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Turkish Police Move Against Activists Who Defied Pride Ban; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…de evidence-based arguments, yet they have been successful in mobilising homophobia among conservatives. Until now they have managed to ensure that the majority of legislators, from both the ruling and opposition parties, have either opposed same-sex marriage or declined to publically support it. Germany: Legislation to annul sodomy convictions advances; analysis of marriage equality resistance Last week the lower house of parliament voted unanimo…

Blessed With a Dark Turn of Mind: Gillian Welch’s Spiritual Strivings

By Paul Harvey

…f the prophets Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John They’re gone but not forgotten Round, round wanna go round Wanna see the rock of ages Till my body gives out Gonna read the Gospel pages Other times it’s not as clear, particularly so on more recent recordings, and especially so in The Harrow & the Harvest. Put more simply: whose soul does she want to [e]’lectrify, and who are those six white horses coming after? And what happened in nineteen hundred… an…

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

…majority of American Christians, including Roman Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, and some mainline Protestants, believed that the Bible not only forbade homosexuality but also strongly condemned it. News outlets were reporting not only on the medical and scientific aspects of the disease but also discussing its social and cultural ramifications. An emerging medical/moral frame for the disease made religion an integral part of the mix. In summer…

Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

By April L. Bogle

…sm, relies on Vipassana, a nonsectarian Buddhist meditation practice known more commonly as “insight meditation”: Vipassana was another turning point in my life. It gave me a better vision of myself and I was better afterwards. I am very conscious, very controlled with my anger. I think of myself as the Kiran before Vipassana and the Kiran after. The morning after our interview I joined Bedi and about 50 other people, mostly nonresident Indians wh…

Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right

By R.L. Stollar

…like Stardust, Yoza also sees his own story as an anomaly and Eastman’s as more common. “Everyone I still have contact with from debate mostly holds the same beliefs,” he told RD. “Debate gives you lots of tools to rationalize whatever you want to.” With Eastman and the other rising stars in the Christian Right, what we’re essentially seeing are those tools—and the corresponding, highly charged rhetorical style—being effectively used in service of…

Muhammad and the Blind Man: A Lesson in Sensitivity

By Amjad Mahmood Khan

…Nazi sign next to a Holocaust museum,” a Taliban operative warns that “the more mosques [America] stops, the more jihadis [the Taliban] will recruit,” and a Muslim cab driver in New York is stabbed in an apparent hate crime fueled by Park 51 hysteria. As I witness emotions on both sides of the Park 51 debate reach a fever pitch, I am reminded of my father’s efforts to build a mosque in Chino decades ago and more specifically of his words to me at…

Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…es, e.g.), but he is keenly aware that too many people suffer. Theodicy in motion. In the end, most of Jillette’s Ten “Suggestions” are not too far from the mark of those in Exodus or Deuteronomy. For instance, instead of taking the fifth commandment as honoring your parents, his “fifth suggestion” adds a hedge thick enough to make a Pharisee proud: “Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than…

What the Lost Finale is Really About

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…the continent, a part of the main.” Simultaneously, the words of the great modern Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, in No Man is an Island, reverberate: “We learn to live by living together with others, and by living like them.” The island is not just a lost island, but a metaphor for human individuality, and ultimately of the bankruptcy of that mythology. There is no individual, says Donne and Merton, at least not one worth knowing. In other words, t…

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

By Kara Loewentheil

…e coverage requirement to find a better job. *Correction: This post originally indicated that gender separation was due to concerns about women’s menstrual cycles. To read more about gender separation among Haredi Jews in Israel and in the U.S. read the Forward’s excellent piece from 2011….

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…erson in an airplane aisle knows there will be some sort of contact as you move past; the space just isn’t big enough for most people to avoid that. If your goal is sincerely to avoid contact, it seems to me that remaining in your own seat, lowering your eyes and simply relinquishing your claim to the armrest would be a more effective means of not touching a woman. It seems hard to believe that “hundreds” of men wound up in the same situation and…