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Liberals Enabled Bishops in Contraception Battle

By Sarah Posner

…dn’t contract with them to advise on congressional races. Later, Strider’s business partner, Eric Sapp, baselessly argued that it was the lack of religious outreach that caused the party’s losses in the 2010 midterms. Nonetheless, the Young Democrats of America are relying on Sapp and Strider, along with the anti-choice, anti-gay marriage DNC faith outreach director the Rev. Derrick Harkins, to serve as “leading experts in Democratic religious out…

White House Unveils Contraception Accommodation Plan [UPDATED]

By Sarah Posner

…and looks like they will be bending their knee in the future to religious business interests.” UPDATE: Sarah Kliff delves into the catch in who will pay for the coverage: The catch here is that there’s a difference between “revenue neutral” and “free.” By one report’s measure, it costs about $21.40 to add birth control, IUDs and other contraceptives to an insurance plan. Those costs may be offset by a reduction in pregnancies. But unless drug man…

5 Reasons Why Obama Shouldn’t Negotiate with the Bishops

By Sarah Posner

…changed their position: USCCB general counsel Anthony Picarello tells USA Today: That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this.” If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate,’ Picarello said. 3. The…

Yerushalmi, National Review, and a Conservative Fight Over Shari’ah

By Sarah Posner

…to view their neighbors with suspicion and distrust.” He is hopelessly outnumbered at National Review, where most of the writers and commenters weighing in are confused at Schmitz’ inability to perceive Muslim Americans as the collective Fifth Column everyone understands them to be. No one, however, is more outraged at Schmitz’ suggestion that anti-Muslim prejudice might be at work in the Shariah-panic industry than Yerushalmi, who writes, “To e…

Anti-Contraception Activists Claim Their Suits are Last Resort to Undermine Health Care

By Sarah Posner

…gal challenges against the HHS mandate brought by hospitals, universities, businesses, and other organizations will move forward… These lawsuits are the only remaining legal challenges to the health care law.” These suits, of course, are based on entirely different constitutional grounds than the case decided today, in which the challengers claimed that the individual mandate violated the Commerce Clause. The challenges to the contraception mandat…

Where Do “Sacred” Values Live in the Brain?

By Arri Eisen

…s realistic a way as possible. Berns et al, after identifying through more classical psychological surveying means what participants’ sacred values were, offered participants increasing amounts of real money to go against those values—or rather to sign a document that said they would go against it. The scientists couldn’t ethically challenge the actual sacred value, but they could challenge the participants’ integrity in relation to that value. Th…

Christian Publishing v. the Vagina

By Katie Toth

…t, but if you don’t want it somebody else will,” says Zacharias. Christian businesses have to consider their markets, she says, and she’s okay with that. Where’s Your Jesus Now (Zondervan) included discussions about how to fix the relationship between the church and the gay community. It was not carried by Lifeway. “That’s Lifeway’s loss.” In that situation, Zacharias did her own heavy lifting. She found an independent publicist to help her market…

Seen Andrew Sullivan’s Expose-Style Footage of the LDS Temple? Now Read This.

By Joanna Brooks

…rabbis. The difference in Mormonism is that there is no dedicated priestly class. All observant adult members are eligible to participate and wear the equivalent of priestly vestments. The earliest forms of the LDS endowment were introduced in the 1830s by Joseph Smith. Matthew Bowman, author of The Mormon People: The Making of An American Faith (Random House, 2012), describes the endowment ceremony as instituted in 1842: The men were washed and a…

A History of the Unaffiliated: How the “Spiritual Not Religious” Gospel Has Spread

By Matthew S. Hedstrom

…io; find inspiration on the web; attend retreats, seminars, workshops, and classes; buy candles and statues, bumper stickers and yoga pants; take spiritually motivated trips; and, perhaps most significantly, buy and read books. Since the 1920s, when the major New York trade presses first started offering nonsectarian religious books in significant numbers, books have been the most important conduit for spreading the “spiritual but not religious”…

Most U.S. Catholics Back Marriage Equality, But Knights of Columbus Pour Millions into Opposition

By Peter Montgomery

…ssets. Its financial power comes from a huge and profitable life insurance business it promotes through local councils and parishes. It funnels millions of dollars to the pope and bishops’ conferences as well as to more service-oriented charities. “The Strong Right Arm of the Bishops: The Knights of Columbus and Anti-Marriage Equality Funding,” documents $6.25 million in direct Knights funding to anti-marriage equality campaigns at the national l…