Christians in Kurdistan Region protest Iraq’s presidential decree

The decree revocation came after a period of tension between the Church’s leader and Rayan al-Kildani, the leader of Babylon Movement, a Christian political party close to Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq.

Christians gathering in front of Cathedral Saint Joseph in Erbil protest an Iraqi presidential decree, 

July 13, 2023. (Photo: Rebaz Siyan/Kurdistan 24)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Hundreds of Christians on Thursday gathered in Kurdistan Region’s Ankawa district to protest a recent Iraqi presidential decree, which revoked an earlier decision that had recognized Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako as the head of Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the world.

Members of various Christian political parties gathered in front of the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in the district, where they read a joint statement, slamming the new decree issued on July 3 by Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rasheed.

Per the new decree published in the official gazette, Decree No. 147 of 2013, which had recognized Patriarch Sako as the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the world as well as custodian of the Church’s assets.

“We protest this decision because we believe it is an attack on one of the biggest churches in Iraq and the Middle East,” Goran Abdul Jabar, an official from a Chaldean party, told reporters, adding the decision sets a precedent that attacks Christians.

The decree revocation came after a period of tension between the Church’s leader and Rayan al-Kildani, the leader of Babylon Movement, a Christian political party close to Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq.

The two leaders have recently engaged in a war of words, accusing each other of exploiting the minority group, whose population has dramatically dwindled in Iraq.

The militia leader is “self-aggrandizing and wants to become a leader,” Patriarch Sako told Kurdistan 24 in May.

Al-Kildani heads the 50th Brigade of the Shiite militias, known as Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The U.S. Treasury designated al-Kildani for “serious human rights abuses,” on July 18, 2019.

“In May 2018, a video circulated among Iraqi human rights civil society organizations in which al-Kildani cut off the ear of a handcuffed detainee,” the Treasury noted.

Although the Movement presents itself as a Christian military unit of the PMF, most of its recruits are Shiite Muslims from Baghdad, Sadr City, Al-Muthanna, and Dhi Qar, according to Michael Knights, a Shiite militia expert at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.

In 2017, al-Kildani founded the militia group, whose members were expelled from the Hamdaniya district by the PMF command and Prime Minister Office for stealing ancient artifacts from the Mar Behnam Monastery and homes.

Swedish top court blocks extradition of two wanted by Turkey

The ruling comes just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was ready to allow Sweden to join the military alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (Photo: Turkish Presidency)

Sweden's Supreme Court said Thursday it was blocking the extradition of two people wanted by Turkey for involvement in the so-called Gulen movement, a key demand by Ankara to ratify Stockholm's NATO membership.

The ruling comes just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was ready to allow Sweden to join the military alliance.

However on Wednesday, Erdogan said the country would not be able to ratify Sweden's NATO candidacy until at least October, when the Turkish parliament is due to re-open after its summer break.

In Sweden, the government makes the final decision on extradition requests but cannot grant a request to another state if the Supreme Court rules against it.

The two cases concerned individuals wanted for being members of the Gulen movement, which Erdogan blamed for masterminding a bloody coup bid by a renegade army faction in July 2016.

According to the court, the evidence provided by Turkey was that they had both downloaded an app for encrypted communication used by members of group -- which Turkey has designated a terrorist group.

"In one case extradition is requested for the enforcement of a prison sentence and in the other for prosecution. In its opinion to the government, the Supreme Court has explained that there are obstacles to extradition in both cases," the court said in a statement.

The court said the extraditions could not go forward because downloading the app would not by itself be enough to convict someone of participating in a terrorist organisation under Swedish law.

It also added that the individuals had been granted refugee status in Sweden and would risk persecution if they were returned to Turkey.

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO member states yet to ratify the Sweden's bid -- which requires unanimous ratification.

Erdogan had until earlier this week blocked Sweden, accusing Stockholm of being a haven for "terrorists".

Cracking down on extremist groups and approving the extradition of dozens of suspects it believed were linked to the failed 2016 coup attempt had been key demands from Turkey.

2016

 

The ‘problem’ of where ancient Jerusalem was built gets thornier

A new find near the Temple Mount suggests that the ‘City of David’ was more likely a suburb of ancient Jerusalem.

An aerial view of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Temple Mount. Photo by Avraham Graicer/Creative Commons

July 6, 2023

By 

David I. Klein

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(RNS) — As tourism to Jerusalem rebounded from the pandemic last year, more than 2 million visitors came to see the Old City of Jerusalem’s gleaming stone walls and the attraction known as “the City of David,” and the large stone structure, standing opposite the Temple Mount, said to be the remnants of King David’s palace.

But a paper published in June in Tel Aviv, the journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, gives further credence to growing suspicions that David’s headquarters was located elsewhere. 

According to Nadav Na’aman, an Israeli archaeologist who’s been studying the region’s ancient history since the early 1960s, cuneiform tablets discovered in an area known as “the Ophel” at the base of the Mount suggest that the royal palace and historical core of the city was likely there.

The compound known as the City of David is popular among Jewish and Christian tourists alike, drawing more than 400,000 people every year. The site includes the Gihon Spring, where, according to Christian legend, the Virgin Mary washed Jesus’ swaddling clothes, and the Siloam Tunnel, built by the biblical king Hezekiah to supply the city with water while it was under siege by an Assyrian army in the eighth or seventh century B.C.E. 

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RELATED: The scientific meltdown over a controversial discovery of ‘biblical Sodom’

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The iconic walls that ring today’s Old City are in fact of Ottoman construction, built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century. 

In the biblical era, and the Middle Bronze Age period before it, the city had a very different footprint. Though it still incorporated the Temple Mount, much of what is today the Armenian and Christian quarters was outside its walls, while the city spilled down to the south into the valley that today makes up the largely Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. There on a ridge is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 19th century, long identified as the core of the ancient city of Jerusalem.

It made a certain sense that David’s palace, the administrative and political center of the oldest iteration of the city, would stand opposite the Temple Mount, the center of the city’s religious hierarchy.

But many archaeologists have long felt that the evidence pointing to the City of David complex is far from conclusive. The question has become colloquially known as “the problem with Jerusalem” in the Israeli archaeological community. 

“The ‘problem with Jerusalem’ is the location of its original ancient site,” Professor Israel Finkelstein, head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa, told Religion News Service. Most puzzling is that the structures on the “City of David” ridge do not have the characteristics of an ancient mound, the type of settlement structure that made up the earliest cities in the area in the Middle Bronze Age. 

The location of the tablets reported last month by Na’aman, believed to be royal correspondence, suggest they fell further north. 

“The discovery of the two tablet fragments in the Ophel area,” Na’aman argued in his paper, “has changed the balance of evidence. As observed above, the fragments indicate that the royal palace, from where they must have swept, was probably on the Temple Mount.”

In Na’aman’s thinking, the City of David would have been an outlying suburb in the early days of the city. 

“This would account for the scanty architectural remains and the paucity of objects dated to the Late Bronze Age uncovered in the excavations conducted in the Southeastern Hill,” Na’aman wrote, referring to the City of David’s ridge. “According to this logic, the centre of the city at the time was located on the Temple Mount, north of the Southeastern Hill, with the latter having been a peripheral, poorly inhabited area in its vicinity.”

The lack of significant structural remains between the City of David and the Temple Mount from the earliest days of Jerusalem, he concluded, suggests a city in two parts.

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RELATED: First known depictions of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah uncovered in Israel

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“The picture that emerges from the discussion is perplexing. On the one hand, the Temple Mount, where the royal palace and temple were located, was probably the economic and administrative centre of the city as early as the second millennium BCE,” Na’aman wrote. “On the other hand, the fortifications that encompassed the Southeastern Hill formed a separate urban entity, detached from the Temple Mount.”

Still, it may be a long time before the matter is resolved. Any digging on the Temple Mount itself has been strictly forbidden amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the past, the suggestion of disturbing the site has been met with strong condemnations from Jewish and Muslim leaders alike. 

“I can only speak about the current situation and the near future — I see no possibility to dig on the Temple Mount,” Finkelstein told RNS. 

A new, thin-lensed telescope design could far surpass James Webb – goodbye mirrors, hello diffractive lenses

The Conversation
July 12, 2023, 

A light, cheap space telescope design would make it possible to put many individual units in space at once. Katie Yung, Daniel Apai /University of Arizona and AllThingsSpace /SketchFab, CC BY-ND

Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 planets outside of the solar system to date. The grand question is whether any of these planets are home to life. To find the answer, astronomers will likely need more powerful telescopes than exist today.

I am an astronomer who studies astrobiology and planets around distant stars. For the last seven years, I have been co-leading a team that is developing a new kind of space telescope that could collect a hundred times more light than the James Webb Space Telescope, the biggest space telescope ever built.

Almost all space telescopes, including Hubble and Webb, collect light using mirrors. Our proposed telescope, the Nautilus Space Observatory, would replace large, heavy mirrors with a novel, thin lens that is much lighter, cheaper and easier to produce than mirrored telescopes. Because of these differences, it would be possible to launch many individual units into orbit and create a powerful network of telescopes.


Exoplanets, like TOI-700d shown in this artist’s conception, are planets beyond our solar system and are prime candidates in the search for life. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The need for larger telescopes

Exoplanets – planets that orbit stars other than the Sun – are prime targets in the search for life. Astronomers need to use giant space telescopes that collect huge amounts of light to study these faint and faraway objects.


The James Webb Space Telescope is just barely able to search exoplanets for signs of life. NASA

Existing telescopes can detect exoplanets as small as Earth. However, it takes a lot more sensitivity to begin to learn about the chemical composition of these planets. Even Webb is just barely powerful enough to search certain exoplanets for clues of life – namely gases in the atmosphere.


The James Webb Space Telescope cost more than US$8 billion and took over 20 years to build. The next flagship telescope is not expected to fly before 2045 and is estimated to cost $11 billion. These ambitious telescope projects are always expensive, laborious and produce a single powerful – but very specialized – observatory.
A new kind of telescope

In 2016, aerospace giant Northrop Grumman invited me and 14 other professors and NASA scientists – all experts on exoplanets and the search for extraterrestrial life – to Los Angeles to answer one question: What will exoplanet space telescopes look like in 50 years?


In our discussions, we realized that a major bottleneck preventing the construction of more powerful telescopes is the challenge of making larger mirrors and getting them into orbit. To bypass this bottleneck, a few of us came up with the idea of revisiting an old technology called diffractive lenses.


Diffractive lenses, left, are much thinner compared to similarly powerful refractive lenses, right. Pko/Wikimedia Commons


Conventional lenses use refraction to focus light. Refraction is when light changes direction as it passes from one medium to another – it is the reason light bends when it enters water. In contrast, diffraction is when light bends around corners and obstacles. A cleverly arranged pattern of steps and angles on a glass surface can form a diffractive lens.

The first such lenses were invented by the French scientist Augustin-Jean Fresnel in 1819 to provide lightweight lenses for lighthouses. Today, similar diffractive lenses can be found in many small-sized consumer optics – from camera lenses to virtual reality headsets.

Thin, simple diffractive lenses are notorious for their blurry images, so they have never been used in astronomical observatories. But if you could improve their clarity, using diffractive lenses instead of mirrors or refractive lenses would allow a space telescope to be much cheaper, lighter and larger.



One of the benefits of diffractive lenses is that they can remain thin while increasing in diameter. Daniel Apai/University of Arizona, CC BY-ND

A thin, high-resolution lens

After the meeting, I returned to the University of Arizona and decided to explore whether modern technology could produce diffractive lenses with better image quality. Lucky for me, Thomas Milster – one of the world’s leading experts on diffractive lens design – works in the building next to mine. We formed a team and got to work.

Over the following two years, our team invented a new type of diffractive lens that required new manufacturing technologies to etch a complex pattern of tiny grooves onto a piece of clear glass or plastic. The specific pattern and shape of the cuts focuses incoming light to a single point behind the lens. The new design produces a near-perfect quality image, far better than previous diffractive lenses.



A diffractive lens bends light using etchings and patterns on its surface. 

Daniel Apai/University of Arizona, CC BY-ND

Because it is the surface texture of the lens that does the focusing, not the thickness, you can easily make the lens bigger while keeping it very thin and lightweight. Bigger lenses collect more light, and low weight means cheaper launches to orbit – both great traits for a space telescope.

In August 2018, our team produced the first prototype, a 2-inch (5-centimeter) diameter lens. Over the next five years, we further improved the image quality and increased the size. We are now completing a 10-inch (24-cm) diameter lens that will be more than 10 times lighter than a conventional refractive lens would be.

Power of a diffraction space telescope

This new lens design makes it possible to rethink how a space telescope might be built. In 2019, our team published a concept called the Nautilus Space Observatory.

Using the new technology, our team thinks it is possible to build a 29.5-foot (8.5-meter) diameter lens that would be only about 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) thick. The lens and support structure of our new telescope could weigh around 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms). This is more than three times lighter than a Webb–style mirror of a similar size and would be bigger than Webb’s 21-foot (6.5-meter) diameter mirror.



The thin lens allowed the team to design a lighter, cheaper telescope, which they named the Nautilus Space Observatory. 

Daniel Apai/University of Arizona, CC BY-ND

The lenses have other benefits, too. First, they are much easier and quickerto fabricate than mirrors and can be made en masse. Second, lens-based telescopes work well even when not aligned perfectly, making these telescopes easier to assemble and fly in space than mirror-based telescopes, which require extremely precise alignment.

Finally, since a single Nautilus unit would be light and relatively cheap to produce, it would be possible to put dozens of them into orbit. Our current design is in fact not a single telescope, but a constellation of 35 individual telescope units.

Each individual telescope would be an independent, highly sensitive observatory able to collect more light than Webb. But the real power of Nautilus would come from turning all the individual telescopes toward a single target.

By combining data from all the units, Nautilus’ light-collecting power would equal a telescope nearly 10 times larger than Webb. With this powerful telescope, astronomers could search hundreds of exoplanets for atmospheric gases that may indicate extraterrestrial life.

Although the Nautilus Space Observatory is still a long way from launch, our team has made a lot of progress. We have shown that all aspects of the technology work in small-scale prototypes and are now focusing on building a 3.3-foot (1-meter) diameter lens. Our next steps are to send a small version of the telescope to the edge of space on a high-altitude balloon.

With that, we will be ready to propose a revolutionary new space telescope to NASA and, hopefully, be on the way to exploring hundreds of worlds for signatures of life.

Daniel Apai, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Tip of an iceberg’: Ex-attorney general expects more Supreme Court ethics revelations

Gideon Rubin
July 12, 2023

Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who previously served as a state attorney general, said Wednesday he expect more damaging revelations about the Supreme Court to emerge in the coming weeks after The Guardian earlier in the day reported that lawyers with business before the Supreme Court paid money to Justice Clarence Thomas’ top aide’s Venmo account.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner writes for The Guardian that “The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.”

The Guardian’s account of payments to Vasisht follows a New York Times report alleging members of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans provided Thomas with vacations and V.I.P. tickets to sporting events.

The latest revelations come after months of reporting that’s raised questions about the extent to which wealthy donors access to the Supreme Court’s justices warrants new ethical guidelines.

Whitehouse, who on Wednesday delivered a speech on the Senate floor advocating Supreme Court ethics reform, said he believes the latest reports are the “tip of the iceberg” during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut with Joy Reid.”

“The speech basically points out that we are in a very peculiar environment at the Supreme Court with multiple right-wing billionaires…who are in various ways, seeing to the care and feeding of so far two United States Supreme Court justices,” Whitehouse said.

“I think this is the tip of an iceberg. A lot more investigation is required, but we're going to start work this coming week and getting a law passed to try to make this all the more transparent and make clear where it's absolutely wrong and shouldn't be done at all even if you have to disclose it later.”

Asked if he thinks there’s enough momentum to advance Supreme Court ethics reform, Whitehouse said it’s possible, noting that he expects new revelations in coming weeks to emerge that could further influence public opinion.

“I think there's going to be a lot more information coming out in the next few weeks,” Whitehouse said.

“So the story is going to continue to get worse, or these justices and Republicans are going to be in increasingly difficult position saying ‘nothing to see here, folks. Nothing to see here, folks,’ when even their own federal judges in their own states are rolling their eyes and saying ‘you've got to be kidding me. We would never do this in my part.’"

“Yeah, it is. It is a conundrum.”

Watch the video below or click the link.

LGBT advocacy group cancels ASEAN event in Jakarta amid pushback

Photo illustration

By Coconuts Jakarta

Jul 12, 2023 

A meeting of Southeast Asian LGBT communities that was supposed to take place in Jakarta from July 17 to 21 has reportedly been canceled by the organizers amid pushback from the public and religious organizations.

The meeting, called the ASEAN Queer Advocacy Week, was organized by ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, a regional network of LGBT rights groups reportedly based in the Philippines.

“The organizers of ASEAN Queer Advocacy Week have decided to relocate the meeting outside Indonesia after receiving a series of threats from numerous groups,” ASEAN SOGIE Caucus said in a statement published yesterday.

The meeting was intended to bring together activists from across Southeast Asia to discuss advocacy and navigating challenges in the region. The organizers said that they wanted to create a safe space for civil society and human rights defenders to learn about ASEAN institutions, to address issues that are important to them, and to collectively exercise their right to freely express their views on how ASEAN advances or fails to advance the rights of their communities.

The organizers also said that they hoped to raise awareness and visibility of the human rights violations and discrimination faced by LGBT people in Southeast Asia, as well as to promote solidarity and cooperation among them. They said that they envisioned an inclusive ASEAN region that respects and protects the rights of all people regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC).

The ASEAN Queer Advocacy Week was reportedly first promoted via ASEAN SOGIE Caucus’ Instagram, and came to the public’s attention after several local media outlets reported about the event.

The news prompted condemnation from, among others, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), who argued that LGBT advocacy goes against the constitutional right to belief in God.

The Jakarta Metro Police said no party had filed for a permit to hold such an event in the capital.

ASEAN SOGIE Caucus’ Instagram has been set to private amid reported abuse by Indonesian netizens.

While homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, LGBTQ+ communities often face discrimination in the country, fueled by pressure and intolerance from religious conservatives and authorities in Indonesia.

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Based on an analysis of news stories from this year, they found that politicians are increasingly using anti-LGBT rhetoric to gain voter support, which is then amplified by the media.
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A Trans Woman Is Crowned Miss Netherlands for the First Time

Rikkie Valerie Kollé, 22, will represent the Netherlands at the 72nd annual Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador later this year.

Rikkie Valerie Kollé, center, won the Miss Netherlands beauty pageant this weekend.

Credit...Evert Elzinga/Agence France-Presse 


By Claire Moses
July 11, 2023


Rikkie Valerie Kollé, Miss Netherlands 2023, can still hardly believe she won her country’s annual pageant.

She spent all day on Saturday preparing for and enjoying every moment of the ceremony that night, which was attended by the reigning Miss Universe, the American R’Bonney Gabriel.

The show, which started at 8 p.m., flew by, “and two and a half hours later I was Miss Netherlands,” Ms. Kollé, 22, said in a phone interview on Tuesday, adding that her victory “had finally sunk in.”

Ms. Kollé’s win is historic: She is the first trans woman to win the pageant in the Netherlands, and she will be the second openly trans woman to compete in a Miss Universe competition when she represents her country in El Salvador later this year.

As the first trans woman to be named Miss Netherlands, Ms. Kollé said she hoped to be there for her community and help young queer people, as well as raise awareness of the long waiting times for transgender health care in the Netherlands.

“I’m going to be an open book,” she said. In February, a post on her Instagram account outlined her experiences as a child and her treatments as a teenager as well as an update about her gender-transition surgery.

But being an open book on social media comes with a lot of hate, too, and avoiding online negativity can be difficult. Ms. Kollé said she had faced a lot of online abuse and insults since winning the pageant, as had some of her close family members, including her mother and sister.


Ms. Kollé is not the first Dutch trans woman to reach the Miss Netherlands finals. Solange Dekker, a finalist from last year’s competition who took home the title of Miss Social Media, went on to become the first Dutch Miss International Queen 2023 last month, an annual pageant for trans women.

When she goes to El Salvador, Ms. Kollé will be the second trans woman to partake in a Miss Universe competition. Spain’s Angela Ponce, also a trans woman, was a finalist in 2018.

“We’re really looking for the most beautiful woman in the Netherlands,” said Monica van Ee, a member of the jury who chose Ms. Kollé this weekend. She is also the national director of Miss Netherlands.

She said that while national and international media had been interested to talk about Ms. Kollé’s victory, a lot of people had sent upsetting and threatening messages attacking Ms. Kollé.

Anne Jakrajutatip, the owner of the parent company of Miss Universe who is a trans woman herself, celebrated Ms. Kollé’s win in a statement.

“My Miss Universe superfan conversion was sitting in the front row while Angela Ponce, the first trans Miss Universe Spain, walked the runway for the first time,” Ms. Jakrajutatip said, adding that she was happy to make a statement that “trans women are women — and we are here to celebrate women.”

Ms. Kollé, who is from the southern Dutch city of Breda, has modeled since she was a teenager. She said she chose to apply to become Miss Netherlands because pageants offered her a chance to tell her story.

As a model, she said, “you’re a bit of a clothes hanger. Otherwise you mostly have to be quiet.” But in the world of pageantry, she said, “it’s also important that you have something to say.”

Ms. van Ee, Miss Netherlands’s national director, said that over the last decade or so, the pageant had modernized. Now, mothers, divorced women and trans women can participate, she said. “I took over Miss Netherlands because I wanted to make women stronger,” Ms. van Ee said. “I want to inspire young girls.”

She said she had been shocked by the number of negative responses from men and women.

The ideal winner of a Miss Netherlands competition must have an impressive presence and make heads turn when she walks into a room. She also needs a message that can inspire others, Ms. van Ee said. “Beauty comes from the inside,” she said.

She said that Ms. Kollé had been the strongest contender. “Throughout the whole process, she was the most beautiful woman,” Ms. van Ee said.

“I was chosen for who I am and my story,” Ms. Kollé said, “and not because I’m a trans woman.”


Claire Moses is a reporter for the Express desk in London. More about Claire Moses

Russian lawmakers move to further restrict transgender rights in new legislation

There is little doubt that the bill, a crippling blow to Russia's oppressed LGBTQ+ community, will be adopted amid the Kremlin's crusade to protect what it views as the country's “traditional values.”
FILE - Gay rights activists hold a banner reading "Homophobia - the religion of bullies" during their action in protest at homophobia, on Red Square in Moscow, Russia, on July 14, 2013. Russian lawmakers have approved a toughened version of a bill that outlaws gender transitioning procedures, with added clauses that mandate annulling marriages in which one person has "changed gender" and barring transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents. 

(AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman, File)

July 14, 2023
By Dasha Litvinova

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian lawmakers on Thursday approved a toughened version of a bill that outlaws gender transitioning procedures, with added clauses that annul marriages in which one person has “changed gender” and bar transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The bill received swift, unanimous approval of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, in its key second reading, and lawmakers scheduled the third and final reading for Friday. There is little doubt that the bill, a crippling blow to Russia’s oppressed LGBTQ+ community, will be adopted amid the Kremlin’s crusade to protect what it views as the country’s “traditional values.”

The bill bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.

New clauses added to the bill also amend Russia’s Family Code by listing gender change as a reason to annul a marriage and adding those “who had changed gender” to a list of people who can’t become foster or adoptive parents.

Lawmakers portray the measure as protecting Russia from “the Western anti-family ideology,” with some describing gender transitioning as “pure satanism.”

It has rattled the country’s transgender community and has drawn criticism not only from LGBTQ+ rights advocates but from the medical community as well.

Lyubov Vinogradova, executive director of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, called the bill “misanthropic” in an interview with The Associated Press. Gender transitioning procedures “shouldn’t be banned entirely, because there are people for whom it is the only way to … to exist normally and find peace with themselves,” Vinogradova said in a phone interview.

The crackdown on LGBTQ+ people started a decade ago, when President Vladimir Putin first proclaimed a focus on “traditional family values,” a move ardently supported — and fueled, to a certain extent — by the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, Putin pushed through a constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage.

But the authorities ramped up their rhetoric about protecting the country from what it called the West’s “degrading” influence after sending troops into Ukraine last year, in what rights advocates saw as an attempt to legitimize the war.

Lawmakers moved last year to ban “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among adults. That initiative was quickly rubber-stamped, and by December 2022, any positive or even neutral representation of LGBTQ+ people in movies, literature or media was outlawed.

The bill to severely restrict trans rights came a few months after that.

Vinogradova was among two dozen lawyers, activists and psychiatrists who put their names to a review of the bill that deemed it unnecessary and harmful. The document pointed that the bill goes against Russia’s existing laws, including its constitution.

Existing Russian regulations view gender transitioning procedures as medical treatment for “transsexualism,” a psychiatric condition in accordance with the 10th version of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, a medical classification list by the World Health Organization that Russia follows.

So to ban gender transitioning procedures is to deprive people diagnosed with the condition of medical help in violation of the constitution and other Russian laws, according to the review.

“(Medical) professionals we’re talking to believe it is absolutely unacceptable,” Vinogradova said.

She rejected the state narrative that gender transitioning is something imposed on Russia by the West and noted that studies of transgender issues were being conducted since the 1960s in the Soviet Union, “and it was normal, no one was concerned by it, but now, it turns out, goes against our traditional values.”


An online petition against the bill by Yana Kirey-Sitnikova, a transgender studies researcher, also mentions that gender-affirming care was available in the Soviet Union since the late 1960s and that transgender people were able to change gender markers in official documents as early as the 1920s.

“Medical and legal assistance to transgender people has a long history in the Soviet Union and Russia,” said the petition, signed by over 7,200 people to date. It warned of “serious deterioration in the health and well-being of transgender people” if such assistance ceases to exist.

Nef Cellarius, coordinator of the peer counselling program at the LGBTQ+ rights group Coming Out, told AP that already high depression rates and suicide thoughts are likely to spike among transgender people once the bill is adopted. Another negative consequence of that could be the emergence of an unregulated black market of gender-affirming care, he said in a phone interview from Lithuania.

The new provisions on annulling marriages and banning adoption or guardianship over children leaves transgender people even more vulnerable, Cellarius said.

In some previous cases, officials did demand that a couple divorce before changing gender in documents, if such a change could lead to a same-sex marriage, which are illegal in Russia; but some were able to keep their marriage certificate, the activist said. Now all marriages in which one or both people have changed gender would be annulled.

There is one new provision, however, that might leave the window open for some transgender people, according to human rights lawyer Max Olenichev, who works with the Russian LGBTQ+ community. It allows for a “transitional period” for those who have undergone gender-affirming surgery but haven’t yet changed gender in official documents to do so, Olenichev told AP in an interview from Prague.

“These transitional provisions will remain in place for an indefinite period of time, and people will be able to use them,” Olenichev said, adding that even with this provision in place, “in essence, gender transitioning in Russia is banned.”

LGBTQ+ Americans are more religious than our Supreme Court battles let on

Religion and queerness make strange bedfellows, but they are not as hostile as we may think.

A gay Pride rainbow flag flies along with the U.S. flag in front of a church in Prairie Village, Kansas, April 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Opinion
July 7, 2023
By Kelsy Burke, Andrew Flores, Suzanna Krivulskaya, Tyler Lefevor

(RNS) — In one of the last decisions announced this season, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a conservative Christian business owner had the right to refuse service to same-sex couples if the service could be construed as a creative expression or implied endorsement of their relationship. The ruling, the latest in a series of such cases, affirmed a common narrative: that religious people and LGBTQ+ people are mutually exclusive groups and in tension with one another.

This story isn’t only perpetuated in the courts, but also in the mainstream media and, often, in the field of public opinion research.

As academics and public fellows for the Public Religion Research Institute, we have access to some of the latest national surveys asking questions about religion and LGBTQ+ rights. We also know that most of the time this data includes too few LGBTQ+ people to make definitive claims about this group. We know, in other words, that we know more about attitudes about LGBTQ+ people than we do about LGBTQ+ people themselves.

In early June, we set out to remedy this shortcoming by surveying 1,255 LGBTQ+ adults in the United States. While not a representative sample (we used the survey platform Prolific), we set quotas to make sure we surveyed at least 250 each of gay men, lesbian women, bisexual men, bisexual women and transgender and gender non-conforming people. The resulting data provides us a unique opportunity to explore and compare the beliefs, attitudes and experiences of queer people in the U.S.

RELATED: The search for gender identity, say trans seekers, brought them closer to God

Our findings suggest that the relationships LGBTQ+ people have with religion are more complicated than most media headlines portray. Many LGBTQ+ people are religious, with bisexual men reporting the strongest religious identities. In our sample, 36% of participants report a religious affiliation; about the same percentage say they attend religious services at least once a year. A similar percentage report spending time in prayer or meditation a few times a month or more.

Religion has often played an important role in the lives of LGBTQ+ people, even if they are not currently religious. A full 80% of survey respondents were raised religious. Of those who no longer identify religiously, nearly 1 in 3 say they nonetheless continue to feel a connection to their religious heritage.

At the same time, only a minority of religious LGBTQ+ individuals belong to congregations that explicitly affirm their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Of religious LGBTQ+ people, 38% report that their congregation allows people in same-gender relationships to be congregation leaders, and 32% report that their congregation has an official statement welcoming LGBTQ+ individuals. Roughly the same percentage of religious LGBTQ+ individuals report experiencing conflict between their religious beliefs and sexual orientation or gender identity. These respondents came from a variety of Christian traditions, including Protestant, Roman Catholic and “just Christian.”

Transgender respondents, compared to gay and bisexual men and lesbian and bisexual women, report the highest levels of conflict between religion and their gender identity. This aligns with the broader social and political landscape in the United States, where, overall, Americans are less supportive of certain measures of transgender equality when compared to LGBTQ+ equality and there have been recent attacks on transgender rights led and supported by white evangelical Protestants.

Regardless of religious affiliation, LGBTQ+ people in our survey perceive high levels of hostility from most major religious groups. Eight out of 10 believe that evangelical churches are unfriendly toward LGBTQ+ people. The perception of unfriendliness is similarly high for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (76%), Islam (71%) and Catholicism (70%).

Judaism is perceived as the friendliest among the six groups we asked about, with 3 in 4 respondents characterizing the religion as either friendly or neutral toward LGBTQ+ people, followed by a similar perception of non-evangelical Protestant churches (56%).

Although faith and participation in religion have been clearly linked to better health in heterosexual people, these effects are less strong for LGBTQ+ people. Our data supported these findings, showing that only LGBTQ+ people who saw religion as central to their identity could be linked to lower rates of depression. For queer people who may not feel connected to a religious community but still attend services, religion doesn’t offer this positive benefit.

RELATED: Queer bars offer sacred space for LGBTQ community

While belonging to a religious community is not the generally “positive” experience it is for cisgender/heterosexual individuals, our understanding of LGBTQ+ people’s religious lives need to be more nuanced. When we asked open-ended questions in our survey, we found that LGBTQ+ people recognize that, while religious groups are often hostile toward them, it is religious extremists who seek to ostracize them or take away their rights. Some religious groups are even recognized as allies in the fight toward greater inclusion.

While religion and queerness may make strange bedfellows, many LGBTQ+ people realize these two forces are connected in complex ways. The rest of us should take the cue.

(Kelsy Burke is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Andrew Flores is an assistant professor of government at American University. Suzanna Krivulskaya is an assistant professor of history at California State University San Marcos. Tyler Lefevor is an associate professor of counseling psychology at Utah State University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

‘Really hurtful’: How LGBTQ disinformation ensnares Americans

By AFP
Published July 12, 2023

Copyright AFP Alain JOCARD
Bill McCarthy and Anuj Chopra

Waving a rainbow flag, Desmond Napoles ambled through a confetti-soaked pride parade — in defiance of a troubling disinformation campaign that sought to link LGBTQ Americans to pedophilia.

In June, the face of the 16-year-old model, fashion designer and activist from New York appeared in a doctored image that ricocheted across social media platforms, fueling anti-LGBTQ hysteria that has reached a fever pitch in the United States.

Emerging from the darkest corners of the internet, the altered picture made it appear like a California pride parade participant had worn a shirt bearing Desmond’s face alongside a disturbing slogan: “Trans kids are sexy.”

The original photo, published in a southern California newspaper, showed the man wearing a plain white shirt as he marched during the festivities in 2021.

The manipulated version triggered a deluge of angry online comments accusing the participant of pedophilia, echoing a far-right conspiracy theory that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children. Many people called for his death or castration.

“They were using it to make LGBTQ people look like ‘groomers,’ and they were using my face,” Napoles told AFP at a glittering New York pride event last month.

“I was really disgusted.”

AFP identified the participant in the photo as a middle-aged gay man in California who said in a Zoom interview that he was in “disbelief” when a concerned friend showed him one of the abusive posts.

“I am sickened by people who are accusing us of being child molesters. This has to stop,” he said, requesting anonymity out of concern for his safety and privacy.

The menacing discourse facing Napoles and the California man — coupled with attempts by bad actors to profit off it — shows the real-world harms caused by the rising tide of anti-LGBTQ disinformation.

“God forbid that this were to grow, and that’s what scares me,” the man said.

– ‘Hateful narrative’ –

The disinformation comes amid a sharp spike in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

That includes false claims -– amplified by conservative influencers — linking the community to pedophilia, a barrage of anti-transgender bills introduced by US lawmakers and right-wing boycotts that have targeted brands such as Target over their support of LGBTQ causes.

Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled that certain private businesses can refuse service to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

“There has been an explosion in the hateful narrative that associates LGBTQ people with child abuse and ‘grooming,'” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told AFP.

“Hate actors spread these lies about LGBTQ people solely to dehumanize them and whip up fear — and it’s mirrored by an alarming rise in real-world violence.”

The altered image — which exploited an old photo that showed Napoles, then a teenage drag star, at an awards ceremony — appeared to originate on the fringe forum 4chan before spreading to other platforms including Twitter and TikTok.

“It just kept spreading and spreading. We didn’t know who was behind it or what was going on,” Napoles said.

– ‘Heartbreaking’ –

Adding to the horror, T-shirts and other merchandise — embossed with Napoles’s photo and the slogan “Trans kids are sexy” — suddenly became available for sale online.

They are advertised across dozens of dubious print-on-demand websites using overseas domain registrars.

Wendy, Napoles’s mother, said she spent hours trying to get some of them to take them down, but with little success.

“I’ve been emailing, just asking, saying: ‘You have a picture of my minor on your T-shirt, this is not acceptable,'” she told AFP.

Many of the websites appear interconnected –- displaying similar layouts and sales pitches and listing matching contact information. According to online customer reviews, some have sold trademarked material and stolen artwork.

The websites, which also advertize hoodies and sweaters with the same image and slogan, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

The sites illustrate efforts to profit off anti-LGBTQ disinformation.

According to one CCDH study this year, mentions of the “grooming” narrative more than doubled on Twitter since billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover last October. Just five prominent accounts notorious for promoting this falsehood were estimated to generate $6.4 million annually for Twitter in ad revenues, the study said.

Wendy said it was very hurtful that her child’s image was exploited to stir up hate and “to cause people to believe in something that isn’t real.”

“These people used it without thinking that there’s someone behind the image that they may be hurting,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”