Religion Dispatches
…s reports linking the Family to the anti-gay legislation being proposed in Uganda. Regardless of how one interprets select Pauline verses and a few lines from Leviticus, how can anyone claim to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and yet turn a blind eye with others are murdered simply on the basis of their sexual identity? Along those lines, given these recent revelations coupled with the C Street scandals, how can any religious leader cont…
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…0,000 in America alone). Others sought to work in countries like Russia or Uganda that criminalize same-sex desire, wanting to work as missionaries among sexual minorities. Without gay Jesuit priests and brothers, who give their time and their talents despite the Church’s demonizing them, Jesuit high schools, universities, clinics and parishes would suffer. Consider more, the countless number of heterosexual couples that these gay Jesuits and othe…
Read More…finally spoke out against the anti-homosexuality bill still pending in the Ugandan legislature. Now, joining Warren on the “better-late-than-never” bandwagon is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph over the weekend, Williams spoke against the bill: “Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Commun…
Read More…nging as business began again. The presiding bishop, Michael Coyner of the Indiana Conference, shut down the meeting, calling the LGBT advocates a “security concern.” The morning’s vote and actions by the bishop were a disappointment to David Braden, the director of development for the Reconciling Ministries Network, which works for the full inclusion of LGBT people into the UMC: “We grieve that the United Methodist Church really had the opportuni…
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…cted. The approximately three million members in Kenya and nine million in Uganda do not begin to approach the 20 million in Nigeria, making Peter Akinola, Nigeria’s archbishop, one of the most influential men in the entire Anglican Communion and a fierce opponent of gays. Where Lambeth could once summarily dismiss the voices of bishops from Third World countries, as was clearly the case at the 1978 conference, it can no longer do so; their number…
Read More…with Scott Lively, the evangelist known for provoking an anti-gay panic in Uganda that led to the introduction of the Anti Homosexuality Bill there, and who claims a link between Nazism and homosexuality: In an online column, Fischer defended Lively’s preposterous and debunked “history” of a Nazi-gay link, claiming “the masculine homosexual movement in Germany created the Brown Shirts, and the Brown Shirts in turn created the Nazi Party.” In a col…
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…nd to friends. He said some videos would feature anti-poverty activists in Uganda and the West Indies complaining that needed aid from the U.S. is being held hostage to the Obama administration’s efforts to promote LGBT rights internationally. Also speaking was Aaron Manaigo, a political strategist Jackson has hired to run the campaign. Manaigo described himself as having gotten into politics as one of the “young gunslingers” for the late dirty tr…
Read More…gators of religiously-motivated violence and persecution of LGBT people in Uganda after he brought his “gay agenda” conference to Kampala in 2009. Glenn, an early Huckabee supporter when Huckabee was lambasting Washington insiders for not getting behind his candidacy, was a “volunteer” for a get out the vote drive during the 2008 primary, which focused on targeting churches. The following year, Huckabee provided a videotaped speech to Glenn’s grou…
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…s reports, by the way, that the U.S. lawmakers have rejected requests from Ugandan LGBT rights advocates to meet with them. Malawi: Challenge to Anti-Gay Law Reuters reported this week that the United Nation’s AIDS task force will join human rights groups in a legal challenge to Malawi’s laws criminalizing homosexuality. Felicia Kilembe, a spokesperson for the Malawi Law Society, said “Our argument is that as long as same-sex relationships are con…
Read More…Anglican leaders in England who spoke out against anti-gay legislation in Uganda and Nigeria. At the ACC, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recognized the differences within the communion and said: In the midst of such difference we face a choice, of being distracted by difference or being intentionally united in discipleship to Jesus Christ. To be united by Christ, as intentional disciples, is the only way we show to the world that God raise…
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