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World Congress of Families Blessed By Georgian Orthodox Patriarch and George W. Bush; Global LGBT Recap

…recent rulings in favor of homosexual parents. A survey conducted shortly after the bill passed the Senate suggested it reflected the views of most Italians. Shortly after the vote, deputies from conservative opposition parties said they would call for a referendum to cancel the new legislation. The bill also gives some rights to unmarried heterosexual couples. Catholic Church officials attacked passage of the civil unions legislation, with Archb…

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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…

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In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

…price-gouging. People are criticizing the government the way Americans did after Hurricane Katrina. While the state government insists it is doing everything possible, for many this is a tragedy of largely human origin—and to even attempt to connect these events to divine agency is an affront. In the days, and now weeks, after the flooding, Kedarnath continues to draw national attention. A simple Google search for “Kedarnath” now turns up hundreds…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Operator, Can You Help Me?

…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…

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Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

…lice reportedly detained the pair at a bus stop and confiscated Mr. Cole’s phone. They then used images they found on the phone as evidence to arrest and convict Mr. Cole for homosexuality. Homosexuality is a criminal offense in Morocco, and relations outside of marriage can also be punishable by law. Italy: Mayors Resisting National Govt on Registering Gay Couples Several mayors are pledging to disobey the Interior Minister’s announcement that ga…

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Yes, It’s Worse To Be Gay in Russia

…yrics of the “Punk Prayer.” That resulted, some weeks later, in a panicked phone call from an administrator asking if I had taught Pussy Riot lyrics. The incident blew over, but the ban on LGBT “propaganda” was passed at around the same time. And I would be lying if I said I haven’t become at least somewhat more careful with what I say in the classroom since. Self-censorship is, I think, the way most LGBT Russians and their allies deal with the le…

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Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

…uild a church in Colorado Springs than the rapid population boom fueled by cheap land that would lead to a new free market Christianity political power base in the Western United States. In less than a decade, Haggard built one of the most influential megachurches in the nation. Not Everybody Loves a Comeback Story Today, Haggard and his wife Gayle jet set nearly every weekend to speak at emergent churches across the nation with a well-worn script…

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“You’ve Never Met a Muslim”

…slipped into the dorms we couldn’t get signed into, and posted hundreds of cheap notices printed on 8.5 x 11 paper. We’d invited a prominent imam to speak and ordered a delicious dinner, convinced that the perpetually elastic undergraduate stomach would be the gateway to the soul. The next morning, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were struck, thousands were murdered, New York City went into lockdown, and our community was sent reeling. Eve…

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Trayvon Martin and American Exceptionalism

…even have the courtesy to check Trayvon’s phone for his mom and dad’s telephone numbers because it’s just a black criminal’s body to them. While Zimmerman the trigger man slept in his bed, the police ordered a drug and alcohol test for Trayvon’s lifeless body. A black body that was representative of evil against the whiteness of George Zimmerman. I hesitated to write about this story, because there are many good stories about Trayvon and his pare…

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“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

…armed against. War in the name of faith is a recurring theme, as with cell-phone videos of beheadings. Krieger reads such rage within a dichotomy of “fundamentalist repression” and its opposite, freedom. Alhough she prefers the phrase “over-pervy libertinism” as, for her, the dichotomy is spread wide, with ISIS on one end and the antinomian carnival of de Sade’s vacation home at the other. That’s a freedom worth fighting for, she implies, but it i…

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