Fairness for All: An Answer to the Special Rapporteur’s Call for a Practical Resolution between Freedom of Religion or Belief and LGBT+ Non-discrimination

 

 

 

 

Robin Fretwell Wilson is Director, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois System & Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law

Tanner Bean is an Attorney with the law firm Fabian VanCott in Salt Lake City, Utah

U.N. Special Rapporteur, Ahmed Shaheed’s, report on freedom of religion or belief (“FoRB”) and gender equality (the “Report”) comes at an important moment in our collective existence. Many of us in many countries are struggling with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, fearing the impact on our families and communities. Yet, in the midst of this crisis, churches and people of faith continue to serve, albeit in altered and unique ways. In uncertain times like these, churches often rush to fill dire needs and remind us that we all need each other. (more…)

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Is Religious Autonomy a Threat to Gender Equality?


Montserrat Gas-Aixendri is Full Professor of Law and Religion at Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain) 

 

In a 2013 Report, the UN Special Rapporteur acknowledged that freedom of religion or belief and gender equality sometimes seem to be in an artificial antagonism. In fact, synergies between the freedom of religion or belief and promoting gender equality remain systematically underexplored, discouraged, or delegitimized (para. 32-33, 42). Though the 2020 Report on religious freedom and gender equality rightly condemns violence and discrimination against women, girls, and LGBT+ persons based on the pretence of religious freedom, I must confess that I expected this report to have the courage to take on the challenge of finding synergies between the freedom of religion or belief and promoting gender equality. However, in many ways my expectations are left unmet. In the following paragraphs, I will try to comment on how the report addresses the issue of autonomy of religious institutions in the context of gender equality and why some of its points should be criticized. (more…)

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U.S. Interference in Ukraine’s Autocephaly: An Ineffective, Unnecessary, and Unlikely Affair

Robert C. Blitt is Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee Knoxville

At first glance, extending the Tomos to a newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) may appear to have emerged with lightning speed, particularly in the traditionally deliberative world of Orthodox Christianity. But the reality attests to a much longer campaign to secure autocephaly for Ukraine, and to a larger, ever-seething rift among Orthodox churches over canonical legitimacy and control.

The Long Reach of U.S. Foreign Policy and the Tomos

Boosters and detractors of OCU autocephaly are divided over claims of government interference in the process of issuing the Tomos. An assessment of the effectiveness of Ukrainian and Russian government intervention is set aside for another occasion, though indications are plain intervention was the norm rather than the exception. In the case of the United States, some outside observers have claimed the U.S. government manipulated the Ecumenical Patriarch with millions of dollars in bribes to foster a schism in the Orthodox world, and that consequently, “the State Department, will have the blood of the little Ukrainian grandmothers and old men on [their] hands.” Parties more intimately engaged, including high-level officials from the Russian government and the Moscow Patriarchate, have espoused similar claims, if couched in more diplomatic terms. (more…)

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