RNS) Although most major religions discourage sex outside of marriage, Muslims and Hindus are more likely to abstain from extramarital sex than Christians and Jews, according to a new study. By Jeanie Groh.

ST. LOUIS (RNS) The board of the nation's largest association of theologians issued a statement Thursday (June 7) in support of Sister Margaret Farley, a Yale theologian whose work in sexual ethics was publicly criticized by the Vatican earlier this week. By Tim Townsend.

(RNS) For decades, Psalm 139 has been a byword of the anti-abortion movement that has used its line about being "knit together in my mother's womb." Now, its other verse about being "fearfully and wonderfully made" has been embraced by gay and lesbian Christians. By David Van Biema

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday (March 9) denounced the "powerful political and cultural currents" that are working to "alter the legal definition of marriage" in the United States. By Alessandro Speciale.

FLORISSANT, Mo. (RNS) A Catholic school music teacher who was recently fired after church officials learned that he planned to marry his male partner of 20 years has been fired from a second position as a music director at a suburban Catholic church. By Elizabethe Holland.

(RNS) The question now is whether these breakaway Anglican, Lutheran and Presbyterian groups signal a seismic shift in American Protestantism, or just a few fissures in the theological terrain. By Daniel Burke.

(RNS) "Love Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women" is a new collection of stories about sex, lust, dating, marriage, and divorce by 25 women of diverse religious interpretations, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. By Omar Sacirbey.