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No Fireworks, Only Candles: Our Work as Americans and Muslims

By Ayesha Mattu

…ce before the baby awakens. The festival begins. It’s one of those perfect San Francisco days, warm enough to enjoy the perpetual breeze. The band plays just beyond the walls of our roof deck, and soap bubbles float up close enough to pop from the crowded street below. All afternoon, friends join us. Music and sunlight stream in to the kitchen through the open glass doors. We eat dark strawberries picked the day before, drink homemade lemonade, an…

RD News Round-Up—Oct.14, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…pport for a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in California. The San Jose Mercury News reported that “SurveyUSA said the Proposition 8 campaign remains too close to call because of potential statistical error, the new poll is the first that shows the measure gaining strength since late September and potentially pulling ahead.” On October 3, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s Sandhya Bathija reported on sitting in on co…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…years. I came about the time that folks from Burma began arriving in large numbers and uniting in membership with Crescent Hill, and much of my time in those early years was spent trying to figure out how in the world we might be able to be a unified body that includes people who don’t speak English, who have a completely foreign background and cultural experience. It took a lot of hard work but we reached a place a number of years ago where, whil…

Niqab and Short Shorts

By Hussein Rashid

…of protest is to wear the niqab and nothing else. Then, the women will get tickets, not for being nude, but for being clothed. In my opinion, that would show the absolute absurdity of the state trying to control women’s dress. I have written elsewhere that this sort of action, of controlling a woman’s body, is simply male penis worship run amok. These ladies, who call themselves Niqabitches, have done a great service in showing the inherent contra…

Answers in Genesis Seeks Tax Breaks for New Theme Park

By Lauri Lebo

…evelopers of approved projects the sales tax paid by visitors on admission tickets, food, gift sales and lodging costs. Developers have 10 years to reach the 25 percent threshold. Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says there are concerns over the project, but it’s too early to tell whether the proposed business incentives would be unconstitutional in that it would involve excessive entanglement with r…

Constitutional Attorney Changes into Drag During Talk on Cancelation of West Texas A&M Drag Show

By Chrissy Stroop

…ents, booked an on-campus venue, and began to advertise the event and sell tickets. Then, 11 days before the drag fundraiser was set to take place, WT President Walter Wendler, who has a record of inserting his right-wing Christian bias into his public roles, unilaterally canceled the performance via a pedantic email. Seidel tells the story of the drag show cancelation at West Texas A&M (clip=5.5 minutes): Much of the moralizing communique was cou…

The ‘Freedom Convoy’ is Inspired by a Biblical Account of Divine Massacre: Welcome to the Jericho March

By Thomas Lecaque

…d they hope eventually more will show up, to the tune of thousands and thousands. Benita Pedersen, an organizer from Alberta, was interviewed by a sympathetic Christian YouTube channel about what they’re doing. Pedersen says she felt a “call on her heart” to do this. She’d been given a steer horn by a local farmer. She knew she had to bring it to Ottawa and that she had to do a Jericho March. She’s now using that steer horn as a shofar. She says t…

I Miss Tina Fey

By Julie Ingersoll

…half. There were still probably 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth my parking tickets, he secureth me a good table in the restaurant, he leadeth me to book contracts. Even in these minor tasks, the invocation of God seems more of a courtesy than a necessity.” Gone, too, from Osteen’s theology is any mention of topics that might intrude on happy thoughts: Osteen avoids using current events in his messages so he doesn’t get sidetracked in controversy….

NPR “Ex-Gay” Report Neither “Fair” Nor “Balanced”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…people for “therapies” that can destroy them psychologically, while buying tickets to Toscano’s shows might result in some good belly laughs, but no pressure to convert. What makes this story so shameful, though, is how the true message is completely glossed over in the pursuit of finding out who is “right” and who is “wrong.” Both Wyler and Toscano are Christian men who were given the message early on in their lives that being gay or lesbian was…