Religion Dispatches
…at his motivations were largely personal rather than ideological. Like the Orlando shooter, however, he might have wanted to brand his actions as ISIS-related in order to give them a degree of legitimacy. And ISIS followers were equally eager to give it their label. In terrorism, as in many other aspects of public life, branding is everything. My thanks to my research assistant, Mufid Taha, and to the research support of the “Ending Jihadist Confl…
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…y. Here’s how Anderson had responded to the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida: “These homosexuals are a bunch of perverts and pedophiles, that’s who was a victim here, a bunch of disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar,” he said. He later added: “The good news is that at least 50 of these pedophiles are not going to be harming children anymore. The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they’re going to contin…
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…tion for him. Debbie Earle, of Atlanta, was at Gingrich’s event tonight in Orlando. “I love Newt,” she told me, “he’s a genius.” Based on the Bishops’ letter, Earle believed that the Obama administration rule would require not just contraceptive coverage, but coverage for abortion as well. (It does not.) “It’s against what we believe, the right to life,” she said. “Where’s the separation of church and power?” At a a campaign stop in Orlando yester…
Read More…, who might normally be Democrats. We saw this happen in California and in Florida in 2008. Florida and California both went for Obama but both states also passed marriage amendments, because a lot of the same people who voted for Obama also voted for marriage. The strategy is that there are enough people who are upset over this issue, who feel that Obama and the Democrats have gone too far, that this may be the deal breaker. Jackson was initially…
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…ay the outside world perceived us. And so it was like the one-two punch of Orlando—suddenly all cameras are on us—and then (the election) a few months later affirmed the thing that we’ve been saying for years: that there is this violent insidious nihilistic white supremacist cult still right there in the middle of America. It was just a very catalyzing year. We realized just how much work there was to be done. In the last year, after the years of…
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…dos depict Jesus as a gay man who introduces his cross-dressing boyfriend, Orlando, to his family. Incongruities abound when Orlando, who wears massive amounts of makeup and a blonde wig, performs ‘Jingle Bells’ on a digital keyboard in Judea ca. 30 A.D., endearing himself to the holy family (and his relationship with Jesus).1 Of course, this is merely the nth iteration of the irreverent Jesus motif, with countless gay-Jesus memes being the most o…
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…rust I have in the TSA before, Jillette’s rant in “Penn’s Bacon and a Kiss Airline” was like finding a long-lost brother; another guy who feels it is criminal to be viewed naked by strangers—involuntarily—is a true freedom fighter. This is a comedian with a conscience. He may come down on the wrong side of many traditional issues (global warming and sexual mores, e.g.), but he is keenly aware that too many people suffer. Theodicy in motion. In the…
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…ance-enhancing drugs. The sense of freedom and fun (and free food, even if airline food) was exhilarating. The airport has now become a place of horror. Do they have full-body scanners? I wonder as I’m herded into a long, bovine line. Abattoir or boudoir? Why is this bothering me so much? Don’t Touch Me There Even cursory reflection reveals my embodiment issues are buried deep in my religious upbringing. I was a teenage fundamentalist. That remark…
Read More…and the fact that in the numerology of the show Jack is connected with the number 23. Likewise, the “black smoke” character (eventually avatared by John Locke) leaves us wondering about the ancient story of the Golden Bough in which the priest-king is ritually murdered by his successor. The Golden Bough story was taken up by Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, which was the basis for Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Terry O’Quinn’s “John Locke” becomes M…
Read More…“Hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jewish men delayed takeoff of a transatlantic flight by refusing to sit next to women, and then caused chaos once it was airborne [by standing in the aisles for the entire flight and refusing to occupy their seats].” Obviously a congested plane aisle isn’t the end of the world (although one can imagine it might be a safety issue in some situations), and the news reports have treated it as a kind of amusing oddity. But…
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