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Mexico moves toward national marriage equality; Greek govt announces civil partnership legislation; Pope warns against ‘secularism and relativism’; Global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…his legislation is pushed through, Greece is still far behind many other democracies, most of which have now legislated for same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples who are married or in a civil partnership.” In December 2013, Helena Smith at the Guardian reported, “A leading Greek bishop has warned lawmakers that they risk incurring the wrath of God – and will be excommunicated – if they vote in favour of legalising same-sex partnership…

Turkish Police Move Against Activists Who Defied Pride Ban; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…de evidence-based arguments, yet they have been successful in mobilising homophobia among conservatives. Until now they have managed to ensure that the majority of legislators, from both the ruling and opposition parties, have either opposed same-sex marriage or declined to publically support it. Germany: Legislation to annul sodomy convictions advances; analysis of marriage equality resistance Last week the lower house of parliament voted unanimo…

The Quixotic Task of Debunking David Barton

By Paul Harvey

…ans take the same tack with the likes of Barton? It’s not clear. In recent months, a number of voices have demanded that historians rise to the task of debunking Barton’s claims, insisting that they cannot remain in their ivory towers. Even some historians who consistently have done so, such as John Fea, were criticized; evidently for not doing it enough. In a more popular and polemical vein, Chris Rodda has also exposed Barton’s distortions. Not…

RD10Q: The Fight Against Feminism

By Kathryn Joyce

…me across the Quiverfull movement while researching the anti-contraception movement among pro-life pharmacists claiming “conscientious objections” to dispensing birth control. I had been unaware of anti-abortion claims that birth control functions as abortion, and hadn’t known that opposition to contraception had become an important issue among Protestants and evangelicals in addition to traditional opponents among Catholic and LDS churches. Looki…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…reported only around 200,000 members, but that number may well be low (the Mormon church in Mexico has argued that the religious count was inaccurate). Independent scholarly estimates for LLDM’s worldwide population range as high as seven million. Still: LLDM is big. And it’s not easy to classify the church that has emerged. In terms of theology and ritual, its flavor is firmly pentecostal and charismatic: Church members receive baptism in the Hol…

Global Religious Right Asks ‘How Far Can We Get?’; And More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…legally do now thanks to a Constitutional Court ruling in 2015. A group promoting the initiative cites a number of studies to support their argument that the initiative is needed to protect the best interest of children; among them is the widely discredited New Family Structures Study by Mark Regnerus. Their use of other studies has also been publicly challenged. From Human Rights Watch’s April 28 letter to Speaker Pinto [citations removed], which…

RDPulpit: Rick Warren and the Limits of Empathy

By Tom Davis

…either. Because the Republican candidate opposed all five issues and the Democratic candidate was pro-choice and supported at least two more of them, it became clear that President Bush was the one to vote for. Why, all of a sudden did abortion trump all other issues? Rick Warren is a man of compassion—why does he not have compassion for women who make the decision to end their pregnancy? Limited Theology and the Failure of Empathy Two factors see…

Resurrection of ‘Comstock Laws’ Would Threaten Access to Abortifacients — But Even That Fear Misses Bigger Picture

By Gillian Frank

…” an Illinois mother wrote in 1969. This woman, a mother of nine, lived in Monmouth, Illinois, a small town 200 miles west of Chicago, near the Iowa border. When she “discovered that beyond a doubt that [she] was pregnant,” she “was not prepared to cope with this physically or mentally, having nine children already,” so she decided to seek an abortion. This overtaxed mother relayed how her husband, a prominent chiropractic physician, asked a numbe…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Contraception Reversal

By Patricia Miller

…nvalid. They declared that responsible parenthood was an essential part of modern marriage and that the morality of sexual acts between married couples was not dependent “upon the direct fecundity of each and every particular act” but must be viewed within the totality of the marriage relationship. Despite the commission’s years of work and theologically unassailable conclusion that the church’s teaching on birth control was neither infallible nor…

Trump the Totem: Like Other Fascist Leaders, Trump has Turned from Man to Symbol — And That’s the Danger

By Robert P. Jones

…igion, The Smithsonian Institution and the University of Alabama. The MAGA movement, more than any in my adult lifetime, has spawned a multitude of transgressive and aggressive symbols. The proliferation of flags alone is remarkable: the ubiquitous blue Trump 2020, the “Trump is My President, Jesus is My Savior,” and the thin blue line. These commune with older flags resurrected with new meaning, such as the Tea Party’s “Don’t Tread on Me,” the in…