The Christian owners of a bakery in Oregon have been ordered to pay $135.000 to a lesbian couple they refused to bake a wedding cake for.
Aaron and Melissa Klein said their refusal to bake for the lesbian couple was prompted by their Christian beliefs. The case has been cited in the national debate over religious freedom and discrimination against gays.
The ‘Church’ of Scientology, among other things known for tearing relationships apart, is delighted that two of its members in the UK have finally been able to marry in one of the cult’s ‘chapels.’
We also highlight a couple of other cases in which human rights and religious freedom interact.
Chile seeks to extradite a leader of the notorious Colonia Dignidad cult from Germany.
Ramadan can be a lonely time for Muslim converts.
Plane crash leads to questions about Christian summer school.
Also: dangerous giant snails, and their connection to a religious cult.
Lao officials arrested two Lao and two Thai Christians in Luang Namtha Province earlier this month, seizing them from a private residence in Long district, according to Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom.
Officials also arrested a pastor in Luang Namtha and dismissed two civil servants in Savannakhet for converting to Christianity.
Sentiment against Christians in Turkey has persisted long enough for a U.S. religious rights monitor to recommend it as a “Country of Particular Concern.”
Many in Turkey see Christians as corrupt elements of the West out to shake the integrity of Turkey and Islam.
In an unprecedented meeting, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey last week expressed his concerns and hopes for the country’s Christian minority to members of the Turkish Parliament.
The Feb. 20 meeting is a sign that progress is being made, but more progress is needed, said the patriarch, who as “archbishop of Constantinople” is “first among equals” in the Eastern Orthodox Communion.
A San Juan Capistrano, California, has been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city ordinance as a “church” and not as a private gathering.
The Pacific Justice Institute says it is “committed to defending this family’s home Bible study all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.”
The Turkish government made a historic U-turn in state policy this past weekend, issuing an official decree inviting Turkey’s Christian and Jewish communities to reclaim their long-confiscated religious properties.
The return of these extensive properties to their rightful owners has been a key demand of the European Union (EU), to which Turkey is applying for full membership.
Five years after it abolished Hinduism as the state religion, Nepal is working on a new criminal code forbidding a person from one faith to “convert a person or abet him to change his religion.”
Article 160 of the proposed code also says no one will be allowed to do anything or behave in any way that could cause a person from a caste, community or creed to lose faith in his/her traditional religion or convert to a different religion. The proposal would also prohibit conversion “by offering inducements or without inducement,” and preaching “a different religion or faith with any other intent.”
A new constitution that Nepal’s parliament is scheduled to put into effect before May 28 may not include the right to propagate one’s faith.
The draft constitution, aimed at completing the country’s transition from a Hindu monarchy to a secular democracy, contains provisions in its “religious freedom” section that prohibit anyone from converting others from one religion to another.