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What Happens When An American President Believes He is Above the Law?

…victed for doing his job.” He has, moreover, encouraged police officers to use violence on suspects. “Why show restraint?” the American president repeatedly asked police officers in Long Island, equating roughing up of suspects with the enforcement of law. And it is an equation: for Trump, as for Arpaio, unchecked power—the violence of the state, aimed at citizens, at journalists, or at “illegals”—is not merely a prerogative, it is a good. This is…

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Sara Hurwitz’s ‘Rabba’ Title Sparks Orthodox Jewish Condemnation

…thin Orthodoxy arguing for the ordination of women, among them Orthodox rebbetzin Blu Greenberg, who’s been outspoken on the need for Orthodox women’s ordination since the 1980s. Though Orthodox gender rules preclude women leading mixed-gender worship, the role of rabbi includes many other functions which women can perform even within an Orthodox framework—and there’s nothing in halakha (Jewish law) which explicitly prohibits women’s ordination. A…

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Did the Pope Claim Gay Marriage as a Threat to Humanity or Didn’t He?

…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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Double Helix: The Environment Is the Economy

…ng environmental issues (or letting them be made) into liberal political causes, instead of working together to ensure they are societal—scientific and religious—foundational causes. We have failed by not working together to develop local, integrated approaches to making our neighborhoods and communities better places to live. Instead, the great majority of science research dollars go into ‘pill design’: it’s already screwed up, so let’s design a…

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Water Water Everywhere

…me to wash with water in addition to drying with toilet paper every time I use the toilet. This is known as istinjaa’. In my fundamentalist days, I used to carry my own little cosmetic bottle to fill at the sink before entering a public toilet outside of the Muslim world. But in my minimalist old days, I may suffer the loss, but I manage without it. That’s why I love bathrooms in the Muslim world, which tend to have this nifty little hose attached…

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The Politics of Anti-Gay Persecution: Gambia, Egypt, Jamaica, Russia, with a Helping Hand from US Religious Conservatives; Global LGBT Recap

…Islamist factions. Morals police reportedly arrested men at a Cairo bathhouse on Sunday and accused them of “perversions.” A reporter for a pro-regime TV channel that instigated the raid gloated over the arrest and posted photographs of the men on Facebook. At the Guardian, Brian Whitaker examines the ways Egyptian governments have made political use out of anti-gay persecution, “even though homosexuality is not actually illegal in Egypt.” He rec…

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SCOTUS’s Incoherent Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision

…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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Catholic Church Bans Gay Film: This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

…el Lavers. The petition — which an anonymous person posted on Tuesday — accuses Brewster of promoting “an LGBT agenda inconsistent with the Christian cultural values and tradition of the Dominican Republic.” It specifically criticizes Brewster and his husband, Bob Satawake, for visiting a school. The petition also notes the two men “supported” last week’s official launch of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s latest international af…

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Repurposing the Gospel Aura: Eminem’s Chrysler Ad Borrows Some Spirit

…gainst homophobia with the soul in bondage striving after the salvation of freedom in the Civil Rights era. And then there are any number of other mainstream movies that in one fashion or another use the crossover hit, “Oh Happy Day,” what one reader at my blog aptly suggested could be retitled “the only black gospel song Hollywood knows.” For only one of the most recent examples of this phenomenon, see Disney’s Secretariat (2010), in which a mont…

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Kim Davis, County Clerk, is Not a Person

…her moral person? No need to worry about an Eichmann scenario of claiming freedom of moral responsibility because one was just doing one’s job. Both as a legal fiction and as a real person, Eichmann identified with a job that was itself immoral and unjust. Giving out marriage licenses is not in itself evil. Yet, while Kim Davis is still required to sign the name of her moral person to official documents, she still fears implicating her moral pers…

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