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Obama Caves on (Another) Contraception Exemption

By Patricia Miller

…rmulation that will satisfy religious conservatives. This is about, in the words of pioneering reproductive rights sociologist Kristin Luker, allowing conservative religious employers to make “a symbolic statement (promoting) the idea that women should properly be at home with their families, that motherhood is the most important job for women.” Even the National Catholic Reporter’s Michael Sean Winters, who was one of the fiercest critics of the…

Equally Blessed: Wear a Rainbow Ribbon to Mass

By Alex McNeill

…? With LGBT issues, the greatest obstacle is silence, though the obstacles run the gamut from silence to violence. By breaking the silence, even in small ways, we are planting the seeds of change. What’s next? The ultimate goal is to have a Catholic church that accepts and respects all of its members. LGBT people and youth are definitely a part of the membership of the Catholic church, and ultimately we want a church where all will be welcome. We…

What If Animals Believe in God?

By Andrew Aghapour

…ay. When we start to think about it in this register, it’s not just about cruelty anymore. I think it challenges us to go beyond the simple anti-cruelty ethic, and to acknowledge [one of] the deepest features of what it means to be human. What about farm animals, which we have a very different relationship with? Farmed animals are an even more extreme example. We, as a nation, have basically said that anything human beings want to do to farmed ani…

“Let’s Get in Formation”: Beyoncé’s Spiritual Call for Black Resistance

By Yazmine Nichols

…nsgresses boundaries. Black women gyrate in what looks like a “big house,” breaking the rules in “Massa’s” quarters and desecrating white-designated spaces. Similarly, Beyoncé herself desecrates pop culture. She takes the colloquial term “slay” and turns it into an anthem of resistance. To “slay” means to dance, it means to live, it means getting in formation and surviving. It means having “negro noses with Jackson Five nostrils,” it means eating…

Debating Death: Is It Really the End?

By Angela Bonavoglia

…rgued that “our brains are narrative-generating machines.” Our brains construct our reality; damaged brains distort it. “The mind is a process of the brain itself,” he said. “Everything that you think, feel, believe, is something that’s happening inside the brain, demonstrably.” Carroll and Novella dismissed NDEs as experiences that can be duplicated with drugs and oxygen deprivation. But what about those shared death experiences, mediums and othe…

2012 Film Heralds Progressive Utopia, No Effort Required

By Jessica Weisberg

…e, it manages to avoid its real subject: the man who was, somehow, enabled to make it. Why, exactly, does Pinchbeck believe “many” people may not survive the transition to utopia and, even more interestingly, why does he seem to wish this to be true? End-of-the-world predictions have always been motivated by something, whether nihilism, idealism, or power, and there are ethical—and even political—roots of the 2012 movement that don’t appear in thi…

Want a Slurpee with Your Birth Control?

By Patricia Miller

…single-handedly solved by Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Need birth control? Just run over to 7-11 and pick some up. Appearing on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Dolan praised the plaintiffs in the Hobby LobbySupreme Court case as inspiring examples of American religious conviction and told guest host Norah O’Donnell that cutting contraception out of insurance policies wasn’t a problem: Is the ability to buy contraceptives, that are now widely available—my…

Michael Vick Walks on Water: Updated

By Nicole Greenfield

…th the Eagles this season. Hard work pays off. But for Reid, the sentiment runs deeper. The coach, whose sons have battled drug addiction and served prison time on an array of related charges, comprehends and appreciates the importance of second chances. A devout Mormon, he has remained committed to his sons’ recovery; experience that prepared him to be able to relate to and support Michael Vick. And not just as a coach, but as a mentor, as someon…

“LGBT People Have a Lot to Teach Christians”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…still have hope for Christianity? I do and I always will, I think. I get frustrated sometimes and I get angry and cynical, but I still believe that there are healing properties in breaking the bread of communion together, in baptism declaring that someone is a beloved child of God. I still think there is power in anointing the sick and acknowledging that suffering can be holy. In all of these sacraments, I still feel like they are important and t…

Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…ority of rabbis are horrified” by the scale of civilian casualties and destruction in Gaza this summer, T’ruah’s Jill Jacobs told me. They “don’t believe the human shield story,” she said, referring to the Israeli government’s contention that civilian casualties were Hamas’s fault because it harbored civilians in locations used to stockpile or fire rockets. Yet most of the rabbis I talked to this month whose views would place them in the liberal o…