Religion Dispatches
…ivative. But Islam has been in Bosnia for as long as it’s been in much of India, where my family’s from. It’s possible that many South Asians have been Muslim for less time than many European Muslims. The same goes for Istanbul, which came under Ottoman rule after parts of the Balkans. When we travel, we find such assumptions challenged, and we find that the ways in which the world works right now did not necessarily hold true in the past—in ba…
Read More…r Personal Rights, over the past few years, police have been monitoring websites and social media used by the LGBT community in Egypt, including Grindr, a gay dating application, and have set up fake accounts to entrap individuals. India: Activists slam trans legislation; film board censors gay-themed movie for insulting Hinduism Activists said that a transgender rights bill proposed by social justice minister Thaawarchand Gehlot “diluted several…
Read More…bal nature of the struggle, the Taiwan protest was cheered by American LifeSiteNews and by anti-gay Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa. Faith Healing Pastors Exploiting People with HIV/AIDS in Africa Speaking of Ssempa, he tweeted on December 3 that “The AIDS Barons make more money selling ARVS, HIV testing Kits, and than [sic] what ever was made in sugar, cotton and slavery.” The next day, The Washington Post ran a Religion News Service story from Nair…
Read More…leader in the capital Baku died in an apparent suicide earlier this year. India: Cabinet Moves Against LGBT Adoption India’s cabinet has reportedly moved to block same-sex couples from adopting children, a move that could also bar single LGBT individuals from becoming adoptive parents. According to Live Mint, The cabinet took the decision on Wednesday while considering amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000…
Read More…s the country since 2011. For Catholic communities, the organisation has visited centres where regular discussions among youth regarding sexuality were already in place. With participants already in place, all that YIFOS needs to provide are materials. YIFOS also works with Islamic youth organisations on university campuses. Before the arrival of YIFOS, reflects Yulia, ‘it was quite difficult to talk about sexuality within faith groups; but also w…
Read More
…waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?” It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation…
Read More
…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…
Read More
…ed young men, one with a math book open on his lap, another intent on his iPhone. There are a lot of white people in this room; I scan for diversity and find a few people of color, but the audience is only consistently stratified by age. There are elderly atheists, but also lots of middle-aged and hipster young-twenties atheists. I see both aging hippies still wearing tie-dye and elegant white-haired people who would fit into any Episcopal congreg…
Read More
…e the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee, alongside representatives from a number of anti-trans organizations, including familiar faces like the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation. The “Changed Movement” began, according to its website, when Williams and Woning testified along with 30 others and delivered a book with stories of “ex-gays” to California Senators who were, at the time, considering a ban on conversion therapy. Subsequ…
Read More…ys Ministry’s Bob Shine points out that Gracias, in addition to heading up India’s bishops’ conference, “is also a member of the eight member Council of Cardinals formed to advise Pope Francis.” The archdiocese of Delhi stated that it was opposed to any law that would criminalize homosexuality while reaffirming the hierarchy’s position on marriage equality. In addition, writes Shine: … India’s Christians are a minority struggling for recognition…
Read More