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Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…h prizes of up to $1,000 for the best videos explaining how to “prevent” homosexuality. More from AFP: Activists on Saturday said the move will further spread fear among Malaysia’s LGBT community, as conservative attitudes chip away at the Muslim-majority nation’s one-time reputation for moderation and tolerance. Contestants are invited to submit a video clip addressing various categories including gayness or “gender confusion”, and offering sugge…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…might sidestep the entire issue of the presidential election, and Romney’s Mormonism, by writing in “Jesus” or “the Bible” as a protest vote at the polls). “We just wanted to get the kids thinking,” they told me. When I wondered if purchasing tickets for the kids using Salvation Army funds could be a violation of the church’s tax-exempt status, Miranda argued that she didn’t see a problem. Since the Bible is applicable to every facet of private a…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…labyrinths, demons, angels, gods, goddesses, priests, corporate logos, and more—almost anything imaginable is cobbled together in an incredible display of bricolage. This decadent ritualism, which can be both sincere and satirical, casts the festival as a semi-religious cultural happening. Furthermore, many participants describe Burning Man as a “spiritual” experience, but deny that it constitutes a new religious movement as such. Organizers too…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…the UAE, with 2.1 million people. Recently I heard that some 13,000 people move to the city each month, which can be best described as clumps of skyscrapers along massive highways, some 6-8 lanes in each direction. But though it’s called the United Arab Emirates, the population is overwhelmingly South Asian, especially in Dubai—they form the service and labor class, but many South Asians are wealthy professionals and businesspersons. Dubai and the…

Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

By April L. Bogle

…sm, relies on Vipassana, a nonsectarian Buddhist meditation practice known more commonly as “insight meditation”: Vipassana was another turning point in my life. It gave me a better vision of myself and I was better afterwards. I am very conscious, very controlled with my anger. I think of myself as the Kiran before Vipassana and the Kiran after. The morning after our interview I joined Bedi and about 50 other people, mostly nonresident Indians wh…

A Resurgence of “Ex-Gay Therapy” Under Trump/Pence? ABC News Report Offers a Platform to Hate Group Rep. Peter Sprigg

By Sunnivie Brydum

…n change efforts,” is indeed “long-discredited.” But then they offer what amounts to an 800-word platform to the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg. The short piece serves as a teaser for Friday’s episode of 20/20, the result of a year-long investigation into several ex-gay “camps” located in the American South. The 20/20 segment features interviews with at least two young people sent to the camps—as well as self-described pastors and administ…

What the Lost Finale is Really About

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…the continent, a part of the main.” Simultaneously, the words of the great modern Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, in No Man is an Island, reverberate: “We learn to live by living together with others, and by living like them.” The island is not just a lost island, but a metaphor for human individuality, and ultimately of the bankruptcy of that mythology. There is no individual, says Donne and Merton, at least not one worth knowing. In other words, t…

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

By Kara Loewentheil

…e coverage requirement to find a better job. *Correction: This post originally indicated that gender separation was due to concerns about women’s menstrual cycles. To read more about gender separation among Haredi Jews in Israel and in the U.S. read the Forward’s excellent piece from 2011….

Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…es, e.g.), but he is keenly aware that too many people suffer. Theodicy in motion. In the end, most of Jillette’s Ten “Suggestions” are not too far from the mark of those in Exodus or Deuteronomy. For instance, instead of taking the fifth commandment as honoring your parents, his “fifth suggestion” adds a hedge thick enough to make a Pharisee proud: “Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than…

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…erson in an airplane aisle knows there will be some sort of contact as you move past; the space just isn’t big enough for most people to avoid that. If your goal is sincerely to avoid contact, it seems to me that remaining in your own seat, lowering your eyes and simply relinquishing your claim to the armrest would be a more effective means of not touching a woman. It seems hard to believe that “hundreds” of men wound up in the same situation and…