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US Names Int’l Envoy for LGBT Rights; Marriage revolution spreads in Mexico; Scott Lively Warns World of Anti-Christ; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…cussions with global LGBT activists, this one with Anastasia Smirnova, who fled the country after having been arrested for psoting an LGBT banner at the Sochi Olympics. Mexico: ‘Quiet marriage equality revolution’ spreads BuzzFeed’s Lester Feder, with research assistance from journalist Rex Wockner, reports on the wave of marriage equality rulings in Mexico since a Supreme Court ruling in late 2012 in favor of a lesbian couple from Oaxaca: “Courts…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…aside and quietly told us that he had detected our American accents on the phone, and had given us the room instead of others because “Americans hate Muslims, too.” Still today, when I travel in India, Hindus presupposing my agreement frequently make off-handed and derogatory comments about their Muslim neighbors. For those concerned about the effectiveness of the United States’ advocacy for religious freedom around the world, the perception that…

Dispatches From the Beltway: Horton Hears Progressive Religion

By Robert P. Jones

…We Believe Ohio, joking that their combined congregations could fit into a phone booth. Along with Rev. Rod Parsley—the movement’s bombastic mouthpiece who called on Ohio Christians (who he called the largest “interest group” in the state) to “lock and load” to defeat the “hordes of Hell”—Johnson was the force behind the so-called “Ohio Restoration Project,” an attempt to recruit “patriot pastors” to register one million “values voters.” But by la…

Cross-Burning Hearing Ends, Trial Set to Begin

By Lauri Lebo

…Hamilton was unable to attend the meeting because he had not one, but two flat tires. The trial is scheduled to begin July 26. I’ll be honest, every time I think of the case, I just feel sad. From the moment Freshwater feared losing his job, he has tried to present himself as a martyr to religious discrimination. He has argued that the case has been about the fact that he kept a bible on his desk. (In their lawsuit, the Dennis family never mentio…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…di Arabia are non-existent. Homosexuality is taboo and punished with jail, flogging, chemical castration or even death. Trans men and women are considered gay and suffer the same fate. Entrapment by the religious police does not necessarily lead to prosecution, but often results in life-long financial and/or sexual blackmail. Ali, a 31 year-old gay law student in Jeddah told Gay Star News: ‘Once the Hay’ah [religious police] have your identity on…

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

By Yazmine Nichols

…ht here in our own backyard? What if we began talking about the increasing number of Black and Latino women, men and children that die at the hands of police every year? As much as non-denominational and evangelical churches zero in on so-called “sins of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21), hubris is perhaps the most frequently mentioned sin in the entire Bible. This brings me to my second point. Self-righteousness—the belief that one has exclusive acc…

What Liberals Want: A Response to Susan Thistlethwaite

By Frances Kissling

…centrist wings of religion are especially poorly handled. We don’t like conflict, especially in the family. We can stand up to Bush, but not to each other. There is that moderate element of dysfunctional family, hurt feelings, ego tripping, and clericalism that goes on. We can’t face each other. And so Thistlethwaite holds forth in “On Faith” but does not pick up the phone and call Peter. And Peter in turn rails against Wallis who in turn ignores…

The Real Mormon Moment

By Joanna Brooks

…courts for more than a decade. We used the internet to regroup and grow in numbers. The Church even developed its own web-based resources to acknowledge and address its own controversies—historic and contemporary. This, we thought, was a good sign. A sign that might not need to fear losing our membership, our place, in a cherished tradition, just for having and voicing questions, doubts, and differences. We told ourselves to not to be afraid. And…

Pro- and Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Gainesville

By Julie Ingersoll

…entified himself as a Christian of a distinct stripe by advocating burning phone books that advertise abortion and then said he doesn’t have a Qur’an but if he did he would “feed it page by page to (his) goat who would be impervious to its lies.” He then admitted he’d not read the Qur’an because he “doesn’t read fiction.” Another who insisted he didn’t “hate other religions or cultures” then argued that the “so-called Christians” (referring to the…

Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…er myself to be secular and spiritual. I don’t think there’s such a big conflict between science and spirituality. The point of conflict would be presenting competing understandings; even within science you have competing theories. As the book shows, religion is extremely broad and so is spirituality. It’s not just one thing. I’m writing as a psychologist, and 90 percent of psychologists believe that religion is about the fear of death. Other than…