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Global Anti-Gay Forces Plot Against ‘Satanic’ Equality Movement

By Peter Montgomery

…hat resolution clashed with police. The Washington Blade reports, “At least 10 LGBT rights advocates were injured on Monday during a protest in the Paraguayan capital that took place ahead of the start of the Organization of American States’ annual meeting.” Russia: Activists Arrested at Banned Pride Events A number of activists were arrested for participating in pride events in Moscow, where officials had withdrawn permission for the event. Among…

No Conspiracy Theories Needed: Abortion Foes Cry Racism

By Kathryn Joyce

…n part by denouncing her as a bigot and a racist who wanted “to reduce the number of children [born] to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.” The Pro-Life Action League made a similar criticism this week against the Guttmacher Institute, claiming that the Institute’s call for publicly-funded birth control “takes aim at the poor by recommending more government spending on programs to reduce t…

Hold Your Applause: Potential Changes to Roles of Catholic Women and LGBTQ+ People May Just Be Vatican Breadcrumbing

By Mary E. Hunt

…, two days after the demise of Brazilian soccer great Pelé. Four times the number of people attended Pelé’s funeral as showed in St. Peter’s Square for the former Cardinal Ratzinger. His influence spanned three pontificates—the later years of John Paul II’s tenure under whom Benedict was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later Dean of the College of Cardinals, his own pontificate from 2005-2013, and the first decade o…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…exuals represent approximately .25 to 1 percent of the US population. That number does not include the transgender people who haven’t undergone sex reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dr…

Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

By Ali Olomi

…least among the more educated.” A similar change swept through Iraq in the 1960s according to psychiatrists Ihsan al-Issa and Brigitta al-Issa: “The previous almost complete acceptance of homosexual practices is now undergoing some change. Some students who had been brought up in the old traditional pattern have expressed anxiety to the authors about their homosexual practices in the university student hostels in Baghdad.” Clearly what today pass…

Along Came a Spider: What the Pope Doesn’t See

By Anthea Butler

…y, as many of the dioceses in the United States become uninsurable and the number of Catholic churches dwindles. As membership shrinks, the number of ordinations decreases, and the coffers dry up, perhaps the Vatican and its leadership will be forced to look at its decrepit, hierarchical structure, and fix it. I doubt it, however. Like the spider who crawled across Pope Benedict’s robes this weekend in Prague, everyone except the Pope can see the…

The Religious Case Against Religious Discrimination in Cakeshop Case

By Patrick Hornbeck

…like Phillips’s. But, as survey after survey has demonstrated, substantial numbers of Catholics, and to a lesser extent evangelicals as well, are not following their denominations’ leaders down this particular road, and there is a growing number of religious institutions that have embraced marriage equality and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in the public square. Cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop make it clear that the boundaries of a national settleme…

Debunking the Myth That Democracy Is “Incompatible” With Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

…otion that belongs to the Graeco-Christian tradition alone. After September 11, these views have gained more currency in influential circles as prophetic auguries of the inevitable clash between a democratic modern West and an incorrigibly “medieval” and illiberal Islamic world. Contemporary Issues in Islam Asma Afsaruddin Edinburgh University Press September 1, 2015 This entrenched view has been challenged by nuanced and theoretically more sophis…

Black Churches are Burning: Is It the 1990s All Over Again?

By Katie Day

…ada. In subsequent years, the numbers fell: there were 209 church arsons in 1997 and 166 the following year, according to their annual reports. The last report was issued in 2001. Altogether there were almost 900 reported cases of church arson in the late 1990s—a huge number compared to what we’ve seen in the last two weeks. A second difference is that of public response. In 1995-96, there was a unique alliance of actors creating “perfect storm” c…

A Secret History of Satan

By W. Scott Poole

…n, in some cases public policy. The book makes the case that a significant number of Americans believe in the same Devil believed in by Puritan preachers and 19th-century evangelists. This cannot be dismissed. Its essential to understand why this is so, what historical conditions gave rise to this phenomenon and what does it tell us about the United States. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I had several groups in mind, all of…