Search for "Alaska Airlines 800-299-7264 Customer Service Toll-Free Number"

Australian Church Leaders See Marriage Vote as Battle for Soul of Australia: Global LGBT Recap 10/30

By Peter Montgomery

…s,” said Mambosasa. Just days later an NGO, the Community Health Education Services and Advocacy (CHESA) centre, was suspended on the same charge and accused of organising a workshop at the Peacock hotel. CHESA and ISLA insisted they were merely coordinating a “legal consultation” to challenge a government decision to limit the provision of some health services. In February, Tanzania provoked criticism notably from the United States after announci…

Meet the Real Mitt Romney

By Joanna Brooks

The Sunday New York Times‘s front-page story on Mitt Romney’s service as a Mormon lay pastoral leader is hands down the most humanizing profile of candidate Romney that I’ve yet seen. And it makes a substantial contribution towards improving a national conversation about Mormonism that continues to fixate on caricatures and pejoratives. (A week after Pastor Robert Jeffress went on a media-spree hurling the pejorative term “cult” at millions of Am…

Pope Francis meets with bishop who blessed gay couple; Proposed NGO law in Uganda threatens LGBT groups, civil society; Interfaith sexuality organizing in Indonesia; global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tual Catholic community since the fifth century. Paradoxically, that exile freed Gaillot to continue his activism – and irk Rome – as he moved in with squatters in Paris and advocated for a host of reform causes in politics and the church. New Ways also reports that the Vatican “has intervened to prevent a transgender man in Spain from being a godparent.” The local bishop had previously reversed a similar decision, approving Alex Salinas’s request…

Istanbul ‘Haven of Sorts’ For LGBT Syrians and Iraqis; Cayman Islands Affirm Marriage Ban with ‘Holy Bible Evidence’; No Room for LGBTs in Malaysia’s ‘Islam-Based’ Human Rights Policy; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…half of State Department positions “are effectively off-limits for Foreign Service officers who would want to move with their same sex spouses.” Vatican: No room for LGBT Catholics at upcoming World Meeting of Families New Ways Ministry, a Catholic group planning to hold a conversation around gender identity issues during the Pope’s visit to Philadelphia next month, was banned by church officials from holding their event in a local parish. St. Joh…

Parting Words For and From Bob Edgar

By Peter Montgomery

I went to a memorial service Wednesday for Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, who died suddenly last month. (See Peter Laarman’s RD piece on Edgar’s legacy here.) The service was packed with social justice activists as well as current and former members of Congress. Edgar, a liberal Democrat, had been elected to six terms in the House of Representatives from a staunchly Republican congressional district because he had such a strong reputat…

Turn on the News: Why Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Faith Doesn’t Matter (But Amy Coney Barrett’s Did)

By Daniel Schultz

…. Barrett’s woeful grasp of the Constitution— she was unable to name the 5 freedoms included in the First Amendment—led to Feinstein’s line of questioning. Still, and as much as we all might like it to be otherwise, faith is not a window into the soul, nor into the legal mind. It might give some indications of how a person structures the world, or of their moral commitments. But as both Barrett and Jackson testified repeatedly, jurists at every le…

Most U.S. Catholics Back Marriage Equality, But Knights of Columbus Pour Millions into Opposition

By Peter Montgomery

…illions of dollars to the pope and bishops’ conferences as well as to more service-oriented charities. “The Strong Right Arm of the Bishops: The Knights of Columbus and Anti-Marriage Equality Funding,” documents $6.25 million in direct Knights funding to anti-marriage equality campaigns at the national level and in a dozen states since 2005—and another $9.6 million to organizations that are working “to build a conservative religious and political…

Turn On The News: Ending Zoom Church is a Great Idea for a Column — Provided You Completely Ignore the Disability Perspective

By Daniel Schultz

…more from a congregation in terms of time and commitment than streaming a service online,” she says. “But it gives the gifts of personal, embodied presence, and even friendship and love.” While I, as a former pastor, would ordinarily not want to discourage lay ministry, it shouldn’t have to be said that we don’t live in ordinary times these days. Visits carry a non-negligible risk of infection, particularly in congregate settings such as hospital…

Mexico’s Religious Conservatives Seek Anti-LGBT Constitutional Amendment, LGBT Activists Defend Secular Government; Cash From Qatar Funds ‘Traditional’ Family Activism Worldwide; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…they do not have healthy relationships.” Indonesia: LGBT activists receive free expression award in midst of crackdown Indonesian LGBT activists have endured a wave of homophobic rhetoric from some political and religious leaders this year. The Jakarta Post reported that an alliance of LGBTIQ groups has received the Suardi Tasrif award “given to those fighting for freedom of expression.” The award was ceremonially accepted by two representatives f…

Catholics for Choice Blasts New Proposed Contraception Coverage Rule

By Sarah Posner

…est for exemption, exempt organizations can now include schools and social service organizations, operated by churches, that nonetheless employ and serve people of other faiths. Organizations that do not qualify for the exemption will likely include institutions of higher education, large social services organizations, and Catholic hospitals, said Hutchinson. The new proposed rule permits these organizations, she said, to self-certify that they ar…