Result of an Under-the-Radar Ruling

By Patrick Hornbeck

…The first subsection, 107(1), allows a minister to exclude from taxable income the value of a living space that’s considered “part of his compensation,” while the second, 107(2), permits the exclusion of “the rental allowance paid to him” for a living space. This second subsection, wherein the employer provides the money rather than the space itself, is the one that Crabb found unconstitutional. For decades, both Catholic and Protestant clergy in…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment, and freedom from unfair competition and monopoly power. Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s untimely death, the military industrial complex that emerged from the war, and the failure of organized liberals to place job creation at the top of the agenda doomed this proposal to failure. The Rise of Timid Religion By the end of the war, those who’d been inspired by the Social Gospel—those who’d seen poverty an…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…or Europe.” He said the event gave “a wonderful sense of what the Anglican Communion can become, a truly global partnership in the gospel which is able to ‘lift up its voice’ without confusion and compromise.” Chicago was therefore a foretaste of what we can expect in Jerusalem as we gather in June 2018 on the tenth anniversary of the founding of this great movement and the publication of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. Our theme is ‘Proc…

Kirk Cameron Joins the Anti-Mormon Chorus
(Sort Of)

By Julie Ingersoll

…eries Growing Pains and more recently nicknamed Banana-man (along with Ray Comfort) for the anti-evolution DVDs that became the source of tremendous internet humor, said he hadn’t actually been invited to be part of Divine Destiny. But he declined anyway: I had heard that there were plans to put me on the list of speakers. I bought tickets… then there was a mix up… and I was cut from the list, if I had indeed been on a list… but I had some Christi…