Search for "dirt cheap airline tickets last minute phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

…fied as AIDS, did not receive ongoing or thorough coverage. By 1982, nearly 800 AIDS cases had been diagnosed. According to one study, infants and children were increasingly infected. Although a threat to the general population was quickly dismissed, the implication was clear: anyone could be infected. The epidemic had exposed social and cultural fault lines that made coverage more than just a medical story. Its initial outbreak in the homosexual…

Religious Exceptions Not So Exceptional According to New Study

By Patricia Miller

…most Catholic health care institutions have accepted the accommodation, a number of the nation’s 260 Catholic institutions of higher learning as well as Catholic nonprofits are seeking a broader exemption that would in effect bar their insurers from providing contraceptive coverage as specified under the accommodation designed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a consolidated case challenging th…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…arge part of the Great Plains, restored wildlife and built a system of over 800 state and county parks. They electrified an entire region of the country, bringing what had been America’s “Third World” up to 20th century standards. They created works of art, gave concerts, set up theaters throughout the country, ran nursery schools, served over 1.2 billion school lunches to needy children, gave immunizations, taught illiterate adults to read and wr…

Kirk Cameron Joins the Anti-Mormon Chorus
(Sort Of)

By Julie Ingersoll

While a number of conservative Christian leaders raise questions about Glenn Beck’s Mormonism, Worldview Matters’ host Brannon Howse continued his attack in a conversation with Kirk Cameron about why Cameron did not participate in Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny. Howse marveled at the “thick irony” wherein Cameron (the actor who played Buck, the converted journalist warning about the “demonic spirituality of a one world religion” in the Left Behind m…

Who Is “Sam Bacile?”

By Sarah Posner

…d that the film was intended to be a provocative political statement assailing the religion. He denied being Sam Bacile, the pseudonym for the video’s purportedly Israeli Jewish writer and director, but AP said the cellphone number it called for a telephone interview with Bacile on Tuesday matched Nakoula’s address. —- For more RD coverage of the events in Libya see “Tragic Violence in Libya: No Excuses,” by Haroon Moghul — ed….

How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…nts than their quota allows. Most Muslim countries have a quota; a limited number of hajjis permitted from that country in any one year. This number is set by hajj authorities in Saudi Arabia, because, in all fairness, there has to be a cap on how many Muslims converge on the place. Right now, it stands at around 3 million! Countries with large populations of Muslims have many more applicants than their allotted number of pilgrims. This means you…

Prophets of the Environmental Apocalypse

By Peter Laarman

…conditions on the planet. Another is that the enviros don’t believe for a minute that after the very bad days there will be some kind of clearing or deliverance in the way that millenarian Christians believe. A third difference has to do with human agency. Most environmental prophets think it’s still possible—barely—that humans might just rise to the occasion and significantly change their destructive behavior. Most religious doomsayers do not s…

Hajj Journal: Tawaf: How I Fell in Love…

By Amina Wadud

…ing our hotel about a half hour before the time for zhuhr; it’s only a 3-5 minute walk. Now, I have to confess, maybe it was the glimpse of the mosque from our 7th-story hotel window, but I did NOT swoon, nor even shed a single tear when I looked beyond the pillars inside the mosque and first saw this incredibly plain box-like thing made of stone slabs. There was a black cloth draping the building, with a beautiful calligraphic design actually sti…

The Mullet and the Mullahs: Iran’s War on Hair Reveals Ahmadinejad’s Weakness

By Hussein Rashid

…e any sane person objecting to such a move, sparing us future years of Joe Dirt, they also decided to ban several other haircuts. This move strikes me as a sign of impotence on the part of Ahmedinejad. As I have written about regarding the Saudi Arabians, decisions like this are an attempt to flex muscles that do not actually exist. The crackdown on the public sphere is something that is usually resented by Iranians. However, after the rise of the…

I Am Better than Him

By Amina Wadud

…m. You created me from smokeless fire and he was created from (an atom of) dirt.” I am better than him is istikbar. And this word occurs 40 OR 50 TIMES through out the Qur’an in various forms, not just about Satan but also and mostly about human beings and their arrogance. As happens in the Satan story, istikbar is the cause of disobedience to God. It is the cause of failure to worship God, as one. It is the cause of rejection of the Prophets. It…