Religion Dispatches
…Billy Graham-founded “magazine of evangelical conviction,” is the focus on international Christianity. Number five on the CT list: Christians flee Iraq and Gaza: About 13,000 Christians—or one in two—left Mosul in October. In Gaza, churches where hundreds worshiped until recently are attended by less than a dozen. Historic Christian communities are becoming history. 4.) TOP TEN ONION RELIGION STORIES: “Jewish Elders Lift Ham Ban.” For instance. 5….
Read More…ctors—will undoubtedly argue that this resolution is part of some imagined international “gay agenda” to create new, special rights for LGBTI people. But the ACHPR has simply affirmed that the application of existing human rights standards should also apply to those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex. The work of ensuring the protection of human rights for all people is not a zero-sum game—addressing human-rights violations…
Read More…rns among activists that the nation’s leaders are pulling back support for international efforts to promote the human rights of LGBTI people: “We currently have leadership that fails to represent the ethos of what the constitution says and the equality principles they have to uphold,” said Mmapeseka Steve Letsike, a lesbian activist who chairs the South African National AIDS Council’s Civil Society Forum. “We have leadership going out of this coun…
Read More…ism, made comments about national security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In many ways, his speech mirrored the president’s. In others, it showed how deeply ingrained the old narrative of the Islamist boogeyman is. Brennan, in introducing the National Security Strategy, said: The president’s strategy is absolutely clear about the threat we face. Our enemy is not “terrorism” because terrorism is but a tactic. Our enemy is no…
Read More…The WCF followed the rise of a global conservative movement in response to international conferences in the 1990s, particularly concerning reproductive or women’s rights, which they feared could affect US law back home. At the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development, Pope John Paul II (an early bridge-builder who’d allied himself with Billy Graham and Campus Crusade for Christ in the 1970s) called for interfaith opposition to the confe…
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…ustice—a bottom-up approach to justice in the world. Not surprisingly, the international scope of the clergy abuse scandal has diminished the teaching authority of the hierarchy on sexuality. Catholics recognize that they do have gay, lesbian, and transgender brothers and sisters in their families, among their friends, in their communities and workplaces. Many recognize their difference and accept it in the same positive way they accept ethnic, ge…
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…“100 percent” with Wolf. Wolf’s tirade underscores the hard truth that the international system has little capacity to prevent mass atrocities, or to stop them in the early stages. The pioneering work of the privately, but seat-of-the-pants-financed, Satellite Sentinel Project has shown what can be done to document and expose aggressive military postures and on the ground horrors, notably mass graves. Bishop Andudu called on the U.S. government to…
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…tial irregular ordination by a male bishop in 2002. While these women (who number about 50 priests and five bishops) have been excommunicated, they are living proof that the institutional church has only the power we give it. They go about the business of ministry and service with skill and good grace. Increasingly, Buddhist women have been seeking full ordination within the various branches of Buddhism. In Korea, Taiwan, and China, Buddhist nuns…
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…this writing, the Khartoum regime continues to bar reporters and even most international humanitarian aid groups from entering the country. Human rights groups have called on the international community to mount a dramatic cross-border, emergency humanitarian aid operation; though there is no indication at this point that anyone will heed the call. Observers believe that the battle of Kauda will begin before the rainy season in April. The Declarat…
Read More…Europe and Latin America: “Marriage needs to be a national (and ultimately international) effort, not just a local or regional issue,” says one document. One refers to an “International Organization for Marriage” and says, “The movement for gay marriage is global. The counterrevolution protecting marriage needs to have a similar reach. We need to take what we have learned about winning marriage battles in the US and assist groups fighting marriage…
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