NEWSWOMEN & RELIGION

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest of 39 years, felt obligated to speak his conscience -- and it told him that women should be allowed to be priests too. His outspoken opposition to sexist discrimination could cost him dearly, however, as he now faces dismissal from his position and excommunication.

The Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) has launched a petition on Change.org in support of Fr. Bourgeois and other Catholics who believe that women deserve the same clergy rights as men in the Church. "I cannot possibly speak out about injustice in society and at the same time be silent about this injustice in my church," Bourgeois affirmed. WOC -- along with cosponsors the Association of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Call To Action, and Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA -- wants the Vatican to know that a respected priest shouldn't be kicked out for supporting women's ordination when there's no scriptural prohibition for this practice.

"After much reflection, study, and prayer, I believe that our Church's teaching that excludes women from the priesthood defies both faith and reason and cannot stand up to scrutiny," Fr. Bourgeois wrote in response to his threatened removal from office in the Maryknoll Catholic order. 'This teaching has nothing to do with God, but with men, and is rooted in sexism. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against women, in the end, it is not the way of God, but of men who want to hold on to their power."

"My concern is the Toronto District School Board (is) using tax money to tell girls that they are second-class citizens," Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, told the Toronto Sun. He's talking about the District's decision to allow a Muslim Friday prayer session in the Valley Park Middle School cafeteria, where it forces girls to sit behind the boys, and sends menstruating girls to the back where they can only listen, but not participate.

In just the past few hours, over 2000 people have signed a petition started by a Toronto resident, Tim Das, asking that the misogynist prayer sessions end -- that if the school wants to provide religious accommodations, it must still uphold its own gender equity policy and the terms of Ontario's Education Act. "The moment I read this story, I was aghast -- as a first generation Canadian and child of South Asian immigrants, as a Toronto resident whose hard earned tax-dollars were being used to facilitate this extreme misogyny, and most of all as the father of a sweet, spirited six year old girl in the Toronto Public School system," Das told Change.org. "After receiving an unsatisfactory response from the Chair of the School Board, I knew I had to do more." That's when he decided to start the petition.

The Muslim Canadian Congress is so strongly opposed to these gender segregated prayer sessions, it's threatening legal action. Alia Hogben, Executive Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, has also spoken out against the school's segregated prayer sessions. Major Canadian papers on the right and left of the political spectrum have published editorials denouncing this practice, which gives school sanction to isolating and embarrassing young girls for a basic bodily function.

St. Joseph's, a Catholic hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, generated a heap of controversy earlier this year for making the apparently profoundly un-Catholic decision to save a woman's life. Even though the woman had a "close to 100 percent" probability of dying without the recommended abortion, meaning her 11-week-old fetus also had no chance of survival, the Catholic Church's stance remained that it's better to allow a mother of four to die than perform that evil medical procedure. Now, due to the hospital's principled refusal to deny life-saving medical care to women, it has been kicked out of the Catholic Church.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot understand the stance of Rev. John Ehrich, medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix, who argued that, making the right decision under Catholic doctrine, "There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child." Even though, abortion or no abortion, the fetus will not survive, the woman must also be sacrificed. His viewpoint enjoyed the support of Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead, who issued an ultimatum: promise to let women die in the future, or you're out of the Catholic Church. St. Joseph's chose life.

St. Joseph's gave a statement about their principled refusal to give in to the bishop's demands: "Morally, ethically, and legally we simply cannot stand by and let someone die whose life we might be able to save." This hospital's stand is heartening, but Bishop Olmstead's decision that Catholic hospitals cannot provide live-saving medical care has frightening ramifications. Fifteen percent of all hospital beds in the United States are Catholic-run. And not all Catholic hospitals are willing to reject this anti-life decree to protect women; in fact, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) raises concerns about other religiously affiliated hospitals denying emergency care. They are asking Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to investigate these infractions, since these hospitals, receive federal money and are bound by law to provide emergency abortions.

Did you know that in Malaysia over 16,ooo children are married before they turn 15? Activist group Sisters in Islam did, and they want to put a stop to it. As Amanda Kloer over at the Human Trafficking section of Change.org reports, the group is working hard to have the legal marriage age there raised to 18.

This issue recently gained attention when a Malaysian newspaper ran an article about a mass wedding in early December. The accompanying photo was of a 14 year-old girl who was set to marry a man more than twice her age. Think about that for a minute. While you and I and any reasonable, moral person would consider that horrifying and abusive, the Malaysian government sees no problem at all. It's all peachy for them, just as long as "the wedding is bound by love between couples."

This is where Sisters in Islam comes in. They issued a statement condemning the child marriage practice in Malaysia. They point out that such marriage harms children, particularly girls. Specifically, it limits access to education, results in loss of adolescence, and restricts freedom and personal development. Further, young girls are put in a dangerous situation with their physical health because of the high risk of early pregnancy and abuse.

With the release of and subsequent media frenzy surrounding Pope Benedict XVI's published comments on condom use has come a renewed debate about religion, sexuality and public health. And it's not just about "male prostitutes." While the Pope's original declaration referred to the fact that condom use may be a moral act for male prostitutes wishing to prevent against sexually transmitted infections, the Vatican later clarified that -- oh, wait a minute -- women, men and transsexuals also may use condoms to protect themselves against transmission of disease, thank you very much.

Many progressive Catholics and organizations say these statements have opened the door to the potential to have a more realistic conversation about the role condoms play in protecting the health and lives of women, men and young people globally.

But, of course, the conversation has been happening for years between public health experts, advocates and those who use condoms. We already know that condoms are the only sure-fire contraceptive method for women who want to prevent both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. However, Catholics for Choice say that many Catholic health providers working for Catholic aid agencies in developing nations are secretly handing out condoms while fearing for their jobs since condom use is still unacceptable as a tenet of the Church. Catholic groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States have stood in the way of ensuring access to condoms, as well as to the funding of other HIV/AIDS prevention strategies that work -- like comprehensive sex education in developing nations -- for too long.

The best way we can "use" the Pope's comments on condoms, in this country, is to put pressure on Catholic health agencies working on the ground in these poor nations to formally integrate condoms into their prevention strategies.

With one of the largest Muslim student populations in the country, last March George Washington University set aside one hour per week that the pool would only be open to women. The decision was an attempt to allow Muslim female students a chance to swim without breaking Islam’s rules about modesty. For one hour a week, a tarp hides the pool from onlookers and a female lifeguard is on duty. But recently, fears of “creeping Sharia” -- the idea that Muslim custom is slowly taking over American life -- has raised an online hell storm over the all-female swim-hour.

This is a situation where a school has decided to allow Muslim women, a demographic whose gender and religion means their participation in sports is relatively low, to be physically active and take advantage of the facilities that every other student is free to use, and which their tuition already pays for. One hour a week is not a big inconvenience to anyone, and for a small group of women, it means the ability to swim. "Although I wouldn't really mind, it would be satisfying to me religiously to swim only with girls," a Muslim student told the GW Hatchet, who had given up her swim regimen when she arrived at George Washington.

Of course, the irrational frenzy on the Internet can’t understand why normal Americans are being forced to change their lifestyle to accommodate someone else -- something our country has been doing for religious minorities for centuries. Under pressure, George Washington University is reconsidering the policy -- meaning a kind and sensible policy, despite campus support, could be derailed by the intolerance of people carrying the torch of anti-Muslim intolerance. Seriously, flip their logic around and you’re arguing that in accordance with "our ways," we should force women either to disregard their religion and expose their bodies to men, or not exercise. That sounds like an oppressive environment for Muslim women and no one else.

Tell GWU to continuing offering Muslim women the chance to swim.

Photo credit: Foxtongue

When a person gets married, they often want to share it with the world — or at least their city. So Laine Tadlock's decision to run a wedding announcement in her local paper, the State Journal-Register, seems like nothing out of the ordinary.

Unfortunately, Michael Jones reports on Gay Rights that this particular wedding announcement cost her a job. Is her employer just really anti-marriage? Not exactly. The issue at stake was that she was getting married to another woman.

Her employer, the Catholic Benedictine University in Springfield, IL, was not pleased to discover that "here come the brides" was the name of the game at Tadlock's wedding. While Tadlock has been out about her sexual orientation since the beginning of her job, and many of her coworkers knew about the upcoming nuptials — and the sex of her intended — and had offered their congratulations, the higher-ups alerted to her plans via wedding announcement weren't so happy for her.

Tadlock was pushed to take early retirement, a move which would have allowed the University to save face, but she had no intention of helping them shove her out of a job over her marriage. So, effective October 28, Benedictine University went ahead and gave her the boot anyway, writing, "By publicizing the marriage ceremony in which she participated in Iowa she has significantly disregarded and flouted core religious beliefs which, as a Catholic institution, it is our mission to uphold."

The Catholic Church is unhappy. Last month, some provisions of the new health care bill went into effect. Included in that initial group of provisions is the requirement that new health care policies include coverage for preventative care — everything from cancer screenings to vaccinations to birth control. Guess which one of those things the Catholic Church has a problem with?

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services asking that certain reproductive health care services — such as birth control and voluntary sterilization — not be included in the provision. Since the Catholic Church frowns upon women taking full ownership of their reproductive lives, they are loathe to offer their female employees the opportunity to do just that. In fact, they feel it is unfair to all Catholic employers, not just the Church.

The fact that non-Catholics are employed by Catholic groups does not matter to them. The realities of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies does not phase them. The simple, obvious truth the mandatory coverage for birth control does not mean mandatory use of birth control does not deter them.  That millions of American women who aren't Catholic and don't work for Catholic organizations would lose this reproductive health coverage in the process probably does not sound like a bad thing to them.

In June, I wrote about the increasing practice in Chechnya of firing paintballs at women who hadn't fully covered their hair with headscarves. Police officers were responsible for at least several of the attacks; they would drive by on motorcycles, shoot the "offending" woman, and film the incident on cell phones to increase her public humiliation.

Recently, the pressure on Chechen women has increased. During the first days of Ramadan, groups of men in traditional Islamic dress claiming to represent the Islamic High Council of Chechnya accosted women in the capital of Grozny. They would approach women deemed to be dressed inappropriately (a relative term which could refer to anything from a bare forearm to a skirt not far enough below the knees to revealed hair), shove fliers describing appropriate Islamic dress in their hands, and publicly humiliate them by shouting, touching their bare skin, and yanking on their clothes.

All of this behavior is condoned by Chechnya's president, Ramzan Kadyrov, a Chechen rebel turned Kremlin loyalist who has made a neat little bargain with Moscow to keep rebel activity in line in exchange for complacency in Chechnya's increasing shift towards extreme Islamist policy. In 2007, Kadryov stated that all women employed by the government must cover their heads at work. The measure was not made into a law -- a step perhaps too controversial for Mr. Kadyrov to risk at that point -- but might as well have been. When Natalya Estemirova, a a Chechen human rights activist, announced on a Russian TV station that Chechen women were being forced to wear scarves she was summoned by Mr. Kadyrov and violently cursed at; later, she was murdered.

The undue clout of conservative Catholic bishops on our political system (um, separation of church and state, Stupak?) kept abortion coverage out of health care reform. Emboldened by that victory, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a new target: birth control coverage.

Birth control is classified and covered as a preventative measure because it, you know, prevents pregnancy, and the significant expenses associated with that condition. As a preventative measure, it will be covered under health reform. But the bishops, a group of sexist men who seem overly concerned with women's bodies, have sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services insisting that birth control isn't really a preventative measure. Their reasoning: pregnancy is not a disease. And scary birth control pills are bad for you.

This might be a good soundbite, but pregnancy is a medical condition, and even a "healthy pregnancy" has risks. It's also an expensive condition. By preventing pregnancy, contraception saves money. From an insurance standpoint, that's the point of preventative coverage: to prevent an unwanted condition that will cost more to insure than stopping it from occurring in the first place.

I had to laugh at some of the attempts at anti-contraception fear-mongering: "Progestin-only contraceptives — mini pills, injections, and implants—have been associated with menstrual cycle disturbance, 'excessive weight gain,' hair loss, and depression." Yeah: pregnancy most definitely causes "menstrual cycle disturbance" and "excessive weight gain," while post-partum depression strikes many new mothers.

Regardless, I don't feel the need to correct the Catholic bishops', in some