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‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warned that those who do would face “consequences.” From a March 1 story: In spite of the church rulin…

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: The Disgusting Religious Defense of Roy Moore

By Daniel Schultz

…say. This is a hot mess of a religion-based defense, and it comes from the Alabama State Auditor, no less. I’m sure it reinforces absolutely no negative stereotypes of his state. As my friend Brent Hege (an actual theologian) says, “If you’re enlisting Mary and Joseph to excuse pedophilia, you’re doing everything wrong. Everything.” Let’s get some facts on the table here. According to Luke 1:7, both Zechariah and Elizabeth were “advanced in age” w…

Bill Mill-ennialism: Arkansas’ End Times Politics May Be Coming to a State Near You

By Frederick Clarkson

…y of Gov. George Wallace’s infamous stand in the schoolhouse door—rallying Alabama segregationists in defiance of a federal court order to integrate the University of Alabama. Like Moore, Rapert’s moment may come in his confrontation with a federal judge over a monument to the Ten Commandments. His battle began in 2015 when he sponsored legislation to place a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol which was vandaliz…

‘Religious Liberty’ and the Origins of the Evangelical Persecution Complex

By Randall J. Stephens

…erhaps, but one the resonates profoundly with the conservative faithful in Alabama and around the country. Call it righteous defiance. Right-wing Christians point to another Alabaman, Rosa Parks, as the model for Kim Davis, the Kentucky County Clerk who also refused to budge. They see the fight against an encroaching federal government and the crusade to safeguard “traditional marriage” as a sacred calling. Indeed, evangelical pastor Rick Warren h…

The Horror Mugabe Doesn’t Want the World to See

By Frederick Clarkson

…ey were quickly dispersed by heavily armed, helmeted riot police (see cell phone photo, top). “If they catch you,” one student matter of factly told Donaghue at the buffet, “you are going to be cut like a goat from head to toe.” The students all knew people who had been beaten or tortured by Mugabe’s agents. Donaghue met one receiving treatment in a hospital, most of which are now closed, partly because even when staff are paid, “it costs more to…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?” It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence: People of Faith Can Help Break the Linkages

By Chip Berlet

…e supremacist movements.” I catch up with the Rev. David Ostendorf by cell phone while he is waiting for a plane at an East Coast airport. He is the executive director of the CNC where Ward works. Ostendorf, A United Church of Christ minister, once led PrairieFire Rural Action, a group that tried to save family farms during a major agricultural economic crisis in the 1980s. “Back then we helped build a popular economic political movement among fam…

Closed-Door Conference in Poland Shows How US Conservative Christian Networks Export ‘Conversion Therapy’

By Antonia Gross and Rina Nikolaeva

…spoke at a hearing in opposition to gender-affirming healthcare before the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee, alongside representatives from a number of anti-trans organizations, including familiar faces like the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation. The “Changed Movement” began, according to its website, when Williams and Woning testified along with 30 others and delivered a book with stories of “ex-gays” to California Senators wh…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…