Religion Dispatches
…outreach to the kids who attend Harvey Milk school, teaching LGBT youth to use art for self-expression. And they offer single-stall unisex bathrooms that allow transgendered people to use the facilities without trouble. Varghese offers a different perspective noting that in some feminist circles, a female who transitions into a male is perceived as caving in to the patriarchal narrative. In these settings, straight women often find themselves ost…
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…hy sexual and reproductive lives. Catholic hospitals are, at times, caught between the devil and a hard place; between the bishops and the state. And so, I have been trying to understand why the CHA, which knows full well that opposition to providing contraceptive and sterilization services is not the same as insuring those services, has joined the bishops in this fight. More importantly, it remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will…
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…fghanistan: Controversy over US policy of not interfering with child sex abuse by allies The New York Times reported last weekend that American military personnel and civilians serving in Afghanistan have been required to look the other way as prominent Afghan allies participated in the rape of young boys, part of a broader practice of looking the other way regarding corruption and misdeeds in order not to undercut the fight against the Taliban. P…
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…is now squarely associated with the notions of limited government and the free market. (Ironically, because the Church views traditional marriage as a pre-governmental institution, it therefore holds that the “right” to same-sex marriage is less about loosening government intrusion than it is an expansion of government power over private lives, a critique it shares with radical queer thinkers—though the “alliance” goes no further than that.) A c…
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…ess to translate the Nazi Gun Control Act of 1938 into English so he could use it for the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968, and more generally insists that the citizenry needs to be armed against government “tyranny,” which can lead to genocide. This sort of conspiracy theory is not unlike those being promoted by far right Christian groups after the Tucson shootings. When the group’s founder, Aaron Zelman, died in December, he was praised by one-time…
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…t sufficient. That’s because Barton’s project is not fundamentally an historical one. Barton v. the Historical Profession That’s why historians’ takedown of his ahistorical approach ultimately won’t matter that much. Nor will historians’ explanations of his presentism, and his obvious and unapologetic ideological agenda (albeit considerably muted for his appearance on The Daily Show). While all the historians’ refutations are good and necessary, u…
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…rom reading it? I hope that they will see that I tried to write a book because I love the LGBTQ community, because I love my black community, and I’m trying to work against the intersections of oppression against both these communities. I hope they receive it as a theological response, as my way of combating the homophobia within the Christian church that too often oppresses LGBTQ persons. I really hope that young persons will read it and will tak…
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…bly, in almost every Plowshares case to date, defendants have opted not to use a religious freedom defense, even though they understand their actions, and even their time in court, to be deeply religious. Instead, they’ve used the principles of necessity and international law to ground their defenses. I argue that they choose these latter defenses not because they are more successful—they aren’t—but because they are less particularizing. The relat…
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…ts movement in North America and to the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. It is also used in Buddhist communities when religious belief is coupled with desire for radical social change through nonviolent means and/or forceful civic protest. There are scholars who use the term liberation theology to describe progressive approaches to Islamic belief and practice. Amina Wadud and Asma Barlas are good examples in the field of feminism in I…
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…’s description of Brown as a demon, which is dehumanizing enough, it’s the use of “it” in reference to Brown’s face (“it looks like a demon”): This “demon”-ization of Michael Brown reminded me of a recent RD post from Joseph Laycock on “a psychological study suggesting that white people are predisposed to ascribe superhuman and magical qualities to black people.” Then I recalled a passage from earlier in Wilson’s testimony where he likens his grip…
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