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

By Bill Berkowitz

…United States” in 2008. “Seven of those executed had been convicted in Dallas County.” The number of executions nationwide dropped to 37 in 2008, a 14-year low. According to USA Today, “The Death Penalty 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 pen…

How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…nts 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 around 3 million! Countries with large populations of Muslims have many more applicants than their allotted number of pilgrims. This means you…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…stian 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 marriages…

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

…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…

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…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…ny time during the day. Gun ownership is outlawed in eight states and “the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.” Home schooling has been “severely restricted” thanks to the lobbying efforts of the National Education Association. Anonymous points out that although President Obama “expressed strong personal disapproval” of many of the Supreme Court decisions that have brought about these chang…

It’s Not Raining Eligible Muslim Men

By Shabana Mir

…. Single women who remained single were not unknown, but were not large in number and remained an anomaly. Wealthy and middle-class or educated single women could hold their own. In the diaspora, professional single women, outside of a traditional Muslim context, will inevitably change the face of the community. Traditional, conservative Muslims may have much to fear from these changes, but they must be faced. Growing numbers of Muslim women are m…

A Matter of the Heart: Talking to Gay Christian Rocker Jennifer Knapp

By Kristin Rawls

…matter what your path, can be a really fruitful one. You’ve befriended a number of lesbian musicians since you came out, Mary Gauthier and Chely Wright, for example. I just met Mary in this last year. We did a show together in January, and I just loved her music. It wasn’t until I became friends with her that I realized that she was a lesbian. It definitely broadens the scope of conversation. The artists I’ve met have encouraged me not to fear…

The Jihadi Revolution is Dead (But Bin Laden’s Death Didn’t Kill It)

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…he jihadi image of violent social change. On the other hand, a significant number of failures of nonviolent resistence may lead to a violent backlash once again. Not all protests will end like Tunisia and Egypt. Others will be ruthlessly crushed, as was the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009. The current protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Libya face an uncertain end. Failure of nonviolent revolution has, in the past, been the occasion for renewe…