United States of America
Documenting Violence Against Women in 10 Countries
Karin Alfredsson is spearheading a nongovernmental project to document violence against women around the world, and to highlight the shortcomings and successes of legislation and other initiatives aimed at helping to curb it.
Stockholm: Violence against women worldwide causes more deaths and injuries than traffic accidents, cancer, and malaria combined.
Religiosity, Christian Fundamentalism, And Intimate Partner Violence Among U.S. College Students
Student survey data show general religiosity did not correlate with violence approval, psychological aggression, or intimate partner violence, but Christian fundament
Canada/USA: Investigation of Cross-Border Underage Polygamous Marriages
VANCOUVER — The RCMP is preparing to head to Texas to look for more than two dozen brides from Bountiful, B.C., who were allegedly sent across the border as teens to marry older men, including a polygamous leader now facing a life sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls.
The Mounties launched a new criminal investigation into Bountiful earlier this year after a constitutional case examining Canada's anti-polygamy law heard allegations of cross-border marriages in the 1990s and early 2000s.
B.C. Supreme Court heard that more than two dozen girls were sent to the United States to marry older men, while several American girls were married to Canadians.
USA: Women have abortions whatever their religion
We are in the midst of very painful debates in Congress over family planning and abortion care. It’s time to catch our breath, step back and take a broader perspective. There’s an ongoing search for “common ground” on abortion, dreams of reaching an agreement that, once and for all, satisfies everyone involved. For those seeking this elusive “common ground,” a recently released Guttmacher Institute holds the key.
The study finds that women of a wide range of faiths have abortions, even when the “official” faith teachings are opposed. So it’s time to stop pretending and get one step closer to our “common ground”—the abortion will happen.
United States: Muslim clerics sign up for evolution
The Imam Letter, launched this week in the US, is the latest challenge to Creationists of the three Abrahamic religions who reject evolution in favour of Creationism.
Creationism is the religious belief that all species were created in exactly the form they appear today.
Biological evolution is a scientific theory which posits that modern species have undergone major changes over time and can be traced back to earlier species from which they descended.
USA: Catholic Bishops' Attack on Book Concerns Scholars
Is God male? The Old Testament uses the masculine pronoun to describe him. Jesus refers to the divinity as Father. So does that make the creator a masculine force — and mean that men are more godlike than women?
These are questions that theologians like Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, a professor, have been mulling for years. At 69, Sister Johnson is among the pioneers of a generation of feminist scholars who examine how cultural biases among biblical scribes may have led to women’s diminished roles in Western religious traditions, especially the .
USA: Fr. Roy Bourgeois Threatened with Dismissal From Maryknoll Community
Today, March 29th, 2011, Fr. Roy Bourgeois received a canonical warning from the leadership of his community, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. Fr. Roy has been given fifteen days to recant his belief that women, along with men, are called by God to serve as Roman Catholic priests. Failure to recant during this time period will result in a second canonical warning from his superiors, whereupon, Maryknoll leadership will submit their charge for dismissal to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with a request for laicization. Take action .
USA: If abortion isn't healthcare, what is it?
Congressman Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey) introduced his party’s third highest priority for the new congress, , or “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” with a puzzling statement: “Abortion is not health care.”(Congressional Record, Vol. 157, No. 8). Just what is it then? I guess he would call it a sin and try to outlaw it. Perhaps Mr. Smith, and his Democratic partner on this bill Congressman Dan Lipinski know something the rest of us do not. I doubt it. Resorting to their Catholic beliefs this time just doesn’t cut it.
USA: The Tea Party and the new right-wing Christian feminism
Why have American women become so active in the right wing Tea Party movement? Could it be that they are drawn to the new conservative Christian feminism publicized by Sarah Palin? Without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture.
Religious Divorce Dispute Leads to Secular Protest
This should have been a good New Year’s for Aharon Friedman, a 34-year-old tax counsel for the Republicans on the . He spent time with his 3-year-old daughter, and could have been thinking about the influence he will have starting Wednesday, when his boss, of Michigan, becomes chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee.