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New Study Touts Success of “Praying Away the Gay”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…lowing this flawed research up into the proof it needs that you can “pray away the gay.” Aside from the obviously flawed methodology and the laughably small sample size, the biggest problem with this study is that all of the “therapy” given to these 98 poor souls was religiously-based—and more specifically evangelical Christian. The power of religious belief to sway one’s behavior cannot be overstated. People have convinced themselves of all sorts…

Neuroscience Says Evil is “Over”: Not So Fast…

By Paul Wallace

…stion, we’d be in for a workout. Because “what science says” is limited in ways that are not easy to understand. Responsible scientists know this, and they are marked by their reticence on non-scientific issues. There are those, however, who insist that what science says is obvious. But they’re selling something, something like atheism or creationism or some other extra-scientific bill of goods. The real question is twofold: “What do scientists sa…

LDS General Conference in the “Mormon Moment”

By Joanna Brooks

…t Mormons would assent to about 90% of it.) These kind of encounters are always a strange experience for Mormons who authentically regard ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ. And without dismissing real theological distinctions between Mormonism and mainline Protestantism—and there are some—the Mormon experience suggests that the dominant usage of the term “Christian” in American discourse is not as a descriptor of the way an individual regards…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…ge, is the privilege—which is to say the power—to deny racist intent and always be taken at one’s word. To always be able to clutch one’s pearls and appeal in Scarlett O’Hara’s mint julep-inflected tone, Dearest me, we never intended to… and be believed. And remain a symbol of beauty in the world no matter how many scars are on Prissy’s back. Preventing that ‘eureka moment’ Republican officials’ voter registration purges and restricting the possib…

New Poll Reveals That Anti-Trans Rhetoric isn’t Just Affecting Republicans and White Evangelicals

By Chrissy Stroop

…ublic—even among progressive demographics. That, at least, is my grim takeaway from PRRI’s new report, “The Politics of Gender, Pronouns, and Public Education.” The overall positions of various demographics are mostly what you would expect them to be. The report singles out White evangelical Protestants multiple times as, unsurprisingly, America’s most singularly anti-trans demo. In 2021, for example, 86% of White evangelicals said there are only…

Conservative Christians Insist the Toxic Theology Portrayed in the Duggar Family Doc is ‘Fringe’ — But is it Really All That Different?

By Caroline Matas

…ffering and mistreatment by saying ‘it’s not my responsibility. That’s not my community.’ We’re all each other’s community. I made this documentary because I’m my sister’s keeper…. I couldn’t turn away without hazarding my own soul.” As for what Stern hopes viewers take away from the documentary? In an extended Q&A session on Reddit, Stern answered: “Don’t be evil.”…

New Pope Accused of Conspiring in Kidnapping

By Nicole Greenfield

…Bergoglio noted disapprovingly in a 2007 speech. Meanwhile, an astounding number of women in Argentina, women without access to or education about contraception, die annually as victims of botched abortion procedures carried out in secret. If we do dig a little deeper into Bergoglio’s past, we find that he was accused of participating in one of the numerous human rights violations committed during Argentina’s Dirty War (which ended up resulting…

Change v. Change at NPR

By Warren Throckmorton

…art, this is a religious debate. Some religious people think that the only way to fit in to a non-affirming religion is to change desires; others disagree asserting that desires rarely change much, and that living in accord with one’s religious beliefs is the proper aim. Change of orientation is not required for that. This “identity therapy” as Schumacher-Matos called it, is what the APA acknowledges as a proper way to recognize both the durabilit…

Turn On The News: This Isn’t a Split, It’s a Tiny Sliver of Conservatives Walking Out the Door — Introducing A New Media Criticism Column

By Daniel Schultz

…true citizens participate in the mutual work of understanding, speaking in ways that give good and fair arguments to the best of one’s ability and listening in ways that likewise seek to understand as much as possible. Journalists can rightly assume that their audience will participate in the listening part of that work. Nobody needs a willfully obtuse reader. But in trying to understand their sources, journalists often forget the first part of th…

Catholic Church is Lucky it’s Just Same-Sex Marriage

By Marian Ronan

…y 20 years ago. Students went around the table introducing themselves. Halfway through, a young woman said, “Hi. I’m so and so, and I’m a lesbian.” Then she paused. “Well, I used to be a lesbian,” she added, “but my partner had a sex-change operation, so now I’m not exactly sure what I am.” And that was just the beginning. Next there was a newspaper article about women Olympic athletes being eliminated from competition because tests revealed that…