Religion Dispatches
…vernment, perhaps a unity coalition guaranteed by the military, leading to free and fair elections after the shortest time possible within which campaigning can be organized. This requires all the stakeholders on the ground, who are not representatives of the dictatorship, to come to the table, and to receive guarantees both from one another but also from regional powers who can help nudge the process forward. The military has won itself a seat at…
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…orld transformation seem equally troubling. Perhaps these days we would be better off considering the “solemnity of this day.” One hundred years ago, another African American graduate of Harvard and Senate-candidate W. E. B. Du Bois prayed with his students at Atlanta University: “Give us this night, O God, Peace in our land and the long silence that comes after strain and upheaval. Let us sense the solemnity of this day – its mighty meaning, its…
Read More…bo praised the Obama administration’s “very beneficial” diplomatic efforts promoting LGBT human rights and slammed American evangelicals who continue to promote anti-gay attitudes and policies. The U.S. last summer cut aid to Uganda and imposed a travel ban against officials in the African country who are responsible for anti-LGBT and other human rights abuses. The Center for Constitutional Rights in 2012 filed a federal lawsuit against Scott Live…
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…l church in the mid-1990s—he’s used elective office to advance a rightwing religious agenda. Throughout his political career, Pence has ardently opposed abortion, gay rights, trade unions, and environmental legislation. He has championed deregulation as well as for tax cuts for the wealthy, and a free market that neither bails out failing companies nor assists unemployed workers. Is Pence the last gasp of the baby boom hegemony—a misguided generat…
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…wore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Domin…
Read More…r and their children.” (The infertile, asexual, post-menopausal, and child-free by choice need not apply.) Anderson echoes precisely what same-sex proponents have been saying all along with regard to children: that the desire to marry is in fact a desire to be more traditional. As Frank Bruni put it, gays and lesbians are no longer cultural rebels; “We’re aspirants to tradition, communicating shared values and asserting a fundamentally conservativ…
Read More…Public Integrity, the purpose of the company was to create Israel’s first “Free Export Processing Zone,” intended to promote business enterprise there. Contemporaneous news reports signaled the ideological heart of his efforts was to bring American-style conservatism to “socialist Israel:” “Israel is a country that was founded on statism, socialism and collectivism,” said David Yerushalmi, chairman and chief executive officer of the IEDC, which is…
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…encourage leaders there and in Arab states to quickly change the contract between the regime and the citizens. This is a new order that hopefully the whole region will move toward. It deserves to be encouraged by the West. The commitment to democracy of the Israeli religious far-right, frequently associated with the settler movement, exists only insofar as it doesn’t threaten the goal of Jewish hegemony in Greater Israel. Its theological ideology…
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…ext time and a next time until an alternate vision of society—one that remixes religion, politics and economics into a more communal and collective venture, stirs hearts, minds and votes for a better America. Like this story? Your tax-deductible $5 or $10 will help us pay writers, coders, interns, and editors. And will earn you our endless gratitude….
Read More…d and punished. This fact clearly shows the intention of the government to promote a witch hunt against homosexuals rather than its stated objective of protecting traditional ‘natural’ marriage between a man and a woman. The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act is fundamentally an attack on the civil and human rights of all Nigerians. This law goes against all provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights of which Nigeria is a signa…
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