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Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

…bbis and religious leaders” have spread. Scotland: Anti-gay Minister Named Free Church Moderator Rev. David Robertson, an opponent of marriage equality, has been named the next moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, which has welcomed some clergy and congregations that have left the Church of Scotland over the question of gay clergy.Robertson is also director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity. Before the Scottish Parliament approved m…

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Texas Textbook Massacre

…s be able to “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others,” was rejected by religious conservatives. 3. The Enlightenment Ends Here: Board members voted to remove Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. Instead, they rep…

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Virginians may Vote in Elections, But in Counties with Militias Democracy Hangs in the Balance

…useful in capturing the ephemeral nature of democracy since World War II. Between 1945 and 2002, 96 new states[9] were formed, and most faced numerous destabilizing forces, including the 1970s OPEC oil embargo, superpower intervention during the Cold War, and IMF-imposed austerity projects in the early 1990s. Not surprisingly, many of these new democracies morphed into autocracies. Most recently, scholars have used the concept of democratic erosi…

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Gun Owners of America Celebrates Defeat of Gun Control Amendments

…of bright ideas like we don’t want guns around children, so let’s have gun-free school zones. Do you know where most of the mass murders have occurred in the United States? In gun-free zones. There’s an exception or two but typically it’s where the bad guy has reason to think he’ll have a monopoly of force. It has to be one of the most stupid laws on the books, and yet we’ve had so much inertia because we don’t want guns around children especially…

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Is Christianity Simply About God Entering the Uterus of a Jewish Virgin?

…till be able to develop into independent selves. God had to create a space between Himself and us, in which we were free to chart our own path, to mature in our own way, to tell our own stories. Hopefully, these stories would be love stories that would eventually bring God’s creatures back to Him: fully formed selves who were Other than Him, but united with Him and each other in love. But our freedom carried with it the capacity to do otherwise. I…

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The Vile Attack on Salman Rushdie Reminds Us of the Value of a Free Society — But is Our Outrage More About the Criminal Than the Crime?

…ely deemed blasphemous serves a larger purpose: If others don’t have their freedoms, I won’t have mine. Yes, some of Rushdie’s language was religiously abhorrent to huge numbers of Muslims. But the same freedom of speech that permitted The Satanic Verses made it possible for me to attend a thoughtful, and exceptionally relevant, sermon at my local mosque, here in Cincinnati. The preacher discussed how the Prophet Muhammad clarified that ritual obs…

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Conservatives Stand Together for Anti-Gay Bigotry

…TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro reported that the SPLC sees little difference between FRC and the KKK: As [SPLC’s Heidi] Beirich told me, there is no difference between the FRC and the KKK in the eyes of the SPLC now. Still, she said that the hate group designation doesn’t mean the SPLC thinks everyone who supports the FRC “has a full understanding of what they’re up to.” Many who support the FRC may do so because of the group’s very public ties to e…

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The Subway Sandwich Artist Argument; When “Religious Freedom” Isn’t About Religious Freedom

…s for same- and opposite-sex wedding cakes burdened not only his religious freedom but also, and even more so, his freedom of expression. In a series of cases stretching over many years, the Supreme Court has upheld the expressive freedom of individuals, especially artists, applying the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment not only to the written word but also to paintings, films, music, and even public parades. It has likewise protected t…

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Why We Should Ban Oppressive Speech Acts

…cific types of actions in specific contexts, with specific effects, we can better evaluate how the removal of such speech and its speakers from our midst need not constitute a creeping assault on crucial free speech protections. And so, to crib from a cringey meme, it’s time for some speech act theory! *** In July 2020 Harper’s Magazine published a “Letter on Justice and Open Debate” signed by over 150 writers, academics and public figures—includi…

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