The percentage of people not identifying under any religion has been growing in Northern Ireland. According to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2020, on question "Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?", about 27% of the population identified as non-religious, which is a 7% increase compared to the percentage of non-religious people in 2019.
On June 7, the Madras High Court in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu banned any medical attempts to "cure" or change the sexual orientation of a person in a significant upholding of LGBTQIA+ rights in the state. The court has also issued directives to sensitize society and various branches of the state, including police and judiciary, to remove prejudices against them.
A Texas federal court received a petition from Braidwood Management, Inc. to provide a religious exemption that will allow them to discriminate against LGBTQ+ staff.
NBC News interviewed a handful of former students (or ex-interns) regarding a Christian leadership training program at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge, LA. These ex-interns attested that the program was abnormally brutal. They described their disturbing experiences.
On the morning of Tuesday April 20th, the Canadian Province of Quebec announced plans to appeal a ruling which exempted minority teachers and some politicians from wearing religious attire or symbols.
The ruling, that supports much of a 2019 law, does not apply to teachers in Quebec's English-language school boards, as they hold special rights over education under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On April 7th, Arkansas’s House Bill 1701, which would allow Christian beliefs to be taught in schools, passed the House vote 72 to 21. The voting was strictly partisan, with Republicans having the majority.
SHAME: The Arkansas House just passed an unconstitutional bill that allows public schools to teach the Christian theory of creationism as science. https://t.co/TV9vdwyEPy
France’s move to outlaw wearing the hijab in public places for girls under age 18 was proposed under France’s “Separatist Bill” and approved by Members of Parliament (MP) on February 16th. The French Senate decided in favor of the bill on March 30th.
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.
Several studies in recent decades found that being religious correlates with good health. New studies have challenged the finding that being an atheist correlates with poor health!
Believers who attend church services regularly are less likely to smoke, use drugs or become obese. They may live longer than those who do not attend any religious church services. Some have been led to conclude, according to those findings, that if religion is good for you, then being an atheist must be bad for your health.
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.
