Religion Dispatches
…by Gary Macy, Ph.D. This book and an earlier book featured on RD, Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future (Paulist Press) will be the seminar texts. Registration for the June 9-July 8 MOOS closes first week of June….
Read More…ng that Cantor “wants to herd even more gun owners into a federal database registration system.” Cantor, the ad went on, “doesn’t sound like a Virginian or a Republican anymore. Eric Cantor sounds like someone else”—another bogeyman, Barack Obama. That ad was pretty clear: he’s not one of us. But was that because he was Jewish, or because he briefly diverged from firearms orthodoxy? In any case, it can now be said that in terms of representation i…
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…il fraud. As the activities of ACORN have demonstrated, organizations that promote voter fraud have burrowed into every corner of our country. In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive.” I love the phrase, “burrowed into every corner of our country”—like it’s an alien invasion of bedbugs. But rather than address a real problem, Kobach is just using the issue to continue banging away at the demonization of those who d…
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…r those who engage in homosexuality, those who support it, and media that “promotes” or mentions it. A social media campaign using the hashtag #WeNeedToTalk to promote the World Youth Forum being held in Egypt November 4-10 was hijacked by activists to draw attention to the country’s crackdown on LGBT people and on civil society in general: The conference’s organizers had hoped the hashtag would encourage interaction among the participants ahead o…
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…ake it easier and less dehumanizing for trans people to legally change the registration of the sex assigned to them at birth. In short, Aiwanger went through the right-wing charts of this summer and simply ignored the accusations. In the audience, people held up signs expressing their support, with one man wearing a T-shirt which read “Stand by Aiwanger in times of need, otherwise our Bavaria is dead.” A truly MAGA-esque sentiment where the dear L…
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…. You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.” We feel her exquisite pain: emotionally, yes, but also morally. The good guy with the gun is not so good. As for the bad guy with the gun, he wasn’t bad at all. He wasn’t even reaching for his weapon. Historically, the dueling ritual was widely tolerated in the American colonies. After the birth of our republic, the practice persisted, surviving well int…
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…re for all who strive for it. Never mind the Republican Party’s efforts to promote McCarthyist laws that restrict discussions of the history of racism and other supposedly “divisive concepts” in America schools; or its leadership’s denigrating characterizations of political leaders of color with whom they disagree. And who here really cares that the Republican Party has championed voter suppression and gerrymandering that disproportionately affect…
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…eaceroots, a coalition of antiwar organizations, is here and so is a voter registration group. But there is very little confrontational about the politics that Bonnaroo offers. “This way, you can go through all of these groups and find the thing that clicks for you,” one volunteer, a college senior, told us. Bonnaroo isn’t force-feeding political engagement on anyone. Instead, it presents a menu of dishes from which the festival-goer can select—or…
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…count. We matter. I’m so glad I’m here.” On the way out, there were voter registration forms and groups preparing to go canvass in Philadelphia. Afterward, when asked why she organized the event, Ms. Shropshire took a different approach than at the mic. The excitement around Obama’s candidacy, she hopes, will end up energizing people to be more active locally in the future. Here, work needs to be done, and “it is all about the issues.” Rev. Mille…
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…enix, Arizona. All told, five people were removed and had their conference registrations revoked, allegedly without formal explanation. All of those removed are affiliated with Faith in America (FIA), a progressive nonprofit dedicated to “[moving] the needle forward on LGBTQ equality in the pews and in our legislation.” Brandan Robertson, a 24-year-old bisexual cisgender man, and former SBC youth leader, told RD that he and a colleague had noticed…
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