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Why Republicans Don’t Think Obama Is Christian

By Sarah Posner

…rast Obama negatively with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a February 5, 2015 floor speech, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) called Netanyahu “one of the most prescient voices that we have in the entire world to address some of the subjects and some of the dangers that face the United States of America.” In contrast, Franks claimed, Obama “chooses to listen to these mysterious voices of those who did not vote in our Nation’s election,” yet “…

Islam is as American as…

By Peter Manseau

…com/O6IcSkxvy1 — peter manseau (@petermanseau) February 11, 2015 Islam is as American as dancing with dad at your wedding. pic.twitter.com/HZL7fRzWFC — peter manseau (@petermanseau) February 11, 2015 Islam is as American as pride and ambition. pic.twitter.com/ghycpAaTXo — peter manseau (@petermanseau) February 11, 2015…

Gingrich and Hagee, End-Times Buddies

By Sarah Posner

…ghul had already explained — with facts! — why Egypt is not Iran.) Also on February 7, Gingrich appeared on CNN to claim the Obama administration simply doesn’t understand the threat to America. He called the Obama administration “amateurish” and maintained the Muslim Brotherhood is the “mortal enemy of our civilization.” He added, “Their way is jihad, their method is death . . . .This administration, I think, does not have a clue about those real…

Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…led for investigations. Bosnia: Attack on gay film festival in Sarajevo On February 2, a group of 10 to 15 hooded people burst into a movie theater hosting an LGBT film festival “yelling and intimidating participants” and injuring three people. According to Agence France-Presse, Bosnia is a largely conservative Muslim country and the capital Sarajevo has usually been hostile towards hosting events linked to homosexuality. The only attempt to organ…

Romney not Precisely Familiar with Questioning Obama’s Faith, but Stands By It

By Sarah Posner

…ot remembering precisely or exactly. As reported by Politico yesterday, in February, during a Romney appearance on his show, Hannity played a clip of an Obama speech in which the president said, “Given the increasing diversity of America’s populations, the dangers of sectarianism are greater than ever. Whatever we once were we are no longer a Christian nation.” Obama was talking about religious pluralism, but Romney took it as a cue to question hi…

Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

By Mark D. Jordan

…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…

The Sacred and the Dead: Operator, Can You Help Me?

By Maren Haynes

…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…

In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

By Luke Whitmore

…(first as Uttaranchal) in 2000, the region has seen a massive rise in the number of visitors to the region, especially by the growing Indian middle class. Roads widened and hotels and visitor services grew exponentially. Building a new hotel or a restaurant by the side of the road felt like a smart investment—even when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing…

Yes, It’s Worse To Be Gay in Russia

By Chrissy Stroop

…bravery. The law that passed in June—which is, I think, best explained as cheap populist scapegoating—has served to activate and embolden widespread homophobia, which seems to me to have been previously often latent (the homophobia I encountered in Vladimir 10 years ago was none too aggressive). Phenomena like “Occupy Pedophilia” have appeared on the scene. Although it’s hard to say exactly how common anti-LGBT violence is in Russia, it should be…

Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris

…nks. You have to determine that on your own.” Haggard’s weekly Oval Office phone calls and grip and grin NAE photo ops with former President George W. Bush are now mere vestiges of an old life, prior to what he calls the “crisis.” At New Life, which Jeff Sharlet described as “not just a battalion of spiritual warriors but a factory for ideas to arm them,” worship services were extravagant multimedia, fog machine-choked productions, in which Haggar…