Search for "cheap airline tickets from tampa to austin texas phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Is “Religious Freedom” Impossible After Hobby Lobby?

By Austin Dacey

…that the belief was sincerely held. Justice Alito’s opinion did clarify a number of other things that are not relevant to assessing a claim of “substantial burden.” First, it is not relevant that “alternative means of practicing religion” are available. The state does not get to decide whether a claimant’s religious impulses can be satisfied through some other outlet. Second, it does not matter whether the practice is considered religiously oblig…

Is a Secular System Right for Egypt?

By Austin Dacey

…ds of extremists and the unqualified.” The removal of thousands of clerics—numbering 12,000, according to the government’s statement—comes in the context of the ongoing struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military-backed regime. Outside observers of this struggle may be tempted to frame it as a contest between an Islamist theocracy and a secular state, albeit an alarmingly iron-fisted one. However, as revealed in a discussion of the fu…

Does Secularism Have a Role in Egyptian Struggle?

By Austin Dacey

…in religious affairs. Likewise, Egyptians of all faiths and none are entitled to freedom of religion and conscience and equal treatment under the law. What title for this position would be more apt than secularism? RD contributing editor Austin Dacey will be writing a series of posts in the coming months as part of a joint project between The Immanent Frame and Religion Dispatches made possible by the generosity of the Luce Foundation. Click here…

Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

By Patricia Miller

…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…

Coming Out on a Christian Campus, Then and Now

By Ed Madden

…ad to leave to survive. I recall the grace I felt as a graduate student in Austin, Texas, when I first turned to a little neighborhood Methodist church. Finding that church saved my life. The first time I took communion there as an openly gay man was the most profound religious experience of my life, much more than my baptism as a boy—that dunk in the cold baptistery during a gospel revival was more a flight from hell and from my growing sense of…

Why Did Vandals Try to Destroy a Holy Tree?

By Joseph Laycock

…among Native American tribes and it was here that city founder Stephen F. Austin signed a treaty establishing boundaries for Texas settlers. With tremendous effort and money, an outraged community managed to save their sacred tree, while Cullen received a nine-year prison sentence. According to some accounts, he had sacrificed the tree as part of a love spell. Exactly whose love he so desperately sought varies from story to story. 1997, White Cli…

What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail

By Steven K. Green

…items within their borders (as is already the case federally with lottery tickets). A Republican-controlled Congress could then impose a nationwide ban on the mailing of abortion pills or certain contraceptives. (Republican-controlled state legislatures have already demonstrated a willingness to enact questionable legislation for nothing more than its intimidation factor.) Which brings us back to Anthony Comstock. In 1878, the Supreme Court uphel…

Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

By Sarah M. Pike

…een working feverishly to finish their projects but had put off purchasing tickets were left out in the cold. It was a different scene in 1997 when I first came to Burning Man and only waited briefly at the entrance as a “Greeter” cast a cursory glance at my car. But the Greeters’ enthusiastic reception remained the same. These Greeters, a dusty naked couple, asked me to get out of my car and embraced me, shouting “Welcome Home!” I had crossed the…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…ccurred to me it would be a very easy to make hajj from there. I bought an airline ticket and was in contact with the family of one of my graduate school friends. They would pick me up from the airport and host me during my stay and the days of ritual. Nice plan. So I went to the embassy to get the visa and was denied because (as an American) I needed proof that I was Muslim. How do I prove I have been a practicing Muslim for a decade? I went to t…

Refusing the Monsters on Maple Street: A First-Person Commentary from the Mass Hysteria at JFK

By Marion Grau

…alse—swept through the terminals, sending passengers, law-enforcement, and airline workers scrambling for cover and eventually onto the tarmac. The responding authorities found neither shooters nor evidence of any shots fired. The most likely explanation offered for the panic was that the cheering of Olympics fans for Usain Bolt’s performance in the 100 meters sounded like gunfire. In an episode titled “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” from…