Search for "cheap airline tickets from la to reno phone number 1-800-299-7264"

An Extravagant Welcome For All: Believe Out Loud, a Faith-Based LGBT Campaign, Launches

By Peter Laarman

…f three years—and I know the expectations are high for the Valentine’s Day launch. We all know this campaign won’t translate into instant success,” Craig adds, “but when people of faith do in fact declare out loud that all people are equal before God, I am convinced that more hearts will change.” Harry Knox, the creator and longtime director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program, also appreciates the way organizers of Believe O…

Exclusive: Christian Right Bill Mill, Project Blitz, Hasn’t Gone Away, It’s Just Gotten More Secretive

By Frederick Clarkson

…n Project Blitz in April 2018 the website featured their annual state legislative playbook of model bills and talking points. They also named the members of the State Legislative Prayer Caucuses that drew on the model bills for their own legislation. But in the face of public scrutiny, RD’s revelation of a second playbook and the unwanted media attention that followed our reports (from The New York Times, Salon, The Guardian, Religion News Service…

A Post-Christian America? Not Quite—Though Devoutly to be Wished

By Peter Laarman

…l maturity only to see Falwell, Robertson, Mohler, and various Catholic prelates make complete asses of themselves on a regular basis. Wouldn’t you duck when given a chance, on a confidential survey, to say “I’m not with them”? You witness the Terri Schiavo madness, the loony 9-11-related comments of Falwell and Robertson, Ralph Reed’s embrace of Jack Abramoff, the Ted Haggard melodrama—who wouldn’t cringe in embarrassment? Who wouldn’t want to ha…

Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire

By Paul Courtright

…s life in global Mumbai. Rather, the film evokes the Hindu idea of divine play (lila); Hindu literature is filled with stories of the devotee who triumphs over adversity through unwavering devotion to his or her deity, while the notion of one’s life being written or in the hands of destiny is a broadly shared Indian cultural perspective. Further complicating the film’s swirl of ethnic, religious, and national identities, Slumdog, though officially…

Catholic Leaders Offer Criticism, Support to Boxer Pacquiao After Anti-Gay Comments…

By Peter Montgomery

…les who have been married in a civil ceremony – according either to New Zealand law, or to the law in the Pacific Island nations which form part of this church. These liturgies also create a pathway for the people in such relationships to become ordained. Civil marriages between a man and a woman have long been recognised in law in both New Zealand and in those Pacific Island nations. In New Zealand’s case, of course, an amendment to marriage law…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…re reboots of that filibustered legislation that, as HB2 author Rep. Jodie Laubenberg repeatedly articulated in the hearing on her bill, refuse amendment, change, or even compromise.) As I and others prepare for the long haul and political plays sure to encompass the Texas abortion legislation, I am thinking back to an encounter I witnessed a week ago—one that gives me a degree of hope regarding the fullest possibilities of civic engagement. Let m…

The Fretting About Whether Democrats Are “Friendly” To Religion

By Sarah Posner

…her organizations do not enjoy. But if churches are going to pressure legislators to shape legislation to their will, it seems like there is an even greater, not lesser, need for lobbying transparency: the Establishment Clause. If churches are permitting to lobby, the public should at least have the right to see how they’re going about it. That’s not about being “friendly” or “unfriendly.” It’s about being transparent and accountable to the public…

Demonized and Demonizing No More.

By Joanna Brooks

…to identify myself within a queer narrative was the fact that there were a number of different narratives available to me. Identifying as an atheist, I went through a similar process, but there weren’t the same range of narratives. And I kept meeting other atheists who felt the same way I did—who felt like their identities and their stories weren’t represented in the most dominant atheist narratives. How would you characterize narrative American…

Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland

By Bill Berkowitz

…hard DeVos and Jay Van Andel’s Amway Corporation has its tentacles firmly planted in late-twentieth and early twenty-first century Republican Party politics. Masquerading as a Christian-oriented family enterprise, Amway leaders have made billions by selling a phony version of the American Dream, while bilking thousands of ordinary American dreamers out of their hard-earned life savings. The wealth of the founders has supported the nearly 30+ year…

When God and Gender Mix: New Book Examines the Southern Holiness Movement

By Colin Chapell

…that this may sound simple, but we so often forget this. Indeed, I would enlarge that statement to say that the values people hold dearest change how they understand their own identity. If academic achievement and the number or type of initials after your name is the most important thing in the world to you, then it will change how you view your own masculinity and femininity. Similarly, if having children matters most to you, then you can only be…