title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: When a decision is made regarding disfellowshipping or disassociation, an announcement is made that the person is "no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses", at which point shunning is immediate. Members are not told whether the person has disassociated or has been disfellowshipped. Neither testimony nor evidence in support of the judicial decision are provided. Congregation members are told to accept the rulings without question and Witnesses who refuse to abide by a judicial committee decision will themselves suffer expulsion. Members are forbidden to talk with the expelled member, removing any opportunity for the person to discuss or explain their actions. Penton claims judicial committee members and the Watch Tower Society frequently ignore established procedures when dealing with troublesome individuals, conspiring to have them expelled in violation of Society rules. Critics claim that Witness policies encourage an informer system to report to elders Witnesses suspected of having committed an act that could warrant expulsion, including deviating from organizational policies and teachings.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Criticism has also been directed at the 1981 change of policy that directed that persons who disassociate from (formally leave) the group were to be treated as though they were disfellowshipped. Holden says that as a result, those who do leave are seldom allowed a dignified exit. Heather and Gary Botting claim inactive Witnesses are often pressured to either become active or to disassociate themselves by declaring they no longer accept key Watch Tower Society doctrines.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Jehovah's Witnesses reject transfusions of whole allogenic blood and its primary components (red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma), and transfusions of stored autologous blood or its primary components. As a doctrine, Jehovah's Witnesses do not reject transfusion of whole autologous blood so long as it is not stored prior to surgery (e.g. peri-operative extraction and transfusion of autologous blood). This religious position is due to their belief that blood is sacred and represents life in God's eyes. Jehovah's Witnesses understand scriptures such as Leviticus 17:10–14 (which speaks of not eating blood) and Acts 15:29 ("abstain from blood") to include taking blood into the body via a transfusion. Controversy has stemmed, however, from what critics state are inconsistencies in Witness policies on blood, claims that Witness patients are coerced into refusing blood and that Watch Tower literature distorts facts about transfusions and fails to provide information that would allow Witnesses to make an informed decision on the issue.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In the case of minor fractions derived from blood, each individual is directed to follow their own conscience on whether these are acceptable. Consequently, some Jehovah's Witnesses accept the use of blood fractions and others do not. However, fractions that carry out "the key function of a primary component" or make up "a significant portion of that component" are not permitted.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Such a stance of dividing blood into major components and minor fractions rather than either accepting all blood or requiring all blood components to be poured out onto the ground has led to criticism from organizations such as the "Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood". Witnesses respond that blood as the fluid "per se" is not the real issue. They say the real issue is "respect" and "obedience" regarding blood, which they perceive as being God's personal property. Members are allowed to eat meat that still contains small traces of blood remaining. Once blood is drained from an animal, the "respect" has been shown to God and then a person can eat the meat. Jehovah's Witnesses view of meat and blood is therefore different from the Jewish view that goes to great lengths to remove even minor traces of blood.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: According to lawyer Kerry Louderback-Wood, a former Jehovah's Witness, the Watch Tower Society misrepresents the scope of allowed fractions. If taken together, they "total the entire volume of blood they came from". An example of this can be seen in blood plasma, which consists of 90–96% water. The remaining amount consists mainly of albumin, globulins, fibrinogen and coagulation factors. These four fractions are allowable for use, but only if taken separately. Raymond Franz has likened this to banning the eating of a ham and cheese sandwich but allowing the eating of bread, ham and cheese separately.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Jehovah's Witnesses believe that storing blood violates direction from the Bible to 'pour blood out onto the ground'. They do not donate blood except for uses they have individually pre-approved. However, they are told that acceptance of blood fractions from donated blood is a matter of conscience. A 2006 issue of Jehovah's Witnesses' newsletter "Our Kingdom Ministry" stated, "Although [Jehovah's Witnesses] do not donate or store their own blood "for transfusion purposes", some procedures or tests involving an individual's blood are not so clearly in conflict with Bible principles. Therefore, each individual should make a conscientious decision" [emphasis added]. Raymond Franz has challenged these policies because acceptable blood fractions can only be derived from stored blood provided by donors.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Regardless of the medical considerations, Jehovah Witnesses advocate that physicians should uphold the right of a patient to choose what treatments they do or do not accept (though a Witness is subject to religious sanctions if they exercise their right to choose a blood transfusion). Accordingly, US courts tend not to hold physicians responsible for adverse health effects that a patient incurred out of his or her own requests. However, the point of view that physicians must, in all circumstances, abide by the religious wishes of the patients is not acknowledged by all jurisdictions, such as was determined in a case involving Jehovah's Witnesses in France.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The situation has been controversial, particularly in the case of children. In the United States, many physicians will agree to explore and exhaust all non-blood alternatives in the treatment of children at the request of their legal guardians. Some state laws require physicians to administer blood-based treatment to minors if it is their professional opinion that it is necessary to prevent immediate death or severe permanent damage.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Even when an adult's life is at stake, some philosophers argue that since blood refusal is based on irrational beliefs, the patient's decision may be challenged.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Kerry Louderback-Wood has claimed that Jehovah's Witnesses' legal corporations are potentially liable to significant claims for compensation if the organization misrepresents the medical risks of blood transfusions. Wood claims that constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion do not remove the legal responsibility that every person or organization has regarding misrepresenting secular fact.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: "The Watchtower" has stated that "Various medical products have been obtained from biological sources, either animal or human... Such commercialization of ... blood is hardly tempting for true Christians, who guide their thinking by God's perfect law. Our Creator views blood as sacred, representing God-given life ... blood removed from a creature was to be poured out on the ground, disposed of."


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Former Jehovah's Witness Bill Bower, founder of Silentlambs, accuses Jehovah's Witnesses of employing organizational policies of not reporting sexual abuse cases to authorities to protect the organization's reputation. The Religioustolerance site states that the consequence of keeping the cases secrets is that "there is a very high probability that the abuse will continue." Some victims of sexual abuse have asserted that when reporting abuse they were ordered to maintain silence by their local elders to avoid embarrassment to both the accused and the organization.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The movement's official policy on child protection, which discusses the procedures for reporting child sexual abuse, states that elders obey all legal requirements for reporting sex offenders, including reporting uncorroborated or unsubstantiated allegations where required by law. Elders are to discipline pedophiles in the congregation. Victims are permitted to notify the authorities if they wish to do so.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: While a Witness may lose congregation privileges following a single credible accusation of abuse, Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be scripturally obliged to require corroboration before applying their severest forms of congregational discipline. If there is not an actual second witness to an incident of abuse, a congregation judicial committee will accept medical or police reports, or a witness to a separate but similar incident as such a second witness against a member accused of sexual abuse.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Jehovah's Witnesses have been criticized for traditionally viewing mental illness as a symptom of spiritual weakness or a sign of Satan's influence, which implies that they may prefer the guidance of elders to psychiatric and psychological treatment. They may also hesitate to seek help from mental health professionals because of their tendency to avoid relationships with people outside the denomination. However, in recent years the Watch Tower Society has acknowledged that "mental-health professionals can treat many mental-health disorders successfully" and recommended that readers "follow the treatment prescribed by qualified mental-health professionals."


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Increased mental health risks among Jehovah's Witnesses may be associated with the authoritarian nature of the organization, internal handling of physical and sexual abuse allegations, and the treatment of sexuality and homosexuality as sin. The patriarchal attitudes and organizational structures of the denomination may also contribute to mental health issues. Various mental health professionals have also noted the negative impact of the practice of shunning of those who are expelled or who voluntary leave the denomination.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: No study shows a direct positive correlation between membership of Jehovah's Witnesses and the propensity to develop mental disorders, although that hypothesis has occasionally surfaced in medical and psychological literature and in anti-cult movement literature.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The Watch Tower Society has been criticized for its refusal to reveal the names and academic credentials of the translators of its "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" (NWT). The Society has claimed members of the NWT's translation committee wished to remain anonymous in order to exalt only the name of God, "The Watchtower" stating that the educational qualifications of the translators were unimportant and that "the translation itself testifies to their qualifications". Raymond Franz, a former member of the Governing Body, has claimed that of the four men he says constituted the committee, only one—its principal translator, his uncle Frederick Franz—had sufficient knowledge of biblical languages to have attempted the project. Frederick Franz had studied Greek for two years and was self-taught in Hebrew.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Much criticism of the NWT involves the rendering of certain texts considered to be biased towards specific Witness practices and doctrines. These include the use of "torture stake" instead of "cross" throughout the New Testament; the rendering of , with the insertion of the indefinite article ("a") in its rendering to give "the Word was "a" god"; Romans 10:10, which uses the term "public declaration", which may reinforce the imperative to engage in public preaching; John 17:3, which used the term "taking in knowledge" rather than "know" to suggest that salvation is dependent on ongoing study, and the placement of the comma in Luke 23:43, which affects the timing of the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to the thief at Calvary.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Also criticized is the NWT's insertion of the name "Jehovah" 237 times in the New Testament without extant New Testament Greek manuscript evidence that the name existed there. Watch Tower publications have claimed that the name was "restored" on a sound basis, stating that when New Testament writers quote earlier Old Testament scriptures containing the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), "the translator has the right to render Kyrios ("LORD") as Jehovah." The NWT mentions twenty-seven other translations that have similarly rendered "Kyrios" as a form of the name "Jehovah", stating that there is only one verse where the NWT does so without agreement from other translations.


title: Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The Society has claimed its translation "courageously restores God's name, Jehovah, to its proper place in the Biblical text, is free from the bias of religious traditionalism, and ... gives the literal meaning of God's Word as accurately as possible." Jason BeDuhn, associate professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, Arizona, compared nine major translations for accuracy. He stated that whilst there are "a handful of examples of bias in the [New World Translation (NW)]", that "most of the differences are due to the greater accuracy of the NW as a literal, conservative translation of the original expressions of the New Testament writers." He also wrote that the NWT's introduction of the name "Jehovah" into the New Testament 237 times was "not accurate translation by the most basic principle of accuracy". He concluded that "the NW and [another translation] are not bias free, and they are not perfect translations. But they are remarkably good translations ... often better than [the other six translations analyzed]." In his rebuttal, Thomas Howe strongly criticizes BeDuhn's positive review of the "New World Translation", stating that the main goal of BeDuhn's book is to deny the deity of Christ.


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: Gareth Huw Evans (born 1980) is a Welsh film director, screenwriter, editor, and action choreographer. He is best known for the Indonesian action crime films "Merantau" (2009), "The Raid" (2011), and "The Raid 2" (2014), and for bringing the Indonesian martial art of pencak silat into world cinema through these films. He is also known for creating the action crime drama television series "Gangs of London" (2020).


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: Evans was born and raised in Hirwaun, Cynon Valley. He graduated from the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales) with an MA in screenwriting.


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: After directing a small-budget film called "Footsteps", Evans was hired as a freelance director for a documentary about the Indonesian martial art pencak silat. He became fascinated with it, and discovered Indonesian martial artist Iko Uwais, who was working as a deliveryman for a phone company. Evans cast Uwais in his 2009 film "Merantau". He planned to produce a larger action film, but scaled the production budget down and created an action film called "The Raid" (2011). After the success of "The Raid", the larger action film eventually became the basis for its sequel, "" (2014).


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: In late 2016, Evans started working on his next film, "Apostle", which stars Dan Stevens. The film was released by Netflix on 12 October 2018.


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: In October 2017, "TheWrap" reported that Evans had pitched his idea for a "Deathstroke" solo film and is in early talks to write and direct. Evans also passed on directing a "Justice League Dark" film. However, in April 2020, Evans said that the film had been delayed and that he was no longer actively involved with the project.


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: Evans lived in Jakarta with his wife, Maya, and their daughter, until the family moved back to Wales in 2015.


title: Gareth Evans (filmmaker)

text: In November 2011, "The Raid" won the Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011.


title: Tyrin Turner

text: Tyrin Turner is an American film and television actor and writer from South Central Los Angeles. He is most known for playing the lead role of Caine Lawson in the critically acclaimed 1993 urban drama "Menace II Society".


title: Tyrin Turner

text: Turner is best known for playing the main character, Kaydee "Caine" Lawson, in the 1993 film "Menace II Society". He also has made guest appearances on television shows such as "Chicago Hope" and "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" and made numerous cameo appearances in urban music videos throughout the 1990s. Turner played the central character in Janet Jackson's 1989 long-form music video for her single Rhythm Nation.


title: Tyrin Turner

text: For over twenty years, Turner has been working behind the scenes writing comedy material for his close friend Jamie Foxx and for comedian Affion Crockett.


title: Tyrin Turner

text: Turner is married to Amina Garner. He is the father to fraternal twins, daughter Tai and son Tyrin Jr.


title: Tyrin Turner

text: Turner joined Foxx and Stephen Jackson when they both spoke out in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.


title: Bohr effect

text: The Bohr effect is a phenomenon first described in 1904 by the Danish physiologist Christian Bohr. Hemoglobin's oxygen binding affinity (see oxygen–haemoglobin dissociation curve) is inversely related both to acidity and to the concentration of carbon dioxide. That is, the Bohr effect refers to the shift in the oxygen dissociation curve caused by changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide or the pH of the environment. Since carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid, an increase in CO results in a decrease in blood pH, resulting in hemoglobin proteins releasing their load of oxygen. Conversely, a decrease in carbon dioxide provokes an increase in pH, which results in hemoglobin picking up more oxygen.


title: Bohr effect

text: In the early 1900s, Christian Bohr was a professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, already well known for his work in the field of respiratory physiology. He had spent the last two decades studying the solubility of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases in various liquids, and had conducted extensive research on haemoglobin and its affinity for oxygen. In 1903, he began working closely with Karl Hasselbalch and August Krogh, two of his associates at the university, in an attempt to experimentally replicate the work of Gustav von Hüfner, using whole blood instead of haemoglobin solution. Hüfner had suggested that the oxygen-haemoglobin binding curve was hyperbolic in shape, but after extensive experimentation, the Copenhagen group determined that the curve was in fact sigmoidal. Furthermore, in the process of plotting out numerous dissociation curves, it soon became apparent that high partial pressures of carbon dioxide caused the curves to shift to the right. Further experimentation while varying the CO concentration quickly provided conclusive evidence, confirming the existence of what would soon become known as the Bohr effect.


title: Bohr effect

text: There is some more debate over whether Bohr was actually the first to discover the relationship between CO and oxygen affinity, or whether the Russian physiologist beat him to it, allegedly discovering the effect in 1898, six years before Bohr. While this has never been proven, Verigo did in fact publish a paper on the haemoglobin-CO relationship in 1892. His proposed model was flawed, and Bohr harshly criticized it in his own publications.


title: Bohr effect

text: Another challenge to Bohr's discovery comes from within his lab. Though Bohr was quick to take full credit, his associate Krogh, who invented the apparatus used to measure gas concentrations in the experiments, maintained throughout his life that he himself had actually been the first to demonstrate the effect. Though there is some evidence to support this, retroactively changing the name of a well-known phenomenon would be extremely impractical, so it remains known as the Bohr effect.


title: Bohr effect

text: The Bohr effect increases the efficiency of oxygen transportation through the blood. After hemoglobin binds to oxygen in the lungs due to the high oxygen concentrations, the Bohr effect facilitates its release in the tissues, particularly those tissues in most need of oxygen. When a tissue's metabolic rate increases, so does its carbon dioxide waste production. When released into the bloodstream, carbon dioxide forms bicarbonate and protons through the following reaction:


title: Bohr effect

text: Although this reaction usually proceeds very slowly, the enzyme carbonic anhydrase (which is present in red blood cells) drastically speeds up the conversion to bicarbonate and protons. This causes the pH of the blood to decrease, which promotes the dissociation of oxygen from haemoglobin, and allows the surrounding tissues to obtain enough oxygen to meet their demands. In areas where oxygen concentration is high, such as the lungs, binding of oxygen causes haemoglobin to release protons, which recombine with bicarbonate to eliminate carbon dioxide during exhalation. These opposing protonation and deprotonation reactions occur in equilibrium resulting in little overall change in blood pH.


title: Bohr effect

text: The Bohr effect enables the body to adapt to changing conditions and makes it possible to supply extra oxygen to tissues that need it the most. For example, when muscles are undergoing strenuous activity, they require large amounts of oxygen to conduct cellular respiration, which generates CO (and therefore HCO and H) as byproducts. These waste products lower the pH of the blood, which increases oxygen delivery to the active muscles. Carbon dioxide is not the only molecule that can trigger the Bohr effect. If muscle cells aren't receiving enough oxygen for cellular respiration, they resort to lactic acid fermentation, which releases lactic acid as a byproduct. This increases the acidity of the blood far more than CO alone, which reflects the cells' even greater need for oxygen. In fact, under anaerobic conditions, muscles generate lactic acid so quickly that pH of the blood passing through the muscles will drop to around 7.2, which causes haemoglobin to begin releasing roughly 10% more oxygen.


title: Bohr effect

text: The magnitude of the Bohr effect is usually given by the slope of the formula_1 vs formula_2 curve where, P refers to the partial pressure of oxygen when 50% of haemoglobin's binding sites are occupied. The slope is denoted: formula_3 where formula_4 denotes change. That is, formula_5 denotes the change in formula_1 and formula_7 the change in formula_2.


title: Bohr effect

text: Bohr effect strength exhibits an inverse relationship with the size of an organism: the magnitude increases as size and weight decreases. For example, mice possess a very strong Bohr effect, with a formula_3 value of -0.96, which requires relatively minor changes in H or CO concentrations, while elephants require much larger changes in concentration to achieve a much weaker effect formula_10.


title: Bohr effect

text: The Bohr effect hinges around allosteric interactions between the hemes of the haemoglobin tetramer, a mechanism first proposed by Max Perutz in 1970. Haemoglobin exists in two conformations: a high-affinity R state and a low-affinity T state. When oxygen concentration levels are high, as in the lungs, the R state is favored, enabling the maximum amount of oxygen to be bound to the hemes. In the capillaries, where oxygen concentration levels are lower, the T state is favored, in order to facilitate the delivery of oxygen to the tissues. The Bohr effect is dependent on this allostery, as increases in CO and H help stabilize the T state and ensure greater oxygen delivery to muscles during periods of elevated cellular respiration. This is evidenced by the fact that myoglobin, a monomer with no allostery, does not exhibit the Bohr effect. Haemoglobin mutants with weaker allostery may exhibit a reduced Bohr effect. For example, in Hiroshima variant haemoglobinopathy, allostery in haemoglobin is reduced, and the Bohr effect is diminished. As a result, during periods of exercise, the mutant haemoglobin has a higher affinity for oxygen and tissue may suffer minor oxygen starvation.


title: Bohr effect

text: When hemoglobin is in its T state, the N-terminal amino groups of the α-subunits and the C-terminal histidine of the β-subunits are protonated, giving them a positive charge and allowing these residues to participate in ionic interactions with carboxyl groups on nearby residues. These interactions help hold the haemoglobin in the T state. Decreases in pH (increases in acidity) stabilize this state even more, since a decrease in pH makes these residues even more likely to be protonated, strengthening the ionic interactions. In the R state, the ionic pairings are absent, meaning that the R state's stability increases when the pH increases, as these residues are less likely to stay protonated in a more basic environment. The Bohr effect works by simultaneously destabilizing the high-affinity R state and stabilizing the low-affinity T state, which leads to an overall decrease in oxygen affinity. This can be visualized on an oxygen-haemoglobin dissociation curve by shifting the whole curve to the right.


title: Bohr effect

text: Carbon dioxide can also react directly with the N-terminal amino groups to form carbamates, according to the following reaction:


title: Bohr effect

text: CO forms carbamates more frequently with the T state, which helps to stabilize this conformation. The process also creates protons, meaning that the formation of carbamates also contributes to the strengthening of ionic interactions, further stabilizing the T state.


title: Bohr effect

text: An exception to the otherwise well-supported link between animal body size and the sensitivity of its haemoglobin to changes in pH was discovered in 1961. Based on their size and weight, many marine mammals were hypothesized to have a very low, almost negligible Bohr effect. However, when their blood was examined, this was not the case. Humpback whales weighing 41,000 kilograms had an observed formula_3 value of 0.82, which is roughly equivalent to the Bohr effect magnitude in a 0.57 kg guinea pig. This extremely strong Bohr effect is hypothesized to be one of marine mammals' many adaptations for deep, long dives, as it allows for virtually all of the bound oxygen on haemoglobin to dissociate and supply the whale's body while it is underwater. Examination of other marine mammal species supports this. In pilot whales and porpoises, which are primarily surface feeders and seldom dive for more than a few minutes, the formula_3was 0.52, comparable to a cow, which is much closer to the expected Bohr effect magnitude for animals of their size.


title: Bohr effect

text: Another special case of the Bohr effect occurs when carbon monoxide is present. This molecule serves as a competitive inhibitor for oxygen, and binds to haemoglobin to form carboxyhaemoglobin. Haemoglobin's affinity for CO is about 210 times stronger than its affinity for O, meaning that it is very unlikely to dissociate, and once bound, it blocks the binding of O to that subunit. At the same time, CO is structurally similar enough to O to cause carboxyhemoglobin to favor the R state, raising the oxygen affinity of the remaining unoccupied subunits. This combination significantly reduces the delivery of oxygen to the tissues of the body, which is what makes carbon monoxide so toxic. This toxicity is reduced slightly by an increase in the strength of the Bohr effect in the presence of carboxyhemoglobin. This increase is ultimately due to differences in interactions between heme groups in carboxyhemoglobin relative to oxygenated hemoglobin. It is most pronounced when the oxygen concentration is extremely low, as a last-ditch effort when the need for oxygen delivery becomes critical. However, the physiological implications of this phenomenon remain unclear.


title: Dashain

text: Dashain or Bada'dashain, also referred as Bijaya Dashami in Sanskrit, is a major Hindu religious festival in Nepal. It is also celebrated by Hindus of Nepal and elsewhere in the world, including among the Lhotshampa of Bhutan and the Burmese Gurkhas of Myanmar. The festival is also referred as Nauratha, derived from the Sanskrit word for the same festival Navaratri which translates to "Nine Nights". A version of this festival is celebrated as Navaratri, Dussehra or Dashera by Hindus in India, although rites and rituals vary significantly.


title: Dashain

text: It is the longest and the most auspicious festival in the Bikram Sambat and Nepal Sambat annual calendars, celebrated by Nepali Hindus, along with their diaspora throughout the globe. In Nepal, it is also known as the biggest festival in the country and is the longest national/public holiday, 5 days to be exact. It is the most anticipated festival in Nepal. People return from all parts of the world, as well as different parts of the country, to celebrate together. All government offices, educational institutions, and other offices remain closed during the festival period. The festival falls in September or October, starting from the shukla paksha (bright lunar night) of the month of Ashwin and ending on Purnima, the full moon. Among the fifteen days on which it is celebrated, the most important days are the first, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and fifteenth.


title: Dashain

text: The word "Vaḍādaśain̐" () is a Nepali sandhi, where "baḍā" () means "important" and "daśa͠i" () means "tenth", implying the most-significant final day of the festival of Durga Puja, celebrating the dawn after the end of Nauratha (nine nights). The word "Dashain" is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word daśamī, denoting the 10th day of the Kaula (month) in this context.


title: Dashain

text: For followers of Shaktism, it represents the victory of the goddess Durga. In Hindu scripture, the demon Mahishasura had created terror in the devaloka (the world where gods lives) but Durga killed the devils also known as demons. The first nine days of Dashain symbolize the battle which took place between the different manifestations of Durga and Mahishasura. The tenth day is the day when Durga finally defeated him. For other Hindus, this festival symbolises the victory of Ram over Ravan as recounted in the "Ramayana". It symbolises the victory of "good" over " evil".


title: Dashain

text: Ghaṭasthāpanā (; "sowing "Jamara"") marks the beginning of Dashain. Literally, it means placing a kalasha or a pot, which symbolizes goddess Durga. Ghaṭasthāpanā falls on the first day of the festival. On this day the Kalash is filled with holy water and is then sewn with barley seeds. Then the Kalash is put in the center of a rectangular sand block. The remaining bed of sand is also seeded with grains. The priest then starts the puja by asking Durga to bless the vessel with her presence. This ritual is performed at a certain auspicious time which is determined by the astrologers. The goddess is believed to reside in the vessel during Navaratri.


title: Dashain

text: The room where all this is done is known as the "Dashain Ghar". Traditionally, outsiders are not allowed to enter it. A family member worships the Kalash twice every day, once in the morning and then in the evening. The Kalash is kept away from direct sunlight and holy water is offered to it every day so that by the tenth day of the festival the seed will have grown to five or six inches long yellow grass. This sacred grass is known as "jamara". These rituals continue until the seventh day.


title: Dashain

text: "Phulpati" () is a major celebration occurring on the seventh day of Dashain. The word Phulpati is made up of two words: "phūl" meaning flower and "pātī" meaning leaf.


title: Dashain

text: Traditionally, on this day, the royal Kalash, banana stalks, "jamara", and sugar cane tied with red cloth are brought by Magars from Gorkha, a three-day walk, about away from the Kathmandu Valley. Hundreds of government officials gather together in the Tundikhel grounds in conventional formal dress to witness the event. The king used to observe the ceremony in Tundikhel while the Phulpati parade was headed towards the Hanuman Dhoka royal palace. Then there is a majestic display of the Nepalese Army along with a celebratory firing of weapons that continues for ten to fifteen minutes honoring Phulpati. The Phulpati is taken to the Hanuman Dhoka Royal Palace by the time the occasion ends in Tundikhel, where a parade is held.


title: Dashain

text: Since 2008, when the royal family was overthrown, the two-century-old tradition is changed so that the holy offering of Phulpati goes to the residence of the president. The President has taken over the king's social and religious roles after the end of the monarchy.


title: Dashain

text: In various other cities and towns across Nepal and in India (with a significant Nepali population), a Phulpati procession is carried out. Flowers, fruits and holy symbols are tied in a red cloth, which is then covered with an auspicious red shawl and carried on a decorated wooden log across the town. The townspeople offer flower and fruits as the procession passes through their houses. The process is also accompanied by traditional Naumati instruments.


title: Dashain

text: The eighth day is called "Maha Asthami". This is the day when the most fierce of Goddess Durga's manifestations, the bloodthirsty Kali, is appeased through the sacrifice of buffaloes, goats, hens, and ducks in temples throughout the nation. Blood, symbolic of its fertility, is offered to the Goddesses. Appropriately enough, the night of this day is called Kal Ratri (Black Night), after the form of Durga worshipped on this day. . It is also the norm for buffaloes to be sacrificed in the courtyards of all the land revenue offices in the country on this day. The old palace in Kathmandu Durbar Square is active throughout the night with worship and sacrifices in almost every courtyard.


title: Dashain

text: On midnight of the very day of the Dashain, a total of 54 buffaloes and 54 goats are sacrificed in observance of the rites. After the offering of the blood, the meat is taken home and cooked as "prasad", or food blessed by divinity. This food is offered in tiny leaf plates to the household gods, then distributed amongst the family. Eating this food is thought to be auspicious. While the puja is being carried out, great feasts are held in the homes of common people. On this day the Newar People has an event called "Khadga Puja" where they do puja of their weapons. It is when they put on tika and get blessings from elders.


title: Dashain

text: The ninth day of Dashain is called "Maha Navami", "the great ninth day". This is the last day of Navaratri. Ceremonies and rituals reach a peak on this day. On this day, official military ritual sacrifices are held in one of the Hanuman Dhoka royal palaces, the Kot courtyard. On this occasion, the state offers the sacrifices of buffaloes under the gunfire salutes. This day is also known as the demon-hunting day because members of the defeated demon army try to save themselves by hiding in the bodies of animals and fowls.


title: Dashain

text: On Maha Navami, durga, the mother goddess Devi, is worshipped as it is believed that all the things which help us in making a living should be kept happy. Artisans, craftsmen, traders, and mechanics worship and offer animal and fowl blood to their tools, equipment, and vehicles. Moreover, since it is believed that worshipping the vehicles on this day avoids accidents for the year all vehicles from bikes, and cars to trucks are worshipped on this day.


title: Dashain

text: The Taleju Temple gates are opened to the general public on only this day of the year. Thousands of devotees go and pay respect to the goddess this day. The temple is filled with devotees all day long.


title: Dashain

text: The tenth day of the festival is the 'Bijayadashami'. On this day, a mixture of rice, yogurt and vermilion is prepared. This preparation is known as "tika". Often Dashain tika time is different every year. Elders put this "tika" and "jamara" which is sown in the Ghatasthapana on the forehead of younger relatives to bless them with abundance in the upcoming years. The red also symbolizes the blood that ties the family together.


title: Dashain

text: Elders give "Dakshina", or a small amount of money, to younger relatives at this time along with the blessings. This continues to be observed for five days till the full moon during which period families and relatives visit each other to exchange gifts and greetings. This ritual of taking tika from all the elder relatives (even the distant relatives) helps in the renewal of the community ties greatly. This is one reason why the festival is celebrated with so much vigour and enthusiasm.


title: Dashain

text: Ekadashi is the eleventh day of the lunar fortnight in Hindu calendar. Ekadashis are considered a very auspicious day and people usually fast on this day. The day after Bijaya Dashami is known as "Papakunsha Ekadashi" (). On this day, it is customary to wake up early in the morning and start fasting till evening, after washing and wearing clean clothes. It is also customary to listen to Papakunsha Ekadashi stories and to visit religious sites.While in some parts of the Nepal, the tika is only received on the day of Bijaya Dashami, in other parts of the country, people start visiting their extended family and relatives on this day till Kojagrat Purnima. One is supposed to eat only Sattvic diet during Ekadashis, but people continue their Dashain feasts on this day too, so this Ekadashi is also known as "Gidde Ekadashi" (lit. Vulture–like–Ekadashi). By donating gold, sesame, barley, grain, soil, umbrella, shoes, etc. on this day, it is believed that one will get heaven after death.


title: Dashain

text: The festival's last day, which lies on the full moon day, is called "Kojagrat Purnima" () or Sharad Purnima. The literal meaning of Kojagrat is 'who is awake'. On this day Goddess Laxmi who is believed to be the goddess of wealth is worshipped as it is believed that Goddess Laxmi descends on earth and showers whoever is awake all night with wealth and prosperity. People enjoy the night by playing cards and much more.


title: Dashain

text: Animal sacrifices are often the norm during this time, as the festival commemorates the bloody battles between the "divine" and "demonic" powers. The proponents of animal killing interpret this sacrificial act as the symbolic sacrifice of our animal qualities, but those who are opposed to animal sacrifice stress that the sacrificial act is nothing but an excuse to fulfill the appetite for food/meat.


title: Dashain

text: The Malshree dhoon is incorporated into mainstream Nepalese music as the music of Dashain. It is the tune that announces the Dashain has arrived. Malashree dhoon is one of the oldest surviving devotional music of Newa art form, with its origin in the 17th century. In due time and also the fact that Dashain happens to be celebrated not just by Newars but by all Nepalese, this dhoon caught up and now is part of the national culture and played during Dashain.


title: Dashain

text: While putting tika to the younger family members or relatives, the elder people usually recite special Sanskrit mantras as a blessing. There are two main mantras that are recited while putting tika on the Bijaya Dashami day, one for men and one for females.


title: Dashain

text: In the mantra for male members, the qualities of various Hindu mythical heroes (Yudhishthira, Balarama, etc.) as well as antiheroes (Ashwatthama and Duryodhana) are blessed to the person.


title: Dashain

text: As Dashain approaches, kite flying becomes more and more common. Riding kites has been a very important part of celebrating Dashain in the country, as it is considered to be one way of reminding God not to send rain anymore. During the festival people of all ages fly kites from their roofs. Colourful kites and voices shouting out 'changā chet' (this phrase is usually used when one cuts the other person's kite string) fill the days during the festival.


title: Dashain

text: Playing cards is another way of celebrating Dashain. While children are busy flying kites during Dashain, the older members of the family pass their time by getting together and playing cards with each other for money and fun.


title: Dashain

text: Bamboo swings are constructed in many parts of the country as a way of celebration. Dashain swings are called 'ping' in Nepali. They present the best of local culture, tradition, community spirit, and fun. These swings are constructed by community members with traditional methods which use ropes made from tough grass, bamboo sticks and wood, etc. The swings are normally constructed a week before Ghatasthapana and dismantled only after the festival of Tihar which comes after Dashain. The height of some swings exceeds twenty feet. People of all ages enjoy the swings. They are especially famous with children.


title: Dashain

text: Fairs and celebrations are organized during the festival. Usually, small fairs are organized in the villages with Ferris wheels for children and other entertainment for adults. However, in the city commercial fairs and celebrations are usually organized.


title: Dashain

text: Buying and wearing new clothes is an important part of the festival. As many people living in the villages are below the poverty line, for them it is often the case that new clothes come only with Dashain. Almost all the shops have festival offers and discounts. This makes shopping more attractive. Clothes have the highest sales during the festival.


title: Dashain

text: Thousands of animals including buffalo, ducks, and rams are slaughtered in Dashain every year. It has been considered an important ritual since it is believed that the goddesses are appeased by such sacrifices. Almost all the temples, especially the Durga and Kali temples, are offered with thousands of sacrifices. Ashtami and Navami are the days when the sacrifices reach a peak. While thousands of animals are sacrificed to appease the goddesses, people also slaughter animals for feasts. Since many feasts and gatherings are organized throughout the fifteen days of the festival, the demand for meat goes up considerably. To meet the demand, the slaughtering of animals becomes considerably high and necessary.


title: Dashain

text: The festival of Dashain is often criticized for its animal sacrifice. Many online petitions have been registered on Change.org, calling for a government action against mass slaughter. Driven by the belief that offerings of fresh blood will appease goddess Durga, scores of animals and birds are ritually slaughtered especially in the eighth and ninth day of the festival. Birds and animals that are traditionally eligible for sacrifice include goats, buffaloes, sheep, chickens, and ducks. Some animal activists have called for the use of pumpkins and coconuts, as opposed to birds and animals.


title: Dashain

text: Numerous national luminaries and animal rights activists alike have expressed their concerns over the issue of animal cruelty in the festival. On 3 October 2016, renowned Nepali comedian Hari Bansha Acharya wrote a satirical piece on "Nepal Saptahik" – entitled ""Euta Khasiko Aatmakatha"" (Autobiography of a Goat) – in light of "horrendous" exploitation inflicted upon animals during the festival.


title: Dashain

text: Dashain has also become controversial in Nepal's current political climate as several indigenous groups ("adivasi janajati") argue that festival has been imposed on them by the state. In an effort to resist what they view as the cultural domination by the Hindu elites that dominate the Nepali state, several organizations (anti-Hindu) have organized a boycott of Dashain. So far those campaigns have had a limited effect across the country. Yet, Dashain and likewise other cultural celebrations are ingrained in Nepalese lifestyle.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: William Ernest Henley (23 August 184911 July 1903) was an English poet, writer, critic and editor. Though he wrote several books of poetry, Henley is remembered most often for his 1875 poem "Invictus". A fixture in London literary circles, the one-legged Henley might have been the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's character Long John Silver ("Treasure Island," 1883), while his young daughter Margaret Henley inspired J. M. Barrie's choice of the name Wendy for the heroine of his play "Peter Pan" (1904).


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Henley was born in Gloucester on 23 August 1849, to mother, Mary Morgan, a descendant of poet and critic Joseph Warton, and father, William, a bookseller and stationer. William Ernest was the oldest of six children, five sons and a daughter; his father died in 1868.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Henley was a pupil at the Crypt School, Gloucester, between 1861 and 1867. A commission had recently attempted to revive the school by securing as headmaster the brilliant and academically distinguished Thomas Edward Brown (1830–1897). Though Brown's tenure was relatively brief (–1863), he was a "revelation" to Henley because the poet was "a man of geniusthe first I'd ever seen". After carrying on a lifelong friendship with his former headmaster, Henley penned an admiring obituary for Brown in the "New Review" (December 1897): "He was singularly kind to me at a moment when I needed kindness even more than I needed encouragement". Nevertheless, Henley was disappointed in the school itself, considered an inferior sister to the Cathedral School, and wrote about its shortcomings in a 1900 article in "The Pall Mall Magazine".


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Much later, in 1893, Henley also received an LLD degree from the University of St Andrews; however two years after that he failed to secure the position of Professor of English literature at the University of Edinburgh.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: From the age of 12, Henley had tuberculosis of the bone that resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee in 1868–69. The early years of Henley's life were punctuated by periods of extreme pain due to the draining of his tuberculosis abscesses. However, Henley's younger brother Joseph recalled how after draining his joints the young Henley would "Hop about the room, laughing loudly and playing with zest to pretend he was beyond the reach of pain". According to Robert Louis Stevenson's letters, the idea for the character of Long John Silver was inspired by Stevenson's real-life friend Henley. In a letter to Henley after the publication of "Treasure Island" (1883), Stevenson wrote, "I will now make a confession: It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver ... the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you." Stevenson's stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, described Henley as "... a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one's feet."


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Frequent illness often kept Henley from school, although the misfortunes of his father's business may also have contributed. In 1867, Henley passed the Oxford Local Schools Examination. Soon after passing the examination, Henley moved to London and attempted to establish himself as a journalist. His work over the next eight years was interrupted by long stays in hospitals, because his right foot had also become diseased. Henley contested the diagnosis that a second amputation was the only means to save his life, seeking treatment from the pioneering late 19th-century surgeon Joseph Lister at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, commencing in August 1873. Henley spent three years in hospital (1873–75), during which he was visited by the authors Leslie Stephen and Robert Louis Stevenson and wrote and published the poems collected as "In Hospital". This also marked the beginning of a fifteen-year friendship with Stevenson.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Throughout his life, the contrast between Henley's physical appearance and his mental and creative capacities struck acquaintances in completely opposite, but equally forceful ways. Recalling his old friend, Sidney Low commented, "... to me he was the startling image of Pan come to Earth and clothed—the great god Pan...with halting foot and flaming shaggy hair, and arms and shoulders huge and threatening, like those of some Faun or Satyr of the ancient woods, and the brow and eyes of the Olympians." After hearing of Henley's death on 13 July 1903, the author Wilfrid Scawen Blunt recorded his physical and ideological repugnance to the late poet and editor in his diary, "He has the bodily horror of the dwarf, with the dwarf's huge bust and head and shrunken nether limbs, and he has also the dwarf malignity of tongue and defiant attitude towards the world at large. Moreover, I am quite out of sympathy with Henley's deification of brute strength and courage, things I wholly despise."


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Henley married Hannah (Anna) Johnson Boyle (1855–1925) on 22 January 1878. Born in Stirling, she was the youngest daughter of Edward Boyle, a mechanical engineer from Edinburgh, and his wife, Mary Ann née Mackie. In the 1891 Scotland Census, William and Anna are recorded as living with their two-year-old daughter, Margaret Emma Henley (b. 1888), in Edinburgh.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Margaret was a sickly child, and became immortalised by J. M. Barrie in his children's classic, "Peter Pan." Unable to speak clearly, young Margaret had called her friend Barrie her "fwendy-wendy", resulting in the use of the name "Wendy" for a feminine character in the book. Margaret did not survive long enough to read the book; she died in 1894 at the age of five and was buried at the country estate of her father's friend, Harry Cockayne Cust, in Cockayne Hatley, Bedfordshire.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: After Robert Louis Stevenson received a letter from Henley labelled "Private and Confidential" and dated 9 March 1888, in which the latter accused Stevenson's new wife Fanny of plagiarising his cousin Katharine de Mattos' writing in the story "The Nixie", the two men ended their friendship, though a correspondence of sorts did resume later after mutual friends intervened.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: As Andrzej Diniejko notes, Henley and the "Henley Regatta" (the name by which his followers were humorously referred) "promoted realism and opposed Decadence" through their own works, and, in Henley's case, "through the works... he published in the journals he edited." Henley published many poems in different collections including "In Hospital" (written between 1873 and 1875) and "A Book of Verses", published in 1891. He is remembered most for his 1875 poem "Invictus", one of his "hospital poems" that were composed during his isolation as a consequence of early, life-threatening battles with tuberculosis; this set of works, one of several types and themes he engaged during his career, are said to have developed the artistic motif of the "poet as a patient" and to have anticipated modern poetry "not only in form, as experiments in free verse containing abrasive narrative shifts and internal monologue, but also in subject matter."


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Forming the subject matter of the "hospital poems" were often Henley's observations of the plights of the patients in the hospital beds around him. Specifically the poem "Suicide" depicts not only the deepest depths of the human emotions, but also the horrid conditions of the working class Victorian poor in Britain. As Henley observed firsthand, the stress of poverty and the vice of addiction pushed a man to the brink of human endurance. In part, the poem reads:


title: William Ernest Henley

text: After his recovery, Henley began by earning his living as a journalist and publisher. The sum total of Henley's professional and artistic efforts is said to have made him an influential voice in late Victorian Britain, perhaps with a role as central in his time as that of Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century. As an editor of a series of literary magazines and journals, Henley was empowered to choose each issue's contributors, as well as to offer his own essays, criticism, and poetic works; like Johnson, he said to have "exerted a considerable influence on the literary culture of his time."


title: William Ernest Henley

text: For a short period in 1877 and 1878, Henley was hired to edit "The London Magazine", "which was a society paper", and "a journal of a type more usual in Paris than London, written for the sake of its contributors rather than of the public." In addition to his inviting its articles and editing all content, Henley anonymously contributed tens of poems to the journal, some of which were described by contemporaries as "brilliant" (later published in a compilation by Gleeson White). In his selection White included a considerable number of pieces from London, and only after he had completed the selection did he discover that the verses were all by one hand, that of Henley. In the following year, H. B. Donkin, in his volume "Voluntaries For an East London Hospital" (1887), included Henley's unrhymed rhythms recording the poet's memories of the old Edinburgh Infirmary. Later, Alfred Nutt published these and others in his "A Book of Verse".


title: William Ernest Henley

text: In 1889, Henley became editor of the "Scots Observer", an Edinburgh journal of the arts and current events. After its headquarters were transferred to London in 1891, it became the "National Observer" and remained under Henley's editorship until 1893. The paper had almost as many writers as readers, as Henley said, and its fame was confined mainly to the literary class, but it was a lively and influential contributor to the literary life of its era. Serving under Henley as his assistant editor, "right-hand-man", and close friend was Charles Whibley. The journal's outlook was conservative and often sympathetic to the growing imperialism of its time. Among other services to literature, it published Rudyard Kipling's "Barrack-Room Ballads" (1890–92).


title: William Ernest Henley

text: In 1902, Henley fell from a railway carriage. This accident caused his latent tuberculosis to flare up, and he died of it on 11 July 1903, at the age of 53, at his home in Woking, Surrey. After cremation at the local crematorium his ashes were interred in his daughter's grave in the churchyard at Cockayne Hatley in Bedfordshire. At the time of his death Henley's personal wealth was valued at £840. His widow, Anna, moved to 213 West Campbell-St, Glasgow, where she lived until her death.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: During his lifetime Henley had become fairly well known as a poet. His poetry had even made its way to the United States, inspiring several different contributors from across the country to pen articles about him. In 1889 the "Chicago Daily Tribune" ran an article about the promise that Henley showed in the field of poetry. After Henley's death in 1903 an acquaintance in Boston wrote a piece about her impression of Henley, saying of him, "There was in him something more than the patient resignation of the religious sufferer, who had bowed himself to the uses of adversity. Deep in his nature lay an inner well of cheerfulness, and a spontaneous joy of living, that nothing could drain dry, though it dwindled sadly after the crowning affliction of his little daughter's death." Henley was known as a man of inner resolve and character that transferred into his works, but also made an impression on his peers and friends. The loss of his daughter was a deeply traumatising event in Henley's life but did not truly dampen his outlook on life as a whole.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: While it has been observed that Henley's poetry "almost fell into undeserved oblivion," the appearance of "Invictus" as a continuing popular reference and the renewed availability of his work, through online databases and archives have meant that Henley's significant influence on culture and literary perspectives in the late-Victorian period is not forgotten.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: George Butterworth set four of Henley's poems to music in his 1912 song cycle "Love Blows As the Wind Blows." Henley's poem, "Pro Rege Nostro", became popular during the First World War as a piece of patriotic verse, containing the following refrainThe same poem and its sentiments have since been parodied by those unhappy with the jingoism they feel it expresses or the propagandistic use to which it was put during WWI to inspire patriotism and sacrifice in the British public and young men heading off to war. The poem is referenced in the title, "England, My England", a short story by D. H. Lawrence, and also in "England, Their England," a satiric novel by A. G. Macdonell about 1920s English society.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Nelson Mandela recited the poem "Invictus" to other prisoners incarcerated alongside him at Robben Island, some believe because it expressed in its message of self-mastery Mandela's own Victorian ethic. This historical event was captured in fictional form in the Clint Eastwood film "Invictus" (2009), wherein the poem is referenced several times. In that fictionalised account, the poem becomes a central inspirational gift from actor Morgan Freeman's Mandela to Matt Damon's Springbok rugby team captain Francois Pienaar, on the eve of the underdog Springboks' victory in the post-apartheid 1995 Rugby World Cup held in South Africa.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: In Chapter Two of her first volume of autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), Maya Angelou writes in passing that she "enjoyed and respected" Henley's works among others such as Poe's and Kipling's, but had no "loyal passion" for them.


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Joe Orton, English playwright of the 1960s, based the title and theme of his breakthrough play "The Ruffian on the Stair", which was broadcast on BBC radio in 1964, on the opening lines of Henley's poem "Madame Life's a Piece in Bloom":


title: William Ernest Henley

text: Henley's 1887 "Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves" (a free translation of François Villon's "Tout aux tavernes et aux filles") was recited by Ricky Jay as part of his solo show, "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants" (1994). The poem was set to music and release with a video in July 2020 by the folk band Stick in the Wheel.


title: Nipah virus

text: Nipah virus, scientific name Nipah henipavirus, is a bat-borne virus that causes Nipah virus infection in humans and other animals, a disease with a high mortality rate. Numerous disease outbreaks caused by Nipah virus have occurred in South and Southeast Asia. Nipah virus belongs to the genus "Henipavirus" along with the Hendra virus, which has also caused disease outbreaks.


title: Nipah virus

text: Like other henipaviruses, the Nipah virus genome is a single (nonsegmented) negative-sense, single-stranded RNA of over 18 kb, which is substantially longer than that of other paramyxoviruses. The enveloped virus particles are variable in shape, and can be filamentous or spherical; they contain a helical nucleocapsid. Six structural proteins are generated: N (nucleocapsid), P (phosphoprotein), M (matrix), F (fusion), G (glycoprotein) and L (RNA polymerase). The "P" open reading frame also encodes three nonstructural proteins, C, V and W. There are two envelope glycoproteins. The G glycoprotein assembles as a tetramer to form the viral anti-receptor or attachment protein, which binds to the receptor on the host cell. The F glycoprotein forms a trimer, which mediates membrane fusion.


title: Nipah virus

text: Ephrins B2 and B3 have been identified as the main receptors for Nipah virus. Ephrin subtypes have a complex distribution of expression throughout the body, where the B3 is noted to have particularly high expression in some forebrain subregions.


title: Nipah virus

text: The most likely origin of this virus was in 1947 (95% credible interval: 1888–1988). There are two clades of this virus—one with its origin in 1995 (95% credible interval: 1985–2002) and a second with its origin in 1985 (95% credible interval: 1971–1996). The mutation rate was estimated to be 6.5 × 10 substitution/site/year (95% credible interval: 2.3 × 10 –1.18 × 10), similar to other RNA viruses.


title: Nipah virus

text: Nipah virus has been isolated from Lyle's flying fox ("Pteropus lylei") in Cambodia and viral RNA found in urine and saliva from "P. lylei" and Horsfield's roundleaf bat ("Hipposideros larvatus") in Thailand. Infective virus has also been isolated from environmental samples of bat urine and partially eaten fruit in Malaysia. Antibodies to henipaviruses have also been found in fruit bats in Madagascar ("Pteropus rufus, Eidolon dupreanum") and Ghana ("Eidolon helvum") indicating a wide geographic distribution of the viruses. No infection of humans or other species have been observed in Cambodia, Thailand or Africa as of May 2018.


title: Nipah virus

text: The first cases of Nipah virus infection were identified in 1998, when an outbreak of neurological and respiratory disease on pig farms in peninsular Malaysia caused 265 human cases, with 108 deaths. The virus itself was isolated the following year in 1999. This outbreak resulted in the culling of one million pigs. In Singapore, 11 cases, including one death, occurred in abattoir workers exposed to pigs imported from the affected Malaysian farms. The Nipah virus has been classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a Category C agent. The name "Nipah" refers to the place, Sungai Nipah (literally "'nipah" river') in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, the source of the human case from which Nipah virus was first isolated. Nipah virus is one of several viruses identified by WHO as a likely cause of a future epidemic in a new plan developed after the Ebola epidemic for urgent research and development before and during an epidemic toward new diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines.


title: Nipah virus

text: The outbreak was originally mistaken for Japanese encephalitis, but physicians in the area noted that persons who had been vaccinated against Japanese encephalitis were not protected in the epidemic, and the number of cases among adults was unusual. Although these observations were recorded in the first month of the outbreak, the Ministry of Health failed to take them into account, and launched a nationwide campaign to educate people on the dangers of Japanese encephalitis and its vector, "Culex" mosquitoes.


title: Nipah virus

text: Symptoms of infection from the Malaysian outbreak were primarily encephalitic in humans and respiratory in pigs. Later outbreaks have caused respiratory illness in humans, increasing the likelihood of human-to-human transmission and indicating the existence of more dangerous strains of the virus.


title: Nipah virus

text: Based on seroprevalence data and virus isolations, the primary reservoir for Nipah virus was identified as Pteropid fruit bats, including "Pteropus vampyrus" (large flying fox), and "Pteropus hypomelanus" (small flying fox), both found in Malaysia.


title: Nipah virus

text: The transmission of Nipah virus from flying foxes to pigs is thought to be due to an increasing overlap between bat habitats and piggeries in peninsular Malaysia. At the index farm, fruit orchards were in close proximity to the piggery, allowing the spillage of urine, faeces and partially eaten fruit onto the pigs. Retrospective studies demonstrate that viral spillover into pigs may have been occurring, undetected, in Malaysia since 1996. During 1998, viral spread was aided by the transfer of infected pigs to other farms, where new outbreaks occurred.


title: Nipah virus

text: Nipah virus infection outbreaks have been reported in Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh and India. The highest mortality due to Nipah virus infection has occurred in Bangladesh, where outbreaks are typically seen in winter. Nipah virus first appeared in 1998, in peninsular Malaysia in pigs and pig farmers. By mid-1999, more than 265 human cases of encephalitis, including 105 deaths, had been reported in Malaysia, and 11 cases of either encephalitis or respiratory illness with one fatality were reported in Singapore. In 2001, Nipah virus was reported from Meherpur District, Bangladesh and Siliguri, India. The outbreak again appeared in 2003, 2004 and 2005 in Naogaon District, Manikganj District, Rajbari District, Faridpur District and Tangail District. In Bangladesh there were also outbreaks in subsequent years. In September 2021, Nipah virus resurfaced in Kerala, India claiming the life of a 12 year old boy.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The views of the various different religions and religious believers regarding human sexuality range widely among and within them, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine. Some religions distinguish between human sexual activities that are practised for biological reproduction (sometimes allowed only when in formal marital status and at a certain age) and those practised only for sexual pleasure in evaluating relative morality.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Sexual morality has varied greatly over time and between cultures. A society's sexual norms—standards of sexual conduct—can be linked to religious beliefs, or social and environmental conditions, or all of these. Sexuality and reproduction are fundamental elements in human interaction and societies worldwide. Furthermore, "sexual restriction" is one of the universals of culture peculiar to all human societies.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Accordingly, most religions have seen a need to address the question of a "proper" role for sexuality. Religions have differing codes of sexual morality, which regulate sexual activity or assign normative values to certain sexually charged actions or ideas. Each major religion has developed a moral code covering issues of human sexuality, morality, ethics, etc. These moral codes seek to regulate the situations that can give rise to sexual interest and to influence people's sexual activities and practices.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) have traditionally affirmed and endorsed a patriarchal and heteronormative approach towards human sexuality, favouring exclusively penetrative vaginal intercourse between men and women within the boundaries of marriage over all other forms of human sexual activity, including autoeroticism, masturbation, oral sex, non-penetrative and non-heterosexual sexual intercourse (all of which have been labeled as "sodomy" at various times), believing and teaching that such behaviors are forbidden because they're considered sinful, and further compared to or derived from the behavior of the alleged residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the status of LGBT people in early Christianity and early Islam is debated.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In the Baháʼí Faith, sexual relationships are permitted only between a husband and wife. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, forbids extramarital sexual intercourse in his book of laws; the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. He developed the belief that all humans are spiritual individuals that help develop and further the advancement of society physically and spiritually. The Baháʼí consideration of sex is that chastity should be practiced by both sexes before marriage because it is commendable ethically and leads to a happy and successful marital life. The Baháʼí Faith recognizes the value of the sex impulse, but judges that its proper expression is within the institution of marriage: Baháʼís do not believe in suppression of the sex impulse but in its regulation and control.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and its traditional interpretations in Judaism and Christianity have historically affirmed and endorsed a patriarchal and heteronormative approach towards human sexuality, favouring exclusively penetrative vaginal intercourse between men and women within the boundaries of marriage over all other forms of human sexual activity, including autoeroticism, masturbation, oral sex, non-penetrative and non-heterosexual sexual intercourse (all of which have been labeled as "sodomy" at various times), believing and teaching that such behaviors are forbidden because they're considered sinful, and further compared to or derived from the behavior of the alleged residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In the New Testament, Jesus discussed little about sex, and most of the information about sex comes from the Old Testament and Paul's writings, and some are controversial today.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Sexuality carried out between different sexes, between 2 people (Monogamy, although polygamy and gay are not forbidden) and in particular procreation, is generally understood as the ideal state.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Paul the Apostle stated in 1 Corinthians "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practising self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion." Importantly, Paul's view of sex is also that it is actually unnecessary for those with certain gifts (presumably "celibacy"). Jennifer Wright Knust says Paul framed desire a force Christians gained control over whereas non-Christians were "enslaved" by it. Further, Paul says the bodies of Christians were members of Christ's body and thus sexual desire must be eschewed.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: New Testament scholar N. T. Wright asserts that Paul absolutely forbade fornication, irrespective of a new Christian's former cultural practices. Wright notes "If a Corinthian were to say, 'Because I'm a Corinthian, I have always had a string of girl-friends I sleep with, that's part of our culture,' Paul would respond, 'Not now you're a Christian you don't.'... When someone disagreed with Paul's clear rules on immorality or angry disputes, the matters he deals with in Colossians 3.5–10, he is... firm, as we see dramatically in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6. There is no place in the Christian fellowship for such practices and for such a person."


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Some have suggested that Paul's treatment of sex was influenced by his conviction that the end of the world was imminent. Under this view, Paul, believing that the world would soon end, took it as a corollary that all earthly concerns, including sex, should hold little interest for Christians. Paul's letters show far greater concern with sexual issues than the gospel writers attributed to Jesus, since Paul was building Christian communities over decades and responding to various issues that arose.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The theologian Lee Gatiss states that "the word 'fornication' has gone out of fashion and is not in common use to describe non-marital sex. However, it is an excellent translation for [the Biblical term] , which basically referred to any kind of sex outside of marriage... This has been contested... but the overwhelming weight of scholarship and all the available evidence from the ancient world points firmly in this direction. 'Flee sexual immorality () and pursue self-control' (cf. 1 Thess 4:1–8) was the straightforward message to Christians in a sex-crazed world."


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In early Christianity, reflection on scriptural texts introduced an eschatological hermeneutic to the reading of the Book of Genesis. The Garden of Eden was seen as a normative ideal state to which Christians were to strive; writers linked the future enjoyment of Heaven to the original blessedness of Adam and Eve in their reflections.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The valuation of virginity in the ancient church brought into relief a tension between the Genesis injunction to "be fruitful and multiply" with its understood contextual implication of marriage as a social institution, and the interpretation of the superiority of virginity over marriage, sexual activity and family formation from the Gospel texts Matt 19:11-12, Matt 19:29. One way patristic thinkers tried to harmonize the texts was through the position that there had actually been no sexual intercourse in Eden: on this reading, sex happened after the fall of man and the expulsion from Eden, thus preserving virginity as the perfect state both in the historical Paradise and the anticipated Heaven. John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Justin Martyr, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Irenaeus of Lyons all espoused this view:


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Prof. John Noonan suggests that "if one asks... where the Christian Fathers derived their notions on marital intercourse – notions which have no express biblical basis – the answer must be, chiefly from the Stoics". He uses texts from Musonius Rufus, Seneca the Younger, and Ocellus Lucanus, tracing works of Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Jerome to the works of these earlier thinkers, particularly as pertaining to the permissible use of the sexual act, which in the Stoic model must be subdued, dispassionate, and justified by its procreative intent.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Augustine of Hippo had a different challenge: to respond to the errors of Manichaeism. The Manichees, according to Augustine, were "opposed to marriage, because they are opposed to procreation which is the purpose of marriage". "The method of contraception practised by these Manichees whom Augustine knew is the use of the sterile period as determined by Greek medicine", which Augustine condemns (this stands in contrast to the contemporarily permitted Catholic use of Natural family planning). Elaine Pagels says, "By the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine had actually declared that spontaneous sexual desire is the proof of—and penalty for—universal original sin", though that this view goes against "most of his Christian predecessors".


title: Religion and sexuality

text: As monastic communities developed, the sexual lives of monks came under scrutiny from two theologians, John Cassian and Caesarius of Arles, who commented on the "vices" of the solitary life. "Their concerns were not with the act of masturbation, but with the monks who vowed chastity. The monks' vow made masturbation an illicit act; the act itself was not considered sinful... In fact... prior to Cassian, masturbation was not considered a sexual offence for anyone."


title: Religion and sexuality

text: From the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Catholic Church formally recognized marriage between a freely consenting, baptized man and woman as a sacrament – an outward sign communicating a special gift of God's love. The Council of Florence in 1438 gave this definition, following earlier church statements in 1208, and declared that sexual union was a special participation in the union of Christ in the church. However the Puritans, while highly valuing the institution, viewed marriage as a "civil", rather than a "religious" matter, being "under the jurisdiction of the civil courts". This is because they found no biblical precedent for clergy performing marriage ceremonies. Further, marriage was said to be for the "relief of concupiscence" as well as any spiritual purpose.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The Catholic moral theologian Charles E. Curran stated "the fathers of the Church are practically silent on the simple question of masturbation".


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" teaches that "the flesh is the hinge of salvation". The "Catechism" indicates that sexual relationships in marriage is "a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity" and lists fornication as one of the "offenses against chastity", calling it "an intrinsically and gravely disordered action" because "use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose". The "conjugal act" aims "at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul" since the marriage bond is to be a sign of the love between God and humanity.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Pope John Paul II's first major teaching was on the theology of the body, presented in a series of lectures by the same name. Over the course of five years he elucidated a vision of sex that was not only positive and affirming but was about redemption, not condemnation. He taught that by understanding God's plan for physical love we could understand "the meaning of the whole of existence, the meaning of life." He taught that human beings were created by a loving God for a purpose: to be loving persons who freely choose to love, to give themselves as persons who express their self-giving through their bodies. Thus, sexual intercourse between husband and wife is a symbol of their total mutual self-donation.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: For John Paul II, "The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine." He says there is no other more perfect image of the unity and communion of God in mutual love than the sexual act of a married couple, whereby they give themselves in a total way – exclusively to one another, and up to the end of their lives, and in a fruitfully generous way by participating in the creation of new human beings. Through this perspective, he understands the immorality of extra-marital sex. It falsifies the language of the human body, a language of total love worthy of persons by using the body for selfish ends, thus treating persons as things and objects, rather than dealing with embodied persons with the reverence and love that incarnate spirits deserve. John Paul II stresses that there is great beauty in sexual love when done in harmony with the human values of freely chosen total commitment and self-giving. For him, this sexual love is a form of worship, an experience of the sacred.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In September 2015, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, responsible for enforcing Catholic doctrine, did not permit a transgender man in Spain to serve as a godfather effectively barring transgender Catholics from serving as a baptismal sponsors. The statement concluded: "[...] the result is evident that this person does not possess the requisite of leading a life conformed to the faith and to the position of godfather (CIC, can 874 §1,3), therefore is not able to be admitted to the position of godmother nor godfather. One should not see this as discrimination, but only the recognition of an objective absence of the requisites that by their nature are necessary to assume the ecclesial responsibility of being a godparent."


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Some Protestants assert that any and all sex outside of marriage, including that conducted between committed, engaged or cohabiting couples, is the sin of fornication.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Unlike Roman Catholics, Protestants do not disapprove of masturbation due to the lack of a Biblical injunction against the act. Mainstream and conservative Protestants agree masturbation is not a sin, although there are various restrictions, such as making sure it does not lead to use of pornography or looking lustfully at people or mutual masturbation or addiction to the act. It must also not be undertaken in a spirit of defiance against God.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: All 20 Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany welcome LGBT members, as well as the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. In these Lutheran, United, and Reformed churches gay ministers are permitted in ministry and gay married couples are allowed in their churches.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: More recently, the United Methodist Church has seen somewhat of a divide over the subject of human sexuality. The 2019 General Conference Special Session met, hoping to resolve the ongoing division regarding the homosexual community. This topic was first debated at a General Conference in 1972, resulting in a statement that the church "does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching." While the church still believes that church-goers should not "reject or condemn" those in the LGBTQ community, their statement still remains and additionally restricts their pastors from being "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals." With uncertainty about what the Church will look like in the future, calls for individual churches to separate from the United Methodist denomination have increased. The COVID-19 pandemic moved the original 2020 General Conference to 2024, when those present plan to address the possibility of altering the existing policies.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Inside the Lutheran Church of Sweden, the Bishop of Stockholm, Eva Brunne is a lesbian in a registered partnership with Gunilla Lindén, who is also an ordained priest of the Church of Sweden.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The Anglican Church upholds human sexuality as a gift from a loving God, designed to be between a man and a woman in a monogamous, lifetime union of marriage. It also recognises singleness and dedicated celibacy as Christ-like. It reassures people with same-sex attraction they are loved by God, and are welcomed as full members of the Body of Christ. The church leadership has a variety of views in regard to homosexual expression and ordination. Some expressions of sexuality are considered sinful, including "promiscuity, prostitution, incest, pornography, paedophilia, predatory sexual behaviour, and sadomasochism (all of which may be heterosexual and homosexual), adultery, violence against wives, and female circumcision." The church is concerned with pressures on young people to engage sexually and encourages abstinence.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In the Anglican Church, there is a large discussion over the blessing of gay couples, and over tolerance of homosexuality. The discussion is more about the aspect of love between two people of the same-sex in a relationship than it is about the sexual aspect of a relationship.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The Metropolitan Community Church, also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, has a specific outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families and communities.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Within the many branches of the Latter Day Saints movement, the principal denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), teaches conservative views around sexual ethics in their Law of Chastity, which holds that masturbation, pre- and extra-marital sex, and same-sex sexual activity are sins. In the 1800s, however, it was allowed for men to be married to and have children with several women, and this was also discontinued in the 1800s.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: On various occasions, LDS Church leaders have taught that members should not masturbate as part of obedience to the LDS law of chastity. The LDS Church believes that sex outside of opposite-sex marriage is sinful, and that any same-sex sexual activity is a serious sin. God is believed to be in a heterosexual marriage with the Heavenly Mother, and Mormons believe that opposite-sex marriage is what God wants for all his children. Top LDS Church leaders formerly taught that attractions to those of the same sex were a sin or disease that could be changed or fixed, but now have no stance on the etiology of homosexuality, and teach that therapy focused on changing sexual orientation is unethical. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual members are, thus, left with the option of attempting to change their sexual orientation, entering a mixed-orientation opposite-sex marriage, or living a celibate lifestyle without any sexual expression (including masturbation).


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The LDS Church teaches that women's principal role is to raise children. Women who rejected this role as being a domestic woman in the home, were seen as unstable and corrupted. Before 1890, the Mormon leaders taught that polygamy was a way to salvation, and many had multiple wives into the early 1900s, and some women practiced polyandry.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The Mormon religion teaches that marriage should be with a man and a woman. The LDS Church teaches its members to obey the law of chastity, which says that "sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife." Violations of this code include: "adultery, being without natural affection, lustfulness, infidelity, incontinence, filthy communications, impurity, inordinate affection, fornication." The traditional Mormon religion forbids all homosexual behavior, whether it be intra-marriage or extramarital. In Romans 1:24-32, Paul preached to the Romans that homosexual behavior was sinful. In Leviticus 20:13, Moses included in his law that homosexual actions and behaviors were against God's will. In the 1830s, LDS founder, Joseph Smith, instituted the private practice on polygamy. The practice was defended by the church as a matter of religious freedom. In 1890, the church practice was terminated. Since the termination of polygamy, Mormons have solely believed in marriage between two people, and those two people being a man and a woman. The LDS community states that they still love homosexuals as sons and daughters of the Lord, but if they act upon their inclinations, then they are subject to discipline of the church.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Several Unitarian Universalist congregations have undertaken a series of organizational, procedural, and practical steps to become acknowledged as a "Welcoming Congregation": a congregation which has taken specific steps to welcome and integrate gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) members. UU ministers perform same-sex unions and now same-sex marriages where legal (and sometimes when not, as a form of civil protest). On June 29, 1984, the Unitarian Universalists became the first major church "to approve religious blessings on homosexual unions."


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Unitarian Universalists have been in the forefront of the work to make same-sex marriages legal in their local states and provinces, as well as on the national level. Gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians are also regularly ordained as ministers, and a number of gay, bisexual, and lesbian ministers have, themselves, now become legally married to their partners. In May 2004, Arlington Street Church was the site of the first state-sanctioned same-sex marriage in the United States. The official stance of the UUA is for the legalization of same-sex marriage—"Standing on the Side of Love." In 2004 UU Minister Rev. Debra Haffner of The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing published "An Open Letter on Religious Leaders on Marriage Equality" to affirm same-sex marriage from a multi-faith perspective. In December 2009, Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the bill to legalize same-sex marriage for the District of Columbia in All Souls Church, Unitarian (Washington, D.C.).


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness is a group within Unitarian Universalism whose vision is "for Unitarian Universalism to become the first poly-welcoming mainstream religious denomination."


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Interfaith marriages are recognized between Muslims and Non-Muslim "People of the Book" (usually enumerated as Jews, Christians, and Sabians). According to the traditional interpretation of Islamic law ("sharīʿa"), a Muslim man is allowed to marry a Christian or Jewish woman but this ruling doesn't apply to women who belong to other Non-Muslim religious groups, whereas a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Non-Muslim man of any Non-Muslim religious group. In general, the Quran tells Muslim men not to marry Non-Muslim women, and it tells Muslim women not marry non-Muslim men, but it makes an allowance for Muslim men to marry women of the People of the Book (usually Jews, Christians, and Sabians). No such allowances are made for women. Some Muslim scholars discourage all interfaith marriages, citing cultural differences between Muslims and Non-Muslims.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In some societies outside the traditional "dar al-islam", interfaith marriages between Muslims and Non-Muslims are not uncommon, including marriages that contradict the historic Sunni understanding of "ijmāʿ" (the consensus of "fuqāha") as to the bounds of legitimacy. The tradition of reformist and progressive Islam, however, permits marriage between Muslim women and Non-Muslim men; Islamic scholars opining this view include Khaleel Mohammed, Hassan Al-Turabi, among others. Despite Sunni Islam prohibiting Muslim women from marrying Non-Muslim men in interfaith marriages, interfaith marriages between Muslim women and Non-Muslim men take place at substantial rates, contravening the traditional Sunni understanding of "ijmāʿ". The modern tradition of reformist and progressive Islam has also come to permit marriage between Muslim women and Non-Muslim men, with Islamic scholars opining this view including Khaleel Mohammed and Hassan Al-Turabi, among others. In the United States, about 10% of Muslim women are today married to Non-Muslim men.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people and their experiences in the Muslim world have been influenced by its religious, legal, social, political, and cultural history. The religious stigma and sexual taboo associated with homosexuality in Islamic societies can have profound effects for those Muslims who self-identify as LGBTQ+. Today, most LGBTQ-affirming Islamic organizations and individual congregations are primarily based in the Western world and South Asian countries; they usually identify themselves with the liberal and progressive movements within Islam.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Homosexual acts are forbidden in traditional Islamic jurisprudence and are liable to different punishments, including flogging, stoning, and the death penalty, depending on the situation and legal school. However, homosexual relationships were generally tolerated in pre-modern Islamic societies, and historical records suggest that these laws were invoked infrequently, mainly in cases of rape or other "exceptionally blatant infringement on public morals". Public attitudes toward homosexuality in the Muslim world underwent a marked negative change starting from the 19th century through the global spread of Islamic fundamentalist movements such as Salafism and Wahhabism, and the influence of the sexual notions and restrictive norms prevalent in Europe at the time: a number of Muslim-majority countries have retained criminal penalties for homosexual acts enacted under European colonial rule. In recent times, extreme prejudice, discrimination, and violence against LGBT people persists, both socially and legally, in much of the Muslim world, exacerbated by increasingly socially conservative attitudes and the rise of Islamist movements in Muslim-majority countries.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: In the perspective of traditional Judaism, sex and reproduction are the holiest of acts one can do, the act through which one can imitate God, and in order to preserve its sanctity there are many boundaries and guidelines. Within the boundaries, there are virtually no outright strictures, and it is in fact obligatory. It prohibits sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage, maintains biblical strictures on relations within marriage including observance of "niddah", a prohibition on relations for a period including the menstrual period, and "tzniut", requirements of modest dress and behavior. Traditional Judaism views the physical acts of adultery, incest, intentional waste of semen, the physical act of men having sex with men, and male masturbation as grave sins. Judaism permits relatively free divorce, with Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism requiring a religious divorce ceremony for a divorce to be religiously recognized. Worldwide movements in Judaism considered more liberal have rejected Jewish law as binding but rather inspirational and allegorical, so adapted perspectives more consistent with general contemporary Western culture.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Most of mainstream Judaism does not accept polyamory, although some people consider themselves Jewish and polyamorous. One prominent rabbi who does accept polyamory is Sharon Kleinbaum who was ordained in Reconstructionist Judaism which considers biblical Jewish law as not considered binding, but is treated as a valuable cultural remnant that should be upheld unless there is reason for the contrary. She is the senior rabbi at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York which works independently of any major American Jewish denomination; R Kleinbaum says that polyamory is a choice that does not preclude a Jewishly observant, socially conscious life. Some polyamorous Jews also point to biblical patriarchs having multiple wives and concubines as evidence that polyamorous relationships can be sacred in Judaism. There is an email list dedicated to polyamorous Jews, called "AhavaRaba", which roughly translates to "big love" in Hebrew. (Its name echoes the Ahava rabbah prayer expressing thanks for God's "abundant love".)


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Conservative Judaism, consistent with its general view that halakha (Jewish law) is a binding guide to Jewish life but subject to periodic revision by the Rabbinate, has lifted a number of strictures observed by Orthodox Judaism. In particular, in December 2006, Conservative Judaism's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards adopted "responsa" presenting diametrically opposed views on the issue of homosexuality. It adopted an opinion restricting a prior prohibition on homosexual conduct to male-male anal sex only, which it declared to be the only Biblical prohibition, declaring all other prohibitions (e.g. male-male oral sex or lesbian sex) rabbinic, and lifting all rabbinic restrictions based on its interpretation of the Talmudic principle of Kevod HaBriyot ("human dignity"). While declining to develop a form of religious gay marriage, it permitted blessing lesbian and gay unions and ordaining openly lesbian and gay rabbis who agree not to engage in male-male anal sex. It is also a traditionalist opinion, upholding all traditional prohibitions on homosexual activity, also adopted as a majority opinion, The approach permits individual rabbis, congregations, and rabbinical schools to set their own policy on homosexual conduct. It reflects a profound change from a prior blanket prohibition on male homosexual practices. It acknowledges a sharp divergence of views on sexual matters within Conservative Judaism, such that there is no single Conservative Jewish approach to matters of sexuality. Conservative Judaism currently straddles the divide between liberal and traditional opinion on sexual matters within contemporary American society, permitting both views.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Conservative Judaism has maintained on its books a variety of requirements and prohibitions, including a requirement that married women observe the family purity laws and a general prohibition on non-marital heterosexual conduct. The family purity laws require women to be recognized as tumah or niddah during their menstrual period. As a tumah, a woman is to wait 7 days for her menstrual cycle to end and then 7 "clean days" in order to enter the mikveh and begin sexual relations. During this time, it is forbidden to have any type of contact with the niddah, thus anything she touches is not to be touched and no physical contact is permitted. On the same day as the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards released its homosexuality responsa, it released multiple opinions on the subject of niddah including a responsum lifting certain traditional restrictions on husband-wife contact during the niddah period while maintaining a prohibition on sexual relations. The permissive responsum on homosexuality used the Conservative movement's approach to niddah as an analogy for construing the Biblical prohibition against male homosexual conduct narrowly and lifting restrictions it deemed Rabbinic in nature. The responsum indicated it would be making a practical analogy between an approach in which male homosexual couples would be on their honor to refrain from certain acts and its approach to niddah:


title: Religion and sexuality

text: The responsum enjoined young people not to be "promiscuous" and to prepare themselves for "traditional marriage" if possible, while not explicitly lifting or re-enforcing any express strictures on non-marital heterosexual conduct.


title: Religion and sexuality

text: Even before this responsum, strictures on pre-marital sex had been substantially ignored, even in official circles. For example, when the Jewish Theological Seminary of America proposed enforcing a policy against non-marital cohabitation by rabbinical students in the 1990s, protests by cohabiting rabbinical students resulted in a complete rescission of the policy.