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Catholic Bishops End Family Synod With Little To Say To Gays; World Congress of Families Has Plenty To Say, None of it Good; How Same-Sex Marriage Came to a Buddhist Temple in Japan; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…have been fleeing to Europe for years. But experts estimate that a record number of gays and lesbians seeking asylum, as many as 50,000, will arrive this year in Germany, the European nation accepting the largest number of refugees. Rather than leaving their home countries specifically because of anti-gay persecution, many are fleeing violence and war in nations such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Once in Europe, gays and lesbians are herded alo…

Does Multiverse Theory Bring Theology Into Science?

By Andrew Aghapour

…to explain the bounty or harmony of the world around us. Given an infinite number of universes, a few of them are bound to be life-friendly at some point, and we’re in one of them. The problem, of course, is that the price of getting rid of God is an infinite number of universes we can’t see. So sober-minded contemporary scientists end up on the same side as (some) theologians in arguing that the multiverse is extravagant, unnecessary, and unscien…

By the Way: Religious Right Losing its Grip?

By Randall Balmer

…ing about meaningful reform on this issue is to change the terms of the conversation and alter the moral climate. Besides, the only thing that both sides of what currently passes for debate over abortion agree on is that making abortion illegal will not have a significant effect on the number of abortions. The developments at Regent University and the University of Notre Dame suggest that younger evangelicals understand that, as do a growing numbe…

Marriage Vote ‘Transforms’ Not-So-Catholic Ireland; Activist to Malaysian PM – ‘Love Is Not Terrorism’; LGBTs Find Growing Acceptance in Colombia, Not At World Meeting of Families; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…years, Ireland is no longer “the most Catholic country in the world.” The number of Irish who attend church every week has dropped from 90 percent to 30 percent. Kennedy spoke with a college professor who stopped going to church after the scandals broke; “when she cast her vote in favor of same-sex marriage, she says she was voting against the Catholic Church.” Kennedy also spoke with Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who she says “admits he’s…

C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with Jeff Sharlet

By Bill Berkowitz

…that unusual. First, there’s the fact that having written about this for a number of magazines that might be said to be sort of mainstream (Harper’s, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, Mother Jones) and talked about it on very mainstream television programs (NBC Nightly News, CNN, etc.) and radio (Marketplace, Fresh Air, BBC, etc.), I’ve sort of established ownership of the story. That may be a good thing for my book sales, but it’s bad for journali…

Meeting on the Bridge: Fr. James Martin’s Ministry to LGBT Catholics Becomes a Book

By Kaya Oakes

…u. Number two, engaging with these people in arguments is often fruitless. Number three, a lot of times they refuse to listen. And number four, a very small percentage of them are actually crazy. There’s a great scene in a movie called The Trouble with Angels from the 1960s. It’s about a Catholic girls’ school outside of Philadelphia. There’s a scene where Rosalind Russel, who’s the Mother Superior, is arguing with Jim Hutton, who plays an educati…

International Protest of Anti-Gay Persecution in Chechnya Grows; more in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d conflict.” Enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card! Click HERE to take our 2-minute reader survey. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reportedly told Putin at a meeting last week that the reports are untrue. Elena Milashina, the reporter who exposed the allegations reported that the story has generated the biggest reaction they ever seen in years of covering Chechnya, and told the Washington Post that she wil…

VIDEO: “First-Generation, Indian-American Muslim Kid” Makes Fun of the President. Onstage.

By Sunnivie Brydum

…’s made him a standout senior correspondent on The Daily Show. The full 25-minute speech is worth watching (see video at the bottom of this post), but for those short on time, we’ve excerpted the faith-based funnies Minhaj, who has written for RD, offered at the annual event fondly known as “nerd prom.” “Who would have thought, with everything going on in the country, that a Muslim would be standing on this stage — for the ninth year in a row, bab…

Can the “Spiritual Left” Make the Change They Wish to See?

By Arielle Levites

…ocal office. Enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card! Click HERE to take our 2-minute reader survey. Spiritual Americans aren’t blind or uncaring about the problems in the world. But they believe that an important way, and perhaps even the most effective way, to contribute to a better world is through their own spiritual development. Spiritual Americans believe their personal, seemingly highly constrained actions (for example, how grateful they feel)…

Maybe Instead of Solidarity, The Religious Left Should Try Being Indivisible

By Daniel Schultz

…ike the religious right! We need to convert the nation! And on and on. The minute we conflate the categories of moral principles and politics, it becomes a discussion of whose principles should be normative, and whether that’s allowable or not. In a sense, the idea of a religious left raises more questions than it answers, creates more divisions than it heals. So what is to be done about it? How can a real and effective religious left come about?…