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Gay Rights Org Delivers 150,000-Signature Petition to LDS Church

By Joanna Brooks

…ation. There is no question that this is difficult, but Church leaders and members are available to help lift, support and encourage fellow members who wish to follow Church doctrine. Their struggle is our struggle. Those in the Church who are attracted to someone of the same sex but stay faithful to the Church’s teachings can be happy during this life and perform meaningful service in the Church. They can enjoy full fellowship with other Church m…

American Nuns Under the Vatican Microscope

By Mary E. Hunt

…er members than they had in their heyday in the 1960s. (The median age for members is now over 70; only several hundred sisters are in their 30s.) The concern for numbers is really, as subsequent materials from the investigators have shown, an entrée to looking at the lives, beliefs, and practices of women who strive to live coherently, melding their religious convictions with the needs of the world. Whether there are three nuns or three million i…

Did We Drink the Kool-Aid in “Suicide Cult” Disappearance?

By Julie Ingersoll

…d how devoted the alleged “cult leader” is as a mother). Letters the group members left did mention going to see Jesus and made reference to “the end of the world.” However, as Anthea Butler wrote here on RD: “Chicas and her prayer group members are not aberrations; they are very much a phenomenon in many Pentecostal, Charismatic and non-denominational churches today.” While the headlines indicated that family members, authorities (and the press)…

Pope Francis meets with bishop who blessed gay couple; Proposed NGO law in Uganda threatens LGBT groups, civil society; Interfaith sexuality organizing in Indonesia; global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…n Jakarta. YIFOS began as a community-based organisation bringing together members of Muslim, Catholic and Buddhist communities. The organisation’s goal was to foster exchange between members of different religions about faith and sexuality. ‘In Indonesia we never have the chance to discuss our own sexuality,’ Vica points out. The lack of safe spaces for young people to speak freely about sexuality and faith was what prompted YIFOS’s establishment…

New World A-Coming: How Black Religion Helped Shape Racial Identity

By Judith Weisenfeld

…s and cults,” their founders and leaders as fakers and charlatans, and the members as gullible dupes has obscured the complexity of the religious and social worlds participants created. Critics at the time and some scholars since have characterized leaders and members of the movements as pretending to be something they were obviously not: Asiatic Muslims, Ethiopian Hebrews, Moorish Muslims, or raceless children of Father Divine. When we focus on t…

African Religious leaders complain about Obama advocacy for LGBT rights; Ultra-Orthodox Man Stabs Jerusalem Pride Parade Marchers, Again; Struggles over sexuality in Islam, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican Churches; Global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…he people based on their sexual orientation.” LGBT advocates were among 70 members of civil society who met with Obama while he was in Kenya. The Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers reports that Obama also made a subtle reference to LGBT rights while he was in Ethiopia for a speech to the African Union, saying, ““Every one of us is equal,” he said. “Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And we respect the freedom of others, no matter t…

Art(ful) History in Texas

By Lauri Lebo

…eationist-friendly or intelligent design literature. Quinn said that board members could reject material for factual errors. “But then it becomes a battle among board of education members over whether it’s accurate,” he said. Last year, McLeroy successfully included in the Texas’ science standards such creationist code as “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and the sequ…

However Dull or Ham-Fisted, TV is not Oppressing Mormons — In Fact, We Have a Duty to Scrutinize Religious Institutions That Endanger Vulnerable People

By Megan Goodwin

…o one is oppressing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its members on the basis of religion. Critique, scrutiny, and mockery aren’t flattery, but neither are they oppression. Oppression is systemic. The systems America has in place haven’t prevented the LDS Church or its members from flourishing politically, economically, educationally, geographically, or legally because they are Mormon. In fact, the LDS Church uses its considerabl…

Mexican Marriage Marches Show Struggle Between Church and Secular State; Pro-LGBT Mormon Group Grows After ‘Apostate’ Declaration; Botswana Gives Anti-Gay US Pastor the Boot; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…notes, church officials in Mexico are still urging the 1.4 million church members there to get involved in fighting marriage equality. From the Tribune: These actions pain gay members in Mexico, says an Affirmation leader in that country. “I felt a tense atmosphere in the church, because of several intolerant comments of members who would say they are not against gays but against homosexual adoption and education on these issues in the schools,”…

Eight General Seminary Professors “Resign” Without Their Knowledge

By Anthea Butler

…gnation,” said that they had accepted the resignation of the eight faculty members, and thanked them for their service. Clearly things have gone off the rails at General Seminary in a spectacular way. Any time faculty members are fired en masse there is certainly a crisis in leadership. Dunkle was a lawyer before he became a priest, but his behavior, and that of the board, seems to indicate that jettisoning the faculty is preferable to negotiating…