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Bad News for LGBT Anglicans, Mormons, Adventists, Norwegians, Russians, Georgians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Saudis…

By Peter Montgomery

…told the right-wing WorldNetDaily that head of the Russian parliament’s committee on families Yelena Mizulina was included in the U.S. government’s list of Russian leaders sanctioned in the wake of the Crimea annexation because the Obama administration is “controlled by the gay lobby.” Mizulina is among the organizers of the WCF’s 2014 summit, which is scheduled to be held in Moscow in 2014, though planning is now on hold. She promoted the anti-ga…

Sometimes Salvation Looks Like Rage: An Open Letter to “Non-denominational” Churches

By Yazmine Nichols

…and daily service to those in need. Instead, my church, like many non-denominational churches, is evangelical. The term “non-denominational” is supposed to connote a non-affiliation with traditional denominations. It is supposed to, as my fellow churchgoers put it, “avoid the stigma of Christianity.” Instead of calling themselves Christians, many evangelicals call themselves disciples—an attempt to more closely replicate the first-century church….

What Liberals Want: A Response to Susan Thistlethwaite

By Frances Kissling

…issue lines? They are not working with the far, far right. Not with the Family Research Council, or Focus on the Family or that ilk. Would they make common ground or cause with these groups or leaders who held similar views? If it were 1958, would religious leaders who were racist as opposed to sexist be appropriate partners on health care? On the other hand, liberals have not eschewed single issue alliances in which differences on other issues b…

The Real Mormon Moment

By Joanna Brooks

…s right now, but because faith means holding to the hope that it will be. A signal of peace for every one of us who agonizes—while the outside world watches mutely or wonders aloud why we even bother—over how our beloved faith will respond to the pressures of the twenty-first century. Forget Mitt Romney. Forget the Book of Mormon musical. Forget—yes, forget—the LDS Church’s multi-million dollar “I’m a Mormon” campaign designed to rebrand contempor…

Pro- and Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Gainesville

By Julie Ingersoll

…a guest on the show) should “get their heads out of the sand,” and talk to missionaries in the Middle East about what the Muslims “are really doing.” All this from a public radio audience. With renunciation of Dove Outreach coming from even the most outspoken anti-Muslim public figures (both political and religious) maybe the whole mess will serve to dial back the Islamophobic rhetoric a bit. The Wall Street Journal has reported that “residents of…

Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…t data from a couple hundred people and put that into a computer [to] determine which [goals] were very similar. We would reduce the list further, and then start over with the reduced list, repeating the process until we came up with the 16 desires. From that 16, we can generate almost any goal. Your model offers some new conceptual resources, particularly for thinking about how people’s “strong” and “weak” strivings inform how they participate in…

Secularist Activists Are Being Murdered in Bangladesh: An Ongoing Crisis Causes Many to Flee

By Michael De Dora

…uman rights crisis in Bangladesh. Since 2013, violent extremists linked to militant Islamist groups have attacked or killed more than one dozen writers, publishers, and activists. The attacks intensified starting in February 2015, when Avijit Roy, author and founder of Bengali freethought website Mukto-Mona, was murdered as he was leaving a book fair in Dhaka. His wife, author Bonya Ahmed, was severely injured in the attack. Within six months, thr…

Presbyterians, Change Hearts & Minds, Begin Ordaining Gays

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

…or More Light Presbyterians. “The repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in the military, marriage equality [legislation and litigation] and the epidemic of anti-gay bullying all had an impact upon the consideration of 10A across the country.” But what made this the year? Some speculate that enough conservative congregations have left the denomination to help swing the vote. But advocates downplay the impact of their departure, since most reports esti…

Eid on 9/11 Anniversary?

By Haroon Moghul

…ers in Our Own Lands It was worrying enough to think about how some people might misinterpret such a convergence, and that was before the rise in Islamophobic rhetoric. Every other day, I’m greeted with someone arguing that Muslims are all evil, that we shouldn’t have any more mosques in America, that we are a dastardly fifth column. The assumption here is always that Muslims are foreigners and intruders, that we are strangers in our own lands, un…

‘Rising Global Tide’ Of Anti-Gay Crackdowns; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tormont uses a parliamentary system designed, ironically, to prevent discrimination against minority and marginalised groups. Parties can effectively veto or obstruct individual pieces of legislation. The DUP has made use of this power five times to block same-sex marriage from being legalised, despite equality having majority support in the chamber since 2015. The legal differences between civil partnership – which is legal for same-sex couples –…