Religion Dispatches
…has upheld and every Democrat reversed, prohibits, by executive order, the use of U.S. family planning funds to NGOs abroad who use other funds to provide abortions or even referrals to abortion providers. It’s widely seen by reproductive health advocates, as Population Action International puts it, as “eroding family planning and reproductive health services in developing countries. There is no evidence that it has reduced the incidence of aborti…
Read More…bout promoting tobacco in countries which had no or few regulations on the promotion or use of tobacco products. In fact, the documents show that this was the clear objective of American tobacco companies who were facing declining sales at home due to increased government regulations and scrutiny. Romney has spoken of his personal disdain for tobacco, revealing that in his entire life he smoked only one cigarette—when he was a teenager. Growing up…
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…issue. Part of the intent of the book is to give people the words they can use when someone challenges them about being supportive they have some notion of what to say. My hope is to give them a sample of the kinds of words they can use when they are challenged. Why is marriage so important for gay and lesbian people, and why should straight people be supportive? This is about achieving full and equal rights, and it has as much to do with respect…
Read More…to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others. It’s simply a factual statement followed by an anodyne opinion. I don’t think people should use their religion to hurt others, either. Does that make me a bigot? The broader point here is that Kennedy’s reasoning is simply incoherent. There is no way for government to remain “strictly neutral” when it comes to religious values. B…
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…th-based institutions explicitly subject” to California non-discrimination codes. Of course, that’s because non-faith-based institutions are already subject to the state and federal anti-discrimination laws. “The targets of this bill are religious colleges and universities, but the true victims of this legislation would be the innocent students,” wrote California Assemblyman Matthew Harper early last month. Since the anti-discrimination requiremen…
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…eaucracy is arrogant, secretive, suspicious of outsiders, and given to the use of almost impenetrable jargon. Sometimes, as a journalist, you have to explain what they mean. But none of this explains, still less excuses, the claim that he had said gay marriage was a threat that undermined the future of humanity. He didn’t. Well, did he or didn’t he? Shouldn’t be that hard to check. Here’s what the Reuters story said: Pope Benedict said on Monday t…
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…t of Aurillac made me realize that the major conflicts in our world today, between Christianity and Islam, between religion and science, are not inevitable and inescapable. His story taught me that a world based on peace, tolerance, law, and the love of learning was not a fantasy world—not an alternate universe after all. For a short period of time around the year 1000, it did exist. In the course of my quest to discover The Scientist Pope, I…
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…‘elder brother’—Esau—is also the brother who gets rejected. One can still use it, because it expresses an important point. But it is true that they are also our ‘fathers in the faith.’ And this way of putting it illustrates perhaps even more clearly the character of our relationship to each other. Still, in regard to what may be the most contentious issue of all—the beatification process for Pope Pius XII, who reigned during the Holocaust—Benedic…
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…lain any unfamiliar terminology. I hope that readers will come away with a better understanding of the complexities of the use of the term “womanist” and womanist work. What alternative title would you give the book? I’m happy with the title suggested by my editor, since it describes the contents of the book. Not All Black Women would be a cute title to drive home the point that not all Black women identify as womanists, but it doesn’t capture the…
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…and on this issue. Our Baptist forefathers went to prison and died for the freedoms that we have, and now it’s our responsibility in the providence of God to defend these freedoms lest they be taken away by government fiat.” And it extends far beyond the so-called “social issues.” The “take action” portion of the Commission’s website urges followers to contact Congress on the full panoply of issues that preoccupy the Republican right, representing…
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