Religion News on the Web
Selected religion-related news from around the Web
May 20, 2013
- The New York Times
NYT: State Dept. report says countries have repressed religious freedom with laws
Countries around the world, including allies of the United States, have used laws on blasphemy and apostasy to suppress political opponents, the State Department said on Monday in an annual report chronicling a grim decline in religious freedom that has resulted in rising bigotry and sectarian violence.
May 20, 2013
- The Washington Times
Wash. Times: Evangelical weakness in gay Boy Scouts debate could hurt GOP
Signs of waning evangelical power in the nation’s culture wars and in Republican policy — and some unexpected challenges for GOP candidates — loom as the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America gears up for a definitive vote this week on whether to welcome openly gay youths into the organization’s ranks.
May 18, 2013
- The New York Times
NYT: Hollande signs French gay marriage law
The rush toward France’s first same-sex marriage officially began Saturday morning, after President François Hollande signed the country’s “marriage for all” act into law.
May 17, 2013
- The New York Times
NYT: Abortion law in Arkansas is blocked by U.S. judge
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked enforcement of one of the country’s most stringent abortion laws, an Arkansas ban on the procedure at the 12th week of pregnancy, saying the law was likely to be declared unconstitutional.
May 15, 2013
- Reuters
Reuters: Critics slam new cloning research
Scientists' assertion that the advance in therapeutic cloning announced on Wednesday could not and would not pave the way to cloning a baby did little to assuage critics of the research.
May 10, 2013
- Los Angeles Times
LA Times: Sword of division is poised over Iraq
Less than a year and a half after the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's
political leaders are openly debating the prospect of two dangerous
paths for their country: de facto division or civil war. Perhaps both.
May 09, 2013
- The Wall Street Journal
WSJ: The Pentagon's problem with Proselytizing
In early April, Army Reserve soldiers in Pennsylvania were told in a redeployment briefing that evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics were "extremists," the same category as al Qaeda.
May 03, 2013
- The Boston Globe
Boston Globe: Same-sex marriage approved in Rhode Island
As more than 1,000 ecstatic supporters looked on, Governor Lincoln Chafee on Thursday signed legislation making Rhode Island the 10th state in the nation to permit gays and lesbians to wed, and establishing gay marriage as the law of the land throughout all of New England.