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Why the Media and Democrats Should Reject the Christian Right’s Pearl-Clutching and Address Problematic Religious Views

By Chrissy Stroop

…do not share them must be on the table in a fair, democratic society: Like freedom of the press, religious freedom is an important First Amendment right. But when believers use their faith as a bludgeon to attack othered groups and to prevent equal accommodation of members of those groups in the public square, we have moved beyond the bounds of a truly democratic approach to pluralism. To be sure, some media coverage is directing critical attentio…

Does Helen Thomas Work for Israel?

By Shaul Magid

…as one of the largest Israeli diasporas in the world, only exceeded by the United States. Israel has better relations with Germany than any other country in the EU, while ultra-Orthodox Jews have been returning to Poland and Hungary and purchasing property once owned by Jews before the war. The famous Yeshivat Hokhmei Lublin, for example (which became a Nursing School during and after the Nazi occupation), is now in Jewish hands again. Head for th…

Norwegian Catholic Church May Stop Civil Marriages; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ric Metaxas and Jeffery Ventrella, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom. Gay rights leaders have called for the Treasurer to pull out of the event and have warned that the Australian Christian Lobby’s alignment with the US group is a sign it plans to step up its campaign against the LGBTI community. “This is a group that is leading the legal fight to deny the human rights of LGBTI people around the world and we should all be deeply conc…

What’s Wrong with Wright’s Words

By Andrew Murphy

…of September 11 can be traced to some basic consequences of something the United States, as a political entity, did. For Falwell it was secularizing the public square and legalizing abortion. For Wright, it was supporting state terrorism and using atomic weapons. To be sure, Falwell was widely criticized for his remarks, and issued a rather tepid apology. But he certainly was not repudiated or renounced by leading Republicans. To the contrary, Jo…

Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…o” is not cheap hyperbole, if you consider the history of Catholics in the United States. The US Catholic hospital system grew up in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; largely under the care of women’s religious orders, and largely to serve the poor. (Read about a few of the women who helped build Catholic health care.) The surrounding cultural landscape could be profoundly, hatefully anti-Catholic. Catholics found their rituals…

“Cult” Cinema Comes of Age

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…or who strikes it rich through oil and blood, but about the rebirth of the United States as a world force at the start of the twentieth century. And his first great film, Boogie Nights, is about a porn star, but also a cultural history moving from the 1970s to the Reaganite ’80s, and shifting attitudes toward sex, drugs, and rock and roll. He’s a great filmmaker, with a brilliant grasp of imagery (even the choice to shoot much of the film in 65mm…

New Report Shows Dems are Far More Religiously Diverse Than GOP — Though One (A)religious Group Remains Woefully Underrepresented

By Chrissy Stroop

…tates, while many red states resemble Wyoming, where pronghorn antelope outnumber humans. When it comes to the inclusion of secular Americans in government, however, the Democratic Party can also be blamed for undue negligence toward one of its most loyal demographics. Despite some progress in recent years, Democratic leaders evidently continue to be fearful that association with a lack of religion will cost the party votes. But so long as the par…

White Christian Complaints About Religious Persecution Are Especially Ugly on MLK Day

By Sunnivie Brydum

…mpted the creation of this nation’s first legislative defense of religious freedom. As Monday’s blog post by Americans United for Separation of Church and State explains, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom paved the way for modern bills at the state and federal level intended to protect religious freedom, and even informed the crafting of the First Amendment. The bill was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who grew incen…

Layoffs on the Religious Right

By Bill Berkowitz

…crisis Go here for complete results. ++++++++++ Rev. Moon’s Plans for the United Nations “Mr. Moon, an eccentric billionaire, convicted tax cheat, conservative publisher and power broker, grandly donned scarlet robes and a golden crown at the Dirksen Office Building. ‘I am God’s ambassador, sent to earth with his full authority,’ he announced.” New York Times editorial, June 27, 2004 To some, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon may be a relic of a bygone…

New Book by Olivier Roy Argues that Aggressive Attempts to Christianize the West Actually Hasten Secularism

By Ivan Strenski

…Sunday services have tumbled into the single digits, and roughly the same number disavow belief in major Christian doctrines. Despite the political impact of white evangelicals, and the United States’ claim to being exceptional in escaping Western Europe’s radical de-Christianization, Gallup reports that fewer than 50% of Americans declare membership in a church, synagogue, or mosque. Yet, despite the decline of organized religion, the latest boo…