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Is Eddie Long Preparing For a Confession?

By Anthea Butler

…e, Agnes Rathlagame, had been flown into Atlanta from Johannesburg for the service. It was not clear if this was planned or not, but it certainly seemed to enhance the stature of Bishop Long’s and New Birth’s generosity. To round out the early card, Bernice King announced the offering, adept at inviting the visitors to contribute so they could “prosper” as well. All of that, however, was the preliminary to the Main Event: Bishop Long and New Birth…

Challenge to ‘un-Africanness’ of homosexuality; LGBT Catholics in Africa face church cooperation with persecution; lesbian cartoon project debuts in bangladesh under shadow of violence; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…om now Russian homosexuals can prove to the Immigration and Naturalization Service with “low indications” that they fear persecution in their own country. Before they had to prove that they as individual would be in danger should they return to Russia. Previously the Immigration and Naturalization Service regularly rejected asylum applications from Russian LGBT’s on the basis that larger cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were still safe. The F…

Talking With the “Religious Terrorist” that Turkey Wants Trump to Extradite

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…followers to establish hundreds of schools, newspapers, hospitals, social service projects, interfaith councils, and professional associations. My sense is that most of these projects are decentralized, created by the ingenuity of those inspired by Gulen’s teachings, and not orchestrated by a central command. As already noted, Gulen’s quarters don’t give the appearance of the control center for a vast international organization. What we did see w…

Religion at the Moral March

By Peter Montgomery

…pel at Shaw University, near the staging area for the march, for a Shabbat service sponsored by Temple Beth Or. The service, led by Rabbis Lucy Dinner and Ari Margolis, included a special blessing for people who had participated in civil disobedience during last year’s Moral Mondays protests. It also included references to scriptural exhortations not to oppress the stranger, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Dinner’s message was a call for t…

Supreme Court Conservatives Allow Execution of Muslim Prisoner Despite Religious Freedom Violation

By Andrew L. Seidel

…istian soldiers only. It ignores the service of Jews, Hindus, Muslims, humanists, agnostics, and atheists. About one-quarter of our military are not religious at all, let alone Christian. If the Court decides in favor of the cross, the message will be the same to every non-Christian veteran and service member: Your sacrifice, your service, means nothing because you are not a Christian. The conservative bloc on this Supreme Court is dividing our na…

A More Perfect Union

By Rev. Irene Monroe

…he Storm: Swept to the Center by God: But why not just make it a “private” service—a solution offered by some in the Anglican Communion? But “private blessing” is an oxymoron. Although our service will be by invitation only, and out of sight of the press, our understanding of marriage is that the couple make their vows public, in the presence of the gathered community, seeking the community’s prayers and assistance in being faithful to those vows….

Christians Support Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…eligion. Ironically, by 438 A.D., non-Christians were barred from military service, ending the tradition of Christian pacifism. Now, the military has become a hotbed of fundamentalist Christian activity with the religious right evangelizing the troops. For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regi…

Occupy Judaism: A “Turning Point” in American Judaism

By Sarah Posner

…bankers who put us in this economic situation.” The focus of the Kol Nidre service Sieradski organized was on our collective role in the financial system, and “focused on our responsibilities as Jews,” he said. He admires Jewish social justice organizations of which he’s “very, very, very supportive, I’m here because I want to bring more people to be connected to the Jewish community and to organziations in the Jewish community. But I want hold th…

Obama Calls for Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in SOTU

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…start, gays and lesbians are expected to break every code of honor in the service just to get the chance to do what they feel called to do. That’s unfair, as well as immoral. If gay and lesbian people are willing to give their lives in service to this country, they must be able to honest and open about who they are. Anything less is cheapens their lives and their courage. It’s a promise the gay and lesbian community has heard from Obama already….

Jeb Bush Is Confused About Religious Freedom

By Sarah Posner

…ue we’re talking about here is, should someone who provides a professional service be punished by the law because they refuse to provide that professional service to a ceremony that they believe is in violation to their faith. I think people have a right to live out their religious faith in their own lives. They can’t impose it on you and your life, but they have a right to live it out in their own lives. And when you’re asking someone who provide…