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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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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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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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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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No Presidential Magic When it Comes to Oil Spill

…lling in the Gulf brings the power of great destruction. And, even when we use our best resources to contain the damage, we seem to do more. Jacques Cousteau’s son, Jean-Michel, reported that the use of the dispersants that were meant to lessen the impact of the oil have only made things worse. They have changed the specific gravity of the oil so that it no longer floats on the surface but lurks beneath, destroying plants and animals into the dept…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Three Ways to American Beauty

…n environment,’ which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” ~Music Promoter Bill Graham, April 29, 1971 One sentence, spoken by an anonymous “usher” to a maverick producer who then riffed to boisterous audience at the Fillmore East—all the words spoken then say more than any of us digitally-connected folk will be able to say. But as Bill Graham tells it, “you can use sentences and sentences,” so we might as well try. I nominate the Gratefu…

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In His ‘Forgiveness Day’ Sermon — a Slightly More Sophisticated ‘GloboHomo’ Rant — Kirill Lays Out an Authoritarian Vision in Which His Version of God Might Dominate and Rule the Human Race

…tique of freedom, suggesting that the people of Donbas rightly opposed the freedom of western civilization because it brought with it a test of faithfulness to God—i.e. pride parades (это гей-парад). By not giving in to this sin, Kirill argues that Donbas (and seemingly Russia as well) are thus strangers to the world (то они не входят в тот мир, они становятся для него чужими.), not welcome in the West because of their oppositional stances on prid…

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