Religion

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Loud and Proud in The Lone Star State: Dallas Church, Cities Across Texas Respond to Crosswalk Controversy with Pride

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Standing at the corner of Cedar Springs and Oak Lawn Blvd in Dallas for over 150 years, Oak Lawn United Methodist Church has served Texans of faith, including members of the LGBTQ community. Through its inclusive efforts, the church is a leader in providing resources for all Texans. And through a sign of symbolic strength, the church continues to commit to standing up for equality.  On Oct. 9, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered all decorated crosswalks across the state to be removed within 30 days or risk losing essential funding from the state’s transportation department. The rainbow crosswalks are a major pillar […]

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Pope Leo says blessing same-sex weddings is ‘not what the Church teaches’

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Pope Leo is continuing his predecessor’s decision to bless same-sex couples — so long as they don’t look too much like a wedding. The new pontiff recently said in an interview with Christian newspaper Crux that “the church’s teaching will continue as it is” in regards to marriage equality, while criticizing some ceremonies in which priests have blessed couples as they legally marry. “I’ve already spoken about marriage, as did Pope Francis when he was pope, about a family being a man and a woman in solemn commitment, blessed in the sacrament of marriage,” Leo said. “But even to say that, I understand […]

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Pope Leo meets LGBTQ Catholic advocate and vows continuity with Francis’ welcoming legacy

Pope Leo XIV met Monday with one of the most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic Church and encouraged his ministry, just days before a planned Holy Year pilgrimage of LGBTQ Catholics to the Vatican.  The Rev. James Martin, a New York-based Jesuit author and editor, said Leo told him he intended to continue Pope Francis’ policy of LGBTQ acceptance in the church and encouraged him to keep up his advocacy. “I heard the same message from Pope Leo that I heard from Pope Francis, which is the desire to welcome all people, including LGBTQ people,” Martin told The Associated Press after the audience. […]

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What are LGBTQ+ people’s views on religion in the U.S.?

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LGBTQ+ Americans are significantly less likely to be religious than their straight and cisgender peers — but they’re still more spiritual.  Less than half of U.S. adults who are LGBTQ+ (48 percent) say they identify with a religion, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, compared to 73 percent of non-LGBTQ+ Americans. The majority of queer adults (52 percent) identify as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular,” compared to just 26 percent of their non-LGBTQ+ peers.  LGBTQ+ adults were also far less likely to say that religion is very important to them personally (17 percent vs. 42 percent), that they attend religious […]

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‘Girl Scouts but Indoctrination’: A Christian Extremist Alternative

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Growing up, Kenzie remembers dragging her feet as her mom sent her to American Heritage Girls (AHG) programs. “I describe it as Girl Scouts but indoctrination,” says Kenzie, a 20-year-old dance major from Oklahoma.  “Ever since I was little, I always knew I was queer; different from the people around me. … [In the eyes of AHG staff] it felt wrong to be feminine, but also wrong to be masculine.” AHG and Trail Life USA—a similar organization for boys—have troops in all 50 states and more than 110,000 members. They teach kids that homosexuality is sinful and that anything outside the gender […]

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Inclusive church turns hateful graffiti into Pride mural: “We make beautiful things out of the dust”

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After an LGBTQ+-inclusive church in Austin, Texas, was vandalized on Thursday, the community came together to transform the act of hate into something beautiful. The vandals tore down the Pride flag at Life in the City UMC and graffitied “Pride was the 1st sin” on the front of the building. Afterward, volunteers joined the church for a “creative restoration project” to transform the graffiti into a mural featuring two Progress Pride flags flanking the church doorway. “At Life in the City, we strive to welcome those on the outside to the inside of the circle because Jesus’ greatest commandment was […]

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Cherry Vann becomes first woman and LGBTQ cleric named archbishop in Britain

Bishop Cherry Vann has been elected as archbishop of the Church in Wales, becoming the first woman and LGBTQ cleric appointed to lead any of Britain’s Anglican churches. While the broader, international Anglican Communion has had openly gay bishops before, most notably Gene Robinson in the United States, Vann will be the first lesbian to serve as archbishop globally. The Church in Wales, which broke away from the Church of England in 1920, elected Vann to the post on Wednesday. Vann was among the first women ordained as priests in the Church of England in 1994 and later served as […]

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Southern Baptist delegates at national meeting overwhelmingly call for banning same-sex marriage

Southern Baptist delegates at their national meeting overwhelmingly endorsed a ban on same-sex marriage — including a call for a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 10-year-old precedent legalizing it nationwide. They also called for legislators to curtail sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing. The votes Tuesday came at the gathering of more than 10,000 church representatives at the annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The wide-ranging resolution doesn’t use the word “ban,” but it left no room for legal same-sex marriage in calling for the “overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. […]

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Southern Baptists To Vote On Overturning Obergefell

The New York Times reports: Southern Baptists plan to vote this week on acting to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage 10 years ago this month. The step is part of a growing effort by evangelicals nationwide to reverse Obergefell, and coincides with a renewed campaign in state legislatures to challenge the widely accepted view that same-sex marriage has become an established civil right. While the Southern Baptist Convention has long opposed gay marriage, the vote at its annual meeting in Dallas will be the first time that the largest Protestant denomination in America will ask representatives […]

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Quakers refuse to exclude trans people from their facilities: ‘This is what Love requires of us’

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Quakers in Britain have been commended for rejecting claims that a UK Supreme Court ruling prevents trans people from using single-sex spaces. The Christian group, which represents Quakers, or members of the Society of Friends faith group, argued that a ruling handed down in April, which aims to clarify the 2010 Equality Act’s definitions of women and sex, has not affected the rights of trans people to use gendered facilities consistent with their birth sex. In a unanimous ruling, Supreme Court judge Lord Patrick Hodge argued that the terms women and sex in the legislation refer to “biological women” and “biological sex.” Lord […]

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