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Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ose marriage equality on religious grounds. For them, I point to a growing number of religious leaders who also understand that gays and lesbians can do a lot to “redefine” marriage in beneficial ways. Rev. Ed Bacon, who leads the 4,000 member All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., told Oprah Winfrey this past weekend that marriage would be “enriched” by same-sex couples. I’ve never had a straight couple come to me and say, ‘My marriage is in trou…

Are Conservative Churches Really Winning by Being More Orthodox?

By Daniel Schultz

…rants—again, especially Hispanics—who still account for a disproportionate number of all births in the U.S. But the overall fertility rate has crashed since 2007—led by a sharp decline in immigrant fertility, particularly among Hispanics. What’s changed since then? Hint: it’s not a radical change in the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. In fact, a few peaks and valleys aside, the US birth rate has been pretty stable since 1970, and in recent…

Obstacles for Secularists

By Sarah Posner

…to become better organized as a political force, even as they increase in number. The major impediment to that kind of organization is the fact that it is very difficult for secularists to conceive of themselves in tribal terms. Most tribes, whether of nations or ethnicities or sports fandom, can easily demarcate their membership—it’s the people who look like us, or talk like us, or dress like us. Tribes organized around religious belief have rit…

“One of Us”: Rick Santorum and the Politics of (Very Big) Family

By Kathryn Joyce

…claimed, “We win if we just keep having children, ’cause we’re going to outnumber them!”—a staple argument of the Quiverfull movement. Weeks earlier, Santorum had transformed this rhetoric into policy proposal at a South Carolina Fuddruckers appearance with the Duggars, where he argued that low birth rates and a declining American population (also longstanding concerns among the Quiverfull movement) should be fought by tripling the child tax deduc…

Christian Epistle on Islamophobia

By Haroon Moghul

…politics that has shaped many of us makes what we say very irrelevant to today’s issues. I think a good part of the church is in denial as to how this country has really changed. I never heard of this Dearborn Awakening event that happened until I read your piece today, but I want to offer an apology for this speaker that lied and confused people. I offer this as a Christian and student of the Word that is called by God to obey and not simply know…

The Best the Largest Progressive Jewish Org Could Come Up With?

By Jay Michaelson

…d Jewish Funds for Justice, the latter of which had already swallowed up a number of smaller Jewish social justice organizations. I know several people who work at BtA, and I commend them on their ability to keep a secret. I and friends of mine plied several of these folks with drinks, but their lips stayed sealed. (I did find out that the org would have an action-verb in it, as is the fashion these days, but that’s all.) That being said, I’m not…

Aasif Mandvi on Islamophobia, Acting, and the Long Shadow of Jon Stewart

By Haroon Moghul

…better, or is it getting worse? We are definitely seeing more diversity today, in television and in movies. Probably more than we ever have. There are certainly more Asians, more South Asians, more people from the Middle East, portrayed on television today, as compared to when I started out. But in Hollywood, Caucasian is still the norm. Your heroes are still Caucasian. So that is somewhere we need more diversity, in terms of who’s creating the s…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

…one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to find folks who know someone who’s thinking about returning to the church or who feels less horrible about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course n…

Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

By Jeremy Biles

…celebrated work this morning with the belief that what is strange to us today will be familiar tomorrow.” Tomorrow has come, and the Chicago Picasso is indeed familiar—but no less strange than it was forty-four years ago. What does this mysterious sculpture depict? Popular answers include: an aardvark, a bird, an Afghan hound, and one of Picasso’s lovers. But to my eyes, it looks like a sphinx—a monster that (like the anamorphic skull haunting Ha…

Life Imitates Satire Imitates Life: Rep. King Revives Manchurian Candidate

By The Editors

…ndly American Muslim leader, Shaykh Hisham Kabbani. In honor of this magic number and the hearings King will hold next month in order to address the “creeping threat of Sharia law,” RD presents the first edition of Life Imitates Satire Imitates Life. In this clip, from the Manchurian Candidate a Joseph McCarthy stand-in uses his own investigative tool to determine how many crypto-commies there really are… Rep. Peter King (R-NY), minus 45 years f…