Montero Lamar Hill, a well-known rapper better known as Lil Nas X, created and recently released his “Satan Shoes” to solicit publicity by stirring up controversy.
On March 22nd, a West Yorkshire school teacher showed his students a cartoon image depicting the prophet Muhammad to illustrate a lesson within the school’s curriculum. Within three days, at least 50 demonstrators gathered outside of Batley Grammar School to protest the teacher’s actions.
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.
Nabeel Masih, a 16-year-old Christian, was accused by Akhtar Ali on September 18, 2016, of committing blasphemy in a Facebook post. Ali claimed the post “defamed and disrespected” the Kaaba in Mecca. Ali also claimed that he and some friends discovered a picture on Masih’s timeline depicting a pig on top of the Kaaba.
On Thursday, March 4th, a man walked from his village home en route to the local police station in northern India — carrying a severed head. His neighbors in the community were shocked at the sight and called the police ahead of his arrival.
Canada’s House of Commons voted unanimously to affirm that China’s actions toward it’s ethnic minority of Uyghurs is genocide. Justin Trudeau and liberal members of his cabinet did not attend the vote on Monday. By declaring China’s “reeducation” camps as part of an ongoing campaign of genocide, Canada joins the United States as the second nation to stand up to China’s violations of human rights.
On February 25th, the US House passed the Equality Act. The passing of this landmark act for LGBTQ rights (with a 224-206 vote) deters discrimination pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity in many circumstances and in several settings, including employment, housing, education, public accommodations, and merchantry.
The majority of Christian history has a shameful past of bloody torture combined with racism and slavery, especially so in the southern United States. The bible itself condones slavery, even to the point of offering ‘Dos and Donts’ guidance to slaveholders — never once condemning it — not even in the Ten Commandments.
Yet Joseph E. Strictland, a Texas Catholic Bishop, vilifies atheism, claiming it is much worse than racism. And he blames atheists for every “ill that plagues our society.”
