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400 Churchgoing Mormons March in SLC Pride Parade

By Joanna Brooks

…ing, ‘Thank you so much.’” Adam Ford of Alpine, Utah marched in his Sunday best with his sons Parley and Willard, who are named for historic LDS Church leaders Parley P. Pratt and Willard Richards. “I saw about a dozen people openly weeping as they watched us walk by. One body builder guy in a tight tank top heaved with sobs,” said Ford. “I walked over and hugged him.” Clair Barrus witnessed the tears of parade-goers as evidence of deep wounds car…

Talmud on Trial: Interfaith Dialogue in the 13th Century

By Michael Schulson

…good thing. And we tend to assume, in our interfaith educations, that the best way to learn about another religion is to study its texts and its official positions. The Paris trial challenges both. Perhaps it’s best to encounter religions in the real world, informally, with a focus on actual actions, not official words. Pope Benedict XVI worked hard to improve the Church’s interfaith profile, with limited success. While his largely positive attit…

Thank You, Satanists

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…ect to my will alone. I make any decision regarding my health based on the best scientific understanding of the world, even if the science does not comport with the religious or political beliefs of others. My inviolable body includes any fetal or embryonic tissue I carry so long as that tissue is unable to survive outside my body as an independent human being. I, and I alone, decide whether my inviolable body remains pregnant and I may, in good c…

Muslim Brotherhood: Protect Churches; Mufti Exempts Egyptians from Friday Prayer

By H.A. Hellyer

…were hearing reports that at least on Thursday night, the protestors were fairly few in number in comparison to before. No one really knows what will happen tomorrow. There is all sorts of speculation going on at the moment—to the point where people are suggesting that actually, the army might attempt a coup. Where they have evidence for this is anyone’s best guess—but it reveals the amount of confusion the people have about the situation. And it’…

Wiccan Prayer in Iowa House Highlights Religious Freedom Problem

By Joseph Laycock

…tes, “We need to understand religious people as they are—not just at their best but also their worst. We need to look at not only their awe-inspiring architecture and gentle mystics but also their bigots and suicide bombers.” This is where pluralism gets tough. For Taylor and like-minded Christians, opposition to Maynard’s religion, and a refusal to engage with it on its own terms, is a religious commitment. Taylor explained: I prayed about this a…

Pelosi Attacker’s New Age Spirituality and Belief in QAnon is no Contradiction

By Susannah Crockford

…ssness. He was apparently communicating with an entity he identified as a fairy. Several of his blog posts are images of what appear to be fairies, posted without comment. Such strange beliefs that transgress political dichotomies and seem delusional are familiar terrain in the study of religion. Screenshot of Elon Musk’s now-deleted tweet of a Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory. Failing to understand the crossover between new age spirituality and cons…

Accused of Anti-Semitism, Trump Aide Makes Ancestry Appeal

By Michael Schulson

…choice, and social performance, and those components of identity that are bestowed by birth. I don’t know Schmitz’s wife, and it’s not for me to judge how she does or does not engage with particular parts of her heritage. But there’s something discomfiting about Schmitz’s appeal to exculpation-through-genetics. Accused of anti-Semitism, he’s appealing to exactly the principle that many modern Jews have worked so hard to flee: that regardless of b…

The Problem with AMC’s Sci-Fi Hit Humans

By Andrew Aghapour

…fear that technology might one day surpass us, the human form isn’t always best for the job. Take, for example, the synth telephone operator. Why create a physical robot for this job which has to receive audio through a wired earpiece and then respond via speaker into a microphone? Couldn’t synth software do the trick without complex parts that mimic the functions of ears and a mouth? Furthermore, wouldn’t it make better economic sense to distribu…

Conservative Anglican Bishops Threaten To Split Communion; Malawi Opposition Leader Says Gays Should Be Killed; Anti-Marriage Effort Makes European Union Question Initiative Process; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…nt Danilo Medina’s administration and the Dominican Ministry of Foreign Affairs specifically cites the “intent” of the White House and the U.N. “to create the right conditions to morally deprive our adolescents in school by imposing upon them sexuality classes that have as basic text a manual that invites children to begin practicing gay and lesbian practices while in secondary school.” “This initiative to turn our adolescents gay early on is an i…

Why Don’t Muslims Condemn Terrorism?

By Hussein Rashid

…gives lie to that myth. It was under Muslim control for centuries, and at best is currently 10% Muslim. Even if Pakistan and Bangladesh are counted as part of larger South Asia, only 1/3 of the population is Muslim, spread through the north, the center, and the south. There is no universally recognized command to convert and/or kill. 3. Muslims do not condemn terrorism. Part of moving beyond this simplistic idea of Muslims is to move beyond simpl…