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Religious Traditionalists Resist Marriage Equality, Artist Questions What Is “Un-African” & More in This Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…will not be able to come back; I will not be able to support my siblings.” China: Some parents unhappy with new inclusive sex ed curriculum Pink News reports on a new and “surprisingly inclusive” sex education curriculum that addresses issues from sexual intercourse to LGBT identity in a matter-of fact way: “A minority of people experience attraction to members of the same sex,” reads one section. But the textbook does not only define sexual orien…

Burma’s Spirit Festival, and More in This Week’s Global LGBT Roundup

By Peter Montgomery

…the Beyond the Rainbow Foundation. Japan: Political leaders step out The China Post reports on efforts by Kunhiro Maeda, “one of Japan’s few openly gay politicians,” along with several colleagues, to bring change to the country. Japan, reports the paper, “is the only G7 nation that does not allow same-sex marriage or civil unions.” China: Court rules against anti-trans discrimination LMT Online reports a “small but significant” victory for LGBT…

Catholic Church Campaigns Against Gay US Ambassador; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Activist Profiled Alturi profiles Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, a Sri Lankan native who left the country as a teen and returned years later. She cofounded EQUAL GROUND, which has advocated for LGBTI Sri Lankans for a dozen years. China: Lack of Marriage Equality Sends Lesbian Couples to Overseas Sperm Banks Global Times reports that Chinese lesbian couples are using overseas sperm banks because they do not have legal access to IVF services in China….

Useless and Useful: A True Sage Reviews The Tao of Happiness

By Alan Levinovitz

…is about one animal metamorphosing into another animal. Lin titles it “The Flight of the Peng Bird.” This is his version: In the Northern Sea, there is a giant fish. Its name is Kun. Its size is incredibly large. No one knows how many thousands of miles its length measures. The Kun fish is able to transform into a bird, known as Peng. The Peng bird is also incredibly large. No one knows how many thousands of miles its wingspan measures. Peng chang…

From Organized Religion to Organizing Religion: Brian D. McLaren Wants Christians to Be Better

By Peter Laarman

…of the biggest challenges we face. In fact, I’m writing these words in an airport after spending two days with people who are trying to provide some of the needed structure. Competing for funding … working in competitive and fragmented silos … or shockingly apathetic and complacent … that pretty much defines the status quo. That’s why I and so many others are working to build a new reality, a new possibility. It’s not easy; otherwise, it would ha…

Refusing the Monsters on Maple Street: A First-Person Commentary from the Mass Hysteria at JFK

By Marion Grau

…John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, as I waited to board a flight back home to Oslo. I was there on Aug. 14, 2016, when, after years of the “War on Terror,” one of North America’s most important international airports seized up as panicked reports of “multiple active shooters”—later discredited as false—swept through the terminals, sending passengers, law-enforcement, and airline workers scrambling for cover and eventually onto the…

As Long As There’s Fear, We Aren’t Ready for Atheism: A Conversation with Theologian and Ex-Priest Daniel Maguire

By Alana Massey

…call the tendency to personify God, to make God one of us, “an act of despair.” That recognition of human grief and the epilogue on the God-loss read to me as very pastoral. A theologian who read this book—very theistic—once she read the manuscript, she said, “You have to say something to us who hate giving up God.” And she said, “I love waking up in the morning and seeing the sun shine and the sky blue and the birds in flight and saying, ‘Thank…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…ccurred to me it would be a very easy to make hajj from there. I bought an airline ticket and was in contact with the family of one of my graduate school friends. They would pick me up from the airport and host me during my stay and the days of ritual. Nice plan. So I went to the embassy to get the visa and was denied because (as an American) I needed proof that I was Muslim. How do I prove I have been a practicing Muslim for a decade? I went to t…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…nt and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, an organization I have worked with a number of times (I recently accepted an invitation to join their Speakers’ Bureau) and whose “Living Without Religion” campaign I greatly admire. In his blog, Lindsay wrote that “it’s nice that some politicians are finally willing to acknowledge our existence, but are we so desperate for acceptance that we’ll allow others to condescendingly misdescribe us as adherents of a…

“You’ve Never Met a Muslim”

By Hussein Rashid

…partment still dusted in the white powder of collapsed buildings, when our air was so acrid it made our eyes water, I didn’t feel like I was different from anyone else. I was a New Yorker, a Tribecan; being a Muslim was like having brown hair or green eyes. The little storefront mosque I attended was sandwiched between two bars and we still went on having our prayers every Friday and the Sufi zhikrs, worship, in the evenings. The growing anger hit…