Religion Dispatches
…e into a figurehead, for religious people, and in Lin’s case, for Asian-Americans too. If Lin stumbles—if he gets into a fight in a bar, or behaves inappropriately with women, or commits any number of minor sins which ordinary people get away with every day—he lets down not only himself and his family, but his faith community and the Asian-American (and to some extent Asian) community as a whole, which currently views him as a hero. Can you imagin…
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…not to … preventing birth.” But, as New York Times reports, under Trump a number of anti-contraception activists have been given prominent roles in the administration. They are moving not just to finalize a rule that would allow any entity to opt-out of the contraceptive mandate for any reason, which has long been on the bishops’ wish list, but have a history of attacking contraception in general. Katy Talento, who is now a White House domestic p…
Read More…mous with racism and the unresolved issues in the society over how young African Americans are treated in schools and the courts. Today, Postville symbolizes the unresolved and interconnected issues of immigration and justice for workers. These issues are made particularly poignant by the Kosher status of the offending workplace. The battle unfolding in America’s heartland touches all plant workers who have experienced deteriorating wages and bene…
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…ment for The Washington Post, a cover story for the magazine about a new African American synagogue in DC started in 2008 by Mother Dailey’s grandson, Eli Aronoff. (Aronoff claims no Ashkenazi ancestry despite his surname—his father was from rural South Carolina.) Neither my story nor the new congregation succeeded—the Post axed the story during a shakeup of the magazine’s editorial staff in 2009, and Aronoff’s congregation recently decided to dis…
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…Meacham’s Newsweek piece on the fairly sharp fall-off in the number of Americans self-identifying as Christian (in the newly-released ARIS survey), this bloghead initially demurred. I mean, the amiable and well-informed Meacham said what I would have said: on balance, it’s a good thing that the various and dangerous forms of grievance associated with “Christian nation” thinking should now recede. It’s a good thing that more have come to appreciat…
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…program and are invited to be there with the children. Some of the worst caricatures of these events are just that. Caricatures.” If the bill became law anywhere, it may not just be Drag Queen Story Hour that would get censored. Libraries may not, she says, “be able to do Pride Month displays and given some of the rhetoric that we are seeing these days, they also might not even be able to mount Black History Month displays.” Eleven national organi…
Read More…iar Bollywood genre. The musical score crackles with energy. There are any number of reasons why Slumdog has emerged as one of this year’s favorites among American audiences. Perhaps the Oscar nominations reflect India’s rise as a global economic power, as well as a cinematic one. And, while the story is set in India, there is something familiar to American audiences about the kid who finds his way to success and love through struggle in an indiff…
Read More…cognition of civil status documents, including registered partnerships.” Africa: African American LGBT Faith Activist Supporting African LGBTs Alturi profiles Joseph Tolton of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries whose work in Africa has grown 2009, when news reports about Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act began circulating and Tolton traveled to the country. “I fell in love with the people, I fell in love with the land, I fell in love with the po…
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…e were informed that over 1600 individuals had registered to testify. That number was quickly growing, even with testimony set to end at midnight. It was gonna be a long day, and over a thousand Texans would not get to voice their opinion. After the main elements of the bill were highlighted by its author, the games commenced. Democratic lawmakers deployed stall tactics and asked probing questions; Republicans attempted to push through the proceed…
Read More…well aware that good Catholics can part company with the hierarchy on any number of issues, including abortion. Catholics represent about 23% of the American population, so they are obviously a significant voting bloc with a chunk in the middle that are crucial swing voters. But the quest to satisfy them by bending to the bishops or straining to be “friendly” to religion is not only misguided, but undemocratic. According to the Pew Religious Land…
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