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Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…to many megachurches, including the world’s largest congregation of nearly 800,000. But their reputation has been tarnished by recent corruption scandals. “For them, the anti-gay campaign is another way to maintain their political influence in this time of crisis,” Kim said. Anglican Communion: Nigerian head of conservative group celebrates ‘traditional’ Anglicans in U.S. Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, primate of Nigeria and chairman of the conservati…

Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

By Michael Jerryson

…in books published The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger. The 800-page book includes over 50 pages of references and covers a vast history that spans 50 million years—a magnum opus from a highly acclaimed scholar of Hindu traditions. A few months after The Hindus was published in the United States, it was favorably reviewed in the New York Times. The award-winning Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra praised the work as “staggeringly compre…

Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

Yesterday’s release of previously confidential files on child sexual abuse perpetrators maintained by the Boy Scouts of America from 1959 to 1985 are raising new questions about the relationship between the LDS Church and the BSA. Since 1918, the Church has partnered with the BSA, hosting scout troops in most of its United States congregations. (The New York Times profiled the LDS-BSA relationship—including the experience of gay LDS Boy Scouts im…

Why Crux‘s Knights of Columbus “Partnership” is Problematic

By Kaya Oakes

…ke women’s ordination, marriage equality, and birth control. Religion News Service also covers the Catholic church, and is run by a secular nonprofit, as is this website. (Full disclosure: I have written for all of the above, as well as for America magazine.) Other models of Catholic church news sources, however, fall under Vatican jurisdiction. This sometimes skews their ability to have complete editorial control. America magazine is supported by…

Vatican Reverses Anti-Liberation Policies in Mexico

By Ruth Chojnacki and Jennifer Scheper Hughes

…t deacons are authorized to baptize and preside at marriages and communion services in the absence of priests in the 2500 local Maya communities in Chiapas. Unlike transitional deacons eventually ordained to celibate priesthood, permanent deacons in Chiapas are married and rely on the assistance of their wives in attending to pastoral needs, including catechism classes, marriage preparation, and visits to the sick. Bishop Ruiz elevated an extraord…

The Radical Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Left’s Challenge Today

By Peter Laarman

…ms to be more or less okay with dropping $6.4 trillion—and killing at least 800,000 people—in an ineffective and counterproductive “war on terror.” When will we understand that defunding the police and defunding the Pentagon reflect one and the same struggle?) Finally, given how the practice of radical nonviolence implies a willingness to sacrifice, how much are you personally willing to sacrifice for the achievement of the long-awaited radical re…

New Poll: Repeal DOMA

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…s, but the numbers [pdf] show that the sample actually skewed right. Of the 800 registered voters polled 38 percent were strong, weak, or independent-leaning Democrats with 41 percent identifying as strong, weak, or independent leaning Republicans. Conservatives outweighed liberals by 38 to 18 percent, and a full 74 percent of those polled identified as religious. Some 40 percent claimed the moniker of “born again,” and 33 percent said they attend…

The March for Life: Grassroots Movement or Agitprop?

By Patricia Miller

Every year at this time the March for Life descends on Washington, like anti-abortion swallows returning to Capistrano. And every year, organizers complain that the media ignores the march, evidence of liberal media bias against the pro-life movement. As Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center told Washington Times in 2009: Anyone climbing on a bus from somewhere else, thinking they’re going to wave into a network news camera, is goi…

As Florida Attempts to Make it Illegal, an Argument for the Sacred Work of White Discomfort

By Robert P. Jones

In Florida, a state senate committee wants to make it illegal to cause discomfort to white people. This bill, which reads like a scene from 1984, is a doozy. You can, and should, read the full text of it here. The bill purports to “protect individual freedoms and prevent discrimination in the workplace and in public schools.” But it then proceeds to define “individual freedoms” and “discrimination” in ways that are unrecognizable to the plain, hi…

Colorado’s Personhood Initiative Fails—For Now

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

Colorado’s fetal personhood ballot initiative petition failed to get enough valid signatures, and so the measure will not appear on the ballot, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced this morning. According to the Denver Post, some of the signatures were deemed invalid, so the petition was found to have only 85,800 valid signatures—305 signatures short of the required 86,105. Jennifer Mason, speaking for Personhood Colorado, said tha…