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What a Forgotten 19th Century Suffragist Can Teach Us About Women’s Rights vs. The Religious Right

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…sm against itself to find new approaches to the ancient myths. At the same time the new religious movements of Spiritualism and Theosophy, both founded by women, gave her new channels to understand a revived sense of the sacred. Among a significant minority of thinkers of her age, Gage also recognized that she was living in lands that continued to be inhabited by native people, and she turned to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) societies, finding a st…

Devil’s Bookmark: How Not to Defend God

By Bernard Schweizer

…and binding upon all humans and all cultures.” So, it’s a document of its times, after all. Who would seriously go out to stone Buddhists for believing in “idols” or kill shoppers for violating the Sabbath? OK, but the problem with the relativistic excuse is that it undermines the divine, supreme, and righteous status of the supernatural author of these laws. Try to tell Antonin Scalia that the Decalogue is relative, a document of its time! Inevi…

What is Juneteenth to America? It Has to Be More Than ‘Black 4th of July’ if It’s to Be Truly Meaningful

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…manently lost. Prophets such as Douglass, King, and Baldwin have warned us time and time again that the nation cannot continue on this path and remain whole, though all have gone unheeded, ignored, or even turned into “a flattering mirror.” These individuals spoke the language of a greater moral sense and duty that’s often understood as American civil religion. Sociologist Robert Bellah defined civil religion as “a collection of beliefs, symbols,…

Be Prepared: Preachers’ Daughters, Episode Eight

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…able in your area—both its presence and its quality. Getting the names and numbers for referrals is a good first step, but you can do much more than that. Which counselors in the area can be trusted not to blame a victim for his or her own abuse? Which social workers and police officers are most responsive to domestic violence reports? Which therapists have sliding fees for young people who have a hard time affording treatment? Ask around, find ou…

Anti-Trans Bus Tour Is Not Very Welcome In Spanish Cities; Gay Rights As A Weapon In Nationalist War On Muslims; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hurches’ changes to the gender policy have been approved by the government time after time. Yet every time we get the latest version back from the government, some if not all of our approved changes are missing. Now we want to go to the public for a vote on four constitutional amendments, so that the necessary changes will be fixed beyond cabinet or judicial reach. Specifically the amendments are: (1) sex defined as male and female only. (2) Marri…

When You Argue With a Fundamentalist You Don’t Know What You’re Asking For

By Nelle Smith

…be in it for the long haul—my experience is evidence that everyday human kindness can absolutely be the catalyst for change. Misconceptions can be worn down by the substantive grit of a real story. But know that it takes time. It takes lots of time. And, in the end, you should be realistic: for many who grew up as I did, the cost of leaving their worldview, community, and reality will simply be too great, no matter what you say or do….

Why Go to Church If You Don’t Believe Anymore?

By Angela Bonavoglia

…ome. But this year, unlike other years (that year when, hope renewed for a time, I wrote a book celebrating what courageous women were doing to change this punishing, patriarchal church), this year, my faith is gone. I can see a time when this awesome church will be an awesome museum, a monument to beliefs long discredited, as alien to future human beings as the gods of Greek mythology are to us. But this journey, this way of the cross, symbolizes…

Coming Out Twice: Sexuality and Gender in Islam

By Susan Henking

…institutions that got critiqued in serious ways by progressives in my lifetime. Is the best world we can imagine one where LGBT persons can join these two problematic institutions? I agree with you on this. But I see the issue of marriage equality as an important indication of human rights and social tolerance. I favor marriage equality because those who want to marry deserve the chance to do so, whether they have opposite-gender partners or same…

A Memoir of Jewish, Transgender Spirituality

By Joy Ladin

…ss — I couldn’t help but smile when I was looking at her — and had a great time doing the photo shoot on the roof of my girlfriend’s building on Manhattan’s upper west side. More importantly, I now understand why my press thought it was important to have my face on the cover. A number of reviewers and readers have said that it would have been tough to read through the pain and trauma the book details if they didn’t know the result was the smiling…

Is Norway’s Suspected Murderer Anders Breivik a Christian Terrorist?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…rrorist, Breivik and McVeigh are surely Christian ones. Breivik was fascinated with the Crusades and imagined himself to be a member of the Knights Templar, the crusader army of a thousand years ago. But in an imagined cosmic warfare time is suspended, and history is transcended as the activists imagine themselves to be acting out timeless roles in a sacred drama. The tragedy is that these religious fantasies are played out in real time, with real…