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Updated: G-O-D Plays a Bit Part in First GOP Debate

By Daniel Schultz

…en for thinking that Reagan was God, or at least a patron saint, given the number of times he was name-checked in the debate. Mostly it went like this. The candidates did talk about hot-button social issues, but they held back from claiming religious sponsorship of their ideas. It’s not clear if they’d gotten the memo about not antagonizing religiously unaffiliated voters, or if they simply didn’t see much advantage in differentiating themselves a…

Who Would the Buddha Bomb?

By Danny Fisher

…our own motives and aspiring to reduce harm and suffering for the greatest number of those at risk.” Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, another notable teacher and translator in the Theravada tradition, disagreed vehemently with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s position, writing a lengthy letter to Inquiring Mind in which he outlined various objections. “The common view—that murderous force is an unfortunate but necessary last resort—is what has caused so much money, time a…

Mormon Leaders Slam ‘Counterfeit’ Gay Families; Vatican Resists Gay Ambassador; ISIS Executes Man for Homosexuality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…‘family shame’ and violence Reuters’ Alisa Tang reported this week on the number of LGBT people in “largely patriarachal and conservative” Asian countries who are flocking to cities and increasingly leaving their home countries to escape the “family shame factor” and live more freely. Activists say including sexual orientation and gender identity in laws, policies and programs to prevent violence against women and children would reduce family vio…

Harry Reid vs. Islamic Cultural Center

By Joanna Brooks

…t’s not a proud day for freedom of religion when a prominent member of the number two most disliked major religion in America effectively sides against a honest project by the number one most disliked major religion in America. Especially when Mormons have just recently come through our own years-long struggle to build an LDS temple in Center City Philadelphia after Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter tried to extract a six-figure sum from the Churc…

Single, But Married To Jesus

By Anthea Butler

…Having a husband meant that they could not give their ultimate all for the number one man on most African-American womens’ lips, and it’s not Denzel. It’s Jesus. For many women in churches like COGIC, being in love with Jesus means that most other men, whether desirable as a husband or not, stood in the way of the number one relationship. One person I interviewed even had a name for it: “being loosed” from your husband to do the Lord’s work. “Bein…

New Report: Angels & Aliens in Texas Schools

By Mark A. Chancey

…them. That’s what severed the relationship. Academic Quality A surprising number of courses asked little more of students than to memorize Bible verses or learn basic details of biblical stories so that they could fill in the blanks on tests. Some made very questionable choices about the use of classroom time, such as the course that spent two days watching “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic…

Conservative Evangelical Eric Metaxas, Doing Twitter Theology, Claims ‘Jesus Was White’

By Eric Vanden Eykel

…te this, Metaxas’s tweet has been severely “ratioed,” which means that the number of responses far exceeds the number of “likes” and retweets. This is generally an indication that a tweet’s contents are either deeply controversial or profoundly ignorant (or both). In short: Twitter users have pushed back on Metaxas, and they’ve pushed back hard. In response he’s deployed a Trump-ian combination of backpedaling and doubling down on his initial clai…

Warships, Animals, Pubs Eligible For Blessings From Church of England, But Not Same-Sex Couples; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…f and is believed to have supported the arrest, detention and torture of a number of people on suspicion of homosexuality by the country’s National Intelligence Agency. While Barrow has so-far espoused a far more democratic and human rights based approach than his predecessor, his views on homosexuality have never been publicly expressed, until now. His reported comments do not quite suggest that he is planning to decriminalise homosexuality, but…

Constitutional Progressives Take Critical Fight to Tea Party

By Sarah Posner

…izens; that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional; that regulation of business is contrary to constitutional principles and “liberty;” and in some extreme cases, that secession may be necessary. Conservatives are big on touting themselves as “constitutional conservatives,” signaling their hostility, in short, to 20th century legislative reforms and jurisprudence and, in some cases, the very purposes of the post-Civil War amendments to the Con…

St. Paul’s Cathedral Leadership Gutted as Occupy London Controversy Grows

By Theo Hobson

…f the protest, while fervently praying that it would not disrupt cathedral business for much longer. The tense situation exploded last Thursday when the cathedral decided to initiate legal proceedings to evict the protesters. Fraser resigned from his post in protest at the risk of “violence in the name of the Church”—and so became the hero of the movement, a sort of Friar Tuck. It is also thought that he had written a report on the ethics of the f…