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Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

…nts at Liberty is eminently justified, especially given Emerick’s parting words, which are, simply put, chilling: “When someone asks me how many children I have, I tell them three daughters and thousands of sons.” This disturbing sentiment hints at the overwhelming number of students who were habitually subjugated to Emerick’s chaotic work. The question, however, remains: While neither he nor Liberty referred to him as a therapist of any kind, how…

Gambian Prez Rails Against Gay ‘Evil Empire’; Irish Priest Comes Out During Mass; Trans Talk on Tunisian TV Sparks Debate; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…n Wednesday: But a government official said that a mental or behavioral disorder in itself was not a reason to stop someone driving. The law would affect only those suffering from chronic and prolonged mental disorders with severe or persistent symptoms, Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Ireland: Priest Comes Out During Mass, Urges Support for Marriage Equality Father Martin Dolan, a priest in Dublin’s Chu…

Muslims in America, Fifty Years Later: New Poll Shows Pride and Optimism In the Face of Bias

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…eech, the group’s criticism of American racism and imperialism struck many ordinary Americans as politically radical and thus dangerous. The globe’s most powerful symbol of resistance to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was the Nation of Islam’s most famous member, boxer Muhammad Ali. In 1967, Ali refused induction in the U.S. armed forces to protest the war, and as a result, was forced to give up his heavyweight boxing crown. In 2017, even tho…

Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

By Warren Throckmorton

…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…

Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

By William E. Smith

…ears. In other words, now that same-sex marriage is legal, what’s next? According to a number of pundits, such as Fredrik DeBoer at Politico, it’s polygamy. I count myself among this group. This question is pressing in light of the fact that support for polygamy has risen rapidly (from 7% to 16%) among Americans over the past few years. Some liberal commentators, understandably, have been quick to insist that legalizing polygamy isn’t on the horiz…

How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative

By Cody J. Sanders

…c web of life, in our funerary practices? For example, we might imagine recorded remarks from loved ones, keeping their social distancing practices, filming words of remembrance at varied sites of significance to the deceased: a back porch rocking chair, a local fishing pond, a beloved hiking trail, the site of a first date or a family vacation or a long-held job. This could draw together in the space between the physical and the non-physical a de…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…a report issued by the reliable Southern Poverty Law Center last year, the number of extremist Patriot groups has skyrocketed. Only 149 groups existed before Obama was elected in 2008. In 2012 the number had expanded to 1,360. Not all are plotting terrorist attacks, of course. But some are. In September 2012, Daryl Johnson, a terrorist analyst for the US Department of Homeland Security testified before a Senate committee that there was an “upsurge…

Data-Mining The Denominations: The Southern Baptists in Four Charts

By Daniel Schultz

…blems as well. The SBC had been almost flat on the membership charts for a number of years, but now it’s actually started to lose members. In 2013, the SBC claimed 15,735,640 members, and in 2014, that number fell by 236,467 to 15,499,173—that’s a 1.5 percent decline. However, on this stat alone, the claim could be made that churches are simply clearing out the cobwebs and tidying up their membership rolls so their numbers more accurately reflect…

It’s Not About Cake: Anti-Gay Vendors Want a Constitutional Right to Discriminate

By Sunnivie Brydum

…e-providers like bakeries and florists, dress-shops, hair salons, and “any number” of other businesses could claim that their services are in fact a form of constitutionally protected artistic practice. “The claim at issue here sounds as if the business can put up a sign in its window that says, ‘We sell cakes for heterosexuals only,’” Melling explained, taking ADF’s logic to its natural conclusion. “There’s an immediate consequence of that, and t…

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Overthink the New Pew Data’s Impact on Politics

By Sarah Posner

…(down eight percent in seven years, to 70.6 percent), and the rise in the number of Americans identifying as atheist, agnostic, and otherwise religiously unaffiliated (up six points in seven years, to 22.8 percent). Greg Smith, Associate Director of Research at the Pew Research Center, called the pace of the continued growth of the religiously unaffiliated “really remarkable.” The number of Americans identifying with no religion grew by 19 millio…