Massachusetts couple Marcia Hams and her partner Susan Shepard had a cake to celebrate their historic first same-sex wedding in 2004, but some bakers feel unable to oblige on religious grounds.
EPA C.J. Gunther
When a baker refuses, on religious grounds, to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, the right to freedom of religion comes into conflict with the right to freedom from discrimination.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, represented by spokesman Uthman Badar, has courted controversy and been criticised by Tony Abbott in recent times.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a political party. It is not active in any Islamic schools, mosques or institutes. It does not have any real influence on Australia’s Islamic community.
When Manal Kassem laid her bridal bouquet at the tribute to the Lindt Cafe siege victims in Sydney, onlookers applauded – no-one cast doubt on her sincerity as a Muslim in the way Tony Abbott’s words have done.
AAP/Supplied
By casting doubt on the sincerity of Islamic leaders when they condemn terrorism and extremism, the prime minister risks alienating Muslims and dividing instead of uniting the Australian community.
Storytellers can’t agree whether 16th-century consort Gracia Hosokawa was a victim or a hero.
Keith Putnam
Tony Abbott has urged Muslim leaders to speak out more – and sincerely – in the fight against terrorism, as he unveiled tough new measures that would remove or curb the citizenship rights of those linked…
Islamic scholarship gave rise to some of the world’s earliest educational institutions such as the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.
Wikimedia Commons/CPT photo
There is nothing in Islam that makes it dangerous or threatening to a modern Western way of life. However, those looking to incite violence and hatred are always capable of finding textual references in…
With so much uncertainty in halal labelling it can be hard for Muslim consumers to know they’re getting what they’ve asked for.
Todd Lappin
Halal food certification in Australia has become a contentious issue. Recently, a Western Australian cafe received hateful and anti-Islamic messages after its owners tried to explain halal on Facebook…
There is division over whether immolation is permissible under Islamic law.
EPA
The killing of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh by Islamic State has been explained as an act of retaliation for the air campaign against it. But there have been many questions about whether immolation…
Stéphane Charbonnier’s Charlie Hebdo offended people of all religions, but when does causing offence become unethical?
EPA/Yoan Valat
Causing offence to others often causes hurt. Such actions have been condemned as unethical, even immoral behaviour in a civilised society. There have been many examples. The Bill Henson photographs of…
As the first woman bishop prepares for her consecration on January 26, a row has erupted over another high-profile consecration scheduled for the following week. Libby Lane will become bishop of Stockport…
Today, January 26 2015, the Church of England consecrates the Reverend Libby Lane as its first female bishop. This act may prove to be the most substantial change to the church’s highest order of ministry…
From where does opposition to depictions of Muhammad arise?
Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters
After the violent attacks on Charlie Hebdo – the French satirical weekly that routinely published caricatures of Muhammad – many are wondering: are depictions of Muhammad actually forbidden in Islamic…
The majority of Muslims have developed a humanitarian image of their prophet over a long period in their local cultures.
Darulfatwa Australia/Author
In any terrorist attack by Muslim extremists perpetrated in the name of Islam – such as the recent Charlie Hebdo atrocity – discussions about the Prophet Muhammad, his life and his teachings come to the…
Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has argued for Australia’s racial discrimination laws to be revisited in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Let’s be clear about one thing as the loony right once more revisits with slavering lips their thwarted desire to allow racial vilification to run untrammelled through Australian society. Nothing that…
This candlelit rally in Tunisia was one of the many condemnations from Muslim nations of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo.
EPA/Mohamed Messara
The tradition of freedom of expression on religious matters is not quite so venerable as many seem to imagine in the outcry at the killing of Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists in Paris. While modern…
Getting on for 14 billion years ago the universe suddenly sprang into life. I can’t actually do the math, as they say, but I’m happy to accept the word of those who can that the physics is unambiguously…
Any attack motivated by the pen upon that pen’s purveyor is an attack on free speech.
The slaying of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists because of their work is the grossest attack on the value of free speech, and of course the right to life. In the deadly attack on the magazine’s…
Westerners are rallying in support of free speech and the right to question religion but only recently has political Islam encouraged violent intolerance of acts or words deemed blasphemous.
EPA/Sebastien Nogier
From the fatwa on author Salman Rushdie to the attack on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the phenomenon of anti-blasphemy actions continues to be prominent in the Muslim world. At first glance…
The French writer Michel Houellebecq once referred to Islam as “the stupidest religion”. Speaking as an equal opportunities atheist born and raised into the weird and wonderful ways of Catholicism, I can…
Today over 700 evangelical US churches now integrate MMA into their ministry programs.
Vivek Prakash/Reuters
“Can you love your neighbor as yourself, and at the same time knee him in the face as hard as you can?” American Christian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) champion Scott “Bam Bam” Sullivan wonders in an interview…
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity