Religion Dispatches
…view among a group of evangelical thought leaders interviewed for the web site Breakpoint, Hunter Baker, a lawyer and political science professor at Union University, opined, “Kim Davis’s office is obligated to perform the state function of issuing wedding certificates. She disagrees that marriage can exist between two people of the same sex. I agree with her.” But, Baker maintained, “the state of Kentucky has little choice other than to respect…
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Read More…The open letter, written on a blog that bears no names or footprints (the site registration is private), lambasts Vander Plaats not only for his association with Gingrich, but for accepting Gingrich’s help in securing $200,000 in “seed money” for his campaign to oust judges who had ruled in favor of gay marriage. There’s something odd, though, to my eyes, about the phrasing in the Iowans for Christian Leaders in Government materials. Like it wasn…
Read More…ort by Maj. Frederick Wong, found on the Homeland Security Digital Library site, concludes that the overemphasis on Muslims blinds us to other forms of terrorism. Loonwatch uses data from the FBI to reveal that from 1980 to 2005, Muslim extremists committed approximately 5% of terrorist related attacks against America, roughly the same as Jewish extremists (6%). Eli Lake from Think Progress uses a data set from 1995 to 2011 to indicate that Muslim…
Read More…to view their neighbors with suspicion and distrust.” He is hopelessly outnumbered at National Review, where most of the writers and commenters weighing in are confused at Schmitz’ inability to perceive Muslim Americans as the collective Fifth Column everyone understands them to be. No one, however, is more outraged at Schmitz’ suggestion that anti-Muslim prejudice might be at work in the Shariah-panic industry than Yerushalmi, who writes, “To e…
Read More…rom the group Believe Out Loud, which wanted to place a video on their web site encouraging churches to open their doors, hearts, and minds to LGBT people. The ad that the magazine has accepted is a full page ad for the print magazine, and the only difference is the focus — but it is a difference that, well, makes a really big difference. The ad, sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Ali Forney Center focuses on th…
Read More…for allegedly supporting female genital mutilation (FGM). According to the site, Dr. Hatem al-Haj, a pediatrician at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, says of FGM: I have always condemned Female Genital Mutilation, or FGM. Moreover, I have unequivocally voiced both orally and in written form the condemnation of all harmful forms of Female Genital Cutting FGC, justifiably known as FGM. Furthermore, I have taught that nothing in Islamic Law and religiou…
Read More…nt to accomplish in a liberal democracy. The Women Speak for Themselves website elaborates: Those currently invoking “women’s health” in an attempt to shout down anyone who disagrees with forcing religious institutions or individuals to violate deeply held beliefs are more than a little mistaken, and more than a little dishonest. Even setting aside their simplistic equation of “costless” birth control with “equality,” note that they have never res…
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…ample in John Carroll’s Georgetown. Created at a time when Protestants outnumbered Catholics 20 to 1 in the U.S., Georgetown was from the outset not a site of challenge to religious liberty, but a testament to it—as it continues to be today. The religious liberty Georgetown represents, however, is not simply a matter of the right of each religious group to have its way. It is instead, like both the Church and the nation of which the university is…
Read More…it damages his reputation with his key demographic—journalists,” said Brian Kaylor, author of the book Presidential Campiagn Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional Politics and a contributing editor at Ethics Daily, a Baptist site critical of the religious right. “Land is much more influential among journalists as a ‘evangelical leader’ than he is with the average Southern Baptist in the pews. He has more say in newsrooms than sanctuaries.”…
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