Religion Dispatches
…that the Tea Party and her conservative faith stand for: the Constitution, free markets, loving the troops, and oh yes, “loving the smell of emissions.” While most families are scaling back their summer vacations, SarahPAC is paying for Palin’s homage to her version of the history of America. Her rapid-fire tours of historical sites is like the attention deficit syndrome version of American history. All photo ops and quick sound bites about energy…
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…ed by televangelist Pat Robertson. The Anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom has set up shop outside the US as well, dubbing its coordinating international body Alliance Defending Freedom International. The Polish Ordo Iuris, a right-wing catholic organization which leads a crusade against abortion, is likewise well connected on an international level with German pundit Birgit Kelle, a regular on the anti-abortion circuit, having recently sp…
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…those who feel that religions are invoking their religious rights—like the free exercise of religion & freedom of speech—to deny or challenge their own core beliefs & their access to basic constitutional rights.” If we go ahead and assume he was talking about LGBTQ+ rights advocates, it sounds pretty good. Like I said, the rhetoric was less overtly hostile and marginally more inclusive than his usual fare—a low bar, to be sure—and parts of it coul…
Read More…r and their children.” (The infertile, asexual, post-menopausal, and child-free by choice need not apply.) Anderson echoes precisely what same-sex proponents have been saying all along with regard to children: that the desire to marry is in fact a desire to be more traditional. As Frank Bruni put it, gays and lesbians are no longer cultural rebels; “We’re aspirants to tradition, communicating shared values and asserting a fundamentally conservativ…
Read More…vernment, perhaps a unity coalition guaranteed by the military, leading to free and fair elections after the shortest time possible within which campaigning can be organized. This requires all the stakeholders on the ground, who are not representatives of the dictatorship, to come to the table, and to receive guarantees both from one another but also from regional powers who can help nudge the process forward. The military has won itself a seat at…
Read More…lled the rally, being organised by activist group Roopbaan — which says it promotes freedom of love and gender equality — at the last minute, after Islamists threatened to beat up participants… Gays and lesbians suffer discrimination and worse in Bangladesh where homosexuality is a crime punishable by a maximum life term, although prosecutions are rare. However, the Roopbaan rally, which was denied permission late on Wednesday, had been allowed to…
Read More…nimum wage laws unconstitutional and claims to be a constitutional purist — pay Moffitt for his constitutional, uh, expertise? In the lawsuit against UNC, Moffitt and his co-plaintiffs alleged that the assignment of the Sells text violated both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment — charging that UNC, a public institution, was not only unconstitutionally promoting Islam by assigning the text but inhibiting non-Muslims…
Read More…ting to believe that insular religious societies are treated by some as a “free pass” from engaging in good journalism. And the line between news, documentary, docudrama, and entertainment is frequently blurred beyond recognition. Reality shows such as TLC’s “Breaking Amish” on and the Discovery Channel’s “Amish Mafia” are scripted sensationalism, total fabrications of authentic Amish life. “Amish Mafia” gives the impression that it represents hi…
Read More…to be experiencing as he voiced support for the banning of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a position he justified by claiming that Muslims were “using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their mosque in that community, and the people in the community do not like it; they disagree with it.” Stewart responded by helpfully replacing Cain’s pronouns with the proper ones. “You think our First Amendment protects us against their mosq…
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…le Foods would instead provide food for the National Guardsmen deployed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan to “maintain order.” People of color in cities such as Baltimore or Flint cannot count on governments to improve the lot of their most vulnerable citizens. When our own mayor called people fed up with being ignored and shut out of the ever-lingering promise of a better Baltimore “thugs,” “We all we got” came to be the mantra. After that flashpoin…
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