Divisions widen in global Anglican Church over Queer rights
Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, acknowledged a "deep disagreement" among the 42 provinces of the Anglican Church over LGBTQ+ rights and expressed "grief and dismay" over the Ugandan branch of the church's support of the country's brutal new laws against what Ugandan officials call "aggravated homosexuality."

"There is no justification for any province of the Anglican Communion to support such laws: not in our resolutions, not in our teachings, and not in the Gospel we share," said Welby in a statement on Friday, June 9. Ugandan Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba responded to the ceremonial head of the church by saying Welby has "every right to form his opinions about matters around the world that he knows little about firsthand."

The Anglican Church does not currently preside over same-sex marriages, but the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, announced four months ago that he would bless same-sex civil unions. Welby said he would not but was "joyful" for the decision. The divide has grown worldwide over the last few months, with some members of the Anglican church in Africa vocally opposing same-sex unions, including Bishop Williams Aladekugbe of Nigeria's Ibadan North Anglican Diocese, who called them "ungodly and devilish."

Aladekugbe went so far as to call for a splintering of the Anglican church in response to Welby's statement, telling the Associated Press, "If they don't worship God the way we worship him, if they don't believe in what we believe in... let us divide [and] go our own way."

The Anglican Communion currently has more than 85 million members globally and is one of the world's largest Christian communities. Global political ripples in the aftermath of a church of this size splintering are hard to predict, but many governmental bodies around the world turn to their country's largest religious organizations for support in their decisions to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ population.

ILO passes LGBTQ protections despite disagreements
The UN's International Labor Organization passed its budget on Tuesday, June 14, after a week of debate centering around LGBTQ+ rights and protections. The $885 million budget was held up because it included references to gender identity and sexual orientation in one paragraph of its 112 pages. According to Reuters, roughly 50 countries including Russia and Pakistan were opposed to the having LGBTQ protections in the budget because they could have a "misleading normative impact" that could cause legal repercussions. The ILO budget passed with a vote of 477 in favor, 11 against, and 7 abstentions.