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Manufactured Outrage Over ‘Godless’ Democratic Platform [UPDATE]

By Peter Montgomery

…of the sadly predictable lines of rhetoric at the Republican convention in Tampa was the assertion that the Obama administration is waging a war on religious liberty. Now GOP officials are taking things a step further, using the absence of the word “God” in the Democratic Party platform to suggest that Democrats are waging a war on the Almighty himself, not to mention his role in our nation’s founding. What Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog aptly cal…

Akin, Spiritual Warfare, and the Radicalization of the Anti-Choice Movement

By Sarah Posner

…ablishment are trying to push Akin away (Akin is now saying he won’t go to Tampa), there’s been a lot of discussion of whether Akin is more radical on abortion than the GOP can countenance. As Think Progress has reported, Akin and Ryan have been co-sponsors of several anti-abortion bills in Congress, including a “personhood” bill and one that introduced the term “forcible” rape (as opposed to the other kind) in an effort to further restrict the ci…

Methodists Move Toward LGBT Inclusion

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…on must pass muster at the denomination’s General Conference next April in Tampa. Back in 2008, the General Conference rejected an attempt to remove a line from the Book of Discipline that calls homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The move in Washington was followed closely by 70 Methodist ministers in Minnesota vowing to marry same-sex couples seeking the church’s blessing. At present, the denomination forbids its clergy to pres…

‘This is a War Meeting…This is Gonna Get Dirty,’ Anti-Woke Capitalism, & American ‘History’: Day 2 Roundup

By PRA Staff

…assembles next. Barry McKeen, Administrator at Grace Christian School near Tampa, Florida, describes how NBCNews published an article about his school’s anti-LGBTQ policies. McKeen defends his school for not allowing its students to “practice homosexuality” or be (openly) transgender because his school follows what he calls “the truth of God.” Co-panelist Troy McIntosh, Executive Director of Ohio Christian Education Network, speaks of his “model C…

Will the Pandemic Hasten the Decline of Christianity or is it ‘America’s Best Hope for a Religious Revival’?

By Chrissy Stroop

…and privilege despite declining demographics. Further loss of prestige and numbers will not automatically translate into the loss of power for a group that’s doing everything it can to maintain minority authoritarian rule. But even so, America’s trajectory of rapid religious disaffiliation since the 1990s seems bound to catch up with the white, right-wing Christian population eventually. Conservative Christians and social scientists have already b…

Religious Right Dream of Privatized Public Education Gets Boost

By Julie Ingersoll

…vative leaders in an eleven-city (Detroit, Phoenix, Los Angeles Cleveland, Tampa, Orlando, Chicago, Indianapolis, Pewaukee, WI; Sacramento and Newark), “Education Revolution Tour,” the goal of which is to renew “American Exceptionalism.” The result of these reforms is likely to be a fractured educational system incapable of serving the very purpose of public education: to ensure an educated citizenry capable of participating in a democracy. An RD…

Beyond ‘Thoughts and Prayers’: How the Christian Right’s Politics of Providentialism Keeps America from Addressing Gun Violence

By Chrissy Stroop

…ned to be placed on my car windshield some years back when I was living in Tampa, Florida. The tract asserts, “Killer kids are the result of God being removed from education,” and objects to the teaching of evolution, claiming that, “If you teach children that they come from animals, then do not be surprised when they begin to act like them!” This too, is not a new formulation; it was common among the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century C…

Are You Doing Your Part in the Baby War?

By Katherine Stewart

…t come from the government in the form of tax subsidies. One University of Tampa professor estimates that religious entities receive approximately $71 billion dollars per year in tax benefits and exemptions from the government, thus tilting the economic equation in favor of churchgoing families with the effect that they will eventually produce more voters. The more babies a congregation can produce, the more a religious entity can, over the long…

Fight to the ‘Death’ and Go ‘Hungry’ at Hunger Games Camp

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…ummer camp. And, of course, the campers are not hungry. As reported in the Tampa Bay Times, they arrive at camp with lunchbags in hand. Their desperation is an act, and they show no fear. Their power comes from imagined weapons, not an imagined inner fortitude. In the original trilogy, our daring protagonist Katniss faces dehydration, as water is a vital, sought-after resource. In contrast, reporter Lisa Gartner describes young women who, during t…

Republican Jewish Coalition Calls Obama Out for “Donors” Mention

By Evan Derkacz

…ocate a single interest group for). Start with the political editor of the Tampa Bay Times last month who (in a piece asserting that a different group of donors helped change US policy) wrote: “while Miami politicians and campaign donors may have dictated U.S. policy to Cuba for decades…” Also from last month, there’s the Miami Herald which wrote, in a piece on Jeb Bush telling the US-Cuba Democracy PAC that the embargo should be strengthened rath…