UK: Transgender baptisms offered at Greater Manchester church

Transgender baptisms are to be offered for the first time in the UK by a church in Greater Manchester. The New Chapel Unitarian and Free Christian in Denton, Tameside, agreed the move at its annual general meeting.

Jean Clements, the church's worship leader, proposed the change after meeting a couple who had a transgender child. The church was moved to make a change in order to help those in the same situation. Mrs Clements said: "I felt saddened by the fact that this family were being shunned by many mainstream churches.

New Chapel stressed it is for other Unitarian Chapels within neighbouring districts "to decide for themselves whether they wish to offer similar services". Read more via BBC 

South Africa: Desmond Tutu’s daughter Rev. Mpho A. Tutu marries

Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s daughter, the Rev. Mpho A. Tutu, has married her female partner, Professor Marceline van Furth. The couple tied the knot in The Netherlands last week, in what’s been described as a small and private ceremony.

“The couple are very grateful to their families and friends for their love and support‚” said the family in a statement.

The marriage is expected to be further celebrated in Cape Town in May. The Rev. Tutu is the Executive Director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and is an experienced preacher, teacher and public speaker. Van Furth is a professor in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the Vrije University in Amsterdam.

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Canada: Calgary Young Queer Church hopes to offer safe place to worship

A project to offer a safe place for young LGBT Christians opened its doors in Calgary Sunday evening at the Parkdale United Church. Pace Anhorn, director of Young Queer Church and trans, says his faith background is complicated.

"Since I became a Christian at 14 there was always this desire, this passion inside of me for authentic living," Anhorn explained.

"It was like, the church needs to change, there is something that we need to do to revolutionize what we are doing so people can come in and go, I am accepted just as I am, and I long for that and all of the churches I went to, I didn't find that," he said. Young Queer Church hopes to change that.  Read more via CBC 

Israel: Orthodox parties skip swearing in of first openly gay parliamentarian

Members of both Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties in the Israeli Knesset (or parliament) decided not to show up to the swearing-in of the country’s first openly gay lawmaker. Amir Ohana, who was sworn in before his partner and two children, represents the centre-right Likud party.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the head of the Likud party, welcomed the new MK. "The first impression is the most important, and we were all deeply impressed with your speech. I'm happy to receive you to our ranks. You carry with you an exceptional responsibility - the welcome you received brings together this fractured house. It's a great responsibility and a great opportunity," the prime minister said.
 
"Amir is the first representative of the LGBT community who was elected in open primaries while who he is was completely out in the open, and he was elected by thousands of voters in the Likud primaries," Netanyahu noted.  Read more via Ynet News 

Catholic: Pope Francis explains ‘who am i to judge?’ quip

Pope Francis has reiterated his relatively tolerant stance towards LGBT people, offering new details about a 2013 incident where he responded to a question about gay priests by saying “who am I to judge?”

In a new book, Pope Francis is quoted talking to an Italian journalist about the famous quip, which triggered a firestorm of media coverage and speculation over whether the pontiff would alter the Catholic Church’s firm opposition to same-sex relationships. The book cites Francis as he clarifies his theological justification for taking a more tolerant stance towards LGBT people.

“On that occasion I said this: If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?” the pope says in the new book, The Name of God is Mercy. “I was paraphrasing by heart the Catechism of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized.”

“I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together,” Francis also says, in a possible reference to the Church’s historical stance that same-sex relationships are sinful. “You can advise them to pray, show goodwill, show them the way, and accompany them along it.” Read more via Think Progress 

Romania: Priests push for gay marriage ban

The days following Christmas have been a good opportunity for Orthodox priests across Romania to encourage parishioners to back a campaign for a change to the constitution outlawing same-sex marriage. Dozens of people attending the cathedral in Timisoara, in western Romania, queued to sign the initiative, after their Bishop, or Metropolitan, encouraged them to do so during the Christmas mass. Priests in the Iasi region, while blessing people’s houses for the Epiphany Day used the occasion to ask them to back amendments to the fundamental law, according to media reports. 

Clergy want to gather at least 500,000 signatures in order to organise a referendum proposing that the constitution describe marriage as a consensual relationship between a man and a woman alone. Currently, the constitutional article use only the words “between spouses” when referring to the marriage partners.

Church leader Patriarch Daniel said that Orthodox believers “must support the Church’s effort to protect the natural, traditional and universal family, and resist some new family models that consider the natural woman-man union only one model among others”. More than 85% of Romania’s population of 19.5 million belong to the Orthodox Church. Read more via Balkan Insight

Anglican: Archbishop Welby says sorry to LGBTI community for hurt and pain caused by Episcopal suspension

The archbishop of Canterbury has apologised for the “hurt and pain” the Anglican church has inflicted on LGBT people as he attempted to defend the  decision to sanction the liberal US church  for allowing same-sex marriage. Justin Welby’s remarks came at the end of a week-long summit of the world’s Anglican leaders, in which he sought to soothe divisions caused by the decision on Thursday to uphold a “traditional doctrine” of marriage as “between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union”.

Dozens of gay rights activists, many of them refugees from African countries, descended on Canterbury Cathedral to chant “Shame on you” where the 38 primates of the Anglican communion had been meeting to resolve deep divisions over gay rights. 

The US Episcopal church has been banned from representation on key bodies and barred from voting on issues relating to doctrine or strategy for three years. However, it will remain a member of the Anglican communion. Liberal Anglicans responded to the de facto sanctions and the reaffirmation of traditional biblical teaching on marriage with anger and dismay. At the other end of the spectrum, hardline conservative Anglicans said the statement was a step in the right direction but did not go far enough in forcing US liberals to repent.  

 Read more via the Guardian
 

US: Can states protect LGBT rights without compromising religious freedom?

Twenty-eight. That’s the number of states where it’s not against the law to discriminate against a gay person who’s looking for an apartment, applying for a job, or buying something from a store. Five more states have protections, but with exceptions: New York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin don’t forbid discrimination against transgender people, for example, and Massachusetts and Utah don’t protect all LGBT people in all situations in which discrimination might arise.

The federal government does not protect against this kind of discrimination, either, except in limited cases. Although Democrats have proposed legislation that would change that, the chances of it successfully sliding through a Republican Congress in an election year seem slim.

The irony of gay marriage becoming legal in the United States is that it has made discrimination against LBGT people easier. For example: Many newlywed couples may be asking their employers for spousal benefits for the first time. Depending on where they live, it may or may not be illegal for that employer to respond by firing them—something that happened in a number of states in 2015. Some state legislatures have tentatively taken on this issue; Pennsylvania and Idaho, for example, both saw bills introduced in 2015.

But in many places, these efforts are complicated by a tangled political question: Should these laws make exceptions for religious individuals and organizations that object to employing and providing services to gay people? This question could produce some of the biggest political fights of 2016. Read more via the Atlantic

US: Dozens of Christian schools win Title IX waivers to ban LGBT students

Nearly three dozen religious institutions of higher learning have asked the federal government to waive laws that protect LGBT students, according to government documents. The schools are asking the Department of Education to waive portions of Title IX that might apply to students and staff who are transgender or who are in same-sex relationships.

27 schools have been granted a waiver from Title IX by the department in the last year, many with the help of conservative religious organizations. Another 9 have applications pending. The total enrollment of these schools tops 80,000 students, and nearly $130 million in federal research grants and student aid flowed to these institutions of higher learning in 2014. 

When Title IX was passed in 1972 to combat discrimination based on sex, Congress added a small but powerful provision that states that an educational institution that is “controlled by a religious organization” does not have to comply if Title IX “would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization.” These “right-to-discriminate” waivers were relatively rare until the last year. A handful were requested in the 1980s and 1990s, many by religious schools who wanted to ensure they could prevent women from being hired in leadership roles without running afoul of discrimination laws.  Read more via the Column

Dominican Republic: Cardinal uses anti-gay slurs against ambassador

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on Tuesday sent a letter to Pope Francis in which he criticizes a Dominican cardinal for using homophobic slurs to describe a gay U.S. ambassador. The Illinois Democrat noted that Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo has repeatedly called ambassador James “Wally” Brewster derogatory words and spoken against the ambassador's husband.

“The church’s teachings on gay marriage are well known but the church also teaches us to show tolerance for those with different sexual orientations,” says Durbin in his letter. “The intolerant public statements of Cardinal Rodríguez are inconsistent with that clearly stated value.”

Durbin also notes that López and other Dominican religious leaders have organized so-called “Black Monday” protests against Brewster: “Despite these hateful words and personal attacks, Ambassador Brewster has worked to quiet the conflict between church leaders and himself,” writes Durbin. “His patience and professionalism in light of these mean-spirited attacks by the cardinal demonstrate his personal commitment to his responsibility of representing the United States of America.”  Read more via Washington Blade 

UK: I would go to my child's gay wedding, vows Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said he would attend the gay wedding of one of his children, despite the Church of England opposing same-sex marriage. In an interview, Archbishop Welby suggested that if one of his five children asked for his blessing for a gay marriage, he would pray with them and attend the ceremony. He also refused to say that a gay relationship was 'sinful or inappropriate', insisting he would 'always love them' whatever their sexuality.

During a parliamentary debate, Archbishop Welby warned the Same-Sex Marriage Act would 'weaken' the the idea of the 'family in its normal sense'. But speaking to Justice Secretary Michael Gove in an interview in The Spectator, he made clear that his relationship with his two sons and three daughters was paramount.

Mr Gove challenged him on the views of some evangelicals and asked if he would tell his child that while he loved them 'their relationship was sinful or inappropriate'. But Archbishop Welby hit back: 'I would say, 'I will always love you, full stop. End of sentence, end of paragraph.' Whatever they say, I will say I always love them.' Read more via DailyMail