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Death Penalty, Debated (Dedicated to the Memory of Sarah Horowitz)

By Bill Berkowitz

…y Information Center, which opposes capital punishment and compiles annual statistics, reports that for the most part only Southern states resumed executions. Ohio, which carried out two, was the only state outside the South to impose the death penalty in 2008.” (See the DPIC’s “The Death Penalty in 2008: Year End Report” for more information). “2008 can only be characterized as yet another rollercoaster year for the death penalty in Texas,” said…

South Asian Religious Leaders Challenged to Take on Stigma and Discrimination: Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Christian ruler”, and the government, which it likens to Nazis and Communists. Last week British official released figures on the number of same-sex couples who got married between March 29 – the first day marriage was legally available in England and Wales, and June 30. Of the 1,409 marriages, 56 percent were to female couples. According to Gay Star News, about 120,000 people are in civil partnerships, which they will be able to convert to marri…

How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…ntry in the world. My friends were incredulous. They have to put in a request at least two years in advance because there are more applicants than their quota allows. Most Muslim countries have a quota; a limited number of hajjis permitted from that country in any one year. This number is set by hajj authorities in Saudi Arabia, because, in all fairness, there has to be a cap on how many Muslims converge on the place. Right now, it stands at aroun…

Conservative Bishops Unhappy At Synod, But Ignore Walkout Call; Australian Religious Leaders Step Up Marriage Equality Opposition; Italy Debates Civil Unions; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ong after, the former acquaintance called to threaten Subhi from a Turkish phone number. Power noted that Subhi spoke at a recent UN Security Council Session, the first-ever dedicated to LGBT rights, which she said was an important precedent to set: But also, it allowed us to convey, in a single voice, and with the authority of the Security Council – which is the premiere global enforcement body for peace and security – it allowed us to convey tha…

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

By Elizabeth Drescher

…sults. For example, according to the report, some 7% in the combined “Atheist/Agnostic” group “think of themselves as a religious person.” While it’s undoubtedly fair to count the likes of Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher as religiously anti-religious Atheist evangelists, I have to suspect that the 7% of religious among the “Atheist/Agnostic” group, along with the 34% of their cohort who see themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” might be on th…

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

By Michael Schulson

…rent estimates for the impact on religion on the American economy. The lowest estimate—$378 billion—adds up the revenues of religious educational institutions, charities, media organizations, and healthcare networks, and adds that to the multibillion dollar kosher and halal foods industry and to an estimate of the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congreg…

The Vatican v. Protestant Free Thinkers

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…the cross-fire, then this was only because they were perceived to be Protestant-style “free thinkers.” The Roman Church, by contrast, was insistent on the importance of thinking traditionally and orthodox-ly, not just freely. This is a very different picture of Rome in the 1500s and 1600s, the same era saw that witnessed the first slow-moving gestures toward the creation of the Library, and then the Museums, at the Vatican. So, the Church in the…

7 Women Scholars On the Gender Divide in Religious Studies, the Power of Mentors, and Leading While Female

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…lievers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World, written when scholars were just starting to analyze the rapid ascendency of Christian conservatives in politics. She has led the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the Religion Section of the American Sociological Association. Elaine Howard Ecklund examines contemporary American religion and its intersections with science—specifically, how s…

Catholic Voters No Longer Beholden to Bishops and Abortion

By Mary E. Hunt

…ion for voting. For example, Bishop Robert J. Herman of the Archdiocese of St. Louis told Catholics in his diocese that “…this coming election may very well be judgment day,” since “The decision I make in the voting booth will reflect my value system. If I value the good of the economy and my current lifestyle more than I do the right to life itself, then I am in trouble.” While some parishioners feared for their immortal souls, most, I suspect wo…

The Incredible Shrinking Catholic Church

By Paul Gorrell

…hurches are not “true” churches, judges priests on their identity (gay priests must leave) rather than their actions, stops dialogue on any topics that do not meet the Pope’s approval (such as the possibility of women priests), sheds gay people from its ranks and fights against their rights, ignores the diminishing number of priests and the effects of this shortage on Church communities, and calls on Catholics to form the “perfect society” resembl…