In Lakewood, Colorado, Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, had won a partial victory in a 2018 Supreme Court case for refusing to design a wedding cake for a gay couple on account of his own religious beliefs. Now again, he finds himself being the subject of another case regarding state discrimination laws for refusing to bake a birthday cake for a trans woman.
In a landmark decision earlier this month, Saudi Arabia amended their "Law of Procedure before Sharia Courts'' to allow women to live independently without permission from their male "guardian(s)".
On June 7, the Madras High Court in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu banned any medical attempts to "cure" or change the sexual orientation of a person in a significant upholding of LGBTQIA+ rights in the state. The court has also issued directives to sensitize society and various branches of the state, including police and judiciary, to remove prejudices against them.
The Beijing Olympics, to be held on February 4th, 2022, has been called to be boycotted by human rights groups across China. In light of the leak of Xinjiang Papers in 2019, the Uyghur genocide, Hong Kong and Tibet protests, China has been under constant scrutiny by the world for its’ questionable stand against human rights abuse reports from across the country.
On April 28th, 2020, Mubarak Bala (age 37), an Ex-Muslim atheist and President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was apprehended at his home and then taken to the northern state of Kano. There he faced blasphemy accusations from religious figures. Blasphemy is punishable by death in the region where sharia law is enforced on Muslims despite Nigeria’s own Constitution.
France’s move to outlaw wearing the hijab in public places for girls under age 18 was proposed under France’s “Separatist Bill” and approved by Members of Parliament (MP) on February 16th. The French Senate decided in favor of the bill on March 30th.
On March 26th, Arkansas’s Governor, Asa Hutchinson (R), enacted Senate Bill 289 (Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” into law.This legislation will allow doctors and medical professionals to refuse treatment that conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs. Opponents say this legislation will give providers an easy path to deny LGBTQ patients the medical treatment they need.
On March 14th, the Vatican office that manages doctrine announced that the Catholic Church is not authorized to bless same-sex unions.
A former priest in Argentina, Andrés Gioeni, formally disavowed his Catholicism after the Vatican’s decree. In recent years, Gioeni became an LGBTQ activist lobbying for a more open Catholic Church. He has blessed same-sex unions in Argentina, where Pope Francis was born and initially became part of the Catholic Church.
Several studies in recent decades found that being religious correlates with good health. New studies have challenged the finding that being an atheist correlates with poor health!
Believers who attend church services regularly are less likely to smoke, use drugs or become obese. They may live longer than those who do not attend any religious church services. Some have been led to conclude, according to those findings, that if religion is good for you, then being an atheist must be bad for your health.
