Religion Dispatches
…needed. But our community desperately needs tax reform to stabilize human service and health care programs. Oftentimes such discussions are uncomfortable in a church atmosphere and so I’ve decided to [enter] this race because without such reforms we’ll have to continue cutting vital programs for the poorest of the poor, and I’m not willing to allow that to happen without trying to use government as a vehicle for social change. That is not to say…
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…n Pew’s recent studies of the same demographic of religiously unaffiliated Americans, but shows an even sharper increase in their numbers. According to PRRI, in 1990 the religiously unaffiliated made up only 6 percent of adults. From 1998 to 2004, that percentage held steady at around 14 percent, but today, 25 percent of Americans “claim no formal religious identity.” This percentage continues to primarily consist of adults under the age of 50. Th…
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…n 1972, beamed broadly at this gathering. He is retired from distinguished service both in congregational and denominational leadership in a church that now has countless queer ministers, many of whom were not born when he was ordained. Welcoming churches opened their doors, some more reluctantly than others, in the 1980s and 90s. Courageous people and groups stepped up to challenge denominations on their policies, to be test cases for ordination…
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Not long ago I spoke at the memorial service for my friend Herbert Crimes. An ardent Afrocentrist, he went by the name of Sibanye, which means “together as one” in Swahili. The many colors visible among the large audience at his secular service—held in a rented hall in the Adam Clayton Powell state office building in Harlem where Sibanye used to preside over a monthly humanist community group meeting—testified to the pluralism of his personal lif…
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…than the gender-bending, clone-challenging threesome of its origin both in numbers and in intent. As many living in San Francisco know (or in the various locations around the globe to which the order has spread), the Sisters are a self-described ministerial, charitable and grant awarding organization. As they explain it, the Sisters are a leading-edge Order of queer nuns. Since our first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979, the Sist…
Read More…ultimate repeal of DADT. ADF legal counsel Daniel Blomberg has said that “service members should not be denied the very constitutional liberties they volunteered to defend,” completely disregarding the fact that many gay and lesbian soldiers who profess a faith, Christian or otherwise, should also have their religious liberty protected—which means not having to bear being insulted or demonized by anyone in the military, chaplain or otherwise. Thi…
Read More…late 1980s, federal officials sought to identify homosexuals in the public service and military who were seen as untrustworthy and at risk of blackmail by foreign powers. Those targeted were subject to interrogation, harassment and dismissal. Many quit rather than submit themselves, friends and family to such harassment. In 1989, Michelle Douglas was discharged from the military for being, as the regulation put it, “not advantageously employable d…
Read More…the conference. Religious conservatives in the US and abroad have labeled American efforts to promote LGBT human rights overseas as imperialism. But activists at a conference coinciding with the third anniversary of a memorandum from President Obama charging US foreign policy agencies to promote LGBT rights said that US efforts have been important to activists promoting equality and facing persecution around the world. Read the Washington Blade’s…
Read More…and friends behind when they emigrated from Denmark, I suspect the parlor service suited their needs just fine. I keep wondering when the parlor wedding is going to come back into style. We have a serviceable living room here at Casa Pastor, and if you got on Mrs Pastor’s good side, she might even agree to hold your train. The room’s not very big, though, so attendants and couples on-deck would have to wait in the dining room. Maybe Mom and Dad c…
Read MoreThe United Methodist News Service is reporting that over 600 clergy and lay members of the denomination are seeking church discipline against Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his role in the Trump administration’s policy of separating detained migrant families at the U.S. border: The group claimed in a June 18 statement that Sessions, a member of a Mobile, Alabama, church, violated Paragraph 2702.3 of the denomination’s Book of Discipline. Spec…
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