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Religious news from 1999 to now
-- both positive & negative

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Reporting on religious news:

Starting in early 1999-NOV, we started  to collect items from various news sources which describe incidents of religious change, intolerance, conflict and violence. These include:

	attacks by religious organizations, leaders and individuals, directed against: other faith groups, secular groups, including governments, or  governments, or
	attacks by secularists and governments against faith groups.
	attempts by religious groups to reduce various groups' religious freedom and personal choice.
	significant struggles, conflicts, and changes in denominations' policies.
	significant cultural changes brought about by court rulings.

We also collected positive news items separately that were related to religious tolerance and information until 2009-SEP.

The topics of religious change, intolerance, conflict, violence and positive news were combined after 2009-SEP,

Unfortunatley, lack of staff time prevented us from continuing these topics after 2010-JUN.

If this list had been active in the past...:

It would have dealt with the great ethical debates of the day. It would have discussed in depth:

	Slavery, 150 years ago;
	Genocidal attacks against Native Americans, 130 years ago
	Whether children should be Inoculated against childhood diseases, 120 years ago:
	Women's vote, 90 years ago;
	Availability of birth control materials, 80 years ago:
	Racial segregation, 50 years ago.
	Inter-racial marriage, 40 years ago.

Without exception, these great moral struggles have been resolved -- or at least partly resolved -- in the direction of greater equality and personal freedom.

Current struggles, like equality for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons (LGBT) as well as same-sex marriage may also all be resolved in the same way. Some commentators have suggested that these topics reached a tipping point in 2011-FEB.

Debates in the present:

These are unusual in that we have many relatively new topics being simultaneously debated.

	New topics (e.g. physician assisted suicide, spanking children, and same-sex marriage) have emerged recently,
	Other topics (e.g. married clergy, allowing women into the clergy, and equal rights for homosexuals) have been active for a decade or more and are still not resolved completely.
	Still other topics are just emerging (e.g. equal rights for transgender persons and transsexuals.

We also maintain news summaries elsewhere. These are recent developments, both positive and negative, which are related to a specific topic: e.g. abortion access, homosexual rights death penalty, etc. We also track developments concerning the acceptance of gays and lesbians as church members and clergy. This is reported separately for each denomination.

On a positive note....

After reading so much hatred, oppression, mass murder etc. on our website, you may need an emotional lift or a reconfirmation of the basic goodness of people. We suggest that you read the "Acts of Kindness" section of the Toronto Star. The newspaper lists dozens of stories submitted by their readers of random acts of kindness towards people in trouble. See: http://www.thestar.com/ Although most of the acts were perpetrated and received by Canadians and located in Canada, the stories are universal.

Current news items:

Media reports related to religious intolerance, violence, discrimination and change

Archived news from:

Legal notice

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. sec 107: The news items contained in the above hyperlinks are provided by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, Box 27026, Kingston ON Canada K7M 8W5. They are intended to be available to anyone interested in the topics included, for educational purposes only. Any editor, author, Webmaster, writer, publisher, news service, etc that objects to being part of this listing may request that future works be excluded. We will also attempt to delete all previous entries from the same source.

Sources used:

	DayWatch is a daily service of Maranatha Christian Journal. It provides "a daily summary of news headlines with a Christian perspective..." The newsletter is free on request. Their web site is at http://www.mcjonline.com
	Newsroom is a service of Worldwide Newsroom Inc. It provided articles written by "a network of journalists, scholars and other professional contacts in country."  Unfortunately, they were unable to make the transition from a free to a paid service, and are no longer functioning.
	ReligionToday.com is a conservative Christian news service provided by Media Management. Their web site is at http://www.ReligionToday.com They distribute a daily news summary on request.
	Reuters is "the world's leading financial information and news group. Their web page is at: http://www.reuters.com/

An additional source of religious news:

"RELIGION IN THE NEWS," is produced by The Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of religion in Public Life. See: http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RIN.htm

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Copyright © 1999 to 2011 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 1999-NOV-3
Latest update: 2011-AUG-04
Author: B.A. Robinson

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