Religion Dispatches
…at church; ways to improve evangelical Christian voter participation; and promotions for revival rallies, registration events and distribution of voter guides listing candidate positions on abortion, prayer and gay marriage. Churches have been sponsoring some of those activities for years, but the St. Louis event, with so many clergy members participating in statewide training and political events, is unprecedented. Pastors cannot, incidentally,…
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…olics whose stated intent was “equipping Catholics in the ‘Next America.’” Registration alone was $1,500, not including the cost of food and lodging in Napa Valley. This offers a pretty clear indicator of precisely which Catholics were being equipped at this event. Archbishop Gomez also serves as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration. As chair of that committee, he consistently articulates the five-fold plat…
Read More…lic endorsement from a minister, for instance, or partisan-inflected voter registration drives), then I think we have a problem. Obama, however, eager to court religious voters—and sending a clear signal early in the campaign that he will not cede the evangelical vote to the Republican Party—apparently sees no such constitutional complications in the faith-based initiative program he proposes. But Obama’s proposal suffers from timidity, and so I p…
Read More…od. Foolishly, I did not take his national identification card and his car registration — I just asked him to open the trunk of his car. He opened it with pleasure, and was about to drive off, when Muhammad, one of my neighbors, recognized him. “Oh, hello. Wait a minute — aren’t you the police officer we saw here yesterday?” Bashfully, he replied, “Um, yes.” Muhammad responded, with all the righteousness evident in his voice, “So, no work for you…
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…r those who engage in homosexuality, those who support it, and media that “promotes” or mentions it. A social media campaign using the hashtag #WeNeedToTalk to promote the World Youth Forum being held in Egypt November 4-10 was hijacked by activists to draw attention to the country’s crackdown on LGBT people and on civil society in general: The conference’s organizers had hoped the hashtag would encourage interaction among the participants ahead o…
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…ake it easier and less dehumanizing for trans people to legally change the registration of the sex assigned to them at birth. In short, Aiwanger went through the right-wing charts of this summer and simply ignored the accusations. In the audience, people held up signs expressing their support, with one man wearing a T-shirt which read “Stand by Aiwanger in times of need, otherwise our Bavaria is dead.” A truly MAGA-esque sentiment where the dear L…
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…. You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.” We feel her exquisite pain: emotionally, yes, but also morally. The good guy with the gun is not so good. As for the bad guy with the gun, he wasn’t bad at all. He wasn’t even reaching for his weapon. Historically, the dueling ritual was widely tolerated in the American colonies. After the birth of our republic, the practice persisted, surviving well int…
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…re for all who strive for it. Never mind the Republican Party’s efforts to promote McCarthyist laws that restrict discussions of the history of racism and other supposedly “divisive concepts” in America schools; or its leadership’s denigrating characterizations of political leaders of color with whom they disagree. And who here really cares that the Republican Party has championed voter suppression and gerrymandering that disproportionately affect…
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…eaceroots, a coalition of antiwar organizations, is here and so is a voter registration group. But there is very little confrontational about the politics that Bonnaroo offers. “This way, you can go through all of these groups and find the thing that clicks for you,” one volunteer, a college senior, told us. Bonnaroo isn’t force-feeding political engagement on anyone. Instead, it presents a menu of dishes from which the festival-goer can select—or…
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…count. We matter. I’m so glad I’m here.” On the way out, there were voter registration forms and groups preparing to go canvass in Philadelphia. Afterward, when asked why she organized the event, Ms. Shropshire took a different approach than at the mic. The excitement around Obama’s candidacy, she hopes, will end up energizing people to be more active locally in the future. Here, work needs to be done, and “it is all about the issues.” Rev. Mille…
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