Search for "United Airlines 800-299-7264 Flight Pet Policy"

Prison Religion: Rehabilitation or Forced Conversion?

By Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

…ent can be made that “church” and “state” are not actually separate in the United States. This country has a distinctive religio-legal culture resulting from the prevalence of the free church model—particularly when compared to the church-state regimes of most European countries—but it is not a very secular place. I am one of a group of scholars of law and religion in the United States who have been working to find better ways to describe the natu…

Blessed Be the Warmakers

By Svend White

…g the globe. Nor has the UN in recent memory imposed its own leader on the United States over the popular will, as did the United States itself when it essentially overruled the world by ousting Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali over petty political grudges in 1997. If we must resort to conspiracy theories, let’s at least follow the money trail and look at who really wields power today. If a Satanic New World Order is indeed under way, surel…

God, My Wife, And The Government: Defining Marriage

By Krista Kapralos

…is gaining steam, from both sides. Barry Lynn, a minister ordained by the United Church of Christ, bristles whenever he applies for recertification to perform wedding ceremonies. “It offends me,” he said. “It’s not the state’s business to make me an officer in my ministerial capacity.” Lynn is also director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, an organization that has fought to remove monuments of the Ten Commandments from…

Two Women and a Mosque: A Convert Community Grows in Panama City

By Aliyya Swaby

…. Though Islam in Panama has a different history and context than in the United States, I saw my parents in some of the older black Panamanian converts. Many spent time in the United States during the formative social justice movements of the 60s and 70s, first becoming attracted to the politics of the Nation of Islam before moving toward mainstream Sunni Islam. Abdul Kabir Malik is one of these converts. In the 1970s, Malik began holding Islami…

Beyond Progressive Religion

By Ivan Petrella

…atheism as the alternatives to fundamentalism. Neither does justice to the United States’ status as the world’s most influential nation. Instead, being progressive about religion should mean taking the logic of religious diversity to its ultimate conclusion and fostering the conditions to create multi-religious individuals. What’s involved? The United States is currently a multi-religious nation, and a nation that individuals of a variety of relig…

Tutu’s Daughter Marries Woman & Loses Anglican Priest License; Romanian Anti-Marriage Activists Get 3 Million Signatures; Australian State Apologizes For Harmful Sodomy Laws; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…on Monday that they have gathered 3 million signatures on an anti-marriage petition. AFP reports: Several groups linked to the Orthodox Church and united under the umbrella Coalition for Family are seeking a constitutional amendment to narrowly define marriage as the “union between a man and a woman”. It is the second such move in Europe this month after a group of mostly right-wing Italian politicians said they will push for a referendum to overt…

Even Amid Controversy, ‘My Soul Still Sings,’ Says UMC’s First Lesbian Bishop

By Sunnivie Brydum

…more committed than ever to bringing peace, clarity, and acceptance to the United Methodist Church’s decades-long struggle over how to treat LGBTQ congregants and clergy. Before her consecration as bishop, Oliveto “broke the stained glass ceiling” at the 12,000-member Glide Methodist Church in San Francisco, becoming the first woman to serve as a senior pastor at any of the denomination’s 100 largest congregations in the U.S. It was there that she…

Faith and Civil Liberties Groups Pushing Back Against Islamophobia

By Sarah Posner

…unter the misperception, including in the Arab and Muslim worlds, that the United States is a nation defined by the widely covered images of the marginal few who would burn a Qur’an, rather than by a proud and longstanding tradition of religious freedom, tolerance and pluralism. In communities across the United States, this project will not only serve as a model for tolerance and cooperation and promote local faith leaders as champions of such, bu…

Methodists Vote to Keep Homosexuality “Incompatible”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…o join the members on the margins to show their solidarity. In the end the petition failed to pass. When the conference reconvened after a break, those who supported the petition remained in the hall, singing as business began again. The presiding bishop, Michael Coyner of the Indiana Conference, shut down the meeting, calling the LGBT advocates a “security concern.” The morning’s vote and actions by the bishop were a disappointment to David Brade…

At the UN, Conservative Christian Agenda Cloaked in Human Rights Language

By Austin Dacey

…man Rights Campaign has reported that FWI’s annual, invitation-only global policy forum for UN delegates often includes testimonials from people “cured” of “homosexuality” by conversion therapy. According to FWI literature, “so-called ‘homosexual rights’ are driving much of the current worldwide assault on marriage, the family and family related issues.” Nevertheless, the Caucus’ discourse linking the family to children’s rights and global develop…