Religion Dispatches
…sses in the Hamptons (which includes early class signups) runs for $4,000. New York magazine interviewed one New York City rider who, by the magazine’s estimate, was spending more than $21,000 on SoulCycle each year. A single class, sans early sign-up perks, costs nearly as much as a month-long membership at my local YMCA. Meanwhile, back on SoulCycle’s website, instructors describe their work in frankly spiritual language. Here’s the lightly cond…
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…ergy. Any kind of community can tolerate behaviors it should not, though a number of New Age leaders, including Deepak Chopra, have moved to distance themselves from Gafni since the Times article came out. Still, that ethic of personal authority and cosmic consciousness remains a significant teaching for many New Age leaders, a teaching that seems especially ill-equipped to address transgression. David Ingber, the rabbi who knew Gafni back when he…
Read More…Europe to make divorce legal, which it did by referendum in 2011. Brunei: New Law Allows Death by Stoning for Homosexuality, Other Offenses Next week a new law goes into effect in Brunei which will allow gay people and others to be stoned to death. The maximum penalty for homosexuality had been a 10-year prison sentence. “Rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, insulting any verses of the Quran and Hadith, blasphemy, de…
Read More…at a group of students in the playground of St. Mary’s Parochial School in Newburgh, New York, causing minor injuries to several of the students. The majority of attacks during this time period were by students on other students or teachers, and usually involved stabbing with knives, or hitting with stones. 1900–1930s There are very few reports of mass or multiple school shootings during the first three decades of the 20th Century, with the three…
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…r even suppressed. Duché betrayed American independence. When we hear these unconstitutional legislative prayers before government bodies all over this country we should remember their legacy is one of treason and betrayal. They are, at heart, un-American. Happy Fourth of July, America. This article is adapted from The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American which examines and debunks the historical disinformation that forms the ba…
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…behind.” A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department called reports of renewed extrajudicial killings “troubling”: Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper, on Sunday published the names of 27 men who it said authorities shot to death in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Jan. 26. The Washington Blade has not been able to confirm reports that some of the men who were reportedly killed were gay. The Russian LGBT Network, a Moscow-based advoc…
Read More…of the horse race in the presidential campaign). That’s the setup of cable news: we need both sides, here they are, time for a commercial. Or, we need someone with inside knowledge of what conservative powerbrokers think about the presidential campaign. That structure is the problem — not having Perkins on television. He should be questioned about his beliefs, past statements, and, for example, willingness to stand by as his own pastor tells fello…
Read More…r her Israel trip, as it has done for other presidential hopefuls, instead booking it through a Christian tour agency. He thinks, perhaps, that Palin is miffed that he and other RJC board members have been critical of her, but that she’s unwise to rebuff them because they could be so helpful to her. But this is characteristically Palin behavior — with or without the criticism. She is, for example, the only GOP aspirant who has never spoken at the…
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…trol; and by giving states that control, Project 2025 means Oklahoma. Most Americans can’t comprehend education policy that actively undermines and destroys public education. But that has been a conservative goal since public schools were desegregated in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which I’ve written about here on RD, and which I detail in American Crusade. The end goal is to funnel students and public money (via vouchers or other schemes…
Read More…“Obamosque,” is today touting a Time magazine poll showing one quarter of Americans apparently believe President Obama is a Muslim. (A Pew poll out today shows that figure at 19%). Why do that many Americans believe that? Could it be the use of terms like “Obamosque?” Or this photograph on the Special Guests website? Today Special Guests is also promoting the special guest of Scott Wheeler, a long-time operative of right-wing smear campaigns agai…
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