Search for "800-299-7264 Copa Airlines Toll Free Number Flight Reservations"

Unprecedented Anti-LGBTQ Statement By Orthodox Church in America Should Be Christian Nationalist Warning Sign to US Orthodoxy

By Katherine Kelaidis

…eir descendants. However, beginning in the 1980s, there were an increasing number of converts to Orthodoxy, many of whom (though notably and importantly not all) came as refugees from debates of gender and sexuality in their own denominations—debates they had lost. These conversions have been a major catalyst in the transformation of the political face of American Orthodox Christianity and bring at least some of the Orthodox into the fray of the c…

For Buddhism, Science is Not a Killer of Religion

By Paul Wallace

…really knows how to drive, it seems, and the water buffalo and cows are outnumbered in the streets only by the small and fast-moving motorized rickshaws. So when I was taking a four-hour taxi ride from Delhi to Agra I had to have something to distract my attention from the harrowing video game-like scene out the front window. A friend who was riding with me handed me a book called What Makes You Not a Buddhist. Written by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse…

Conservative Bishops Unhappy At Synod, But Ignore Walkout Call; Australian Religious Leaders Step Up Marriage Equality Opposition; Italy Debates Civil Unions; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…bly last week, a leading African cardinal blasted the “idolatry of Western freedom” as equivalent to “Islamic fundamentalism” and compared both to “apocalyptic beasts.” Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, a top official in the Roman Curia, also said that divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage in the West, and Islamic fundamentalism in Africa and elsewhere, both had a “demonic origin” that the synod had to combat. “What Nazi-fascism and communism wer…

To Be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey

By Nyasha Junior

…r movement? The Black Lives Matter movement as I have experienced it has a number of queer black women on the ground doing the work. It also has trans women and trans men on the ground doing the work. They are part of the leadership. As you know the Black Lives Matter movement is a “leaderful” movement, and that is to say that not one or two persons are in charge of any action but that the movement itself very beautifully recognizes and utilizes t…

Catholic Church Bans Gay Film: This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…uman rights of transgender persons— including right to self determination, freedom of movement and freedom of expression—but these laws are also open to abuse. In this case, although the women were asleep while they were arrested in their hotel rooms, they are still being investigated under Section 28. Justice for Sisters criticized “dehumanizing” media coverage of the arrests. India: Legislature Rejects Decriminalization, UN Official Wants Court…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…d. Although Magufuli has not said anything publicly about homosexuality, a number of his appointees have made harsh remarks. Critics of gay rights say this nation — which has large numbers of Muslims and Christians — must protect traditional values. In an August speech, Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, the capital, threatened to arrest people who were linked to gay men on social-networking sites. “If there’s a homosexual w…

8 Bill Maher Statements For UC Berkeley To Consider Before Commencement

By Nathan Lean

…ding this ruckus, however, are a few missing (and critical) points. First, free speech does not guarantee Maher or anyone the right to be invited by elite institutions to deliver keynote speeches. In no way does uninviting Maher infringe upon his ability to express his views in public. In fact, he does so regularly on his primetime cable television show to roughly 4 million viewers. Second, the purpose of a university commencement address is to sp…

Morality Police, Jihadists, Religious Competition, Grindr, & Americans Abroad: Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…applied to join eight other Church of Scotland clergy who have joined the Free Church of Scotland. Rev. Roddy MacRae said, “The Church of Scotland often says it is a ‘broad church’, but it has become clear to me that it is not broad enough for Bible-believing Christians.” Meanwhile, as Scotland moves toward a vote on whether to become independent of the United Kingdom, and as polls show pro-independence forces gaining, gay-rights activists debate…

The GOP’s Race to the
Dark Ages

By Sarah Posner

…e Affordable Care Act that their health insurance provide employees co-pay-free birth control, even though churches themselves are already exempt. A Catholic and an evangelical university have sued HHS over the rule, citing “religious liberty.” Republicans have been making their intentions on access to birth control clear since they began campaigning to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. They say it’s about federal funding going to abortion…

Bishops Have No Religious Freedom Claim

By Sarah Posner

…— free exercise of religion, that in order for a law to violate somebody’s free exercise, it has to impinge — substantially burden — their religious practice. And there is no substantial burden on Catholics’ religious practice by providing coverage — insurance coverage for contraception for other people. No one is making Catholics who do not want contraception to take it. No one is making the bishops take it, and so it’s not really a First Amendme…