Religion Dispatches
…t service in showing the inherent contradictions of the law, rather than just stating them. Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the video is when the female police officer, who will be required to ticket them in the near future, asks to take a picture of them. Sarkozy’s ban may have inadvertently created the sense of “Frenchness” in a way he didn’t anticipate. These women have crossed the religious and cultural divide to add to the motto “liberty,…
Read More…ly 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that he was there to see if he cou…
Read More…bbyist is indeed the brother of uber-Democrat (and former Clinton chief of staff) John Podesta. Is it any wonder that disenchanted voters mutter, “They’re all alike”? It’s Independence Day. Let us soberly consider the state of our democracy to observe that what remains is but a hollow shell. We retain the marble façade of formal democracy, but these well-fed people in no way represent us. They represent the fixers and the string pullers. The ancie…
Read More…Back from my Bloggingheads hiatus, I talk with Get Religion’s Mollie Hemingway about whether Mitt Romney’s plan to discuss his Mormonism tonight at the Republican National Convention benefit his candidacy: And we also discussed the significance of the fact that Barack Obama is the only Protestant on both presidential tickets: …
Read More…released a video in which he said: It is astounding to have to say that most Houston citizens – including most Christians and pastors – are still unaware of the radical nature of Mayor Annise Parker’s commitment to imposing the full “San Francisco Style” Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, etc. agenda. … We have a sin-sick city and we need the power of God through Jesus Christ changing lives and changing City Hall! Conservatives have jumped on…
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…upportive Instagram video, tagged with “I’d like you to meet who Prime Minister @JustinPJTrudeau called the ‘fringe minority.’ Tell me what you think of this video.” It features the Jericho March, among others, and is was set to “Amazing Grace,” which was sung loudly by the mob on January 6. The Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a noted QAnon-adjacent radical traditionalist Catholic, gave a talk that linked the convoy expressly to “a worldwide chorus…
Read More…NPR piece does have moments of clarity, to call it balanced is a bit of a stretch. First, the reporter never tells us exactly who Rich Wyler is — the founder of an “ex-gay” ministry, People Can Change, whose practices, writes Warren Throckmorton, are even marginalized among the “ex-gay” industry. By omitting this deeply relevant fact, the NPR story glosses over the true story here: those who become “ex-gay” are usually those who are making a livi…
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…tin god, Saturn). True Christians, these Purists argued, only celebrated Easter. Still later, the whole domestic and private edifice of trees and turkeys and elaborate gift-giving (in part imagined as a reaction against the public drinking and wassailing) were a creation of the 19th century. And the evolution of that alternative tradition has many Christians on guard these days, trying to “keep the Christ in Christmas.” Christ, it is feared may ha…
Read More…ple whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people for me almost instantly. For the first time I had empathy for them and remember asking myself what I was doing. Marinelli’s story of conversion is eye-opening, and shows just how even those most virulently opposed to marriage equality can have their minds changed when gay and lesbian people come out and simply show themselves to be the real human beings that they are. The counter-prot…
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…y Weinstein’s pattern of predation went public. But the consequences contrast still more sharply. A leave of absence was not an option for Oedipus. Nothing short of exile from his political community would be sufficient. As I have watched the flood stories of misconduct, I have tried to note the consequences that follow. The accusations have varied widely in their particulars. Weinstein himself seems to have operated an open and thorough system of…
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