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…e Catholic quality of the event was remarkable. Speakers and honorees were mostly Catholic, local Catholic churches were noted. Yet video clips honoring “right-to-life” leaders were mostly the religious right types: Mike Huckabee, and of course Sarah Palin. Catholics and religious right leaders have long made common cause on abortion but the cultural differences between the two groups is strongly discernible. Heroic Media uses television, website…
Read More…ks, insist that any extension be “deficit neutral” and come out of unspent stimulus money. But it’s worse than that: the price Senate Republicans want to extract for helping the jobless includes extending an array of special tax breaks for business while slashing spending at a range of federal agencies. Let it be noted that Congress has never before let unemployment benefits expire while the official jobless rate remains at such a high level. Mean…
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…s, 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…
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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…mage of God as a gay-hating bigot, their acceptance of themselves, for the most part, has proven easier. In reality, the only reason anyone is talking about “reparative therapy” is because religious beliefs have convinced far too many people that God will damn them for eternity if they pursue their natural inclinations toward the same gender. Here’s an idea: instead of fighting about how to change gay people into straight people, let’s shift the f…
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…g point is the assumption that such a question is either/or, then we are almo*]}*st sure to miss out on how interesting, and how lyrical, the subtle convergences between the Christian and the pagan could be in the ancient world. And how lyrical they continue to be in a Romantic age such as ours. Saint Valentinus. It was a common enough name in the Roman Empire, deriving as it did from the Latin word for worthiness (valens). There are no fewer than sev…
Read More…eople whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people for me almo*]}*st 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-pr…
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…esponses of the accused have varied widely as well. In a few cases—Moore’s most notably—unyielding denial has been the strategy. Those who admitted wrongdoing have done so with varying degrees of specificity and remorse. Garrison Keillor protested his innocence in a statement laden with passive-aggressive humor. These misdeeds can be sorted by type and graded by severity by anyone who wishes. Such cataloguing may even be used as leverage or defens…
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