…exas’s H.B. 45 (codified at § 22.0041 and § 22.022 of the Texas Government Code), states that “litigants in actions under the Family Code involving a marriage relationship… are protected against violations of constitutional rights and public policy in the application of foreign law.” The bill doesn’t explicitly reference sharia or Islamic law (likely because a similar bill in Oklahoma that did specifically mention sharia was struck down as discrim…
…was imported to colonized Asia and Africa, as the British drafted a penal code in the mid-1800s which outlawed same-sex acts. Internalizing the homophobia which underpinned this legislation, colonized Muslims eventually came to regard same-sex love and relations as immoral. “Although EHT might explain the infiltration of law and official politics in colonized Muslim societies, it doesn’t explain precisely how colonial homophobia transformed the e…
…l codes. Tunisia’s anti-sodomy laws are derived from the 1913 French Penal Code, while section 347 of the penal code in Christian Cameroon is a French colonial law. Similarly, the Ottoman adoption of French codes would ban the köçek. Across the Muslim world, many of the laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ people are direct relics of colonial law. It would take generations to gradually align the region with European colonial sexual values through a shift in…
…dismay turned to laughter when I saw immediately below Winters’ screed the code of conduct for comments on National Catholic Reporter. His post is a primer on violating NCR’s own rules for respectful conversation. Maybe someone at NCR can give him a much-needed tutorial. NCR Comment code: Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Use appropriate language. Avoid vulgarities and slurs. Keep to the point. Deliberat…
…ve also argued that Taiwanese society has its roots in Confucianism, which promotes a strong adherence to traditional family values, and of course, producing offspring. They argue that the fundamental concept of marriage should be between a man and a woman, otherwise it would be “very confusing for children.” The South China Post said the court ruling in Taiwan “has reverberated across Asia, but the fight for equality is not over yet in a region w…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…But the center is an assertion, not a fact; an etiquette, not a place. Its code, its theology, is most fully embodied in Americanized Arminianism—a Protestant tradition of good works and propriety, “distinguished liberals” and polite realpolitik. “Arminian moralism,” notes historian Charles Sellers in his study of Finney’s age, The Market Revolution, “sanctioned competitive individualism and the market’s rewards of wealth and status.” It did not e…
…the nation’s leaders are pulling back support for international efforts to promote the human rights of LGBTI people: “We currently have leadership that fails to represent the ethos of what the constitution says and the equality principles they have to uphold,” said Mmapeseka Steve Letsike, a lesbian activist who chairs the South African National AIDS Council’s Civil Society Forum. “We have leadership going out of this country putting their persona…
…s basic. That part of the myth abides, and, while not pretty, is a kind of code of right masculinity. The note draws on a shorthand “WE SEE” regarding how Ennis is “exemplary.” You, we, can judge a man by how he treats “his animals” and, in this case, the animals he’s paid to keep alive. Ennis’s father had forced Ennis at age 9 to look at the body of a man dismembered alive, and he made sure Ennis knew why. Ennis and Jack each marry women not only…
…d went on to claim that not running the country on a Judeo-Christian moral code is actually contrary to democracy. “So really, when you really get right down to it, James,” he said, “democracy doesn’t really work at all unless there is a citizenry animated by a moral code that derives from their faith in God. That’s what makes the whole thing work because otherwise, the government has to tell everybody what to do.” After offering his view on taxes…
…to, consensual homosexual activity. He threatened to have Fry arrested for promoting homosexuality. Business Week reported last week, “Uganda’s shilling fell the most since March 2012 against the dollar after donors started cutting aid after President Yoweri Museveni signed a law that imposes life sentences on some homosexual acts.” Cameroon: Church Contributes to Brutal Climate for LGBT People Andy Kopsa reports in The Nation that Cameroon has es…
