Religion Dispatches
…rn it into a political issue, by elevating questions about LGBT rights and access to reproductive care as violations of their religious freedom, which — constitutionally — it is not. Read the whole thing here. …
Read More…nearly as important as what unites us. We are all humans and all precious children of God, however we understand Him/Her/Them. Because we are all human, we are on the same level, and we deserve the same respect and should enjoy the same rights and protections of the law. But that same respect has to be extended even to people who disagree with us. While it may be pleasurable to cast our political opponents as true enemies and to vilify them as suc…
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…offices on April 15. This year, others are joining in. (See, for example, this site, which draws on the historic role of tax resisters in the effort to obtain woman suffrage and points to an argument made then by a gay man.) Quakers, who were historic leaders in LGBTQ rights (even I remember their early pamphlets on this topic), remind us that war and LGBT rights are not unrelated. They ask: “Is Opposing the War an LGBT Issue?” The answer, while c…
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…to a lesser extent our current moral moment on LGBT equality—are times in which this civil religion becomes more apparent, for better or for worse. Certainly, more radical activists find the very notion deplorable, and argue that the state should get out of the marriage business (for example) entirely. But they are on the fringe, and I think they’ll stay there. For the vast majority of Americans, our country is a place in which ethical values are…
Read More…w expressed his intention to file the suit on the last day of 2008 in a Washington, DC, District Court. Newdow has done this all before, unsuccessfully, in anticipation of the Bush inaugurals in 2001 and 2005. Why, then, is he undertaking this thankless legal labor again? The short answer is because he is on strong constitutional footing when he does so. As I noted in a column in the summer of 2008, the US Constitution quotes precisely how the pre…
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…atthew 19:3–6. In this passage, Jesus quotes from Genesis in the course of his teachings on marriage and divorce: “[God] made them male and female.” For many conservative Christians, this verse shows that Jesus deemed gender biological and binary and that he sanctioned only heterosexual marriages as legitimate. Republican influencers’ interpretations of this verse undergird Christian transphobia and homophobia ranging from Jerry Falwell’s berating…
Read More…ts seem to be failing to get to the heart of digital violence’s complex blurring of idea and action, maybe it’s time for religious and philosophical thinkers to step up to the plate….
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…e venue and almost 20 years to the day from the last show the Dead played while their chieftain Jerry Garcia was still alive— what was virtual becomes a physical third place, a festival where community, identity, and bonds of kinship are forged. A special series on religion and culture produced in collaboration with the Office of Religious Life at the University of Southern California While the location changed from concert to concert, Deadheads f…
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…n in the politically rudderless decades that followed his assassination. (White himself becomes the symbol of the most difficult-to-embrace aspects of gay liberation—one’s disowned, despised, and fragmentary self.) The film thus leaves the viewer to consider the direction of the modern gay liberation movement. Where do we go from here? Milk underscores the importance of combining the dual strategies of carrying the torch—in the streets, the courts…
Read More…egy to pave the way for Mitt Romney’s 2012 run. Unlikely. (And anyone who thinks Mormons are placing all their eggs in Mitt Romney’s basket hasn’t heard of Jon Huntsman.) Meanwhile, progressive Church members themselves are trying to reconcile the new mormon.org image with some of the realities they’ve experienced in their own tradition. As John Dehlin asks at the blog Mormon Matters, “Let’s say that a young, hip, progressive, yuppy, affluent, i…
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