Being a lesbian at a Catholic school was a source of fear and shame to Kiwi pop stars Ladyhawke and Broods singer Georgia Nott. Pip Brown (aka Ladyhawke of My Delirium fame) says she felt ‘constant fear’ as a teenager because she was a lesbian at a Catholic school. “Growing up in the Catholic school Read more
A priest in the United States has barred a life long parishoner and married lesbian from receiving Holy Communion. Fr Scott Nolan recently informed Kent County District Court Judge Sara Smolenski she should not receive communion at his church. The Diocese of Grand Rapids said it supports the decision. “No community of faith can sustain the Read more
It can be hard to come out as LGBT when you belong to a religion which has strict rules against it. This was the case for Jackie Handy who came out to her strict Catholic parents when she was just 15. The public speaker from Hagley, believed that her family would cast her out for Read more
Two Malaysian Muslim lesbians received a public caning after being convicted under Islamic laws of attempting to have sexual relations. Lawyers and activists say the women, aged 22 and 32, were seated on stools facing the judges and given six strokes from a light rattan cane on their backs by female prison officers. More than Read more
It should never be illegal to be who you are. Yet lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people continue to face high levels of violence and discrimination across the world. 72 countries criminalise male homosexuality, with 45 also criminalising female homosexuality. In the Commonwealth, 36 of its 53 countries maintain laws that make same-sex intimacy between men Read more
A priest has reportedly told the lesbian partner of a woman whose baby was being baptised not to be on the altar at the ceremony. The baptism took place in the Church of Santa Rita de Cassia in Telde, Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands. The women were married in a civil ceremony in 2012 Read more
New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan has not objected to a gay group being allowed to march under its own banner in the city’s St Patrick’s Day parade next year. Cardinal Dolan, who is archbishop of New York, is also the grand marshal for the parade on March 17. The parade committee chose OUT@NBCUniversal -a lesbian, Read more
An American parish music director has been fired from his role in a parish in the Diocese of Arlington because he entered into a civil same-sex marriage. Mike McMahon was a former director of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. This is the national body for liturgical music leaders in the Catholic Church in the Read more
A child of a lesbian couple has been baptised in the Catholic Church in Argentina, in a first for the South American nation. The child’s godmother is Argentina’s president Christina Fernandez de Kirchner. Continue reading
The young priest preached on the sanctity of life at a Denver hospice. Afterward an older couple asked him if their son, who had died of AIDS, would be in hell forever. The priest said he couldn’t answer that. More than 20 years later Shawn Reynolds still remembers the anguish on the couple’s faces. “He Read more