The more you learn about what you are getting into, the better informed you will be and can handle most of the conflicts, indeed, you can predict them and save some tensions. Mike Ghouse Courtesy New York Times 13 Questions to AskBefore Getting Married Eleanor Stanford, March 24, 2016 When it…

Congratulations to the couple, a Christian man and a Hindu woman. This is good news whilst the extremists from among Hindus are making life difficult for interfaith weddings, the good majority of Hindus are very accepting and respecting of other’s lives. Mike GhouseInterfaith Wedding OffficantUSA # # # Courtesy of…

It’s a landmark change to India’s marital rape laws. India’s top court has ruled that sex with a child is always rape, quashing a clause that allowed men to have sex with underage girls if they were married to them. The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Wednesday closed a legal…

India closes child marriage loopholeIndia’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that marital sex with a minor constitutes rape, for which perpetrators can face criminal charges. The landmark case overturns a 1940 law that permitted men to marry and consummate marriages with child brides as young as fifteen—a loophole that undermined the efficacy of a…

At Center for Pluralism we have chosen the path of positive engagement to find solutions on issues of the day.  We have to be genuinely inclusive and hold on to the temptations to condemn, and instead seek solutions. I will be calling on our Imams to include this issue in…

In faith, as in love, we leap. We hope. We whisper holy words, words that hold power, maybe magic. We pilgrimage across whatever distances necessary. We experience the ineffable. We understand the unexplainable. We sense in an instant a familiarity, a knowing. We get over and outside of ourselves to…

Though she was on the panel, Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim (TBEMC) Rabbi Rachel Schwartz said little. It was mainly left to the several other panelists, who represented a diverse spectrum of families, to discuss the challenges surrounding the observances of Christmas and Chanukah — a quandary often referred to as…

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, center, presents Rabbanit Shira Zimmerman with her certification as an arbiter of Jewish law at a January ceremony in Jerusalem. Nurit Jacobs Yinon/Aluma films Leaving aside President Trump’s continued impact on the country (and the Jewish community), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the rift between Israel and the…

We wish you, your family and friends the very best of 2018. Each New Year is a milestone in one’s life. Indeed, it is as much a day of reckoning as it is of celebrations. Reckoning involves reflecting on the reasons you did not get what you had wanted in…

LYNSLEI WEDS ADAM ON JAN 1, 2018 January 1, 2018, Washington, DC – Dr. Mike Ghouse officiated the wedding ceremony today, and this is the first interfaith wedding of the year. Mike has been officiating the interfaith weddings for the last eight years and is a licensed interfaith wedding officiant…

I spent last week with some close friends and had a good discussion about whether couples with differing religions can successfully raise a family. Their take was it would be difficult for the children. As a family counselor, I have seen about every constellation of religions and parents imaginable. Those…

Sanjoy Sachdev’s Love Commandos is a perennially cash-strapped national network of volunteers who say they have helped around 50,000 interfaith and intercaste lovers in distress. On the phone, Sanjoy Sachdev, 57, always sounds like he’s in the middle of some cloak-and-dagger activity. “Can I call you tomorrow? There’s a rescue…

Bing single is easy. You are the dictator of your own life, spoiled by parents and pampered by friends. Your abilities and virtues are actually put into test once you get married and begin a new life with a partner! That’s when you get to know the limits of your sharing capability…

This is a story of Muslim-Jewish romance and it is worth reading and reflecting.  The article “How a Muslim-Jewish romance shaped one of India’s biggest pharma giants” is the courtesy of Dawn News Paper and is appended below with gratitude.  It has all the elements of harmony, and the efforts…

Stories like this should roll a tear of joy, it did to me. Happiness is when there is no conflict and I am so happy to read this story. I pray the negative trends in India against interfaith marriages come to an end,  and let people marry whomever they want without…

This is a blessed morning two good stories from India, one about Kerala Hindu family adopting a Muslim girl and raising her as a Muslim and getting her married of as a Muslim, and here is Muslims doing the same with Hindu orphans. We need more of these stories, we…