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Corporations Have Consciences and Contraceptives Are Cheap: Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court

By Sarah Posner

…case, the companies’ employees) and whether, as the companies assert, the Affordable Care Act’s regulation on coverage for preventative care is actually accurately termed a “mandate.” Sotomayor, after noting that “we’ve never really considered a for-profit corporation as exercising religion,” asked whether “there is another choice of paying the tax” rather than providing a group health plan. (For more on the intricacies of that argument, see this…

Our Failure To Understand Ferguson: A Cognitive Explanation

By Andrew Aghapour

…, RD associate editor Andrew Aghapour explores why it is psychologically difficult, but increasingly important, to blame social institutions for causing harm. For more on blame, read the introductory post or explore the full series. I recently found myself yelling at JetBlue from the backseat of an Uber. My wife Emmie was in the passenger seat, rifling through her bag for our Iranian passports. She turned back and asked, “They can’t do this, can…

What Does a Moral Economy Look Like for the 99 Percent?

By Jonathan Rosenblum

…tional, often chaotic fusion of immigrant workers from more than a dozen different countries, faith leaders, community activists, and union organizers who made history by taking on corporate giants and winning the first $15 minimum wage initiative in the country. By union standards, it was a highly unconventional campaign, forcing us to think differently about how to struggle for power and a voice in today’s economy. Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers,…

Mormon Women Knock at the Door, Are Turned Away

By Holly Welker

…uth Todd, who said, “This is no surprise to you, that we won’t be able to offer you a ticket or a place.” Then, as men and boys strode past them into the Tabernacle where they awaited the opportunity to move to the Conference Center where the session would take place, members of Ordain Women lined up individually or in pairs to request and be denied admission by church representative Doug Peterson. According to Mike Stevens of Ogden, Utah, who st…

Blame Series Bonus: Why We Want That Dish For Free, an Uncut Interview with Bertram Malle

By Andrew Aghapour

…) Something that I’m very interested in right now is why it’s often very difficult to blame institutions. For example, I had a flight cancelled recently, and at first I was really mad at Jet Blue. The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt like I was just a victim of chance, of a large system that was ultimately blind to my suffering. Why is it difficult, at a psychological level, to blame institutions or complex systems? Well, again, we…

Paranormal Vodka, Exorcists and a Demonic Doll: Welcome to Paracon, Based on the Work of the Demon-Hunters Who Inspired the ‘Conjuring’ Series

By Eric Harrelson and Joseph P. Laycock

…he Supernatural Paracon as part of our research for our book The Exorcist Effect (named for a phenomenon we discussed in these pages after the release of Conjuring 3). I certainly didn’t expect the crowd. The Paracon, held the weekend before Halloween, is based around the work of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the famous demon-hunting couple whose case files are the basis of the billion-dollar Conjuring series of films. Put on by Tony Spera, the son-in-l…

Pope Praises ‘Complementarity’ & Resists Gay Ambassador; Irish Religious Leaders Spar Over Marriage; Colombian Atty Gen Cites ‘Bogus’ Study Opposing Adoption; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…and protect transgender people against discrimination and to facilitate self-determination. Human Rights Watch called it “a much needed roadmap for a region in which at least 33 countries still require humiliating and invasive procedures as a precondition for legal gender recognition.” Vatican: Pope praises male-female ‘complementarity,’ does not accept gay ambassador Francis is making it harder for equality-supporting Catholics to maintain optimi…

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…e attempted the warrior pose. Was I back in Los Angeles? Why wasn’t this different? The staff—all devotees of the Ananda movement, a Hindu spiritual fellowship founded in northern California during the late 60s—only reinforced feelings of familiarity. There was Jemal, the dreadlocked, Yale-educated monk who waxed philosophic about the “sublime” benefits of a celibate lifestyle. There was Shivani, a Jewish girl from Ohio who joined the Ananda commu…

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

By Ed Simon

…ntellectually sophisticated philosophical arrangements. But for those who affirm that they’re beyond such things, angels would seem to be beyond redemption, and belief in them understood as immature, dim-witted, and déclassé. The sort of subject left to supermarket tabloids like The Weekly World News, which in 1996 breathlessly declared, with tongue only partially in cheek, “Airline Pilot Photographs an Angel!,” between a blurry “photo” and a pull…

Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

By Michael Schulson

…e with the telling (was it a nail salon or a hair salon?), but here’s the official version: during a teatime conversation, Burrows asked Rinzler “why there wasn’t a modern, non-religious, drop-in studio where she could meditate in the same way she could drop into a salon and get her hair done.” Rinzler, it turned out, had been thinking along the same lines. They drew up a plan. I’m not a Buddhist teacher, but I can think of at least two answers to…