…ased enforcement of laws that criminalize cross-dressing and sodomy, Radio New Zealand reports that Tonga’s LGBTI advocates are planning “a national consultation with government leaders in December to petition for changes to the Criminal Offences Act.” Afghanistan: LGBT community under “threat of death” BBC’s Aria Ahmadzai reports that the country’s LGBT community is “living under threat of death.” The legal situation for LGBT people in Afghanista…
…’s a conservative country, but it could be the first country in Asia after New Zealand to endorse same-sex marriage,” Osius told the Blade. “It could be. I don’t think it’s guaranteed. It’s a work in progress just as it is here.” Osius acknowledged the presence of an openly gay ambassador in Vietnam could have a positive impact on the country’s LGBT rights movement. “I will show up with the family that looks like mine,” he told the Blade. “My husb…
…overning territory of Norfolk Island – about halfway between Australia and New Zealand – announced that it would vote on marriage equality bill next month. Advocates told the Star Observer that the legislation has been crafted to withstand a court challenge. Jamaica: Parliamentary Committee Begins Review of Sexual Offences Act We have reported in the past on U.S. and British religious conservatives’ efforts to stop Jamaican officials from repealin…
…e? As argued by Dale Eickelman, Jon Anderson and the other contributors to New Media in the Muslim World (Indiana U. Press, 2003), new media access to traditional Muslim authoritative resources is forcefully challenging the most conservative modes of Islamic authority, allowing those who previously had no voice to decide for themselves what to believe and why to believe it, whether those in traditional positions of authority like it or not. For Ch…
…more developed countries of the Southern Hemisphere such as Australia and New Zealand. “They are coming into America and Canada, and Europe as well,” he says. Pentecostal migrants to Europe come mostly from Africa, he says, noting that some of the largest churches in Europe have “apostolic leaders who refer to themselves as bishops or apostles.” Similarly, he notes that “many” of the “illegal aliens” coming into the U.S. from Central America are…
…ng together new gospels: this is another aspect of the New Age that is not new at all. New Science, Ancient Religion But the premise on which this text is built is new; one fascinating example of the complex interweaving of new scientific knowledge and ancient religious wisdom. The reason this book is called The Aquarian Gospel has to do with the (relatively) new modern science of astronomy. As Levi’s wife, Eva S. Dowling, explains in her introduc…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…ssed by the breadth of Edwards’ intellectual interests and announce him to New Yorker readers as a “new evangelical.” Lesser journalists would take note of Edwards’ emphasis on natural science, on Newton’s Opticks, and herald a trend in American evangelicalism as Christianity remakes itself for the bold new world of the 18th century. And all these stories would be correct; indeed, they are, more or less, correct when applied to American evangelica…
…inline counterparts. So in 1954, Congress enacted the provision of the tax code at stake in Gaylor v. Mnuchin. A House committee said that the aim of the new subsection was to treat equally those ministers for whom churches provided housing and those who were paid housing allowances instead. The sponsor of the legislation, Illinois Democratic Rep. Peter Mack, justified the law in terms resonant of the fight against communism: Certainly, in these t…
…hey are prepared to administer marriage vows for same-sex couples once the new marriage laws take effect. Various newspaper reports have indicated that gay couples will find priests willing to perform marriage rites in Tampere, Helsinki and Vantaa, at least. But in Kotka, southeast Finland, the local diocese has issued a ruling banning even prayers on church premises for same-sex couples who have exchanged wedding vows. The ban extends to prayer s…
…on or any sexual practice.” If the Chamber of Deputies approves, the draft code will go before the Rwandan Senate most likely in early 2010. It’s not like this is shocking news on the continent where 38 of Africa’s 53 nations outlaw homosexuality, including Kenya where a homosexual act can land you in prison for up to 14 years. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: Nigeria has a similar bill (to the Ugandan legislation) waiting to reach its stat…
