Religion Dispatches
…reedom bills, meant to take up a perceived lack of protection of religious freedom in existing federal and state law, could provide a free pass to use religion to refuse service to certain types of customers. It was public opposition, widely shared by individuals, businesses, business interests, and religious actors, which spurred Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto, and the failure of similar bills in other states (save Mississippi). Opponents of LGBT…
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…incentive the Christian Right has to keep the focus on religion instead of free speech is because the implications if Smith wins on the free speech argument are, frankly, unthinkable. A win for Smith would bore a hole right in the center of nondiscrimination laws—nondiscrimination laws for all, not just for LGBTQ people—no matter what ADF want us to think. A win for Smith would, by some measures, create an entirely new class of rights: artists who…
Read More…loped is the twin definition of citizenship: on the one hand, citizens are free to participate in the political realm. On the other, they’re free to participate in the economic realm, which is to say, the market. Increasingly in the post-war era, it’s that last definition that has taken precedence, leaving us with a global marketplace populated by members of many different nations and ethnicities. As Cavanaugh points out, the less government you h…
Read More…oppression cannot be far behind. Conversely, if a God is disclosed who is free to come and go, free from and even against the regime, free to hear and even answer slave cries, free from all proper godness as defined by the empire, then it will bear decisively upon sociology because the freedom of God will surface in the brickyards and manifest itself as justice and compassion. That’s the God I know and love, one who provokes real change on behalf…
Read More…deo-Christian” values and nations. Lind worked at the Paul Weyrich-founded Free Congress Foundation as its Director of its Center for Cultural Conservatism, a position he left in 2009. Berlet dates Lind’s first significant writing on “cultural Marxism” to 1997. Berlet: Most significant is a collection of essays published by the Free Congress Foundation in 2004 on cultural Marxism, political correctness, and multiculturalism. The editor of that col…
Read More…all Street hucksters? But here’s the kicker: The fact that Jesus chose the free market system as the basis for this parable should not be overlooked. When the nobleman returns, after being established as king – a stand-in for Jesus – he calls all his servants together to see what they had accomplished in his absence. Ah. The kingdom Jesus is expecting upon his return is a free market system? Novel. Perkins goes on to argue that Jesus “rejected col…
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…a writer, a comedian, in a lot of creative spaces. What’s the line between free speech and bigotry? Wow. What is the line between free speech and bigotry? Look, there’s always going to be free speech, and it’s a fundamental right. We are allowed to speak our minds. But bigotry will always exist—there will always be a certain amount of prejudice, and I don’t think you can eradicate that. What I wanted to do was address some of that prejudice, the m…
Read More…partner on the basis of their own entirely self-selected reasons. They are free to conduct themselves in marriage precisely as they choose to do. They are free to initiate divorce if and when they choose and for whatever reason might seem compelling to them. In other words, a spouse has become a consumer product, to be bought, abandoned, or traded in for a new model at the will of the customer. I dunno. Like Gushee, I’ve married dozens of couples….
Read More…t of the religious right which deems it an unconstitutional restriction on free speech and religious freedom. The rule, it’s true, is rarely enforced by the IRS, as the memo notes. But if it’s repealed, and churches are free from the possibility of an IRS investigation for endorsing candidates, churches would become even more politicized, and free to use their tax-exempt status to do so. UPDATE: Michael Batts, who has been appointed to lead the EC…
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…molated last year, says Tenzin Jigdal, program director for Students for a Free Tibet—India. Refugees born in Tibet cannot easily forget China’s repression, says Wangdue, 33, a “mountain boy” from Tibet with just one name. He hung out at his open-air clothing shop along the narrow path of Majnu Ka Tilla with Norbu Tsetam, 25, who was born in India. “He hears about Tibet, but he cannot see Tibet,” Wangdue says of his friend. “Sometimes I feel I’m a…
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