Religion Dispatches
…mages of children under fourteen. What is the worldview implicit in such a list of crimes, and listed in this order? Is it the Church’s earnest attempt to meet the world on its own terms? Or is an attempt by a Pope who is suspicious of any such accommodation to the world’s standards to turn the current public outcry to his own anti-modern purposes by strengthening the punitive internal administrative structure of the Church, all in the name of som…
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…sed on the voter turnout the question was officially considered undecided. Mexico: New national LGBT movement launches Mexico as a new national LGBT movement, The Movement for Equality in Mexico, where religious conservatives are leading resistance to President Enrique Peña Nieto’s call for a constitutional guarantee of marriage equality nationwide. Among the principles and goals spelled out on the group’s website is this quote from actor and acti…
Read More…the ruling is felt throughout the country. Last week, the Supreme Court of Mexico ruled in favor of three same-sex couples who challenged the constitutionality of the marriage ban in the state of Oaxaca; marriage equality is already the law in Mexico City. The ruling on Oaxaca’s law does not automatically make marriage legally available to all same-sex couples; in the wake of the ruling, reporters struggled to clarify rules that seemed to indicate…
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…e of social and community values in pictures.” For the next 38 years, that code shaped Hollywood’s output. The Production Code insisted that movies were primarily “to be regarded as entertainment” that would “improve the race.” As such, movies should avoid explicit images that would be upsetting or play to “the lower and base element.” Those images included graphic violence, “excessive passion,” “white-slavery,” “scenes of actual child birth,” and…
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…frica, who were among 13 human rights activists detained and charged with “promoting homosexuality,” were deported: Local police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said they had been “promoting homosexuality”. “Tanzanian law forbids this act between people of the same sex, it is a violation of our country’s laws,” said Mambosasa. Just days later an NGO, the Community Health Education Services and Advocacy (CHESA) centre, was suspended on the same charge and a…
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…convincing was this product launch, complete with Facebook ad campaign and promotional website including a promo video that went viral, that a number of customers were disappointed and angry to find out that it was a fake. Part of the confusion seems to have been that the launch occurred on March 28, not the customary April 1. But just as important was consumer demand. Enough people were convinced by the slick product rollout that they actually wa…
Read More…ay, in addition to struggling with an addiction to pornography. This short promo video offers an overview of their stories. By promoting these voices as representative of the entire experience within the LGBT community, even though they do not currently identify as such, the Adventist church elevates stories that portray all LGBT people as damaged, sex addicts, drug and alcohol abusers, unfaithful in relationships, and utterly lost if they do not…
Read More…sks for Latin American politicians of supporting gay rights. In 2009, when Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, a left-wing politician famous for his social liberalism, signed into law Mexico City’s same-sex marriage ordinance, he tuned a deaf ear to the Catholic Church’s threat of excommunication. That would have been unthinkable only a few years prior. Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, today hailed as a gay rights heroine f…
Read More…mer athletes of color who had a positive experience with BYU and the Honor Code: “If Darron Smith wasn’t so hell bent on exposing BYU, the Church and the honor code office as racists, he’d find out that for every Thomas Stancil, Tico Pringle and Ray Hudson, there’s a Brandon Davies, Reno Mahe and Brian McDonald, the latter of which recovered from an alcohol-related probation, joined the Church and served a mission to Washington, DC.” Sikahema’s fu…
Read More…d both positively and negatively. DeBernardo notes that some others on the list of 250 appointees, which include both bishops and laypeople, have long anti-gay records. From my perspective, the most important feature from the list of lay observers is that no publicly LGBT person or couple is named. The Synod will be examining pastoral responses to families headed by same-gender couples. Didn’t the Vatican think it would be good to hear from some o…
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