Religion

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Men claim they’ve had sex with virulently homophobic pastor Jesse Lee Peterson

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Several men have alleged they had sex with anti-LGBTQ+ pastor and conservative radio host Jesse Lee Peterson.  The allegations emerged after Church Militant – a far-right Catholic group and website – released an almost 30-minute video in June featuring interviews with men accusing Peterson of making sexual advances toward them.  ​​Patrick Rooney, one of the men in the video, claimed he had a sexual relationship with Peterson that he said lasted about 10 years. Rooney, who has known Peterson since 1992, alleged in the video that the Los Angeles-based pastor made sexual advances toward him for years before they became sexually involved […]

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Mormon church leader condemns same-sex marriage and transitioning as ‘the devil’s work’

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A Mormon leader has reaffirmed the faith’s opposition to same-sex marriage and “changes that confuse or alter gender” at a biannual conference. Dallin H Oaks, the second-highest-ranking leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon church), told conference attendees at the church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, that it would not be altering its stances on same-sex marriage or gender identity. Oaks, according to AP, explained that the highest level of salvation “can only be attained through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman”. >”That divine doctrine […]

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British gay man recalls ‘terrifying’ exorcism in church basement

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The Church of England has launched an investigation after a gay man claimed he was subjected to a conversion therapy exorcism in a Sheffield church. Matthew Drapper, 34, says he was “born into a Christian cult [and] was raised believing Satan is at war with Christians and God is at war with the gays”. He told the Huddersfield Examiner that he moved to Sheffield from Buxton in 2013, at the age of 25, and joined the Church of England church St Thomas Philadelphia. Drapper said by that point he had come out as gay, but that he had vowed to remain celibate. In […]

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Majority of LGBT+ Christians don’t feel safe to be themselves in church, damning report finds

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A worrying report has shown that just a third of LGBT+ Christians feel safe to be themselves at church, fearing “hostility and discrimination”. The report from the Ozanne Foundation, in collaboration with nine LGBT+ Christian organisations, is the result of research conducted last year and overseen by Dr Sarah Carr, a mental health and social care research specialist. The survey received around 750 responses from queer Christian adults in the UK, with the majority (59 per cent) attending Church of England churches, and the remaining respondents belonging to other Christian denominations. It found that less than a third (31 per cent) of LGBT+ Christians […]

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Pope Francis urges parents to support their gay children – not condemn them

Pope Francis has urged parents worldwide to unconditionally support, not condemn, their children if they are gay. The leader of the Catholic Church made his latest gesture of outreach to the LGBT+ community in off the cuff statements during his weekly general audience on Wednesday (26 January). He spoke to the crowd about different “sad” situations that parents face in their children’s lives. This included coping with children who live with serious illnesses, are imprisoned or come out as part of the LGBT+ community. “Parents who see that their children have different sexual orientations, how they manage that and accompany their […]

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LGBTQ dating ban at BYU probed in federal investigation

The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil-rights investigation into how LGBTQ students are disciplined at Brigham Young University, a private religious school. The complaint under investigation came after the school said it would still enforce a ban on same-sex dating even after that section was removed from the written version of the school’s honor code, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Students can be punished for holding hands or kissing someone of the same sex, harsher discipline than that faced by heterosexual couples at the school operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. BYU removed its written […]

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120 church officials come out as LGBT+ in stand against Catholic homophobia

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More than 120 German Roman Catholic priests and officials have jointly come out as LGBT+ and called on the church to do better by queer Catholics. Presenting a fresh test for the church, which has long resisted calls to modernise when it comes to LGBT+ rights, 125 former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers came out on Sunday (23 January). In a Change.org petition, the group wrote that while some have “bravely and dared” to come out in the past, others have only “just taken the step”. “We no longer want to remain silent,” they wrote. Jointly, the group […]

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Religions around the world are contributing to transphobic violence, activists warn

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A group of activists invite social media to join their campaign to ‘disrupt the religious violence trans people experience every day’. Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi and J Mase III edited the Black Trans Prayer Book to dismantle toxic religious practices that alienate people in the LGBT+ community. The anthology is composed of work by Black trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people. In 2019, the pair hosted their first annual event for the #TransphobiaIsASin Campaign. The online campaign highlights religious violence that impacts trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people worldwide – especially those from Black, Indigenous and other marginalised communities. Now, on Saturday (15 January), Dane and […]

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Utah billionaire leaves Mormon church, donates $600,000 to LGBTQ group

Jeff Green, a billionaire thought to be the richest person from Utah, resigned from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, writing in a letter to the church’s president that he believes the institution has “hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights,” according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Green, the chairman and CEO of The Trade Desk, a technology marketing company, informally left the Mormon church, as the LDS church is commonly called, a decade ago. But in a letter Monday to church President Russell Nelson, he officially resigned and requested the removal […]

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Vatican Sorry For Removing LGBTQ Resource From Site

The Associated Press reports: A Vatican official has apologized to a leading Catholic LGBTQ advocacy group for having yanked a reference to it from the Vatican website, saying he realized the move caused pain and that the Catholic Church does indeed want to include gays and hear from them. The Vatican’s General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, which is organizing a two-year consultation of rank-and-file Catholics ahead of a 2023 meeting of bishops at the Vatican, restored the reference to New Ways Ministries on the website over the weekend. Read the full article.

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