As in many religions, gay relationships, sexual intimacy and marriage are frowned upon in mainstream interpretations of Baha'i law. Those found violating the law can face sanctions from the Baha'i administration, including being cut off from community gatherings and participating in Baha'i elections. Seán Rayshel aims to make his religion, the Baha'i faith, more tolerant of its LGBTQ adherents.
Read More(OPINION) We’re approaching June, Gay Pride Month. It’s a good time to get ahead of a tough topic because while many young evangelicals are returning to older church traditions, that number includes some entering the Episcopal Church — a tradition that in 2015 amended its canons regulating marriage to permit same-sex marriage. This troubles many conservative Christians.
Read More(OPINION) Without explanation, the Biden-Blinken administration removed Nigeria from America’s official listing as a “country of particular concern” on religious persecution while Nigeria is labeled the “most dangerous place to be a Christian” in the world. Why has the alarm over unending atrocities expressed by religious and human-rights media and organizations not broken into the West’s mainstream media in any major way?
Read MoreSome critics suggest that soft-on-crime policies have gone too far in recent years and perhaps even damaged efforts to help the homeless, drug addicts and prostitutes. The tensions around rising murder rates in major cities around the United States in recent years are also creating hurdles for the loose coalition of conservative, Christian and libertarian nonprofits and billionaires who have collaborated with progressive left activists in the cause of prison reform and deincarceration.
Read MoreThe fourth season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” once again teleports audiences back to the 1980s — and this time, that includes the historical background of the satanic panic. When the small town of Hawkins succumbs to the blind hysteria common in that period, it brings the show’s heroes additional difficulty. It also offers the audience a “God’s eye view” of the actual satanic panic and proves it did nothing but create irrational fear.
Read MoreArtyom Kirilenko, who survived in the besieged city of Mariupol, is now part of a band of brothers, nearly 50 in all, who load vans with water, ramen noodles, diapers and vitamins and drive from western Ukraine to the hard-hit cities of the east. They unload the supplies and ferry back women and children.
Read MoreStudents continue a three-week-long sit-in at Seattle Pacific University to protest the school’s traditional views on human sexuality and its policy against hiring full-time faculty who violate it, including those who engage in homosexual behavior. The sit-in comes after over a year of controversy surrounding the issue.
Read More(OPINION) This is not the time to gloat. We must do our best to reach out to those who are angry and fearful, doing so with love, longsuffering, and grace. This is not the time to win a debate as much as the time to change hearts and minds. But without any question whatsoever, this is also a time to rejoice.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Without merit.” “Mere speculation and conjecture.” “Gossip and innuendo.” “Wholly unreliable.” “Implausible.” “Hazy and nebulous.” That’s how judges responded to 61 election lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal teams. Meanwhile, conservative Christian influencers used their media platforms outlets to promote these false claims about the election to believers. Here’s a look at eight of the most prominent promoters of the former president’s lies.
Read More(ANALYSIS) There’s nothing wrong with opinions and publishing a wide array of commentary. It’s something else altogether to take press releases and tweets, then dress them up as news stories. As we enter a post-Dobbs America, there’s the potential for these bad journalistic practices to get worse in the coming months and years.
Read MoreMany Black American pastors aren't jumping on the spiritual caravan with White evangelical churches that largely vote Republican. Black churches have a complex relation with religion and politics on the topic of abortion and other issues. So while some Black churches and pastors support the ruling, plenty of others do not.
Read More(OPINION) The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade is just the beginning of a new battle to be fought for the unborn, state by state, life by life, heart by heart. But this is also a massive, unprecedented victory — one that, for many years, seemed completely out of reach.
Read MoreAfter half a century, Americans’ constitutional right to get an abortion has been overturned by the Supreme Court. The Conversation asked Nicole Huberfeld and Linda C. McClain, health law and constitutional law experts at Boston University, to explain what just happened, and what happens next.
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court overturned both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey on Friday, ruling that there is no constitutional right to abortion. ReligionUnplugged looks at what six religious subgroups in America believe about abortion.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s five biggest religion cases of 2022 — including the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read MoreAfter an Israeli Supreme Court ruling, a right-wing Jewish group may proceed through the courts to evict the Palestinian Arabs who are protected tenants at two historic hotels in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter. The Greek Orthodox Church leasing the properties is opposing the transfer of leases by arguing the agreement made by a former church finance director is void and illegal.
Read More(OPINION) A massacre occurred during a Sunday mass, but it wasn’t an ordinary Sunday — this was the great feast of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter season. What’s more, the gunmen didn’t strike in tense northern Nigeria, where Christian communities are isolated in a majority-Muslim region. This 30-minute attack was inside St. Francis Catholic Church, located in the safer southwestern state of Ondo.
Read MoreSix years after Israeli authorities arrested the director of World Vision International’s work in Gaza and charged him with diverting money to the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas, a court in Beersheba found him guilty of terrorism charges last week, citing classified information that has been kept from the public.
Read More(OPINION) Americans have seen how ugly culture wars can become when electoral politics are caught in its talons. Witness the vitriol that dominates the news out of Washington and various state capitals these days. The situation in India — the world’s largest Hindu-majority nation with the third-largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan — is arguably even worse.
Read MoreJoseph Kennedy, a high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington, is waiting for a ruling to emerge from the Supreme Court any day in his case about prayer. And he insists he is a centrist that most Americans would agree with on religious freedom issues and the Constitution.
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