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The Lesser and the Greater Pilgrimage

…exuberance. Sorta like skydiving tandem before following up my lessons for free-fall skydiving. That way I can focus on the details I am trying to learn now and be better prepared. As far as umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, goes; it stands to reason that people can visit the ka’abah any time of the year. And so it is. There are still the same ihram prescriptions. There are still certain rites that should be performed. But unless a journey to Makkah c…

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‘Landmark’ Speech From LDS Leader on LGBTQ Rights and Religious Freedom Was More Like a Sunnier Groundhog Day

…those who feel that religions are invoking their religious rights—like the free exercise of religion & freedom of speech—to deny or challenge their own core beliefs & their access to basic constitutional rights.” If we go ahead and assume he was talking about LGBTQ+ rights advocates, it sounds pretty good. Like I said, the rhetoric was less overtly hostile and marginally more inclusive than his usual fare—a low bar, to be sure—and parts of it coul…

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How “Gratitude” Underwrites Inequality, Power, and Exclusion

…le was emphatic that Christianity was the one thing standing in the way of free market capitalism taking over the United States and ruining the morals of the citizens. He saw Christianity as providing a check on market logics. There have been times when certain forms of Christianity—that of the Transcendentalists in the 1830s and 40s, for instance—exhibited the potential for a gospel of debt forgiveness to stand in opposition to the free market. B…

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Good (Enough) Christians — Russell Moore in The Atlantic Illustrates the Limitations of ‘Christian Nationalism’ as Category

…s of abortion rights and LGBTQ inclusion, can obtain “get out of criticism free” cards simply because they are outspoken opponents of Christian nationalism. Clearly we need better language to address anti-democratic Christian beliefs. So how does one responsibly cover Christian nationalists these days? To begin with, we must find language that doesn’t allow for the easy whitewashing of “respectable” Christians who hold authoritarian theological be…

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Russian Attack on LGBTs at UN Rejected; Gay Cake Controversy Rages in N. Ireland; Bishop Calls for Marriage Referendum in Puerto Rico; Global LGBT Recap

…reparative therapies that are either forced or coerced due to absence of a free and informed decision-making process, will be made illegal. Furthermore, citizens will not face any form of torture based on sexual orientation. Iran reiterates its commitment to protect those rights of recognized religious, ethnic and sexual minorities that are in accordance with its constitution, and conditions this statement on the fact that some may require amendme…

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Trump’s Fear and Loathing Won’t Silence The Nation’s Sole LGBT Muslim Organization

…e very survival of minority communities. As MASGD puts it, “none of us are free until all of us are free.” To get a sense of what motivates MASGD’s activism, particularly in the current political atmosphere, I interviewed four pioneers of the American LGBT Muslim movement: Faisal Alam, Urooj Arshad, Raquel E. Saraswati, and Tynan Power. These leaders are members of MASGD’s Steering Committee, and were gracious enough to discuss with me their appre…

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Lindsey Graham’s Lying “Eye-ranians”

…d strategically against ISIS. Shout out to Jeb Bush. I’m with you. (If the Iraqis didn’t have WMDs, how did Sayid Jarrah know how to disarm that nuke in the season 5 finale of Lost?) For Lindsey Graham is right. Iranians are a dangerous, nasty, evil people. All of them. For one thing, they don’t even have a word for ‘lying’ in their language, which is Islamic. In fact, when Senator Al Franken’s book was published in Iran, it had to be titled Irani…

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How U.S. Conservatives Conjured the Jesus of Their Dreams

…s many historians oversimplify by identifying Calvinism as the Ursprung of free market capitalism, Keddie more precisely singles out Arminianism, the deviation from orthodox Calvinism that reserved some room for human effort in the work of salvation. He pinpoints the crucial contribution of Hugo Grotius, whom the Dutch government locked up for his Arminian heresy, in laying the legal groundwork for unrestricted pursuit of private gain and the expl…

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Trump and Hindu Nationalism: A Match Made in Bollywood

…at all Indians must appropriate and live under. Together, the RHC and Modi promote a narrow vision of Hinduism in the guise of Indian culture locally and abroad. Modi’s government has increasingly used the country’s broad and vague laws restricting free speech to stifle many forms of dissent, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. In addition to providing vague “values” Trump allegedly shares with Hindu Americans—“hard work, education…

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Is Proselytizing Ever Okay? Are We All Proselytizing All The Time?

…ating my religion,” you should feel free to tell them that their religious freedom ends where your own religious freedom and moral autonomy begin. The fundamental fact remains that you haven’t asked them to change their mind about anything; you’ve only asked them to leave you alone. If we want to have a functional pluralist society at all, we need people, broadly, to respect such boundaries. Stalking and harassment shouldn’t get a pass simply beca…

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