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UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tside the church will bring their children to Sabbath school and a growing number of openly gay students will attend Adventist academies and colleges. Like the SCC’s black members in the 1960s, gay Adventists will be able to hold their faith community legally accountable for any discriminatory responses. And, as was the case with segregation, the church will find itself once again in a losing battle against social change unless it learns from its…

UPDATED: Oklahoma Personhood Bill Not Dead…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…faces an uncertain future. Others, though, are breathing a sigh of relief. Atlee Breland, of Parents Against Personhood (and past RD contributor) told me that her organization is “so pleased that the Oklahoma Legislature chose not to pass personhood legislation. The extraordinary number of amendments to this bill makes it clear that the medical issues involved with infertility treatment, contraception, and pregnancy care are far too complex, and t…

As New Poll Finds “Increased Xenophobic Streak,” Republicans Heighten Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

By Sarah Posner

…ted with a perceived decline in the influence of white men. “White working class Americans are less happy and less apt to say our best days are ahead of us,” he said. Relatedly, and not surprisingly, PRRI found that supporters of Donald Trump are more likely than even other Republicans to be focused on immigration as a critical issue, and to hold negative views of immigrants. Sixty-nine percent of Trump supporters told PRRI that immigration is a c…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…limited to procreation; that it was acceptable to limit family size for a number of reasons; and that it was licit to use the naturally occurring sterile period to do so. Enter Catholic physician John Rock. By designing a contraceptive that used hormones already present in a woman’s body to mimic the natural infertility of a pregnant woman, he hoped the Vatican would find a theological basis to approve the method. In 1958, when the Pill was alrea…

Now That ‘Serial’ is Over: 2014’s Best Podcasts about Religion

By Andrew Aghapour

…ical war between an Orthodox Jewish community and their Latino and African-American neighbors is a case study in religious pluralism (or the impossibility thereof). Our second category winner is the most popular podcast in history, the This American Life spin-off Serial, which just wrapped up its first season. Over twelve episodes Serial untangles the 1999 murder trial of Adnan Syed, a 17-year-old Baltimore Muslim who was accused of killing his ex…

Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church Are Exaggerated: A Response to Chris Hedges

By Mark Hulsether

…ot least by institutions like UTS) have probably repelled roughly an equal number of people as they have attracted—and meanwhile there has been a net loss of wealthy donors and elite allies. One might expect Hedges to approach this as a trade-off. Indeed it is a sort of tradeoff for him—“a heads you win, tails we lose” variant between selling out and abandoning ship. It is unclear how invested Hedges is in the survival of liberal institutions—but…

Prisoners In the Hands of an Angry God: A Conversation About Religion and Reform

By Andrew Aghapour and Stephanie Gaskill

…justice system. It’s not just that American prisons hold disproportionate numbers of African Americans. It’s that this racial composition created public support for, or at least indifference towards, “tough on crime” and “law and order” policies. Politicians have been able to pass harsh sentencing laws and build more prisons in part because deeply entrenched racial prejudices make the general public less likely to sympathize with the low-income A…

Pope and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Declare Shared View of Marriage & Family; Government & Muslim Officials Ramp Up Anti-LGBT Rhetoric in Indonesia; Australian Religious Leaders Ask Parliament to Act on Marriage Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hts of members of the LGBT community but was concerned with the increasing number of television programs promoting or starring members of the LGBT community, such as the popular transgender actor and comedian Dorce Gamalama. Erlinda said the commission was concerned that many young boys were starting to cross dress or adopt feminine characteristics because they had been “brainwashed” by these television programs. “The KPAI has stated clearly we re…

Gen Z’s Religious Affiliation Stats Are Confusing … But Only When Viewed From a Christian-Centric Perspective

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…ay they “believe in God without a doubt,” broken down by generation: Gen Z numbers drop off precipitously since the late nineties. The second showed the number who say they “believe in some higher power.” Here, Gen Z showed an equally precipitous rise, since around 2012. Thompson’s tweet betrays some exasperation with the apparently contradictory results: “Depending on how you ask the question,” he wrote, Gen Z was either “leading a stunning athei…

LGBT Christians Respond to Southern Baptists’ Call For Kindness, Understanding

By Mike Greer

…Moore and other conference leaders appeared to be caught off guard by the number of LGBT Christians and supportive Christian advocates, some Baptists, who not only attended the entire conference, but also respectfully and publicly responded to Moore’s call to kindness and understanding and offered to meet with conference leaders at the venue. Although there were evidently no face-to-face meetings with Moore, about a dozen LGBT Christians and LGBT…