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Giving Up God—Not Just a Spiritual Stunt

By Becky Garrison

…imself an unexpected media darling. Becky Garrison caught up with Bell via phone to talk about his motivations, the reactions of his friends and family, and what he hopes to discover. BG: What’s your reaction to this surge of media coverage? RB: When I started this, I thought my blog would only be read by a few people. It’s been surreal. I have no clue how to make anything go viral, so this is totally unexpected. But eventually, I think this atten…

Black Masses Continue to Titillate Conservative Catholics

By Joseph Laycock

…cedented attention. Mayor Mick Cornett has already received 450 emails and phone calls opposing the event. Archbishop Paul Coakley has also condemned the event and called on Catholics to protest if it moves forward. Daniels, naturally, has expressed delight that his antics are finally provoking Church officials. This newfound energy has nothing to do with Daniels and everything to do with the events of last May. An online petition features footage…

Bad News for LGBT Anglicans, Mormons, Adventists, Norwegians, Russians, Georgians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Saudis…

By Peter Montgomery

…le traveled to Singapore, Taiwan and Sweden late last year. The Shepards visited Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary in September 2012. UK: Protest Against Planned Deportation of Lesbian Nigerian Asylum Seeker Activists are planning a Friday protest against plans by the Home Office to deport 46-year old Apata Adejumoke, who claims she was subject to violence and her girlfriend was murdered in Nigeria and that she fears for her life if she is retu…

James Foley Prayed, But He Was Not a Martyr

By Alana Massey

…ect of both personal and corporate prayer. When he speaks to his mother by phone from Libya, she asks if he has felt the prayers coming from his home as well. He tells her that he has felt them and reports, “Maybe it was others’ prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat.” This is precisely the kind of hope that prayer can inspire that should become central to the understanding of it for those of us who do not engage in prayer. Though the old aph…

The Real Mormon Moment

By Joanna Brooks

…headquarters in Salt Lake City has been the subject of speculation; Church officials deny high-level coordination. But it’s also being reported that the stage may have been set for Kelly’s excommunication court when one high-ranking LDS official remarked at a regional leadership meeting in Virginia that support for women’s ordination should be considered a form of apostasy. That instruction and the news of the pending courts seems to have created…

The Mormon Version of Infallibility

By Holly Welker

…e the following statement on the board: The prophet cannot err when making official pronouncements of faith and morals. Go ahead: Like Stevens, ask a few Mormons you know if they agree with this statement. Chances are good that you’ll get results much like his: All but one man in the priesthood class said, “Oh, yeah. That’s true. That’s what we believe.” When, at the end of class, Stevens admitted that this was his paraphrase of the doctrine of in…

Does Pope Francis Support LGBT Civil Unions?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…Argentina. Hale cites NBCLatino’s reference to an interview with Francis’ official biographer, Sergio Rubin: …Bergoglio was politically wise enough to know the church couldn’t win a straight-on fight against gay marriage, so he urged his bishops to lobby for gay civil unions instead. It wasn’t until his proposal was shot down by the bishops’ conference that he publicly declared what Paulon described as the “war of God”—and the church lost the iss…

‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa Receives Threats; ‘Blood Test’ for ‘Degeneratism’: Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…past on U.S. and British religious conservatives’ efforts to stop Jamaican officials from repealing the country’s colonial era “buggery” law. This week, a joint select committee of the Jamaican Parliament began an official review of the Sexual Offences Act, a 2009 law that further criminalized same-sex relations. In a June interview, Jamaican LGBT rights lawyer Maurice Tomlinson had accused Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller of a “blatant betray…

Why Atheists Should Fight For Establishment of State Religion

By Shanny Luft

…r words, the ACLU was arguing on first amendment grounds that Rowan County officials were favoring Christianity. In response, these North Carolina lawmakers proclaimed that the first amendment did not apply to North Carolina. The wildly overshooting lawmakers garnered immediate media attention (“North Carolina May Declare Official State Religion Under New Bill,” reported The Huffington Post) and alarmed those who felt that Christian theocrats had…

Did Mormon Morality Teachings Really Make it Harder for Elizabeth Smart to Run?

By Joanna Brooks

…he one Elizabeth Smart attended. Mind you, such lessons are nowhere in the official sex education curriculum of the state of Utah. Nor are they to be found in the current handbooks or youth instructional manuals of the LDS Church. The most current LDS youth manuals (released in January 2013) reflect a steady effort on the part of LDS Church leaders to revise out especially punitive messages about sexuality, especially those that might compound fe…