Ian Brackenbury Channell, the only known wizard-in-residence employed by a state since 1998, will be officially terminated from Christchurch's payroll this December 2021. In an interview with a local news outlet, Lynn McClelland, the Council Assistant Chief Executive, said that "the council has met with The Wizard and sent him a letter thanking him for his services to Christchurch over the past decades."
On September 23, the Yakutsk City Court rejected Aleksandr Gabyshev’s appeal on their July 26 ruling. In July, the city court’s ruling ordered Gabyshev’s indefinite confinement to a psychiatric facility for a mandatory “intensive treatment.” The court determined that Gabyshev lacks legal capacity due to insanity, despite the protest of his defense attorneys.
Religious schools and organizations in the Australian state of Victoria will soon be prohibited from hiring or terminating based on the applicant's gender identity or sexual orientation. On September 16th, the Victorian Labor Party in Australia proposed a law that would end this discrimination.
Lars Gardfeldt, a 56-year old priest of the Church of Sweden, has found a way to make his point heard, even to the highest officials of his church. He plans to use conscientious objections to justify his refusal to marry opposite-sex couples. It is the same method that other priests use to deny marriage to same-sex couples.
On August 17, 2021, in his first-ever public appearance, the Taliban’s longtime spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid announced that the Taliban would be more moderate. Mujahid also vowed that the Taliban would forego any revenge against those who resisted their return, and promised that the regime would respect women’s rights.
Christian is to Christian fundamentalism, Islam is to Islamic fundamentalism, as Hindu is to Hindutva. In a feature article published by the Association for Asian Studies, Arvind Sharma called Hindutva "Hinduism on steroids," while also explaining that Hinduism is a religion while Hindutva is a political idea. Hindutva was first posited from the work of V.D. Savarkar and has been adopted by far-right political groups in India like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
April 2016 was a dark time for Bangladesh’s LGBTQ+ community. On April 25, 2016, Bangladesh’s top gay rights activist, Xulhaz Mannan, was brutally murdered along with actor Rabbi Tonoy, identified by the local media as Tanay Mojumdar. Both are figureheads, pillars in Bangladesh’s thriving LGBTQ+ community.
A study claims that people are more biased against atheists expressing their lack of belief versus theists expressing their beliefs, particularly in the workplace environment. "Explaining anti-atheist discrimination in the workplace: The role of intergroup threat" authored by Kimberly Rios, Leah Halper, and Christopher Scheitle was published in a journal by the American Psychological Association (APA), APA Psycnet, on March 4, 2021.
A Christian woman who is a regular debater at Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner in the United Kingdom was recently stabbed by an unidentified assailant. A video that captured the incident has been circulating online. The video, published by The Daily Mail on July 25th, shows a man recording a usual Sunday morning at the Speakers’ Corner.
In Ohio, a Catholic-run school, Mt. Saint Joseph University (MSJU) confirmed that they would be hosting CNN’s town hall meeting where President Joe Biden will attend. The university confirmed the meeting on Tuesday, July 20; the town hall meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 21.
