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New Mormon Anti-Gay Policy Sparks Mass Exodus From Church; Christian AID Workers in Africa Refuse to Help Gay Refugees; Ukraine Rejects, Then Accepts EU-Required Gay Rights Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…eform commission set up by Francis for leaking confidential documents. The Washington Post profiles Krzysztof Charamsa, the priest fired from his high-level Vatican job after he came out on the eve of the family synod. Reporter Anthony Faiola notes that while Charamsa deliberately chose a particularly splashy and provocative way to come out, some LGBT Catholics fear his tactics could be harmful. Many gay activists are cheering Charamsa’s action, h…

The Politics of Anti-Gay Persecution: Gambia, Egypt, Jamaica, Russia, with a Helping Hand from US Religious Conservatives; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…f the global fight for equality.” Talks and panel discussions will the broadcast in the coming months. RD contributor Jay Michaelson profiled one of the participants, Cameroonian human rights attorney Alice N’kom. The International Olympic Committee unanimously voted to add language opposing discrimination on sexual orientation to the Olympic Charter. Vatican: Pope says Church should help parents ‘stand by’ their gay children Pope Francis gave an…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…omething-year-old Deadhead guys hit on my teenage friends by offering them tickets to shows. Deadheads were anathema to my chosen subculture of socially conscious punks. East Bay punks were aggro and in your face about social justice, feminism, human rights; Deadheads, in our eyes, were too stoned and obsessed with their god Jerry to care. Sometimes, I’d be out in Berkeley at night, coming out of a punk show in some basement or garage, and I’d hea…

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…applaud this news, a murmur through the convention hall, Blackberries and iPhones tweeting on all sides of me. “When you come out of the closet, shut the door behind you because you won’t need it anymore,” he continues. (Who’s he talking to? He’s preaching to the choir, isn’t he? As far as he knows?) “If you don’t have a deity,” he says, “you are an atheist.” I’m an English teacher and I agree this may indeed define an atheist—someone without a g…

Donald Trump Scares LGBT People Worldwide and More, in This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…defined.” The attack on UN’s advocacy for LGBT Human Rights continues on a number of fronts. On November 18, an effort by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation moved an amendment that would strip language regarding sexual orientation and gender identity from a resolution regarding “extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.” More from OutRight Action International: Today [November 18], the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assem…

U.S. Envoy Minimizes Mounting Evidence of Mass Graves in Sudan

By Frederick Clarkson

…ility to Protect” which is an outgrowth of world reflection on the lack of international response to the genocide in Rwanda during the 1990s. Now considered an established international “norm” (as distinct from a “law”), it’s based on the idea that all states are obliged to protect their citizens against atrocities; including genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. When a state is unable to protect its citizens or is r…

Wichita, the Sequel: A Clinic Reopens at Ground Zero in America’s Fight over Abortion

By Kathryn Joyce

…abortion clinics, particularly Dr. Tiller’s, and were arrested in massive numbers. One local activist told me that nearly 25 anti-abortion groups had been birthed during the Summer of Mercy, some of which are still active. The protests so shaped the city that, 22 years later, both sides recall the fight vividly. Faced with what was initially meant to be a week of protests, Wichita officials requested that the clinic close, and Dr. Tiller complied…

‘Rising Global Tide’ Of Anti-Gay Crackdowns; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s that had been made with “the support of the Obama administration and the international community.” Xorje Olivares writes at Vice about the first-ever Pride Parade in Eagle Pass, Texas, a town of about 25,000—96 percent Latino–that sits on the U.S.-Mexico border. Many residents, Olivares writes, “are die-hard Catholics who stick to deep Mexican American traditions rooted in machismo and strict gender roles.” But cheering supporters along Main Str…

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…grants from their homes. They are pulled to the U.S. because of demand for cheap labor. One of the major pushes came in the ’90s with the passage of NAFTA, which opened the door to many agri-businesses to move farms down to Mexico, putting small farmers out of business. And while the number of undocumented border crossers is down, Brother David says, it will be virtually impossible to eliminate them as long as the opportunities for jobs exist. As…

Anti-Gay Celebration in Uganda; Weddings in England; ‘Francis Effect’ at the Vatican

By Peter Montgomery

…ts at the United Nations and the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. In international bodies, the Holy See regularly teams up with groups like Family Watch International and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute as well as groups of Islamic and African nations to oppose any effort to apply human rights language or principles to same-sex relationships, or to extend the definition of “family.” The Holy See, Feder concludes, “seems to rem…