Religion Dispatches
…ons are not characteristic of the educators and legislators who passed the new Louisiana law, but you can be sure that the Darwinist opponents of the law will try to make them sound representative. The same thing happened in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005 when school board members decided to grab onto the phrase (not the reality) of “intelligent design” to promote religious doctrine. The board members, as in Livingston, Louisiana, were as ignorant o…
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…ian-American foreignness kind of way.” Gotanda, though, does see something new in Trump’s proposal. “What’s new is this kind of religious based—nominally religious based—exclusion.” The effect, though, is apparent: “Now, the way [Trump]’s using it is clearly based on body. He wants to keep out brown bodies, and it elides into terrorists.” Let’s talk about Nuremberg Even when there is some kind of biological basis for defining a religious group, di…
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…ous mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code. Sagan has a reputation as a proto-New Atheist, but his novel suggests he was intensely sympathetic to religious experience and authority. By the end of his novel he has his scientist protagonist embark on a career of “experimental theology” after she has discovers the “signature” of God in the very structure of the universe. At the same time, Sagan was not impressed by the creationism of Christian fundament…
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…s fiftieth anniversary, the Pledge was incorporated into the National Flag Code. Ten years later, in the shadow of the Cold War, two weighty words, “under God,” were added. It has become the creed of the state religion, taught early and often to our children. The Very Revd Will H. Mebane, Jr., Interim Dean at St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, NY, grew up in the South in a fairly conservative religious household. He encountered the Flag at…
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…with breaking away from what I was anchored in, and trying to find my own code. But it was a code that was birthed from parents who were strong believers in a higher set of ways of living your life. And that’s what they bequeathed to me. So precious. Do you think that some people are just better at religion than others? Christopher Isherwood talks about the idea of the “religious genius.” Do you think that’s possible? Why not? It makes sense. I t…
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…was imported to colonized Asia and Africa, as the British drafted a penal code in the mid-1800s which outlawed same-sex acts. Internalizing the homophobia which underpinned this legislation, colonized Muslims eventually came to regard same-sex love and relations as immoral. “Although EHT might explain the infiltration of law and official politics in colonized Muslim societies, it doesn’t explain precisely how colonial homophobia transformed the e…
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…ls living in a northern city because not arresting LGBT people “amounts to promotion,” reports Pink News. Homosexuality is illegal put the government has put a moratorium on enforcement of the law. Malawi’s Justice Minister, Samuel Tembenu, said it would be better for pastors to focus on pastoral care than matters of state. He said: “Let our pastors continue doing their good work of saving lost souls. However, they should let experts in human righ…
Read More…verdict nullifying discriminatory laws against the LGBT community. India: New Political Party Puts LGBT Equality at Top of Agenda Andrew Potts reports for Gay Star News that the Aam Aadmi Party is putting gay rights front and center as it seeks to win votes in upcoming elections for the country’s lower house. India’s fledgling Aam Aadmi Party is betting that championing the rights of women and minorities and fighting against corruption will be wi…
Read More…Texas Government Code), states that “litigants in actions under the Family Code involving a marriage relationship… are protected against violations of constitutional rights and public policy in the application of foreign law.” The bill doesn’t explicitly reference sharia or Islamic law (likely because a similar bill in Oklahoma that did specifically mention sharia was struck down as discriminatory in 2012). Nevertheless, the intent of H.B. 45 is c…
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…mic and tactical training, until graduation, when cadets officially become new police officers. At these academies, cadets were encouraged to adopt a warrior approach to their new jobs. Instructors warned cadets to be wary of others, constantly prepared for violence, and especially suspicious of certain kinds of people. New cadets were told that police officers were in more danger now than ever before, and that bad guys wanting to hurt and kill th…
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