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Catholic Bishops End Family Synod With Little To Say To Gays; World Congress of Families Has Plenty To Say, None of it Good; How Same-Sex Marriage Came to a Buddhist Temple in Japan; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ps, where a number of them are exposed to serious harassment. There are no official figures. But the Lesbian and Gay Federation of Berlin and Brandenburg, for instance, says it is receiving three to six cases a week in which gay asylum seekers have been victims of physical abuse, including sexual assault. Earlier this month, a 21-year-old gay Arab asylum seeker in Berlin was hospitalized after he was insulted and assaulted at the refugee center wh…

New Poll: ‘Faithful Catholics’ an Endangered Species

By Linda Woodhead

…arriage—something which is not even on the distant horizon of the Church’s official agenda—British Catholics as a whole are now in favour of allowing it by a margin of 3%. In addition, only a third approve of the Church’s policies on women, and only 19% of British Catholics support a ban on abortion. Even more worrying for Church leaders is the fact that the gap between Catholic opinion and official teaching widens with every generation. My survey…

Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…s Sacramento isn’t keeping up with postings to the Vatican News Service website, articles in L’Osservatore Romano, and other bulletins emerging from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faithful, which support the current pope’s efforts to control apparitions. Or maybe they actually have been watching the signs. Another official at the diocese suggested that his bishop takes the same information-gathering approach to apparitions as suggested by…

The Surprising Origins of (and Problem with) the Vatican’s View of Sex and Gender

By Ivan Strenski

…o respect Judith Butler’s arguments that gender is performative.) But, for official Vatican theologians, arguments about priestly ordination turn decisively on whether someone is “sexed” biologically as male, in the everyday sense of the term. No matter that women may possess a surfeit of the qualities of a nurturing leadership and a moral strength requisite for the priesthood. They can never qualify. What’s wrong with this picture? Never mind, fo…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…rtable talking to my male superiors than to me. I’m talking about members, officials and even ex-officials who remain in that Scientology mindset. I don’t know whether or not that’s a sexist thing. I never really saw it that way, but they were definitely much more interested in talking to my male superiors. They’d call Rolling Stone directly when I was writing the magazine article and rather than speak to me, they’d communicate with my editors, al…

Catholic Church Bans Gay Film: This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s related to the rise in anti-LGBT rhetoric. “This time around, government officials have even stoked the cacophony of hatred.” Some officials – including Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan – have defended the LGBT community. “Whoever they are, wherever they work, he or she continues to be an Indonesian citizen. They have the right to be protected as well,” Pandjaitan was quoted as saying in The…

Shifting Talk on Mormon Racism Reveals Divisions within LDS Church

By Joanna Brooks

…efforts to have the talk edited before its publication in the Ensign, the official LDS Church magazine, in its semi-annual Conference edition. Some hoped that just as Elder Boyd K. Packer’s controversial October 2010 General Conference on homosexuality had been edited for publication, so too might Elder Dickson’s talk be edited to correlate with official scripture. But the talk will appear in print, unchanged. One month. Two high-placed LDS sourc…

Ignore the Rod: the Parental Rights Amendment Isn’t About Spanking

By Kathryn Joyce

…sociation—HSLDA—and a lead author of the bill), have created their own Web site, parentalrights.org, where they list their largely conservative Christian allies: the American Family Association, the American Family Rights Association (an anti-Child Protective Services outfit), the anti-abortion Children of God for Life, the anti-contraception Christian Medical and Dental Association, Concerned Women of America, Eagle Forum, Focus on the Family Act…

“Future of Babylon” Project Preserves History to Some, Ushers in “End Times” to Others

By Bill Berkowitz

…only benefit outsiders.” “If you have 200,000 people a year coming to this site, you will have people staying at hotels, visiting restaurants, buying souvenirs,” Allen said. “The site is in some ways a revenue generator for the local community.” Joel Rosenberg, the best-selling author of several apocalyptic novels about the Middle East, sees the path to the “End Times” going through the rebirth of Babylon. In a recent blog post Rosenberg wrote tha…

Jesus, Please Take Away These Feelings

By Nick Street

…s always been gratifying to get emails from my book readers through my Web site. Now it’s been awesome to hear that my work is touching even more lives through a new medium. It’s inspiring. “This outrageous play that harms the souls of children and others should be canceled immediately,” wrote one the scores of protesters who posted to the site and flooded the archbishop’s office with phone calls. “If there is any doubt about Archbishop Niederauer…