Religion Dispatches
…ar is that states like New York will change the definition of marriage for Texas. At that point the states rights argument is lost. That’s right. Because there’s a storied history of New York making Texas do crazy stuff. Perry groveled: Right and that is the reason that the federal marriage amendment is being offered, it’s that small group of activist judges, and frankly a small handful, if you will, of states, and liberal special interests groups…
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…d to my wall, a blown-up detail of Christ’s sorrowful face from some Renaissance fresco—nightly devotions not unlike those performed by numberless teenage fans, in bedrooms across America, before pin-ups ripped from rock magazines like Creem or Circus or Hit Parader, except in my case the object of my obsession was the Son of God. I caught myself thinking how passionately I loved him. And I wondered what that meant. And I realized I didn’t care. S…
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…rdileone garnered national criticism for attempting to do just that in the San Francisco diocesan schools, which would have also required teachers to follow a “morality clause,” meaning that they would obey church teachings even outside of the classroom. The San Francisco archdiocese eventually dropped the effort, but reclassifying theology faculty and graduate students in this manner means not only that they’ll be blocked from unionizing, but tha…
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…m Seder.” In 1969 it was published in Ramparts magazine, where tens of thousands greeted it with joy: a religion they could share! And on April 4, 1969, the first anniversary of Dr. King’s murder and the third night of Passover, we held a Freedom Seder in the basement of a Black church in Washington DC, with about 800 people, Jews and Christians, Black and white. It was not only my engagement with the Jewish text, with all the Jewish texts, that “…
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…ader. What was the culture of the prison? At night, there was one guard for 800 prisoners. In the Rio prison system there’s no real government presence; state control in the prisons is just a façade. The prison gangs are the most powerful presence, but the church exerts a strong influence too. There were about 400 inmates in the gang camp inside the prison, and 40 to 50 in the church camp. The rest were neutral people who kept to themselves in the…
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…einart, in a Haaretz column, accused the American Jewish establishment of “sanitizing” Netanyahu’s position. The result of that sanitizing, he argued, will be “exactly the reaction American Jews fear most,” Palestinian abandonment of a two-state vision for a one-state solution. That, Beinart wrote, “would likely mean the end of a country dedicated to Jewish self-protection, and even though a binational state, in practical terms, would likely mean…
Read More…though this, the men would hover around the tent entries, send notes, make phone calls, actually get their phone cords recharged, and send food and drink through every possible opening in the tent. As far as I could tell, it was always the men hanging around our tent and not the women hanging around the men’s tent. Pretty funny if you think about it. They were like lost puppies without their women. Yet patriarchy would have us think they are the m…
Read More…posing Michigan’s informed consent law. More chapter houses are opening in San Antonio and other cities around the country. The Detroit Free Press featured an interview with one Tom Raspotnik, an independent Satanist. Raspotnik described himself as a “tea party” Satanist who opposed the progressivism and atheism espoused by The Satanic Temple. He asserted that Satan is a real entity that he sacrifices goats to. Greaves has characterized Raspotnik…
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…of Directors and Advisory Board include billionaire and part-owner of the San Antonio Spurs James Leininger, former Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), and Georgia State Senator Ralph T. Hudgens. Gothard’s foundational beliefs—the eponymous “basic life principles” and their attendant 49 “character qualities,” including deference, meekness, obedience, and orderliness—have also made their way into the bloodstream of a variety of American institutions….
Read More…olution bills introduced in state legislatures since Jan. 1. The latest is Texas’ HB 2454, which would prohibit an institution of higher learning from “discrimination related to research related into intelligent design.” “PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RESEARCH RELATED TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN. An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a…
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