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American Evangelist Who Sparked Anti-Gay Panic Sued By Ugandan Gay Rights Group

By Sarah Posner

…in federal court in Massachusetts on Wednesday, accusing him of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda. The lawsuit maintains that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture. The Ugandan legislature considered a bill in 2009, proposed by…

The Fire Next Time: Tibetan Protests Spread

By Megan Sweas

…oung people told Raha. While uprisings in Tibet in the late 1980s inspired international solidarity movements among young Westerners, recent protests inside Tibet have galvanized a new generation of activists within the refugee community [See here for RD’s previous coverage]. The young refugees in India inspire their partners around the world in their persistence, but they also need a positive outlet for their frustration, activists say. “One thin…

When Religion is a Refuge for Scoundrels: ‘Ryan Budget’ Edition

By Daniel C. Maguire

…It doesn’t. It calls for a more active citizenship, not voter suppression. Internationally it calls for “a new model of a more cohesive, polyarchic international society that respects every people’s identity within the multifaceted riches of a single humanity.” The goal is a solidarity that would end poverty and obsessive reliance on military violence for security. The Vatican document supports fair taxation, greed-controlling regulation and bailo…

Ugandan Bishops Push Notorious Anti-Gay Bill

By Peter Montgomery

…including death and life imprisonment, and has generated intense scrutiny. International pressure, including opposition from the U.S. State Department, has helped prevent the legislation from actually being voted on in Parliament. The reported support for the bill from the Uganda Joint Christian Council is especially noteworthy since Roman Catholic Bishop of Uganda Cyprian Lwanga previously denounced the bill’s death penalty and imprisonment provi…

Is Change Possible? Shifting the Ex-Gay Question

By Lynne Gerber

…nth, in an interview with The Atlantic, Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, made it unequivocally clear that the nation’s largest ex-gay organization no longer considers itself in the business of changing sexual orientation. Chambers acknowledged that most Exodus members are single and remain so, that those who are married are trying to salvage an existing marriage rather than starting new, straight ones, and that homosexual desire s…

Undercover-ed Religion: 13 Stories That Went Missing in 2012

By Peter Laarman

…remain remarkably successful in taking their pelvic politics overseas via international “mission” activities. Rev. Albert Ogle enjoys a bird’s-eye view of this from his perch at a small foundation that tries to defend and empower gay people internationally. Big-time Christian agencies like World Vision and big-name evangelicals like Rick Warren have been moderating their homophobia on these shores, but they wear a very different face in the Globa…

A Church Group, a Lawsuit, and a Culture of Abuse

By T.F. Charlton

…phobia to Uganda, as well as Che Ahn, president of the charismatic Harvest International Ministries. Both men were among Covenant Life’s early leaders. Five years after its founding, in 1982, the church launched what would become its overarching ministry, Sovereign Grace, originally called “People of Destiny International.” The grandiose name reflected the group’s aspirations to greater influence as a ministry, a vision that would only begin to be…

Are Women “Secondary” in Catholic Church?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…h is out of touch, and as the religiously unaffiliated continue to grow in number, how women—the majority of active church-goers—experience the church is hardly a secondary concern. Gendered church language seems as good a place to start as any. The liturgies of most churches are lousy with sexist godtalk. This is the case well beyond the limited texts in which, arguably, tradition and aesthetics make make gender changes difficult. First on the li…

Bangladesh’s Atheist Blogger Still Wants to Talk

By Austin Dacey

…f’s story first came to me over the BBC World Service when the attack made international news. During his subsequent persecution by the authorities, he had been in communication with some of my colleagues and friends with the Bengali freethought website Mukto-Mona and the D.C.-based Center for Inquiry, with whose help we eventually connected. Although he said that there were some things he could not discuss, Asif embraced the opportunity to explai…

The Strategic Caution of the Muslim Brotherhood

By Zaid Hassan

…the Brotherhood is well aware of the potential backlash, both locally and internationally, if it is seen to have captured the state, which is certainly a factor in how it approaches the coming transition. In the introduction to the 2008 edition of his book, Who Needs An Islamic State?, Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi writes: [T]he Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success ha[s] made it more vulnerable as a target of the ruling regime. It has also become…