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In Qur’an Burning We’re All Losers

By Julie Ingersoll

…Hindu” by Prema Kurien. Yet the aftermath of 9/11 has made the process of Americanization different for American Muslims. What, months ago, Sarah called the utter ordinariness of demeaning Islam has turned into full-blown, ugly bigotry (and that includes both Qur’an burnings as well as efforts around the country to prohibit the building of mosques). Today my friend and colleague Parvez Ahmed, who has, himself, been attacked by anti-Muslim activis…

The Islamophobia Election: How “Muslim” Became a Racial Identity

By Michael Schulson

…to participate in interviews, and I had a much harder time getting Muslim American men. I found that there’s a lot of self-surveillance. American Muslims are surveilled by the state. They’re surveilled by private citizens. Then they participate in self-surveillance as well. When you’re hyper-surveilled you monitor what you say and do to avoid bringing suspicion onto your body. When you’re on a state list that’s very disempowering. When I got men…

American Anti-Gay Campaign in Africa Opposes “Fictitious Sexual Rights”

By Warren Throckmorton

…d downplayed the harshness of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill in a 2009 newsletter. For FWI and WCF, supporting the natural family means resisting the right of GLBT people to live without threat of jail for private conduct. FWI once considered Uganda’s notorious anti-gay pastor, Martin Ssempa, a volunteer coordinator for Africa. However, according to its website, FWI broke with Ssempa about the same time Ssempa’s support for Uganda’s Anti-Homos…

David Becomes Christian at Values Voter Summit

By Daniel Schultz

…hat’s an equally powerful narrative held by many people, most notably the “new Atheists.” It has its ups and downs and its own particular reading of American history, starting with all those deistic founding fathers. While I’m not here to critique the TMST, as Gorski calls it, I will say that it seems inadequate to the task of overcoming the CART. In fact, the two only seem to fuel one another by buying into mutual resentment and hostility. I don’…

The Uses and Abuses of the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…d image of King within political discourse. As previously discussed on RD, American civic holidays, like the nation itself, are in a time of crisis. New holidays such as Juneteenth have been added to the federal holiday calendar, while others face renewed scrutiny and calls for abolishment. It seems one of the few holidays to pass through this era unscathed is the King holiday. Often, however, I’m forced to ask myself, “What does the King holiday…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…e value the expressions of evangelical Christian piety so common among the American political class, and do not dismiss them—as many Americans do—as cynical political machination. Stories in respected media outlets warn of aggressive evangelical campaigns “emanating from America,” and “backed by the highest of the land,” and are often accompanied by sound bites or pictures—in this case of George W. Bush, Jr., speaking in front of a large mural of…

Masculinity and Mass Violence: When Will We Acknowledge the Smoking Gendered Pronoun Hiding in Plain Sight?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an who killed 13 people (himself included) and wounded four in Binghamton, New York in 2009; John Allen Muhammad, the Islamic, African American “Beltway Sniper,” who, with Jamaica-born partner Lee Boyd Malvo, killed at least 10 people in the Washington DC area through the month of October 2002. Many of these shooters, regardless of race or religion, had known mental health issues. Likewise, a substantial number of the men on the Brady Campaign lis…

Conservatives Accuse Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Misconduct

By Elizabeth Drescher

…ehind it. “I am glad to see this. However, I doubt much will come of it,” says one commenter. “The AAF document will be a record for future historians,” offers another. Well, there’s that. Meanwhile, perhaps it’s time for the new American Anglican version of “the Republican party at prayer” to refocus its energies on other concerns. After all, there are still a couple years left in the Obama presidency to roll back that sinful Affordable Care Act….

An End to the “Gentleman’s Agreement” on Israel?

By Jay Michaelson

…pped even more spectacularly than their many previous ones, Israel and its American friends have tended to focus on practicalities: money, boundaries, resources… and settlements. American maps may show the Golan as part of Syria, but every year, more Israeli-owned vineyards are planted. To suddenly focus on symbolism is good for fundraising letters, but bad for actual policy. In this case, at least, symbolism has prevailed. Because it is only a bu…

Size Matters According to New Study

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…such nonsense. But in studies like this one, Phrenology’s back again in a new form, implying this time that the size of the brain is any indicator of human intelligence. We’ve all been told countless times that the human brain is a highly redundant organ, and that each of us uses only a fraction of it in normal circumstances. Given that established scientific truism, it would be passing strange if brain size bore any relation to intelligence. An…