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Euthanasia Billboards, Post-Rapture Pet Care, Can You Tell a Burqa from a Hijab?

By Michael J. Altman

…cals think about it, at the time? NPR offers a view into religious life in China. So far, the series has profiled women imams, Protestants, and Catholics. Sufis from Pakistan brought ancient devotional music to modern New York City. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus stands at the crossroads of Christianity, Islam, and Roman paganism. In Italy, the Catholic Church is advocating for the rights of immigrants—Muslim immigrants at that. Do Rastafarians an…

Global LGBT Recap: Mandela and Equality; Elton John Defies Russian Ban; Fake-Healing of AIDS

By Peter Montgomery

…to create offspring is an important function of a family.” A report in the China Post said that a small group of Christians who support the law joined a counter-protest. “The Christians said that they wanted to let homosexual people know that there is more than one voice among Christian groups regarding the issue of alternative family formation.” In a sign of the global nature of the struggle, the Taiwan protest was cheered by American LifeSiteNew…

Pope Backs Anti-Gay Referendum; Islamic State Executions Include Gay Syrian; ‘Conscience Clause’ Debated in Northern Ireland; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Wellington, New Zealand Per the National Catholic Register: “The only Anglophone nominee is Archbishop John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand. In 2005, he advocated a new ‘pastoral approach’ for allowing divorced-and-civilly-remarried Catholics to receive Communion. During last year’s synod on the family, he also voiced his support for a change in language when ministering to persons with same-sex attraction.” Archbishop Alberto Suárez Inda of Moreli…

Mexican Marriage Marches Show Struggle Between Church and Secular State; Pro-LGBT Mormon Group Grows After ‘Apostate’ Declaration; Botswana Gives Anti-Gay US Pastor the Boot; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…march drew tens of thousands – or hundreds of thousands depending on whose numbers you believe – of anti-marriage-equality Catholics and evangelicals to Mexico City, the culmination of weeks of protest organized by the National Front for the Family. Days before, the Supreme Court ruled that adoption by same-sex couples should be considered, like other adoptions, according to the best interest of the child. In preparation for Saturday’s anti-marria…

Clashing human rights visions for LGBTs at United Nations; More Mixed Messages from the Vatican as Family Synod Begins; Timeline of Worsening Homophobia by Turkey’s AKP Party; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…or General Synod Two clergymen who defied church rules to marry their same-sex partners are running to sit on the General Synod, the Church of England’s main governing body, reports Pink News. China: Wedding proposal video goes viral Video of a Chinese man kneeling in a crowded subway car to propose marriage to another man has gone viral, reports CNN….

Intolerance in Indonesia Extends to Religious Minorities; Lutheran Church in Norway OK’s Same-Sex Marriage, But Not in Finland; Catholic Church Warns Australian CEOs to Back Off Marriage Equality Support; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…al form in the document,” he said. But he said the document does specify a number of halachic principles related to the need “to include homosexuals within faith communities and make them feel at ease in their community.” …He said the document was created in response to the fact “that homosexuals choose increasingly to remain within faith communities, which in the past they would leave because of their orientation. It used to be that you were eith…

In This Week’s LGBT Recap: Are Gay Priests Overdue for a Stonewall Moment?

By Peter Montgomery

…ipated in World Congress of Families summits. Also listed as signers are a number of religious leaders, including Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America; Catholic Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Ojo, Nigeria; Lawrence Khongy, pastor of Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore; and Josiah Trenham, an Orthodox priest who has spoken repeatedly at World Congress of Families gatherings. Vatican: Commentary on gay priest ban; tim…

To the One-Percenters, With Love

By Garret Keizer

…lose to fun. Lunatic fringe stuff, right? But consider this: if Communist China could turn into a capitalist powerhouse seemingly overnight, what is to prevent the United States from having its version of a Red Guard Cultural Revolution seemingly overnight? And don’t answer that the Chinese aren’t as sophisticated as we are. If that’s true, how come they’re holding the mortgage? God forbid that we ever experience such a nightmare as the C…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…