Religion Dispatches
…an in-laws gave her a car, which had to be cleared at customs before local registration. Then we went to the farmers’ market, the flea markets, and the swap meet. She insists on using a baby carrier instead of a stroller. So I held her six-month-old while she pillaged through a sea of clothing. That’s a lot of holding, trust me. When we finally returned to her place, I was hungry, but I just could not take another moment of being so family-oriente…
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…il fraud. As the activities of ACORN have demonstrated, organizations that promote voter fraud have burrowed into every corner of our country. In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive.” I love the phrase, “burrowed into every corner of our country”—like it’s an alien invasion of bedbugs. But rather than address a real problem, Kobach is just using the issue to continue banging away at the demonization of those who d…
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…dopted the 1997 law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations.” Promoted by the Orthodox Church and directed specifically against new religious movements, the law distinguished between the four traditional faiths—Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism—and non-traditional groups such as Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-Day Saints, and Hare Krishnas. In order to maintain legal status, churches had to prove that they had…
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…semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons without paying the required registration fees. David Koresh became aware of the ATF investigation and invited agents to come to Mount Carmel openly and inspect his weapons. When the undercover agents reported to their superiors that they had seen no evidence of illegal activity, an ATF agent wrote an affidavit to obtain a search warrant in which it was alleged that the Branch Davidians were a “cult” t…
Read More…d back into the program by falsifying personal information or skirting the registration process. Others were able to jump from troop to troop around the country thanks to clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts’ failure to check the blacklist. The report reveals some serious issues around child safety, rape culture, and the dismissal of victim experiences. Perhaps this is more of a priority right now for BSA than pandering to homophobia….
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…Chinese government (or one of its various proxies) issues or denies formal registration to monasteries. Monasteries that operate without formal recognition are considered renegade institutions and can be shut down. —Government offices determine who may or may not become and/or remain a monk or nun. For example, “children under 18” and individuals who are (or whose parents have been) classified as having politically problematic views are prohibited…
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…ake it easier and less dehumanizing for trans people to legally change the registration of the sex assigned to them at birth. In short, Aiwanger went through the right-wing charts of this summer and simply ignored the accusations. In the audience, people held up signs expressing their support, with one man wearing a T-shirt which read “Stand by Aiwanger in times of need, otherwise our Bavaria is dead.” A truly MAGA-esque sentiment where the dear L…
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…burdensome new requirements on voters—think voter IDs and barring same day registration—people will throw up their hands at the opaque, constantly-shifting bureaucracy and simply stay home. Some are aware of this tactic but very few seem to understand the larger ambition of these laws and how they fit into a decades-long attack on public schools (my fellow RD writer Chrissy Stroop being one exception). They don’t just want to ban these topics or b…
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…help and God’s grace, the great revival of America begins on November 5th, 2024. It’s a great revival. “Upon taking office…” Trump makes several concrete policy promises that flow from this White Christian nationalist vision. It’s not worth quoting Trump’s rambling justifications for the policy proposals he connects to this worldview. Lest anyone think Trump’s White Christian nationalism is empty rhetoric, however, this speech also included promi…
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…that Trump’s enemies are possessed by demons, while the Trump campaign has promoted the idea of “prayer warriors” fighting the forces of Satan. Not surprisingly, many Christian leaders promised that the January 6 insurrection would be a reckoning with the “demonic influence” that “stole” the election of 2020, and there’s strong evidence that “figures within the Trump White House were strategizing with” the prayer warriors of the New Apostolic Refo…
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