https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to iran en https://politicalresearch.org/2026/03/12/fracturing-maga-base-conversation-war-iran-and-its-reverberations-home-steven-gardiner In this season 4 bonus episode, Koki sits down with PRA’s Principal Research Advisor Steven Gardiner to discuss the outset of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, how the war compares to a history of U.S. imperial violence, and… Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:00:00 EDT Political Research Associates, Steven Gardiner a270b31a-f322-4f72-9a82-8a0ed68abd0c https://politicalresearch.org/2026/03/05/magas-imperial-ambitions On January 3, 2026, the Trump administration bombed Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, taking them to New York to face “narcoterrorism” charges. The escalation followed several months of U.S. military strikes on boats in… Thu, 05 Mar 2026 12:00:00 EST Political Research Associates, Steven Gardiner fdbceb27-b29b-481d-be0e-2c8aa741e928 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/01/02/2017-around-world-progress-and-persecution-lgbt-people Journalist Masha Gessen dubbed 2017 “the year Russian LGBT persecution defied belief.” Pink News called 2017 “ the year of the homophobic purge” featuring “brutal crackdowns across the world.” The Daily Xtra’s year-end recap focused more on the good news… Tue, 02 Jan 2018 12:38:20 EST Peter Montgomery f1967b35-d0f3-45ce-a3ef-7e4ff0ffe508 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/11/13/occultism-and-new-age-take-iran-interview-alireza-doostdar RD: What inspired you to write The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny? My book is about occultism and spiritual experimentation in modern Iran, and I examine these in terms of attempts to achieve rational, scientific understandings… Mon, 13 Nov 2017 03:18:25 EST Alireza Doostdar 538b98a1-08c4-48cb-8303-399648725daa https://religiondispatches.org/2017/09/05/catholic-cardinal-slams-jesuits-bridge-building-book-and-more-global-lgbt-recap Reports from several international LGBT gatherings: The Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa (IDNOWA), founded in 2016, reported on its August gathering in Accra, Ghana, which drew more than 30 delegates from 10 countries, for interfaith worship and conversations about… Tue, 05 Sep 2017 11:26:44 EDT Peter Montgomery de0731a2-d5ea-4f4c-b711-320073d2610a https://religiondispatches.org/2017/06/08/no-cnn-saudi-arabia-and-iran-have-not-been-fighting-1000-years Yesterday, after the ISIS attack on Teheran, this astonishing paragraph appeared in a CNN article: Now, it is true that Saudi Arabia and Iran “have had strained relations,” but these strained relations go back not 1,000 years, but to the… Thu, 08 Jun 2017 12:31:47 EDT Haroon Moghul 93febf19-1b59-4097-a7d4-d895cabe33b8 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/01/01/biggest-best-worst-lgbt-religion-stories-2016-and-more-global-lgbt-recap At People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch blog this week, I posted highlights of how the U.S. Religious Right made life more difficult and dangerous for the world’s LGBT people in 2016. Michael Lavers at the Washington Blade… Sun, 01 Jan 2017 08:50:38 EST Peter Montgomery aaa62261-7187-433a-9017-159f89d2df97 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/11/18/normalization-control-telling-stories-survive Respected journalists are no longer holding Trump accountable but have switched to presenting him as a reasonable politician. Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:09:57 EST Mariam Durrani cdbd9030-35a9-40f9-ae0e-0e7f7b24146c https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/27/tutus-daughter-marries-woman-loses-anglican-priest-license-romanian-anti-marriage South Africa: Tutu’s Daughter Marries Woman, Loses License as Anglican Priest Mpho Tutu-Van Furth, Bishop Desmond Tutu’s daughter, was forced to give up her license to function as a priest in the South African Anglican Church because she married another… Fri, 27 May 2016 11:23:01 EDT Peter Montgomery 578cfe29-0964-44a7-aaae-20f69907c19a https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/23/russian-orthodox-patriarch-blames-gays-isis-christian-nationalist-sworn-guatemalas US Vice President Joe Biden addressed a group of business leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum and urged them to do more to advance LGBT equality, saying there is never a cultural justification for human rights… Sat, 23 Jan 2016 10:01:15 EST Peter Montgomery 6988d644-599d-4d1b-8f75-2507b99f22cd https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/06/no-sunni-and-shia-muslims-have-not-been-fighting-forever Several days ago, before the Saudi government’s execution of prominent Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr took tensions between Riyadh and Teheran to a new high, a reader emailed me a deceptively ordinary question. It’s worth a second look, not only… Wed, 06 Jan 2016 01:34:45 EST Haroon Moghul b76b08df-c014-4333-aa04-f13d95b1d354 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/17/greek-orthodox-bishop-says-spit-inhuman-gay-scum-weeks-lgbt-global-recap Hundreds of people attended last weekend’s conference on global LGBT activism in New York. At Huffington Post, the Williams Institute’s Andrew Park discusses a shift in LGBT advocacy strategy at the U.N. to focus more on economic development. Zachary Quinto… Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:42:33 EST Peter Montgomery 3f66e849-4cb5-4d39-bae2-cfb82a76180a https://religiondispatches.org/2015/11/22/unesco-religion-culture-and-sogi-asia-orthodox-family-sues-stop-cremation-israeli-trans Asia: UNESCO on religion, culture and anti-LGBT bullying and violence UNESCO released a report on school bullying, violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the Asia-Pacific region. From the report’s section on religious and cultural context… Sun, 22 Nov 2015 10:09:52 EST Peter Montgomery bd5ca6d2-3275-491f-8285-72af8e155dca https://religiondispatches.org/2015/08/20/istanbul-haven-sorts-lgbt-syrians-and-iraqis-cayman-islands-affirm-marriage-ban-holy Richard Blanco, the openly gay Cuban-American poet who read at Barack Obama’s second inauguration, composed and read a poem for the ceremony reopening the U.S. embassy in Havana. Guatemalan photographer Eny Roland Hernandez’s large-scale portraits of LGBT people taken in… Thu, 20 Aug 2015 07:52:40 EDT Peter Montgomery 32803bef-5196-4844-af17-a9894827af3b https://religiondispatches.org/2015/05/26/lindsey-grahams-lying-eye-ranians What I’d say if invited to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Tue, 26 May 2015 01:57:05 EDT Haroon Moghul 9e90cf53-2bd9-476b-ae31-82792da633ad https://religiondispatches.org/2015/04/17/adventists-cancel-holy-sexuality-confab-egyptian-court-oks-deportation-gays-mongolian A Russian nonprofit group, the St. Petersburg-based Coming Out, celebrated April 17 International Day of Silence by releasing a video “Break the silence,” which ends with “silence can break us / but we can break the silence.” A small Day… Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:53:25 EDT Peter Montgomery ae64dff9-be2b-4c93-a80a-ba2701b2febd https://religiondispatches.org/2015/03/27/russian-attack-lgbts-un-rejected-gay-cake-controversy-rages-n-ireland-bishop-calls The White House announced this week that Pope Francis will visit President Barack Obama during his September trip to the U.S. Francis will be attending the Catholic Church’s World Meeting of Families (not to be confused with the World Congress… Fri, 27 Mar 2015 03:49:07 EDT Peter Montgomery a4684b43-00fe-4619-8229-f3e52a436c1b https://religiondispatches.org/2015/02/12/what-do-christians-think-about-netanyahu-speech Earlier this week, reacting to the faux controversy over President Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast remarks, Ed Kilgore argued that all too often, the media ignores the views of liberal Christians, opting instead to “buy the idea that the only ‘authentic’… Thu, 12 Feb 2015 12:41:21 EST Sarah Posner dbb37fbb-1776-4b1b-b0da-3de567876136 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/11/07/vatican-enlists-allies-against-gay-marriage-iranian-gays-pushed-change-gender-and-more New Vatican Confab on ‘Complementarity’ in Marriage Before the dust had settled from the Catholic bishops’ synod on the family, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that it will be hosting an interfaith colloquium this month on… Fri, 07 Nov 2014 12:50:34 EST Peter Montgomery bb323a3e-7056-4ef5-a59b-ea492d981c47 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/08/21/ugandan-anti-gay-fallout-new-laws-new-violence-new-underground-railroad This week’s global LGBT recap again highlights vast differences in legal status for LGBT people, and in the role played by religious leaders in advancing equality or advocating discrimination – or death – for LGBT people. Uganda: New Anti-Homosexuality Act… Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:58:08 EDT Peter Montgomery e4d333ca-4703-414e-9d34-bad02995ca69 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/12/12/bibis-bad-history In his UN speech on Iran, Israel’s PM attempted to force a zero-sum game of destroying the opposition by force. Thu, 12 Dec 2013 05:45:45 EST Shaul Magid 5e44605c-2e86-4754-9f98-044e4129136e https://religiondispatches.org/2013/08/13/syria-receives-sudanese-weapons-ukrainian-aircraft-qatar-and-turkey Just when you thought Syria couldn’t get more confusing… Tue, 13 Aug 2013 12:22:07 EDT Haroon Moghul 4ce1091a-f190-4134-891f-b2fa20213f9d https://religiondispatches.org/2012/08/29/kosher-nukes-israeli-pm-consults-radical-rabbi-iran-strike What does it mean for the possibility of a military strike on Iran that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has consulted Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef whose remarks in the past have caused a great deal of embarrassment for Israel? Wed, 29 Aug 2012 04:21:21 EDT Shalom Goldman a3fe56a1-8e7e-4289-9cf2-330479a900b0 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/08/08/gingrich-israel-and-assassinate-obama-comments What’s to come when a right wing billionaire funnels money to Newt and a columnist jokes about killing the president? Wed, 08 Aug 2012 07:41:37 EDT Shalom Goldman 7ca9f464-92c6-4475-ae46-0de8f90ae8d3 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/05/16/iranian-musician-receives-death-threats But it’s politics, not religion, at stake here. Wed, 16 May 2012 06:14:36 EDT Hussein Rashid f1596f32-5a4a-41ac-bc94-ac1fa14d819b