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How the Politics of the 1890s Explain the GOP’s Health Care Woes

By Patricia Miller

…riffs both as an imposition on the functioning of the free market and as a way to starve the federal government of revenue so it couldn’t do things like expand infrastructure. Throughout much of the 1880s, the Democrats used a series of procedural maneuvers to hamstring Congress, delaying progress on reforms the country needed in order to keep pace with the industrial revolution and the increasing urbanization and interconnectivity of life. In 188…

The Brutality of Life for Syrian LGBTs; Saving the Anglican Church by Dissolving It; Backlash to Hindu Gay Wedding Ceremony in Indonesia; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…protecting LGBTs persons, LGBT couples, and LGBT families.” … “Jesus was always on the side of the marginalized. Jesus was always on the side of human rights and human dignity. . .I challenge any bishop to look an LGBT couple in the eye and prove to them that their marriage perverts and undermines the common good. The reality is that the legalization of same-sex marriage enhances human rights and social justice.” Australia: Anti-marriage Prime Min…

Yet Another Survey Shows ‘Nones’ Growth at Record Levels

By Elizabeth Drescher

…nd continued, reaching 18% in 2010. The report makes clear that the trend away from affiliation with organized religion is not an indication of declining religious belief. They write that “conventional religious belief, typified by belief in God, remains very widespread—59 percent of Americans believe in God without any doubt,” adding that, “Atheism is barely growing,” with 1% in 1962 and 3% in 2012 indicating no belief in God. The report raises i…

First U.S. Visit of the Virgin Mary Confirmed in Wisconsin

By Lewis Wallace

…f the December 8 announcement, Tipps says, the shrine saw an unprecedented number of people. Visitors from as far away as New Mexico wandered onto the grounds, with several walking into the Tipps’ home assuming it was a visitor center. The shrine rented a port-a-john in order to have enough bathroom space, but it was quickly blown over by winter winds. Asked if she is happy about the developments, Tipps laughs. “We’re kind of being a little bit se…

Size Matters According to New Study

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ns of the brain that remain unactivated in the rest of us. There are any number of weird implications and outright contradictions in these sorts of studies. The first is this: do the authors of these studies believe that religious belief or practice has the power to effect the size of the human brain? If so, that would seem to grant an astonishing power to religion to effect real world, and very nearly miraculous changes. Or perhaps the claim i…

Indonesian Court Rejects Religious Conservatives’ Bid To Criminalize Gay Sex; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ays after the House of Assembly voted 24-10 to take the right to marriage away from same-sex couples, the Senate voted 8-3 on Wednesday to send the bill to the governor for final approval. The legislation would reverse a May Supreme Court ruling that granted same-sex couples the right to marry and would instead codify domestic partnership rights. The Progressive Labor Party, which the New York Times describes as “backed by many traditionally conse…

Are You There God? It’s Us, Googling

By Michael Schulson

…ion in “Google searches for churches,” yet more evidence of the increasing number of “nones,” or that “searches related to the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, church and prayer are all highly concentrated in the Bible Belt. They rise on Sunday everywhere.” Other patterns are more jarring: “Relative to the rest of the country, for every search I looked at, retirement communities search more about hell,” he writes. Each month, on average, 422 people in th…

Can the Catholic Church Survive Trump?

By Patricia Miller

…administration and the mandate. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of white Catholics who said the Obama administration was “unfriendly to religion” more than doubled from 17 percent to 36 percent between 2009 and 2014. And starting around 2012, white Catholics broke for the GOP by historic margins. It’s also worth noting, as Michael Sean Winters has, that this occurred around the time the administrative staff of the bishops’ confer…

A Debate Rages in India Over Conversion, Secularism, and “Spiritual Violence”

By Murali Balaji

…it is having on the Indian social fabric. It’s a conversation Uganda and a number of African nations have not had—which is having devastating consequences for the their LGBT communities. As scholar and social activist Jim Perkinson has reminded us, countries such as India are only a microcosm of the worldwide impact of missionary activity. “The effect on native people of predatory proselytization is typically cultural alienation, a growing sense o…

False Saviors: Trump, Cruz, and the Gospel of the Quick Fix

By Marcia Pally

…nted for 60% of employment in 1979 accounted for only 46% by 2012; and the number of persons not in the labor force is growing. While some are getting richer, the numbers tell us, middle income earners are hobbled by shrinking purchasing power, disappearing job opportunities, and increasingly out-of-reach education. This is problem enough for the many who work hard and can’t figure out why they’re “losing ground,” as Pew wrote. Add to that fears o…