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White Christian Complaints About Religious Persecution Are Especially Ugly on MLK Day

By Sunnivie Brydum

…with their beliefs” routinely demonized by the soon-to-be President of the United States. Although he doesn’t mention specific legislation, it’s not hard to read between the lines and infer that Perkins is referring to the so-called First Amendment Defense Act, a sweeping federal bill that could allow any individual, health care provider, business or corporation to refuse to serve or treat LGBT people or unmarried mothers, so long as they cite a “…

California Tribes Denounce Catholic Church’s “Fraud” and “Blatant Fabrication” on Serra Sainthood

By Peter Montgomery

…line on Serra was denounced as a “fraud” by Antonio Gonzales, Director and United Nations Liaison for American Indian Movement West. Another speaker called the Church’s claims about Serra “a blatant fabrication.” The activists have essentially been ignored by the church. Gonzales read a statement by Valentin Lopzez, chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band recounting the multiple letters and petitions tribes have sent in the nine months since Franc…

Welcome to the (New) Gilded Age: Supreme Court Delivers the Goods to Corporations

By Peter Laarman

…effective judicial sanction to a Republican coup d’etat; however, Citizens United is not merely court-sanctioned, but court-engineered, amounting to a judicial coup d’etat executed in behalf of the already-ascendant money power in our society. Noting that this ruling will likely benefit Republicans much more than Democrats is really beside the point; the point—the well-sharpened and deadly point—is that Citizens United will vastly strengthen the h…

Media Fail to Acknowledge That 2024 Hopeful Ron DeSantis is as Catholic as Biden

By Chrissy Stroop

…of Catholic Bishops, currently treat one in seven hospital patients in the United States, and their share of control over hospital systems in the United States only continues to grow. In terms of practical matters, being transgender means there are restrictions on where I can live and what health insurance companies I’m able to use in order to ensure that my care takes place within a secular system of clinics and hospitals, where I don’t risk bein…

Bin Laden’s Death Does Not Prove that Torture Works

By Sarah Sentilles

…ssible because torture is not understood to be wrong by many people in the United States, and part of the reason for that is because no one has been punished for engaging in it. Officials are able to champion their use of torture—as Bush did in Decision Points—because no one in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for torturing or for authorizing torture despite the overwhelming evidence that they did so. There are some countries to w…

American Civil Religion is Dead, Long Live American Civil Religion

By Peter Laarman

…g the truth, junking the impossible notion that God has somehow chosen the United States for a special destiny or is interested in mending our “every flaw.” Try this: 1. Our country’s history has been a mixed bag from the start, with white male supremacy and white racist violence lying at the very core of the Anglo colonial culture—and with that toxic inheritance carrying right through into the revolutionary period and into the young republic and…

Who is Mat Staver, Counsel for Anti-Gay Activist Against Suit from Uganda?

By Sarah Posner

…try will no longer be the United States of America but instead will be the United States according to Massachusetts, California, or Vermont.” The posting included a letter written by Lindevaldsen, asking for prayers and help for “Lisa Miller—my client, my friend, my sister in Christ.” The letter, dated September 22, 2008, claimed that Miller “is one of thousands across this nation who have left the homosexual lifestyle through the redeeming power…

Sometimes, Sides Must be Taken: Obama and Lincoln

By Michael A. Elliott

…t a history that he believed could carry the nation into the future as a reunited whole. His most brilliant rhetoric—the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery and his second inaugural address—calls upon Americans to attend to the “unfinished work” of this enterprise, and suggest that those who have died in the Civil War demand nothing less. This entreaty to “finish the work we are in” plays well as the closing act of the semester. It is, if I may…

The Kids Are All Wrong: Texas Tosses The Enlightenment

By Burke Gerstenschlager

…d States as a whole, whether the majority of the citizens of Texas (or the United States) believe this narrative or not. On the day of the final vote, board member Cynthia Dunbar, opening the meeting in prayer, said as much when she prayed: “I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.” Dunbar was quite clear: only our citizens…

Next Up: A Pope of Color?

By Kate Childs Graham

…Peter…[Obama’s election] is a great step for humanity, a sign that in the United States the issue of race and the problem of discrimination have been overcome…The Church has also made impressive advances…[The election of a black pope] is certainly possible. Thanks to the wisdom of the cardinals, that could happen at the next conclave. Is Archbishop Gregory on to something? Back in 2005, during the last conclave, there was quite a buzz about the p…