Search for "Westjet Airlines 800-299-7264 Flight Booking Reservations Number"

Pope and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Declare Shared View of Marriage & Family; Government & Muslim Officials Ramp Up Anti-LGBT Rhetoric in Indonesia; Australian Religious Leaders Ask Parliament to Act on Marriage Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hts of members of the LGBT community but was concerned with the increasing number of television programs promoting or starring members of the LGBT community, such as the popular transgender actor and comedian Dorce Gamalama. Erlinda said the commission was concerned that many young boys were starting to cross dress or adopt feminine characteristics because they had been “brainwashed” by these television programs. “The KPAI has stated clearly we re…

‘Imagine Better’: Can Harry Potter Change the World?

By B. Howell Belser

…to date was HPA for the Win in June 2010, during which HPA mobilized huge numbers of online voters from across fandoms and online communities to win a $250,000 grant from the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook. Then there’s the current “Deathly Hallows” campaign, which centers on the release date of a Harry Potter movie—in this case, The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 on Nov. 19. The Deathly Hallows campaign will run for nine months—the time bet…

Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…llowing such a line of reasoning might mean we are seeing an uptick in the number of American’s who will report a life-changing Christian experience while simultaneously being less likely to identify with any particular Christian institution. This raises questions about the complicated relationship between Americans and their willingness to affiliate with large institutions (religious and otherwise) in general. The rate of decline in affiliation f…

2017 Around the World: Progress and Persecution For LGBT People

By Peter Montgomery

…world” made “impressive gains,” noting advances in marriage equality in a number of nations. But the article also notes “horrific crackdowns on LGBT people” in Chechnya, Egypt, Uganda, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Tanzania.” At The Global Americans, Javier Corrales recaps the year’s top 10 LGBT stories from Latin America and the Caribbean. Xtra’s Rob Salerno wrote that under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada was a pr…

Obama Caves on (Another) Contraception Exemption

By Patricia Miller

…contraceptive mandate will be small. But imagine a scenario where a larger number of employers seeks to escape a costly mandate, such as equal access to in vitro fertilization procedures for straight and gay couples, for supposedly religious reasons and hundreds flood HHS with generic opt-out letters that don’t identify a specific insurer. Or a future administration that is less dedicated to contraceptive access. It’s not hard to see how the lack…

Dieting, Sex, Jesus: The Body as Moral Battleground

By Lynne Gerber

…had been engaged in fat activist community, conversation, and action for a number of years and I wanted to take the opportunity that academic work provides to really hone in on questions that always engaged me: how has fatness come to have such a potent moral charge in American culture? Why do weight loss practices such as dieting generate such strong moral and religious feelings—and why do people use languages of virtue and vice, sin and salvatio…

Morality and Marriage Vigilantes and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…he goal is to reduce emotional trauma for sexual minorities and reduce the number of suicides and rates of substance abuse in that community, he says. Scotland: Anti-LGBT prejudice falls sharply The Scotsman reports that prejudice toward LGBT people has fallen sharply: Analysis of the 2016 Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey by ScotCen, shared with The Scotsman, reveal the proportion of people who say that they would be unhappy if a close relat…

Two Women and a Mosque: A Convert Community Grows in Panama City

By Aliyya Swaby

…n its religious composition, but a 2009 international report estimated the number of Muslims at around 24,000, comprising less than one percent of the country’s population. Most are of Lebanese, Palestinian or Indian descent. Though small, Panama’s Muslim community has grown increasingly ethnically diverse. The first Muslims to come to Panama were African slaves brought over by Spaniards in the mid-sixteenth century to work in the mines. Throughou…

Hobby Lobby: Key to a More Liberal and Less Religious America?

By Rebecca Sager

…te hearts and minds, and moving people out of the pews across America. The number of nones (people with no religious preference) is on the rise, with over 20% of all Americans claiming this status, and many point to the increased politicization of religion as the cause. This trend of legal victories will, in the long run, very likely create a more secular America. Recent data indicate that this process is already clearly under way. A poll just rel…

YOU Are Spiritual But Not Religious: The Secret Spiritual History of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books

By Daniel Silliman

…at happens in this story!” The first book sold 8,000 copies, an impressive number for an independent press. The series was then bought up by Bantam Books and re-branded Choose Your Own Adventure in 1980. An initial marketing push gave 100,000 copies of The Cave of Time to librarians, who loved the concept and the effect it had of getting kids to actually sit down and read. Selling for $2.95 apiece, more than 50 titles were published over the next…