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Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

By Warren Throckmorton

…s 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, I referred to the Pattison study favorably in my 2000 American Psychological Association presentation about ex-gay outcomes. Then, in 2009, the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality cited this study as an illustration of sexual reorientation, saying Pattison an…

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

By William E. Smith

…ties around marriage. And it’s easy to forget that laws preventing interracial marriage (which was often opposed on religious grounds), were only invalidated in the U.S. with Loving v. Virginia in 1967. In other words, marriage has changed substantially and consistently over the past 70 or so years in the United States. Of course these changes have occurred both inside and outside of religious communities, but not necessarily in spite of them. The…

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

By Cody J. Sanders

…will be shaped by the culture of intensive care. Now, just as in the Victorian era, familial presence with the dying is a central feature of our Good Death narratives. But many who die of COVID-19 will die in isolation in a hospital ICU. Families will be unable to attend the bedside of their dying loved one. Hospitals will be largely closed to visitors due to risk of contagion. Many family members will be in quarantine themselves because of their…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…even more so since his reelection. According to 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 bef…

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

By Daniel Schultz

…son. The church is centered in 11 southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. That won’t be a surprise to most Americans, but the extent to which the SBC depends on this “base” might be: since 1950, about 75-80 percent of the total membership has lived in those states. Texas alone makes up almost 20 percent of the total.* And here the trouble begins. If you…

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

By Sunnivie Brydum

…explained, taking ADF’s logic to its natural conclusion. “There’s an immediate consequence of that, and there’s a long term consequences of that, in terms of being turned away and what it means to approach the next business.” Even if there are only a small number of businesses who would seek such an exemption, the harm to the fundamental non-discrimination principle is profound, Melling said. “The claims advanced in the case have significant impl…

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

By Sarah Posner

…religious intensity or orthodoxy, nor of the respondents’ political and social attitudes. That will come later this year in a separate, detailed report. Stay tuned! 2. A different Pew survey out last year found a “growing appetite” for mixing religion and politics, particularly among conservative religious respondents. As I wrote at the time, the poll found “those affiliated with a religion, particularly evangelicals, Protestants, and Catholics, ‘…

What Color is Vatican Smoke?

By Marian Ronan

…not back down. Nevertheless, I fear that Fresen’s heroic resistance to racial injustice provides the justification for certain seriously problematic assertions made in Pink Smoke. Early on in the film, Fresen narrates how, as a seminary professor, she was allowed to teach preaching to seminarians but was forbidden to preach herself during the Catholic liturgy. She then revisits her realization that the passage in canon law that excludes women fro…

What Fidel Castro’s Death Means for LGBT Rights in Cuba and More, in This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…m anti-gay Nigerians.” Nigerian Newspapers Today chronicles some of the social media reaction, pro and con. One example: Please gather all the Nigerian gay along. After welcoming you home, we shall ensure that none of you escape, because we are going to burn and send you to hell, where you all belong.” Ireland: New group promotes LGBT inclusion in Presbyterian Church The Belfast Telegraph reports on a retired lawyer’s efforts to create a group tha…

Data-Mining Denominations: Same-Sex Marriage Edition

By Daniel Schultz

…hack of subtracting the number of people Strongly Opposed to same-sex marriage from the number Strongly In Favor. Not surprisingly, since the Unitarian-Universalists only had 6 percent opposed, their position on the chart hardly budged at all. Other groups traveled a little more. Mainline Baptists, for example, strongly disapprove just a little more than they strongly approve. Evangelical Baptists, on the other hand, really, really dislike same-s…