In The Media

Health experts call for action from regulators to protect women from spread of controversial method supported by US Christian right activists.

openDemocracy

National MP Christopher Luxon said: "I believe no religion should dictate to the state, and no politician should use the political platform they have to force their beliefs on others."

TVNZ

Even before a member of a Southern Baptist church was accused of the Georgia spa massacre, motivated, he told police, by guilt over a "sex addiction," the Southern Baptist Convention was under scrutiny over its teachings on gender and sexuality.

The Conversation

Until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association defined being gay as having a mental illness. A new documentary recalls the struggle to change a definition which for years limited the rights of LGBT people in the US.

BBC

A former leading evangelical vicar subjected almost 30 victims to ice baths, naked beatings and sex acts, because his church created a culture where he was "untouchable", it has admitted.

The Telegraph*

Report by Transforming Education in Northern Ireland says: "Too many of our schools currently subliminally exclude groups based on social class, faith and/or political or cultural affiliation, even if they wish it to be otherwise."

Belfast Telegraph

"Demeaning" rules which force women to wait a week to access an abortion in Jersey have been scrapped.

ITV

There is no guarantee that the children of Islamic State parents brought back to Britain from Syria will not pose a threat to the public in future, the government's terror watchdog has warned.

Evening Standard

The Vatican's latest statement on same-sex unions should finally convince the Department of Education of its duty to take over full control of the RSE programme in state-funded schools, says Colm O'Connor.

Irish Examiner

A system of "silence, secrecy and lack of oversight" led to a lack of compassion for the victims of sexual abuse by the clergy, a German cardinal has announced.

Deutsche Welle

A Colorado baker who won a partial victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple went on trial Monday in yet another lawsuit, this one involving a birthday cake for a transgender woman.

Associated Press

Attacks by suspected jihadists in villages in Niger's Tahoua region have left 137 people dead, the government has said, in another massacre that has underscored the huge security challenges facing new President Mohamed Bazoum.

The Guardian

When Kirby began showcasing pastors' high fashion, he was putting dollar signs on designer items for everyone to see just how expensive the clothing items were valued.

The Washington Post*

Meet the "exvangelicals" seeking therapy for religious trauma.

The New Republic

In a statement, the NI bishops said they are "deeply concerned by the announcement that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland intends to bypass the NI Assembly to force the Minister for Health here to commission some of the most extreme and liberal abortion services on these islands".

The Irish News

The UK, US, Canada and the European Union have slapped sanctions on Chinese officials deemed responsible for appalling human rights abuses of Uighurs Muslims in the country.

ITV

A pregnant woman was repeatedly punched after a pillowcase was put over her head amid a rise in attacks on the Jewish community, a rabbi has said.

Evening Standard

Jimmy Bangash scrutinises homophobia in the Muslim community and explores the left's reluctance to criticise it in a consistent and productive manner.

Queer Majority

Arkansas' Republican governor said Sunday that he signed a near-total abortion ban into law earlier this month because he wants the Supreme Court to eventually consider the legislation and overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised the procedure in the US.

CNN

India's health ministry warned on Sunday that a huge gathering of devotees for a Hindu festival could send coronavirus cases surging, as the country recorded the most new infections in nearly four months.

Reuters

The feminist author of more than 55 books first spotlighted the issue of female genital mutilation with The Hidden Face of Eve in 1980. A trained doctor, El Saadawi also campaigned against women wearing the veil, polygamy and inequality in Islamic inheritance rights between men and women.

The Guardian

The Taliban have strongly warned the United States to honor its pledge to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by May 1 or face a "reaction."

The Independent

Women make up a large number of those killed in a deadly campaign of targeted attacks on civil society in Afghanistan by extremist groups opposed to them working outside the home.

BBC

If thousands of Satanists have their way, the Arkansas state capital will soon host a mystical winged goat idol, not far from an existing three-ton monument to the Ten Commandments.

Bloomberg

Robin Swann has been challenged to lay out his response to the government's move to force Stormont's Department of Health to roll out abortion services in Northern Ireland.

Belfast Telegraph

There is concern over how Ireland's abortion legislation is working in practice three years on.

The Journal

Imams and religious scholars in Blackburn have claimed mosques have been 'unfairly targeted' during the pandemic.

Lancashire Telegraph

Sociologists and demographers of religion agreed that the results of the 2021 Census will show another significant decline from 2011, in which 59 per cent of people said they were Christians.

Religion Media Centre

The DUP will "vigorously oppose" any further legislative action to see new abortion laws implemented in the region, an MP has warned.

Central Fife Times

Jewish women have said they feel that harassment from men is allowed to go unpunished due to the community's unwillingness to confront such behaviour.

The Jewish Chronicle

In religious spaces, young girls are made to feel like sexual objects, says Sabrina Miller.

The Jewish Chronicle

The BBC is committed to bringing religion and faith into its flagship brands as well as its religious programming, the commissioning editor for radio and television has said.

Church Times*

Spanish lawmakers on Thursday legalised euthanasia and assisted dying for people with serious and incurable or debilitating diseases who want to end their life, making Spain the fourth country in the European Union to take the step.

Reuters

A German law firm published an independent report Thursday following accusations of efforts to cover up sexual violence in Germany's most powerful Roman Catholic diocese, Cologne.

Deutsche Welle

A former Vatican altar boy has testified that an older seminarian would come into his bed at night to perform a sexual act on him in the Vatican's youth seminary, saying his initial shock gave way to resignation because he feared being sent home.

The Associated Press

The acclaimed and controversial Behemoth frontman faces possible prison time for a photo of his foot on a religious icon. He argues that Poland must become secular to evolve.

The Guardian

A bill advancing through Arkansas' Legislature would require victims of rape and incest to have first reported the crime to law enforcement before they could undergo an abortion past the state's 20-week limit.

The Independent

Baha'is are the country's biggest religious minority, but they are considered heretical by the Iranian regime.

The Telegraph*

The DUP - which controls the Department of Education - has hit back at the Sinn Fein controlled Department for Communities that it has no authority to impose new sex education guidelines.

News Letter

A coalition of more than 450 Islamic organisations, including 350 mosques and imams, are to boycott the government's review of the anti-radicalisation programme Prevent in protest against the appointment of William Shawcross as its chair.

The Guardian

The Church of Ireland, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches in Northern Ireland will resume in-person services from 2 April. The Catholic Church has confirmed there will be a "cautious" return a week earlier, from 26 March.

BBC

St John's Church of England Primary is facing closure by September. The main reason for the closures are said to be a serious deficit in the schools' finances due to declining pupil numbers.

Southwark News

A German professor at a university in Grenoble, France, has become the target of a hate campaign for not wanting to compare anti-Semitism with Islamophobia.

Deutsche Welle

A dissident band of Roman Catholic priests leading a disobedience campaign against the Vatican said on Tuesday they would carry on blessing same-sex couples in defiance of Church orders.

Reuters