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Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…y] in the EU and get more support from EU countries.” Chile: Civil Unions Bill Advanced by Senate A civil unions bill first introduced in 2011 was approved by the Chilean Senate this week. The civil partnerships created in the bill go by the acronym AVP. “The AVP does not weaken families, but it strengthens them because it extends protections to them,” said Álvaro Elizalde, spokesperson for President Michelle Bachelet’s government. Sen. Manuel Jos…

Rage or Courage?: YouTube Terrorism Take Two

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…levels, but his basic character has not been besmirched with the degree of ill will, bordering on savagery, that has been seen in the past 12 years. The assault on Muhammad is not due to 9/11, but to the power of the image of ‘rage’, Muslim rage/outrage, that goes back to Lewis. This point of view finds Muslims exceptional not in their devotion to their Prophet but in their unwillingness to be modern and free. And this negative image of ‘Muslim ex…

On Pi Day, Puzzling Over the Most Famous Transcendental Number

By Ilana E. Strauss

…Physicsworld.com user asks, “What could be more mystical than an imaginary number interacting with real numbers to produce nothing?” Where infinity merges with the earth When you dig into pi, you encounter questions that are as much theological as mathematical: is there a pattern to the universe? Or is it fundamentally random? And how do we reckon with the infinite? Some people have always insisted that there must be a pattern behind pi. If only h…

‘Slender Man’ Murder Attempt Wasn’t Media or Madness

By Joseph Laycock

…agic events: i.e. “She exhibited deviant behavior because she was mentally ill and we know she was mentally ill because she exhibited deviant behavior.” This sort of lazy analysis stigmatizes those being treated for mental health and often obscures more tangible factors. Another possibility is that the girls’ confession about the Slender Man mythos was an “atrocity story” intended to gain clemency. Accused criminals sometimes spin stories in which…

Justice v. Revenge: The Question Beneath the Question of Prison Reform

By Xarissa Holdaway

…ion doesn’t sound so different from today’s correctional institutions. The number of mentally ill inmates is on the rise, as public psychiatric institutions lose funding. Buildings are overcrowded and under-maintained. Rehabilitation and substance-abuse programs are chronically underfunded. Debt imprisonment no longer exists, but the burden still falls disproportionately on the marginalized: discriminatory policies throughout the justice system me…

Same-Sex Marriage May Lead to Polygamy, But So What?

By William E. Smith

…ng to make the case that same-sex marriage is a social ill. It is a social ill that will lead to another social ill, namely polygamy. Both are closely related perversions, implicitly at least, of the one good adult relationship—monogamy between an opposite-sex couple. Unlike many who would reject Sprigg’s claims out of hand, I accept the slippery-slope argument. But I don’t see this as necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, I made a case for a more posi…

The March for Life: Grassroots Movement or Agitprop?

By Patricia Miller

…he city, compared to 1,800 for the Women’s March, organizers are suddenly claiming it’s not about the numbers after all. March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told the Times: I don’t think that these numbers are the most important. The number most important for us is 58 million, which is the number of Americans that have been lost to abortion. But either they have the numbers or they don’t. And if they don’t, maybe the media should take a hard l…

From Shofars to Hammers: The Spiritual Warriors of MAGA are ‘ReAwakening’ to Political Violence

By Mark Clatterbuck

…n the arena’s giant video screens. He wondered aloud if the reporter was still infiltrating their rally. Thunderous applause from thousands around me greeted this US military officer as he publicly threatened a member of our local press. Pervasive claims of election fraud during the two-day event were punctuated by divine assurances that Trump will “return to power,” whether the rest of us like it or not. Julie Green, widely regarded as a modern-d…

Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

By Mark D. Jordan

…moment marked by anguish and anxiety. “Here is a secret about how I love. Will you still love me after hearing it?” Or persuasion comes about when a respected church leader—a pastor, a teacher, a musician—can no longer keep a false silence in good Christian conscience. These are the speeches that persuade, not the arguments-by-number. So why do we repeat them? One strategic justification is that we progressives are regrettably obliged to answer th…

The Sacred and the Dead: Operator, Can You Help Me?

By Maren Haynes

…t Pigpen’s search for a viable number is, at best, a futile proposition. Still he dials the telephone operator to try find that lost landline. Problem is, he’s not even sure which direction she went. “I think she’s somewhere down south, down about Baton Rouge,” Pigpen begins, but then changes his mind. “She could be hangin’ round the steel mill, working in a house of blue lights, riding a getaway bus out of Portland.” The song came out in 1970 whe…