For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called “dancing boys” a “widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.”

Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law.

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Prominent rabbi curses the Palestinians, calling for a plague upon them and their leader ahead of Middle East peace talks set to begin next week.

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Conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck called a Tea Party rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial that was half-political and half-religious.

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From the intersection of pscyhotherapy and New Age beliefs comes reincarnation therapy, which involves psychologists inducing their patients to recall past lives.

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The number of priestly ordinations in Ireland has dipped below England and Wales for the first time in living memory, new figures reveal.

The recruitment crisis is a clear indication of how low the church has sunk in a country that once used to export Catholic missionaries to all corners of the globe and often provided Britain with a significant proportion of its priests.

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Florida pastor Terry Jones plans to commemorate the 9-11 attack by burning copies of the Koran.

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Britain and the Catholic Church conspired to hide the suspected role of a priest in a 1972 triple bombing that killed nine people, an ombudsman’s investigation finds

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A U.S. district judge on Monday blocked the federal government from funding all research involving human embryonic stem cells on the grounds that it violates a 1996 law intended to prevent the destruction of of human embryos.

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Book review of “The Tenth Parallel”, by Eliza Griswold, about the bloody borderlands where Islam and Christianity collide.

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For years, American soldiers have been punished for not attending Christian propaganda sessions.

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A well-known Taoist priest, who has a reported following of 30,000 followers including some celebrities, was involved in fraud, local authorities in Chongqing said after an investigation.

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Sharon Angle, the Republican candidate for the senate seat of Majority Leader Harry Reid, speaks in a jarringly and overtly religious manner, because of the influence of Christian Reconstructionism.

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Americans are becoming more vocal about opposing new mosques in their neighborhoods… and more honest about their reasons.

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With Pakistan’s government not responding effectively to catastrophic flooding, hard-line Islamic charities have provided relief with a grass-roots efficiency that is earning them new support among Pakistan’s masses.

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claims the promotion and teaching of the artform is not compatible with country’s sacred regime.

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Author Anne Rice ‘quits’ organized religion because she refuses to be ‘anti-gay … anti-feminist … anti-Democrat.’

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Under Islamic laws, this is how execution by stoning is carried out in Iran.

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A new book by political observer Marci McDonald takes a look at rising Christian nationalism in Canada.

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The Catholic archbishop of Australia says he did not mean to imply that people shouldn’t vote for the prime minister because of her atheism.

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In a reality show in Malaysia, the grand prize is to become an imam.

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