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White House Unveils Contraception Accommodation Plan [UPDATED]

By Sarah Posner

…ves. They could, perhaps, use premiums from non-religious employers. Those businesses wouldn’t likely object on faith-based grounds, but they probably wouldn’t be keen on footing the bill for people who aren’t on their payrolls. FURTHER UPDATE: Statement from the USCCB: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sees initial opportunities in preserving the principle of religious freedom after President Obama’s announcement today. But…

Occupy’s Sacred Mob and the Politics of Vagrancy

By Vincent Gonzalez

…residents of our plaza, form bonds of affinity and mutual aid with “middle-class” protesters. But simultaneously, differences in tactics, language, and aesthetics regularly cause people to wander back to their more homogenous political enclaves. From all sides, our affiliation flickers between attraction and repulsion. A politics of vagrancy seems to accelerate the apathy of strangers toward the love/hate of family. At the center, the call to near…

Liberals Enabled Bishops in Contraception Battle

By Sarah Posner

…was it legally supportable, it was politically supported by a majority of Americans. Nonetheless, the objectors to the contraception coverage requirement claimed that even though it exempted houses of worship, the regulation should also exempt religious institutions whose hierarchies believe contraception is a sin. Friday’s accommodation, in theory, doesn’t seem to impede womens’ access to contraceptive coverage, and if so may be harmless in prac…

Fake Rabbi Showdown

By Peter Manseau

…bbat—and he’d just flown in for the occasion. The next day, he handed me a business card that read, “Rabbi Dr. Mordehi Waldman: Have Shofar Will Travel.” He had enjoyed 15 minutes of fame a few years back, when he appeared at a reception held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and blew his shofar to announce the coming of the messiah just before Moon had himself crowned “humanity’s Savior” and “returning Lord.” After journalist John Gorenfeld w…

Where Do “Sacred” Values Live in the Brain?

By Arri Eisen

…s realistic a way as possible. Berns et al, after identifying through more classical psychological surveying means what participants’ sacred values were, offered participants increasing amounts of real money to go against those values—or rather to sign a document that said they would go against it. The scientists couldn’t ethically challenge the actual sacred value, but they could challenge the participants’ integrity in relation to that value. Th…

How Anne Frank Turned Up At Occupy

By Peter Manseau

…hile Auslander played it unabashedly for yucks, for Englander it’s serious business—because, really, what if? For Auslander, Englander, and Roth, what we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank is mainly a question of Jewish identity. Yet Jeff Mangum’s performance, and the chorus that greeted him when he asked the occupiers to sing along his ode to “the only girl I ever loved,” suggests that Anne Frank has also come to mean something else. Transl…

Newt Gingrich Visits the “Holy Ghost Bartender”

By Sarah Posner

…—- I could smell them blindfolded, man….You could see, last night we meant business.” He labeled his critics “idiots” and warned that they were about to experience either “riot or revival.” Four years ago, John McCain had a “pastor problem” because of the controversial and bigoted statements made by his endorsers John Hagee and Rod Parsley. McCain responded by rejecting their endorsements and distancing himself from them. It’s hard to imagine Newt…

Which One Has the Religion Problem, Gingrich or Romney?

By Sarah Posner

…Carolinians. “I’d like to believe that’s not the issue,” Huckabee told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto. “Four years ago, I was accused of making it an issue. It wasn’t for me then, it isn’t for me now. I would no more not vote for someone because they were Mormon than I would vote for somebody like Al Gore because he’s a Baptist, for heaven’s sake. I think that’s a ridiculous reason to vote or not vote for someone, unless they’ve done something that…

Gingrich, Historian, Religionist, Fails Own MLK Weekend Test

By Sarah Posner

…ential Christian core, and in particular someone who taught history in the American south. He launched straight to economic issues, offering his “solutions” to create jobs by drilling for offshore natural gas and modernizing the Port of Charleston for when the Panama Canal is expanded. But justice? Totally absent. The audience didn’t care about Gingrich’s “solutions.” The first question out of the box came from a gentleman who wanted to know, quit…

Missing the Forest for the Witches

By Joseph Laycock

…e on Paganism. By banning the categories into which minority religions are classified, the library’s policy appears to violate the Constitution’s establishment clause. By extension, it would be unconstitutional for any government agency to use Netsweeper to censor public access to “occult” sites. However, Netsweeper is a global corporation and thus not particularly concerned with the United States Constitution. In fact, much of their business come…