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When Corporations are “Persons” Under the Law: The Real Problem With Health Care

…o little? What is really counseling against reform? Another major story in today’s news cycle offers a chilling answer to this question. And it is not the “rugged individualism” that Roosevelt so perfectly embodied, and that President Obama acknowledged appreciatively in his speech. Not at all. Care and compassion have ever been the flip-side of the long American experiment in self-reliance. No, the simple answer is unapologetic and state-sponsore…

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A Catholic’s Eulogy for the Harvard “Black Mass” Controversy

…of anti-Semitism and white supremacy, no matter where you are in the world today). Unlike these symbols that are based in reality, however, a thoughtful investigation into the “black mass” would have revealed that this is actually a symbol in search of a reality. Boston University professor David Frankfurter, in his award-winning 2006 book Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, argues that, when we apply the mos…

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Police in Ferguson Keep Praying and Preying

The Greater St. Mark Church was raided today as St. Louis County Police thought that protesters were spending the night in the church, which has been used as a staging area for protestors. Police have since closed the building and stated that if anyone congregates on the premises at night, there would be arrests. One member of the Dream Defenders said “what [the police] did today is tell us, what? There is no safety here.” The Pastor of the churc…

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The Tragedy of Religious Freedom

…us Supreme Court called the restauranteur’s defense “patently frivolous.”) Today, there is a similar but not identical logic in some of the controversies on which I have previously reported, especially those of the baker who wouldn’t create a custom cake for a gay wedding and the foster care agency that refused to place children with a lesbian couple. The challenge today is how to distinguish between, on the one hand, attempts to license discrimin…

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Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

…(Praeger, release date: May 30, 2009). What inspired you to write Vampires Today? What sparked your interest? Some people think I study vampires simply because they are unusual. I’ve even been asked if I am a vampire myself. The reality is that I became interested in the vampire community when I learned of a massive survey being conducted by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA). Their project was relevant to the sociology of knowledge: instead of de…

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Prophets of the Environmental Apocalypse

…ghtmares. In somewhat the same way that climate change denialism functions today, the Atoms for Peace campaign merely divided public opinion, allowing some to sleep easy and the most knowledgeable people even more distraught and fearful. Events like the recent reactor meltdown in Northeastern Japan can bring even the sleepers back to the edge of anxiety, and then there’s the persistent fear that a nut job or a terrorist will decide to usher in apo…

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Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

Today Gallup announced the results of a survey in which 77 percent of Americans “say religion is losing its influence on American life,” which represents “the most negative evaluation” of religion’s impact since 1970. Writing today in Religion Dispatches, I have to wonder about the future of any publication with “religion” in its name. Is it time for a mission overhaul or simply rebranding? It’s not that RD has been oblivious to the trend. An int…

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The Sanders Insurgency: A Return to the “Secular Sacred”?

…–the sole concerns of the kind of business unionism that is most prevalent today. They demanded total social transformation, equating “wage slavery” with degradation and a horrible affront to democracy itself. If we can easily see from our perspective how white racism and nativism tainted and fatally handicapped their insurgency, we should also remember how resentment and suspicion of “the other” were consciously and continuously stoked by the so-…

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Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

…rits, it seems perfectly natural to dwell on the ghostly dead who haunt us today in this political season—what some have labeled the season of the witch. Surely this reorientation to mortal and immortal matters is not surprising considering this election’s campaign cycle has not only resurrected the memory of Robert Kennedy’s assassination in the democratic primaries, but also identified the accidental death of Joe Biden’s wife and daughter in the…

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Ordain Women Transforms Mormon Feminism

One year ago today, Ordain Women celebrated the creation of the Relief Society on March 17, 1842 by launching its website with 19 profiles of individuals calling for the ordination of Mormon women. Today it has more than 250 profiles—and has completely transformed Mormon feminism. I continue to be impressed and pleased with the extremely thoughtful work Laurie Goodstein and Jodi Kantor are doing on Mormon women. I recommend a conversation on “The…

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