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Let My Preachers Endorse: A Modest Church-State Proposal

By Michael Leo Owens

…gative, it’s their opinion, it’s their church,” observed a resident of the Texas town where Church in the Valley is located. True. But the law requires that, in return for public subsidies—tax exemptions and tax-deductibility for donations—all congregations like all other charities agree to public regulation of their electoral (and lobbying) activities. While some congregations consider it a violation of their religious freedom, it’s a constitutio…

An Immoderate Proposal: Sam Rodriguez, “Centrist” Evangelical, to Give Benediction at RNC

By Sarah Posner

…ers in protesting the opening of a Planned Parenthood facility in Houston, Texas, charging that the “spirit of Herod” was behind it and that “abortion is anti-Latino, anti-black and anti-life.” He continued to align himself with the Republican Party on reproductive and LGBT issues, even as evangelical promotion of immigration reform fell on deaf GOP ears. More recently, Rodriguez jumped on board the anti-contraception bandwagon, supporting conserv…

David Barton: Falling from Grace?

By Paul Harvey

…sible Barton-slayer Warren Throckmorton, who have called out Barton’s partisan pseudo-history, and at the same time more closely examine how and why the drumbeat of conservative criticism on “the mainstream media” left them partially unable to address directly the fraudulent nature of Barton’s enterprise. And the extent to which Barton’s now exposed pseudo-history will affect his political influence remains an open question. In the Nashville Tenne…

James Dobson and a Tale of Two Women

By Sarah Posner

…b in Texas this past weekend—the one that produced a consensus around Rick Santorum, which few observers think will result in a surge for Santorum. Wyler: Influential evangelical leader James Dobson set off the fireworks at this weekend’s Christian Right summit, giving a speech that lavished praise on Karen Santorum and asked whether Americans really wanted Callista Gingrich — “a woman who was a man’s mistress for eight years” — as their First Lad…

A Bill Passes, Westboro Baptists Shrug

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…oro Baptists, America tolerates homosexuality, as evidenced in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court case that overturned anti-sodomy laws. Once the United States, in defiance of God’s proclamation that homosexuality is “an abomination,” made same-sex contact legal, the nation became the enemy of God. And, as readers of the Old Testament know, a nation that is the enemy of God will find its armies destroyed. To preach this message to the world…

Christian Terrorism Comes to Milwaukee

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…Colorado, served in the army from 1992 to 1998, stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Initially he was a sergeant as a repairman for the Hawk missile system. Then he became a specialist in “psyops”—psychological operations. Though it is not clear what Page did in this branch of the service, in general psyops attempts to influence an enemy or a foreign audience through propaganda or other means of influencing attitudes….

GOP v. GOP on LGBT

By Peter Montgomery

…ization for Marriage recognizes the appeal of a libertarian message. NOM’s number-one poll-tested message, repeated over and over again by its spokespeople, is this: “Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose, they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.” Of course, the religious right allies who help NOM pass anti-gay constitutional amendments don’t really believe gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose—…

Constitutional Scholar Marie Ashe on Religious Freedom and Women

By Sarah Posner

…give a shout-out to RD contributor Lauri Lebo, who wrote about how in the Texas textbook wars, revisionists sought to excise mention of Hutchinson from public school history books because she “‘didn’t accomplish anything except getting herself exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for making trouble.’ (emphasis added).”) If you’re interested in more recent developments, in this clip we discuss how while Roe and church-state separation have bee…

Conservative Christian Anti-Abortion Hero is Neither Christian nor Anti-Abortion

By Lindsay Beyerstein

…rtion. Yet conservative groups, including National Right to Life and the Susan B. Anthony List, continue to use Chen’s struggle against forced abortions in China to further pro-life politics in the U.S. Unfortunately, Chen’s own political statements aren’t really giving them much to work with. First, conservative media critic Terry Mattingly hailed Chen as a Christian pro-lifer, and accused mainstream media coverage of missing the “faith angle”—un…

Oklahoma Supreme Court Unanimously Blocks Personhood Ballot Initiative UPDATED

By Katie Toth

…d by Mississippi voters last year. When former presidential candidate Rick Santorum made a campaign stop in Oklahoma in March, he added his own signature to a draft version of the Oklahoma ballot initiative. However, shortly after Personhood Oklahoma filed the ballot initiative, a lawsuit was brought forward by the the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, on behalf of six Oklahoma residents,…