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Looking at Death: Images of 9/11, Before, During, and After

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…nt symbolic role. The essay, published shortly after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, reflects many then-current (but also prescient) ideas about how we relate to postmodern, post-industrial, post-Cold War secular life; and the symbolic possibilities for grief and community within this new world order. I want to pick up on Muschamp’s insights about “images of a collective experience,” their “otherwise elusive” nature, and how this provides “s…

Constitutional Progressives Take Critical Fight to Tea Party

By Sarah Posner

…, in the words of Doug Kendall, president of Constitutional Accountability Center, which is spearheading the effort, an antidote to the right’s “attempt to weaponize the Constitution for political purposes.” The Constitution, said Kendall, “is and should be a document that unites Americans rather than divides us along ideological lines.” The group has written The Whole Constitution Pledge for supporters to sign, which affirms that amendments to th…

The Sad Saga of a Compromised Rabbi

By Shaul Magid

…nquisitional. One particular critique by Rabbi Daniel Gordis of the Shalem Center, a right-leaning think-tank in Jerusalem, contends that Beinart “detests Israel.” Any honest reader of A Crisis of Zionism will not come away thinking its author detests Israel. I won’t burden readers with Gordis’ argument (I encourage those interested to read it and judge for themselves); my point here is not to engage these claims, in large part because we all know…

Hobby Lobby Does Not Compel Anti-LGBT Religious Exemption, Legal Scholars Tell Obama

By Sarah Posner

…0 legal scholars have signed a letter organized by the Columbia Law School Center for Gender and Sexuality Law Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, urging President Obama not to include a religious exemption in his planned executive order barring anti-LGBT discrimination in hiring by federal contractors. Calling the proposed exemption “unprecedented” and “not required” under either the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment or the Religi…

Hypocritical Freakout over Shari’ah, but Not Biblical Law

By Sarah Posner

…y were entitled to be exempt from a federal law that virtually every other American had to comply with. (To be clear, there are serious legal and political questions about whether any religious group is entitled to such an exemption, barring a demonstration of a burden on their religious practices.) Imagine that the Muslim president of that imaginary organization had, like Lansberry has, accused the federal government of stealing the public’s mone…

Civility, Thy Name is Brian Brown

By Peter Montgomery

…and to denounce as unacceptable and irresponsible the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of FRC as a hate group. Jeremy Hooper at Good as You reports that Brown has followed up with a fundraising letter that decries “the violent and hateful tactics of intimidation being pursued every day by gay ‘marriage’ thugs and activists.” Brown declares, “We’re not going to allow gay activists to get away with attempted murder.” So THAT’s what civility…

Religious Right Prays To Lift Curse Of Obama, Glenn Beck’s Commencement Speech, And A Cross In The Desert: The Week In Religion, Poetically

By Christopher Marchsteiner

…e called the decision a disappointment while the Alliance Defense Fund and American Center for Law and Justice applauded the decision, the latter calling it “a victory against anti-religious hysteria.” People for the American Way called the decision “misguided and shortsighted,” adding that its “creation of a loophole allowing for a religious display in a federally owned park was a clear violation of the spirit of the Establishment Clause, and an…

New Poll Finds “Growing Appetite” for Mixing Religion and Politics

By Sarah Posner

…y three-quarters (72%) of respondents believe the influence of religion in American society is waning—but that most view that decline as a negative development. “Perhaps as a consequence,” the Pew researchers conclude, “a growing share of the American public wants religion to play a role in U.S. politics.” Those affiliated with a religion, particularly evangelicals, Protestants, and Catholics, “have become significantly more supportive of churches…

Obama’s Religion Ambassador: Inexperienced?

By Anthea Butler

…of State. As someone who has written about the civic engagement of African-American women in my latest book, Rev. Cook’s scattered resumé lacks the distinction of other notable black women historically involved in both religious affairs and international engagement, such as Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, civil rights leader, and founder of the National Council of Negro Women, or Sue Bailey Thurman, who was committed to inter-religious and interrac…

New Report: Muslim Terrorism a ‘Minuscule Threat’

By Hussein Rashid

…. Per annum, it is 0.001%. If we take a more realistic number of 4 million American Muslims, the numbers become 0.005% over a decade, or 0.0005% per year. Last year there were 14,000 homicides in the U.S., and with a population of 300,000,000, that’s about 0.0005% of the population are murderers. The report ends with this sage advice: “This study’s findings challenge Americans to be vigilant against the threat of homegrown terrorism while maintain…