Religion Dispatches
…d back in 2014, defended itself by invoking section 18 of the Human Rights code, which allows a religious group to restrict participation to the faithful. So while AA presents itself to the public as a “spiritual” program, distinguishing itself from “religious” groups, it nevertheless claimed “religious” legal status in order to protect itself. Although the definition of “religion” is generally assumed in common parlance, it is not in any sense ea…
Read More…uld be outlawed A parliamentary commission on religion is advocating that “promotion of atheism” be criminalized; according to Pink News, the commission “ruled that atheism can cause ‘mental imbalances’ which in turn leads to homosexuality.’” It is believed that the commission hopes that by pushing through the law it will support the bid of another law which has been deemed the most homophobic law in the world. The second law which is currently be…
Read More…on 377, that criminalizes sex between men in India, the ruling was welcome news. And it has renewed some hope for the repeal of other repressive laws, including one requiring the “registration and control of eunuchs” and marital rape exceptions in the Indian Penal Code. … Depictions of gender-fluid identity are common in ancient texts found in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, gods transform into goddesses, or they cross-dress. Men beco…
Read More…, but we still think that to speak about homosexuality is a ‘Western’ fad. New Zealand: New Prime Minister left Mormon Church over anti-gay doctrines Jacinda Ardnern, the country’s new 37-year-old prime minister, is a former Mormon who left the church when she was in her 20s, “mostly as a consequence of its anti-homosexual stance.” From the New Zealand Herald: “For a lot of years, I put it to the back of my mind. I think it was too unsettling. If…
Read More…. Mississippians, like most Americans, are religious, and here is the good news. All the world’s major religions have visited the question of the moral status of the embryo and fetus and there is broad agreement on what is called “delayed ensoulment.” That was code for saying that the fetus does not attain to personal status until it is well formed. Early miscarriages could not be named or given religious funerals. Saints Augustine and Thomas Aqui…
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…e, especially if they come from a background with a strict religious/moral code and a bend toward evangelicalism, is not only reasonable but necessary and in no way suggests that a specific faith practice should be disqualifying. As Geoffrey Stone and Eric Segall noted in the New York Times: …asking a nominee about her strong faith, and whether she can put her religious views aside when deciding cases that implicate those views, is nowhere close t…
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…te and advance a conversation. Clarkson has previously written that Moore knew his defiant actions—whether in placing a 2.6-ton Ten Commandments statue inside a state courthouse or instructing probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples—would ultimately be overruled. But his insistence that he was on sound moral—and therefore legal—ground did indeed spark nationwide conversations about the very issues at the center of Moore’s…
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…kinds of Muslims after converting—and seeing how little most non-Muslims knew about them—spurred my interest in trying to conduct a research project that got inside the social worlds of Muslim Americans. Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys John O’Brien Princeton UP September 12, 2017 After approaching the leaders of a local mosque about the project, I became an active member of the community, and got to know one g…
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…nt to reflect as attitudes will generally change as society changes.” Pink News reports that May’s comments were given a “frosty reception” by the DUP. Scotland: Glasgow cathedral will marry same-sex couples St. Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow will begin to allow same-sex couples to marry in the church, “after bishops, clergy and laity all voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move,” reports the Scottish Sun: Speaking to Pink News, the Provost of the…
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…hard-hearted pride (see Ezekiel 16:49-50). It’s also notable that the one New Testament passage that speaks most graphically about male-male sex (Romans 1:27) makes no reference to Sodom. For the theological definition of “sodomy,” we have to jump to medieval Rome and Peter Damian, fierce monk and sometimes cardinal. He defines four varieties of a sexual sin that he names “sodomy.” The varieties are (in modern terminology): male masturbation, mut…
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