Losing Religion - Growing Distrust For Organized Religion As Christians Use Religion As An Excuse For Discrimination

Church attendance in Australia has fallen below 10%

Crisis of faith: why Australian women have so little trust in religious institutions

Attempts to give legal protection to religious people to practice their religion without fear of discrimination in Australia have run up against a predictable problem - Christians demanding the right to victimise, exclude and bully LGBTQ+ people and claiming it as their right under the anti-discrimination law.

We had a similar problem in UK some years ago when the ECHR was incorporated into UK law as the Human Rights Act, which, amongst other things, gave people the protection to practice their religion, free from discrimination as a basic human right. It also gave people freedom from discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation.

The two rights quickly came into conflict when Christians began demanding the right to carry on their tradition of bullying, victimizing and excluding gays, or denying them goods and services, on the grounds that denying them that right, deprived them of their privileged right to deprive other people of their human rights and decide to whom the law of the land applied.

This was clarified by the European Court which ruled that freedom from discrimination did not include the freedom to discriminate against others of your choosing on the grounds that your religion entitled you to do so. Human right applied to all and did not grant special privileges or exemptions to any group, no matter how entitled they felt to them.

Nevertheless, the argument rumbles on and Christian extremists are still lobbying for changes to the Human Rights Act or its abolition, to restore their right to bully and victimise minorities of their choice and decide who is entitled to what in society. The same bigots would react with outraged indignation if Muslims were demanding the right to impose Sharia on society or Jewish groups were lobbying for the right to impose Halakhah on the rest of us

In Australia, where this issue has recently emerged, it has done so against a growing distrust for organized religion, at least partly because of their record of bullying and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, and also because of the recent child sex-abuse scandals that have engulfed the Christian churches in Australia. It is these routine abuses of children and their subsequent cover ups by church authorities who often acted to facilitate them, that has probably cost the churches the trust of, especially, women in Australia.

A recent report found one in three Australian women had no trust at all in organised religion, a figure which rose to one in two for women between the ages of 18-29. Even one in ten religious women had no trust at all in organized religion and two in three LGBTQ+ women have no trust at all in organized religions.

The fact that so many Australian women are concerned about the treatment of LGBTQ+ by organized religion illustrates how far Australian cultural ethics have moved on, leaving Medieval Christian ethics struggling to keep up and faced with the familiar old dilemma of abandoning the old dogmas (and so in the eyes of purists, ceasing to be the religion they recognise) but retaining the support of the more enlightened elements in society or retaining their 'purity' and so keeping the die-hards but losing popular support in the process. Their problem is exacerbated by the fact that, as more and more moderate and progressive members leave in despair at the bigotry of the purists, so the purists become a larger proportion of the remaining members, and so the more powerful voices within the churches.

This quickly sets up the exponential declines we have seen in Europe, especially recently in Ireland and Spain where the decline in the power and influence of the Catholic Church has been in freefall since the child sexual abuse scandals broke and the Church tried to maintain its opposition to basic human rights such as same-sex marriages, family planning services and a woman's right to choose.

Incidentally, this illustrates how society doesn't get its morals from God and the church; they evolve as society evolves and the churches act as a break on progress trying to hold society back in order to retain control and its 'entitled' privileges. The Christian churches are anchored in the past and try to keep society there too. Eventually, religion is left so far behind that it becomes an irrelevance to the majority of the population. History shows this is the eventual fate of all religions and will be that of Christianity too.

This catastrophic decline in Australia, from the point of view of the churches, is illustrated in this chart which shows how net trust (i.e., the balance of those who trust the churches minus those who don't, fell from +3% in 1991 to -49% in 2018.

Gleeson, K. & Ashton, L. (2024). Trust in Religion among Women in Australia: A Quantitative Analysis. https://doi.org/10.60836/5jz3-t630

The authors of the report, Kate Gleeson, Associate Professor of Law, Macquarie University and Luke Ashton, Research Assistant, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney have written about their findings in an open access article in The Conversation. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic purposes:

Published: May 6, 2024 9.08pm BST

Crisis of faith: why Australian women have so little trust in religious institutions

Shutterstock

Kate Gleeson, Macquarie University and Luke Ashton, University of Technology Sydney

The Albanese government is weighing up the costs of delivering an election promise to protect religious people from discrimination in Commonwealth law. Such protections were relatively uncontroversial when included in state anti-discrimination laws. However, the religious discrimination debate became toxic under former prime minister Scott Morrison when it became tied to the rights of religious schools to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ staff and students.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the government has draft legislation ready to go. However, it won’t introduce it without bipartisan support because, “now is not the time to have a divisive debate, especially with the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia”.

Religious discrimination might not be addressed by the Australian parliament any time soon. Albanese must first persuade Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to support legislation to protect both religious people and LGBTIQ+ staff and students at religious schools.

Second, he will need to contend with an electorate that appears, at best, ambivalent about the problem of religious discrimination, while maintaining strong concerns about discrimination against LGBTIQ+ groups.

Trust in organised religion is low

Our new research report, Trust in Religion among Women in Australia, highlights some electoral realities relevant to legislating to protect religion in Australia today. The report analyses data from the nationally representative Australian Cooperative Election Survey, taken from May 2–18 2022. We surveyed 1,044 voters, of whom 531 were women. While we analysed the data for both men and women, we found that women are significantly more likely than men to express distrust in religion, and so our report focussed on them.

Our findings present a bleak picture for religious organisations hoping to gain political traction based on trust in their ability to act ethically and responsibly.

Child abuse scandals have played a big part in eroding the trust of women in particular.

When compared internationally, Australians – particularly women – have very low trust in organised religion. This gendered outcome makes Australia an outlier in the Western world and is likely related to women’s concerns for children in the care of religious organisations. Key findings include:

• about one-third of Australian women have no trust in organised religion and religious leaders
• distrust is highest among younger women: almost half of all women aged 18-29 have no trust in religious leaders
• among religious women, around 10% have no trust in organised religion and religious leaders, while around half have “not very much trust” in either
• LGBTIQ+ women have some of the lowest levels of trust in Australia. Almost two-thirds have no trust in religious leaders
• Women living in outer regional and remote Australia are significantly more likely to distrust religion than women living in cities and inner regional areas.

Child abuse scandals have eroded trust

Consistent with international studies, our research indicates religious child abuse scandals have greatly affected trust. Australian women are highly sceptical about the capacity of religious leaders to protect the children in their care. In fact, almost half report low, or no, trust.

They also doubt the ability of religious leaders to respond to the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Over half report low, or no, trust in this. Concern for children is highest among LGBTIQ+ women, likely reflecting concerns about discrimination against LGBTIQ+ school children, as well as child abuse.

Trust affects how women view the role of religion in the public sphere. We found that about four in five women who have no trust in religion believe religious organisations should no longer be granted tax-exempt status by the government. Around two-thirds of this group also believe the government should stop funding religious schools.

Similarly, two-thirds of women with no trust in religion think religious organisations should play a smaller role, or no role at all, in counselling in schools. Around 60% of this group also think religious organisations should play a smaller role, or no role at all, in primary and high school education.

Can trust be regained?

The report concludes that organised religion is facing a profound crisis of trust, particularly among women. Concerns for children are paramount in shaping women’s opinions about religious organisations and the services they offer. The high level of distrust among younger women suggests the crisis is generational and cannot be corrected without dedicated interventions on the part of religious organisations and governments.

If left unchecked, this crisis has the potential to undermine the social and economic fabric of Australia, given the prominence of religious organisations in the provision of education, healthcare, and social services.

Religious organisations must work to establish or regain the trust of the electorate, especially among regional and remote communities. The current national emergency of violence against women perhaps provides one opportunity for religious organisations to build this trust. This is especially so given the pivotal role they now play in the outsourced domestic violence services sector, which was once community-run.

Politically, this crisis of trust does not bode well for governments seeking support for any legislation that might appear to offer greater protections to organised religion.

In particular, any protections that are perceived to encroach on children’s rights will almost certainly be rejected by those large sections of the Australian electorate reporting low or no trust in religion. Albanese will need to get the balance right.
Kate Gleeson, Associate Professor of Law, Macquarie University and Luke Ashton, Research Assistant, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

Although this article is about Australia and deals with the Australian legislature's difficulty in reconciling the opposing forces of social progress and Christian reactionary bigotry, it reflects the situation throughout much of the Christian world, and which will eventually be faced in the Islamic world too.

As religious superstition loses its grip on society, society will either drags it kicking and screaming into the future, or consign it to the dustbin of history along with all the other irrelevant and unwanted religions that failed to keep up, also held back, no doubt by their increasingly internally powerful but externally despised, die-hard fundamentalists and dogmatic purists.

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The Christian Bigots Are Revolting

Bishops openly repudiate the teaching of the Church of England - Christian Concern

Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Croft (left) and Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern (right)

Like the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, or Church of England (CofE) in Britain is struggling to come to terms with the fact that society has moved on and no longer accepts the primitive Bronze Age moral code in the Bible. In order to stem the haemorrhage of members which has now left Anglicanism a minority cult in the UK with empty pews and derelict churches and not enough vicars to fill all the vacancies, reformers such as the Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Crofts, are trying to distance the church from that primitive barbarism, division, exclusion and hate that the Bible encourages. They are trying to make the CofE become more inclusive, embracing the humanist ethics that now form the basis of UK society, with same-sex marriages, sexual freedom, contraception and a woman's right to chose.

The problem for the CofE, like the Catholic church ,is that to catch up with modern society it has to abandon the fundamentals of the Early Medieval religion, yet, as its membership dwindles, the fanatical fundamentalists become proportionately more powerful within it. To those fundamentalists who are used to using the Bible to justify their smug bigotry and persecution of those who don't agree with them, to abandon the fundamentals is to abandon the faith altogether.

To these bigots the 'faith' is how they define it and they are not easily going to give up the basis for their entitled demand for the right to dictate to the rest of us.

This can be seen in a response by arch bigot, Andrea Williams, of Christian Concern, which represents the fundamentalist wing of Anglicanism, to proposed reforms in the CofE's attitude to same-sex marriage, with is dripping with condescension and the dogmatic assumption that their interpretation of their Bible is the definitive word of a god who empowered them to dictate to the rest of us.

Religious Bigotry News - Now Judaism is Exempt From Laws Protecting LGBTQ Rights, Thanks to SCOTUS

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Blocked order forbidding Orthodox Jewish University from discriminating against LGBTQ students

By Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Steve Petteway Source - http://www.oyez.org/justices/sonia_sotomayor (direct link), Public Domain, Link

High court blocks recognition of LGBTQ campus at Yeshiva U

I wrote recently about how the American Methodists, and the Australian Anglican churches are both splitting over whether they should be continuing to victimise, demonise and generally discriminate against LGBTQ people or not. Now we have an Orthodox Jewish university in New York winning the right to discriminate on 'religious grounds'.

Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish University in New York had appealed against a New York Judge’s ruling that their refusal to recognise an LGBTQ campus club violated New York City ‘s Human Rights Law, which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, and ordered the university to recognise it as an official student club.

The University appealed to SCOTUS on the grounds that, as a religious organization, it was exempt from the non-discrimination law, by virtue of the First Amendment right to freely exercise religion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with them and issued a temporary blocking order against the NY judge's ruling. The surprise is, that Sotomayor, who hears emergency applications from the state of New York on behalf of SCOTUS, is considered to be a liberal in SCOTUS with its 6:3 majority of conservative justices, courtesy of Donald Trump who rewarded his supporters on the far right by stuffing SCOTUS with partisan religious conservative.

Now, it seems, even the liberal justices are coming into line with the highly partisan SCOTUS. There is little doubt that this ruling will be confirmed by SCOTUS with a majority of at least 7:2 and will have the effect of giving any religious organisation the right to victimise anyone with whom they disagree and the right to pick and choose which laws to comply with. The problem is, the legal definition of a 'religion' in the USA is so nebulous that such a ruling would give carte blanche to any organization or group, formal or informal, to declare itself to be a religion and ignore any law it disagrees with on the same grounds that Sotomayor ruled constitutional.

The US Dictionary of Law entry on 'Religion' reads:

Bigotry News - Religions Fighting For the Right to Discriminate and Victimise

Magaly Valentin (left), and Rosalba Gomez (right) Arlington Food Services prepare fresh salads and vegetable cups for the National School Lunch Program in the kitchen at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, Wednesday, October 19, 2011.

USDA Photo by Bob Nichols.

USDA exempts religious schools from nondiscrimination rules to keep kids fed

Religions in the USA are continuing their campaign to be allowed to continue to victimise and bully minorities and women, using religion as their excuse.

The latest move is to persuade the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to drop its insistence that to participate in the free school lunch program, schools must not discriminate on the basis of sexuality or gender identity.

The National Schools Lunch Program is a federal initiative that provides meals for tens of millions of children in public and non-profit private schools. Schools had complained that participation in the program would oblige them to comply with the non-discrimination provisions of "Title IX" - a 1972 measure aimed at ensuring equal opportunities at educational establishment across the USA.

Last July, Grant Park Christian Academy of Tampa Florida, launched a lawsuit, supported by the unashamedly Christian nationalist hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom, claiming exemption from the non-discrimination provisions of Title IX on the grounds that the school taught a “biblical worldview about marriage, sexuality, and the human person.” In other words, it intended to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and teach the students to do the same, based on ancient texts written in the Bronze Age.

And recently, the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri, withdrew from the lunch program, claiming that:

Accepting any federal subsidy would subject archdiocesan schools to federal mandates that could impede a school’s ability to faithfully carry out the teachings of the Catholic Church

In other words, the catholic schools would no longer be allowed to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, continue to condemn same-sex marriages and victimise and demonise homosexuals, and teach their students to do likewise. Obviously the Catholic Church would rather have children go hungry than to grant everyone full human rights.

Religious Bigotry News - After the Methodists, the Anglicans Are Now Splitting Over Whether to Hate Gays or Not.

The Anglican split: why has sexuality become so important to conservative Christians?

I wrote recently about how the American Methodist church is breaking up over the question about whether members of the LGBTQ community are entitled to full human rights or whether they should continue to be figures of hate, condemnation and persecution.

Now the Anglican Church in Australia is falling apart over the self-same issue. The cause, as always, is tension between what modern evolved social ethics is demanding these churches conform to, or whether they should continue to adhere to the outmoded behaviour codes as first laid down by Bronze Age male tribal leaders, some of whom were so insecure in their sexuality that they forbade homosexual sex between men (though not between women), in the belief that these are the objective and unchangeable commands of an invisible sky man on whose whims our social ethics should be based.

Curiously, the diehards these days have little difficulty accepting the triumphs of the progressives in society who in the past have adjusted to changing social attitudes towards slavery, female emancipation, European Christian white supremacism and the colonial imperialism it gave rise to, to disability right, to full adult suffrage, etc, which they now accept as right and proper in a civilised society where once they vigorously opposed them as going against the sacred word of their favourite god.

But they seem to be stuck on the question of equal rights for homosexuals, including the right to marriage, consensual sexual activity and ordination as priests in the church of their choice, though why anyone would want to be a member of, let alone a minister in, any church in which such bigotry was tolerated, and even admired, is quite beyond me.

In the following article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency, Mark Jennings, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Divinity, Australia and an employee of the Anglican diocese of Perth, Australia, analyses this split and the origins of homophobia in the Anglican Church. The original article can be read here.

Christian Hate News - Now The Methodists are Splitting Over How Best to Hate LGBTQ People

Bishop Ken Carter, former president of the UMC's Council of Bishops.

For United Methodists, the center is not holding

A losing or defeated group invariably turns inward and fragments as it looks for scapegoats.

This was never more true than of the American United Methodists, America's second largest Protestant denomination, who, like other Christian denominations, are struggling against falling membership and with trying to keep up with rapidly changing cultural attitudes such as acceptance of LGBTQ people as being as entitled to full human rights as anyone else, including the right to same-sex marriage and/or ordination as pastors in the church of their choice.

It's the same old story of a religion which believes it's morals are handed down from divine authority and codified in a sacred book. These morals eventually become outdated and no longer suitable, as social ethics evolve along with society, to the extent that they come to be regarded as immoral. The mistake is in assuming that morality is fixed and unchangeable and based either on some objective standard or the arbitrary whim of a deity. In reality, of course, they evolve as part of cultural evolution.

Like the Catholic and other Christian Churches, the Methodists are now tearing themselves apart because, to change and accommodate the growing cultural acceptance of LGBTQ rights is to abandon what die-hard conservatives regard as core beliefs. The traditionalists regard the progressives as no longer 'real Methodists' while the progressives regard the conservatives as truculent die-hards, holding the church back and preaching an immoral gospel that gives excuses to would-be bullies and sanctimonious hypocrites, who would deny basic human rights to people of their choosing if allowed to, whilst preaching freedom and the essential equality of Man.

Americans Increasingly Ignore Their Church and Support Same Sex Marriage

Same-Sex Marriage Support Inches Up to New High of 71%

A sure sign that a religion is losing its grip on the people is when public opinion differs markedly from its teachings. This is a manifestation of an increasing tension as social ethics progresses and leaves behind the fossilised ethics of religion from an earlier age. The local religions then have to change to keep up but in doing so, they alienate the traditionalists who tend to become an ever-diminishing minority, pushing it further out to the fringes, or leave the church in protest at its increasing abandonment of sacred principles.

The problem is a direct consequence of the control of public morals religions presume they have entitlement to and their claim of the divine authority of an omniscient god for so doing. This means they can adopt change only by abandoning their justification for their control and in effect, giving up the pretence that morals come from an omniscient deity who, by definition, is never wrong. The reality, of course, is that morals are a social construct that change and develop according to the developmental needs of society, and have no divine, objective basis save what goes to create a cooperative society that is pleasant to live in.

So the progressive forces in society produces a tension between them and the regressive, traditionalist forces of religion and the needs of religions to keep control of their people and so the livelihoods and power of the priesthood. A useful analogy is that of a rope by which religions try to hold back social progress until either the rope snaps and the people give up on that religion, or the religion is dragged, kicking and screaming into the modern age.

Creationist Bigot News - Creationists are Much More Likely to be Racist, Homophobic and Violent

Disbelief in Human Evolution Linked to Greater Prejudice and Racism | UMass Amherst

According to a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology recently, people who reject the idea of human evolution are significantly more likely to be racist, homophobic, intolerant of other political opinions and supportive of political violence. This was true, not only of the USA, where the tendencies were especially marked, but also in Eastern Europe, Israel and Islamic countries.

Christian Bigotry News - A New 'Journal' to Try to Make Religion Look Less Hateful

New journal will spotlight queer and trans religious studies scholarship | News

In an effort to alter the general perception that religions, especially Christianity and Islam, are fundamentally hostile to anyone who doesn't fit their strict definitions of sexuality and conform to their strict rules on permitted sexual relationships, a couple of Christian theology professors have founded a new 'Journal' which will concentrate on publishing articles and papers exploring 'the full range of rich and complex connections between religion, gender, and sexuality'.

The journal, to be called QTR: A Journal of Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion, has been founded by Melissa M. Wilcox, a religious studies professor from University of California, Riverside (UCR) and Joseph Marchal, a religious studies professor at Ball State University in Indiana.

According to the UCR news release:

Malevolent Designer News - Is Creationism's Favourite Sadist Trying a New Tack?

New highly virulent and damaging HIV variant discovered in the Netherlands | University of Oxford

Creationist mode:

It's beginning to look like, in choosing quantity over quality, the divine sadist might have boobed with the Omicron variant of its SARS-CoV-2 virus as it seems to be a relatively mild disease compared to its earlier versions. It is very much more contagious, but the resulting infection is resulting in far fewer serious illnesses and deaths. It's still a nasty, dangerous little parasite that people need to be vaccinated against, but it iss beginning to look like a virus our health services can cope with.

So, is the realisation that it isn't causing as much death and destruction behind its recently detected super-duper new more dangerous version of HIV? HIV, as Creationists fundamentalist evangelicals were never slow to claim, was their beloved pestilential deity's attempt to punish homosexuals for the sexuality it gave them and was, in its heyday, a very serious virus that killed millions of homosexuals and heterosexuals alike, apart from lesbians who rarely, if ever, become infected during homosexual sex, and left countless children orphaned. Then medical science came up with treatments like antiretroviral drugs, which allow victims to live a relatively normal life and, better still, not pass it on to sexual partners.

Now though, according to scientists from the University of Oxford, UK, there is a much more dangerous and virulent variant, which has been detected in Holland, so it looks like any intelligence responsible for the design of these parasites has given the arms race spiral another twist, as though to resurrect one of its earlier attempts at mass killing.

According to the Oxford University news release:

Homophobic Archbishop Demoted as Vatican Civil War Hots Up

Archbishop Giacomo Morandi,
former Secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Source: Catholic Herald

Pope demotes Vatican official who championed statement against blessings of same-sex couples - Catholic Herald.

In a move which has focussed attention on the struggle within the Catholic Church as it tries desperately to modernise and come more into line with recent developments in cultural morality, the Pope has demoted the former Secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, an old-school homophobe, widely believed to be the author of a document instructing Catholic churches not to bless same sex marriages on the grounds that "God cannot bless sin", despite Pope Francis' attempt to liberalise the Church and welcome same sex couples into it, if not to specifically conduct same sex marriages, to try to give the traditionally homophobic church a more LGBTQ-friendly face.

The Church's intolerant homophobia is often cited as a reason for leaving the church as the Catholic Church, in common with other Christian churches, continues to haemorrhage members throughout the developed world. The call to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages had come from several German bishops in response to their declining congregations.

In the document, Morandi had claimed the Pope had been informed of its contents and had given his consent to it, yet Francis was reportedly taken by surprise by it. Francis is either finding it difficult to keep up or trying to ride two horses, or Morandi was lying. Morandi is also believed to have opposed another reform initiated by Pope Francis, intended to restrict further the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Archbishop Morandi has been appointed bishop of a small Italian diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, although he will be allowed to retain his Archbishop title "ad personam", so not so much a punishment as a reduction in his work-load.

However, the Vatican has moved to deny that the effective demotion has anything to do with the reactionary document, so trying to minimise the impression of an internal civil war in the Vatican between the old guard and the reformers led by Pope Francis, by portraying it as nothing more significant than a simple reorganization. According to this report in the Catholic Herald:

Some of this was fuelled by a meeting between Archbishop Morandi and Pope Francis on December 18, the day when further restrictions against the Latin Mass were announced in a highly-controversial responsa to a dubia about Traditionis custodes, the Holy Father’s motu proprio limiting the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

But Vatican sources told The Pillar website that his departure is not directly connected to the responsa, which introduced further restrictions – prompting questions about its legality – and that such speculation was “nonsensical”.

They say his move is most likely simply the first steps of a reshuffle which will allow the Pope to ultimately appoint Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to the CDF and prepare him to take over as head of the dicastery when Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the prefect who turns 78 in April, steps down from office.

One source said Morandi’s appointment was a way of “making room” at the CDF for the promotion of Archbishop Scicluna, an experienced canon lawyer and ally of the Pope, who at present serves as adjunct-secretary of the department.

It is generally agreed however that Archbishop Morandi was instrumental in the publication of the responsum ad dubium to a question about the legitimacy of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples.

However, although allowed to retain his title, being appointed to head up a minor diocese in southern Italy from his position as a senior member of the Curia and someone who would normally be expected to be appointed as a cardinal and promoted to head of the CDF, can't honestly be presented as anything other than a ritual humiliation and a warning to other die-hards not to oppose Pope Francis.

Christian Bigotry News - SCOTUS Decision Confirms Even Christians Must Obey the Law.

Flower Shop owner, Baronelle Stutzman.
Court rules she must not victimise gays even if she is a Christian and so feels she should be entitled to.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Anti-Gay Christian Florist Barronelle Stutzman | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

In declining to hear a case, the Supreme Court of the United States, even with its Trump-given conservative Christian majority, has in effect confirmed that even Christian bigots do not have the right to deny other people their basic human rights and so cannot victimise minorities of their choice.

In 2013, Baronelle Stutzman, the owner of a New York flower shop, refused to supply flowers for the wedding of Robert Ingersoll to Curt Freed, even though same-sex marriage is legal in New York, and discrimination of the grounds of sexual orienation is illegal. She was prosecuted by NY law enforcement officials, found guilty and fined $1000.

Christian Hate News - Pastor Greg Locke is Suspiciously Obsessive About Gay Sex!

Pastor Greg Locke of the Global Vison Bible Church, Tennessee

Christian Hate-Preacher: Pride Month Has “Always Been About These Pedophiles” | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Preacher of hate, Greg Locke, of Global Vision Bible Church, Mt Juliet, Tennessee, seems fixated with homosexuality to a degree that must raise questions about what exactly he is trying to dissociate from. In his latest outburst he is ranting about Gay Pride:

I know what the Bible teaches. And what the Bible teaches is that pride is an abomination. Pride in sin is a double abomination. So now we've decided that we would nationalistically and around the world take an entire month to celebrate something that God clearly says in His Bible grieves Him. "Because, after all, love is love." Not according to the Bible! Love ain't always love! Sometimes love is lust!

Humanism is Slowly Civilising Christianity

Bishop-elect Megan Rohrer of the Sierra Pacific synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The San Francisco pastor is the first transgender person to be elected bishop in the denomination or in any of the U.S.'s major Christian faiths.

Lutherans elect Megan Rohrer first transgender bishop

In an example of how Humanist egalitarian ideas have penetrated even the more fundamentalist, historically misogynistic and macho flavours of Christianity, the American Lutherans have elected their first transgender bishop.

In the early days of Luther's Protestant Reformation, women were expected to be married 'as ordained by God' and had a strict role within the marriage of motherhood and subservience to her husband.

Nunneries were suppressed and the former nuns were expected to marry, as remaining unmarried was considered to be a defiance against God's ordinance. Indeed, one such nun, Katharina von Bora, having been helped escape the nunnery by Luther himself who sent a cart with barrels of herring for her and 8 other nuns to hide behind, made her way to Wittenberg and married Martin Luther and dutifully bore him several children.

Lutheran reformers established matrimonial and moral courts to enforce Luther's Bible-based ideas of gender roles within a marriage. Adultery is now strictly prohibited and both genders must make their bodies available for “conjugal duties”. Women now have one role and one role only - they are to be professional mothers - to bear children and raise them in the 'one true faith'. There is no role for women outside of marriage and subservience to her husband, because God has ordered it thus.

Women should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bear and bring up children… If a woman grows weary and at least dies from child bearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing - she is there to do it.

Women have narrow shoulders and wide hips, therefore they ought to be domestic; their very physique is a sign from their Creator that he intended them to limit their activity to the home.

Martin Luther

And, they have a book which says so!

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

1 Corinthians 33-35

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Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Ephesians 5:22-24

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Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

1 Peter 3:1-7

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Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1 Timothy 2:11-12

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The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Titus 2:3-5

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And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

Ephesians 5:21-22

These 'Orders from God' reputedly inspired St Augustine of Hippo - considered one of Christianity's greatest thinkers - to declare:

Any woman who acts in such a way that she cannot give birth to as many children as she is capable of, makes herself guilty of that many murders.

St Augustine of Hippo

This obsessive repression and subjugation of women reaches its peak in the teachings of the Swiss Lutheran, Johannes Calvin, founder of the misogynistic Presbyterians, who can scarcely conceal his loathing of women:

John Calvin

We take nothing from the womb but pure filth [meras sordes]. The seething spring of sin is so deep and abundant that vices are always bubbling up from it to bespatter and stain what is otherwise pure.... We should remember that we are not guilty of one offense only but are buried in innumerable impurities.... all human works, if judged according to their own worth, are nothing but filth and defilement.... they are always spattered and befouled with many stains.... it is certain that there is no one who is not covered with infinite filth.

In John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait, 1989,
William J. Bouwsma, Oxford University Press, USA, p. 36.

The modern manifestation of this Lutheran misogyny was of course the allotted role of women in Nazi Germany as expressed in the slogan - Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Chidren, Kitchen, Church). These "3K's" were originally 4 K's in the Lutheran German Proverb by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander:

Vier Ks sind Voraussetzung für eine fromme Frau, nämlich dass sie Rücksicht auf Kirche, Kammer, Küche, Kinder nimmt. (Four K's are requisite of a pious woman, namely, that she keeps regard for church, bedroom, kitchen, children.)

It's a sign of just how far decent Humanist ideas of full human rights for all, regardless of gender, sexuality, skin colour, ethnic origin, social class or ability have penetrated the once deeply misogynistic Lutheran church that they are now prepared to allow not just a woman but a transgender woman to be anything other than silent in church and confine herself to the home in dutiful submission to her 'superior' husband.

At this rate of progress, there will be little of these old, outmoded religions left in a generation or two, although it's hard to imagine how some of the more fundamentalist flavours of Christianity can abandon their fundamental, institutionalised hatred of others and still claim to be Christian. The one hope is that, if the American Lutherans can manage it, the others can too.

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Talibangelical News - They Seem to be Getting Nuttier!

Pastor Robin Bullock of Youth Force Ministries Church International False prophet and purveyor of Talibangelical Bullocks

Robin Bullock Says 'Homosexuality Is a Cover Up for an Evangelist' | Right Wing Watch

Close on news that a Hawaiian pastor has said his church should be allowed to continue holding Covid-19 super-spreader services because the authorities have allowed hospitals to remain open, we have fruitloop Robbin Bullock, fresh from the traditional abuse of LGBTQ people, claiming they would all be evangelical Christians really, only Satan has taken possession of them to prevent it.

Last November Bullock, founder of Youth Force Ministries Church International, told his dupes that God had told him the coronavirus pandemic was caused by people voting for Hillary Clinton in 2012, apparently unaware that most of those catching the virus and dying from it were from that unimportant little place called 'The Rest of The World', so couldn't have voted for Hillary Clinton even if they had wanted too. But Robin Bullock's parochial little world consists only of the USA - which is the only place of interest to his god too, it seems.

LGBTQ News - More People Rejecting Religious Dogma and Self-Identifying as Gay

LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% in Latest U.S. Estimate

A Gallop poll surveying the number of American adults now self-identifying as gay illustrates the penetration of humanist ideals of tolerance, acceptance and freedom from the stigmatisation that religion inflicts on people, as they increasingly reject organised religions in an increasingly secular society.

Hopefully, the charts I have made from the data hop speak well enough for themselves, but perhaps the most noticeable aspect is how the younger the adults are the more likely they are to self-identify as gay. This is entirely consistent with other data which shows a marked correlation between age and rejection of organized religions, with the younger adults far more likely to self-identify as 'None' or non-affiliated. Very may of these will of course be Atheists or Agnostics.

It is clear that religions are losing their grip on Americans just as surely as they lost their grip on post-war Europeans, and no longer have ownership of the institution of marriage for example with even most 'moderate' Christian churches still opposed to the idea of same-sex marriages. Perhaps this is the explanation for the unedifying spectacle of the evangelical Christian abandonment of any pretence of morality in their desperate support for the odious, morally bankrupted Donald J. Trump and the sniff of political power and influence he gave them, amounting at time to hysterical, messianic worship.

Bigotry News - Christians for Hate and Discrimination

Bill Donohue
President, Catholic League

Equality Act: US House passes sweeping LGBTQ+ rights bill | LGBT rights | The Guardian

Religion provides excuses for people who need excuses.

Were you ever under the impression that Christian values include the fundamental equality of all people? How about the idea that all people are born with the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Not so, according to a gaggle of right-wing extremist Christian bigots who are furious at the passing of the Equality Act by the US House yesterday. They see the LGBTQ community enjoying the same rights as them as a frontal attack on them and their faith by the Biden administration.

Christian Fundamentalist - Claiming the Right to Deny Rights to Minorities of his Choice

Bob Updegrove, photographer.
"Photographing LGBTQ weddings would violate his faith"

Christian Photographer Challenges Virginia Law That Could Force Him to Photograph Same-Sex Weddings : Society : Christianity Daily

One of the more obnoxious tendencies of fundamentalist Christians is their insistence that their faith entitles them to determine who should and who should not have basic human rights, as though the human rights of others are in their gift.

They feel it's an attack on their civil libertes to deny them the right to deny civil liberties to others, especially minorities of their own choosing and people who don't conform to their dogma.

We have seen this manifest itself in the UK when entitled fundamentalist Christians have even gone to the European Court of Human Rignts, asking the court to rule that to deny them the right to deny basic human rights to others is a denial of their human rights, as Christians.

Invariably, the ECHR has knocked them back, explaining that under the European Convention on Human Rights, no-one has the right to deny rights to others, and a person's religious beliefs dont't entitle them discriminate against and victimise others, hard though that might be for them to accept.

American fundamentalists are, of course, no different in that arrogant assumption that their rights should be paramount in any conflict. One such fundamentalist is wedding photographer Bob Updegrove, who is suing the state of Virginia, claiming the fact that it denies him the right to deny services to same-sex couples is a violation of his right to victimise same-sex couples by refusing to provide wedding photography services to them.

Homophobia News - Homophobic Evangelical Says Trump Was Too Gay-Friendly for God!

Dr Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries.
"God removed Trump for being too Gay-friendly"

Scott Lively Says Trump Was Too Pro-Gay, So God Removed Him From Office | Right Wing Watch

Trumpanzees who had convinced themselves that their idol, Donald J Trump, would win a second term are now struggling to come to terms with the fact that he lost and Joe Biden is President of the United States.

Of course, we've all heard the evidence-free whinging about a 'stolen election' and a massive conspiracy to include hundreds of thousands, even millions of fake votes in the count, but perhaps the most original to date is that of Scott Lively, a homophobic Trumpanzee and former gubernatorial candidate for Massachusetts, who believed Trump would destroy the LGBTQ movement by enacting Russian-style anti-gay laws. But, apparently, Trump was too pro-Gay, so God removed him. It seems Lively's god lacked the wisdom and character judgement to know this about Trump when he inserted him into the White House.

In 2016, Lively won a case in a Massachusetts court against a group calling themselves Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), although 'won' scarcely describes it since the judge condemned his actions in the clearest terms. SMUG had brought a case against Lively alleging that his preaching in Uganda had led to that country introducing the death penalty for homosexuality and that this constituted a crime against humanity.

The 1914 Act had increased the sentence for same-sex sexual activity, which had been illegal since colonial times, from 14 years to death or life imprisonment. It was later ruled invalid by the Uganda Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

Following agitation in Uganda by Lively and two other US evangelical Christian fundamentalists, Stephen Langa and Caleb Lee Brundidge, Lively wrote in his blog, which he concludes with the usual appeal for money to help with his efforts:

My week began with a meeting with about fifty members of the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Association on the evening of my arrival, then an address to members of the Parliament on the following morning. There were from fifty to one hundred persons in attendance, including numerous legislators and the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, with whom I enjoyed a personal chat for more than half and hour leading to the event. The centerpiece event was a three-day conference featuring myself, Don Schmierer, author of An Ounce of Prevention and several other books designed to help the families of homosexuals, and Caleb Lee Brundidge of International Healing Foundation, a formerly "gay" African-American man who now leads recovery workshops. It was a paid event, very well attended, mostly by professionals in various fields including education, counseling, government and medicine.

[...]

On the positive side, my host and ministry partner in Kampala, Stephen Langa, was overjoyed with the results of our efforts and predicted confidently that the coming weeks would see significant improvement in the moral climate of the nation, and a massive increase in pro-family activism in every social sphere. He said that a respected observer of society in Kampala had told him that our campaign was like a nuclear bomb against the "gay" agenda in Uganda. I pray that this, and the predictions, are true.

The court dismissed the case on the narrow grounds that it did not have the jurisdiction as a result of a 2013 Supreme Court ruling issued after SMUG’s case was filed. The ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell limited the extraterritorial reach of the Alien Tort Statute, under which SMUG brought its claim. In giving his ruling, Judge Michael Ponsor of the U.S. District Court in Springfield Massachusetts, said:

The question before the court is not whether Defendant’s actions in aiding and abetting efforts to demonize, intimidate, and injure LGBTI people in Uganda constitute violations of international law. They do... The much narrower and more technical question posed by Defendant’s motion is whether the limited actions taken by Defendant on American soil in pursuit of his odious campaign are sufficient to give this court jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims.... Since they are not sufficient, summary judgment is appropriate for this, and only this, reason.

Lively told listeners of the "Swamp Rangers" radio show that Trump had "fully endorsed backed and applauded [Richard] Grenell, [who] was an outspoken advocate for the central doctrine of the progressive movement, which is queer theory", so God had him removed.

Icelandic Church in a Tizzy

The ad shows Jesus with a beard, breasts and make-up.

Drawing: P Jóðkirkjan

Icelandic Church Under Fire for Depicting Jesus With Beard and Breasts | Val Wilde | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

In its eagerness to claw back some of its dwindling support amongst the increasingly secular, liberal and Atheist Icelandic population, a Christian church there had made a right fool of itself and ended up offending just about everyone in the process.

Firstly, it launched this ad showing a prancing 'Jesus' figure in front of a 'gay' rainbow with lots of children of different ethnicities looking on. Jesus had a beard and wore a long white dress and sandals, as usual, but sported a fine pair of breasts and had rosy cheeks suggestive of make-up. Presumably this was supposed to be trans-Jesus (or maybe a cis-Mary?).