Religion
Different denominations within Judaism have vastly differing opinions on both the inclusion of glbtq people into their communities and the tolerance that should be accorded homosexual acts.
Father Mychal Judge, who died in the line of duty at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, devoted his life to the care and service of others, including those marginalized by society.
Julius III, pope from 1550 to 1555, created one of the most notorious homosexual scandals in the history of the papacy.
The members of the Knights Templar, a military order that had grown powerful in international finance and politics, were accused of heresy and sodomy when the organization was subjected to persecution in the fourteenth century.
Lutheranism is riven into numerous denominations, which vary widely in their attitudes toward homosexuality and in their acceptance of gay men and lesbians as full participants in church life.
The Metropolitan Community Church, a Christian denomination founded to minister to the glbtq community, has grown into a worldwide ministry with over 40,000 members in 18 countries.
Natural law--the reading into nature laws that are not merely descriptive, but prescriptive--actually depends on circular reasoning; it discovers in nature what its adherents already believe is the intention of the Christian God.
Like most Scandinavian countries, Norway respects glbtq rights, and Norwegians are broadly tolerant of homosexuals.
The history of the papacy's attitudes toward same-sex relationships is more complex than the virulently antigay pronouncements of the most recent popes would lead one to believe.
Patristic Writers, also known as the Church Fathers, appropriated currents of hostility to homoeroticism in pagan thought and used them to strengthen the prohibitions of Leviticus and Paul, while also expressing their own hostile interpretations.
Verses from two epistles of the Apostle Paul shaped the attitudes of Christianity toward male and female homosexuality.
Troy Perry is the founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a Protestant denomination devoted to ministering to the spiritual needs of glbtq people.
The story of Pope Joan, who was said to have lived in the ninth century and was thought to have been a woman who lived as a man in order to rise in the Church hierarchy to become Pope John VIII, captured the imaginations of Europeans for hundreds of years.
The Society of Friends, especially its conservative branch, has been a leader among Christian religious denominations in its acceptance of homosexuality and gay and lesbian identity.
A movement that emerged in the late 1970s, the Radical Faeries identify with the gender variant sacred outsider that has appeared and reappeared in many cultures throughout human history.
Reparative therapy is a dangerously misguided attempt, supported by homophobic religious organizations, to change a person's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.
The Right Reverend Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man to be consecrated a bishop of the Episcopal Church, has earned strong support from members of his diocese, but has become a lightning rod for conservatives within the Anglican Communion.
Historically, the Roman Catholic Church may be the institution most responsible for the suffering of individuals involved in same-sex sexual relationships.
An Evangelical Christian sect founded in the nineteenth century, the Salvation Army has recently become an arm of right-wing conservatism.
Santería, Vodou, and related belief systems comprise a complex of religious ideas, practices, and imagery whose origins can be traced to West African traditions.
Sex education programs are vulnerable to the attempts of religious radicals to hijack the sex education movement as a means of disseminating their own repressive blend of intolerance and fear.
Shamanism describes various people in indigenous ("tribal") communities who might also be termed "medicine men," "witch doctors," "healers," and "sorcerers": people who engage with spirits for certain socially sanctioned tasks.
Sodom is a city mentioned in the bible as having been destroyed by god in a rain of brimstone and fire for the "sin" of its inhabitants, traditionally thought to have been male homosexual intercourse.
First used to refer only to anal intercourse, sodomy was progressively defined by the Church Fathers, and many later lawmakers, to include all sexual acts that could not result in procreation.
Utilizing the principles of relentless nonviolent resistance, Soulforce is an activist organization founded in 1999 to combat the anti-gay rhetoric and polical actions of the religious right
The Sexual Revolution, 1960-1980
Clause (or Section) 28
Hijras
Milk, Harvey
YMCA