Religion Dispatches
…ckle. His fiancée, an Episcopal vicar, made an “It Gets Better” video: But will it? If Referendum 74 passes, their state will become the first to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote. Washington United for Marriage has phone banks scheduled until November, with at least four more dedicated “people of faith” nights to make their case….
Read More
…g themselves as defenders of people being persecuted for their faith. “ADF International has a presence at every major international institution on the planet,” says Executive Director Paul Coleman. In the video, ADF International’s Director of UN Advocacy Elyssa Kor criticizes the United Nations for trying to force countries to champion “false rights, false obligations that really go against their national, their traditional cultures, their relig…
Read More
…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…
Read More
…ess them through numerous venues: television networks like the Trinity Broadcasting Network, GOD TV, and DayStar; numerous conferences across the country, and other multimedia sources. Just as people discover someone new through these sources, they frequently reject certain personalities for a number of reasons: their profit motive, their authoritarianism, unattainable demands to “get closer to God” through “radical prayer,” or what the consumer c…
Read More…the decision will be made. We are participating in a Catholic-to-Catholic phone bank that Washington United for Marriage has set up on Wednesday nights and we assist with the larger phone bank at the Jewish synagogue downtown. A great deal of our work is communicating with Catholics on our email list and Facebook. As a Catholic, how does your faith shape your views on marriage for LGBT people? My faith blossomed in the 1960s after Vatican II. I h…
Read More
…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…
Read More
…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…
Read More…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
Read More…ttee that studied the issue.” A translated copy of the recommendations the Washington Blade obtained from gay Nepalese Parliamentarian Sunil Babu Pant, who founded the Blue Diamond Society, the country’s only LGBT advocacy group, notes the “positive international trends” towards homosexuality and marriage rights for same-sex couples. “It is recommended to have equal marriage legal provision for same-sex couples with equal family protection to the…
Read More…man rights” such as the rights of LGBT people, reports Rachel Middleton in International Business Times. Human Rights Watch’s Asia deputy director Phil Robertson later told a news conference that he was shocked by Najib’s promise to uphold human rights only within the Islamic context saying that Kuala Lumpur should withdraw from the United Nations if the government was not serious about upholding human rights for all. Amnesty International Malaysi…
Read More