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Are School Districts Getting the Message on Government-Sponsored Prayer?

By Lauri Lebo

…ly end the Bible class, drawing boos from a crowd of students, parents and community members who had shown up to speak in support of the program. In the Chattanooga suburb of Hamilton County, the Times Free Press reports: After receiving a letter of complaint from the Freedom from Religion Foundation this week on behalf of students from Soddy-Daisy High School, Scales sent an e-mail to all local principals on Tuesday, saying the U.S. Supreme Court…

Fox Makes Mockery Of Promise To Rein In Beck’s Anti-Semitism

By Sarah Posner

…rous satanic force on earth. While Beck claims to be an opponent of the genocidal Nazi regime, and a great supporter of Jews, as Alexander Zaitchik wrote in Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and The Triumph of Ignorance, Beck’s career is actually built on three of the “eight most common social phenomena that precede and accompany genocide,” dehumanization, classification, and polarization. In his twisted propaganda screed against the right’s sworn enemy…

New Poll: Repeal DOMA

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…commissioned by the largest organization fighting for LGBT rights, but the numbers [pdf] show that the sample actually skewed right. Of the 800 registered voters polled 38 percent were strong, weak, or independent-leaning Democrats with 41 percent identifying as strong, weak, or independent leaning Republicans. Conservatives outweighed liberals by 38 to 18 percent, and a full 74 percent of those polled identified as religious. Some 40 percent clai…

What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

By Susan Henking

…1941, for example, the Court said picketing is “the workingman’s means of communication.” Much of the Court’s attention to picketing has been about the complex relationship between picketing as a form of patrolling that limits entrance to, say, businesses (or, wait, funerals?) versus picketing understood as a form of communication. And herein lies, perhaps, part of the ethical dilemma associated with Fred Phelps. An ethical dilemma of both global…

Norway Massacre Suspect Anders Behring Breivik, Hitler, & the Jerusalem Post Editorial

By Sarah Posner

…ences would be for their tribes if they lost,” nonetheless “went ahead and completed the job” (note that Breivik at no point employs the word Holocaust). Breivik then turns his anti-multiculturalism screed against Jews, disparaging Jews who “support multiculturalism” and lauding those who do not. He describes the latter as “Israeli nationalists (who want to deport the Muslims from Israel)” (apparently something he approves of). Here, Breivik lamen…

Something So Broken: What’s Frightening About Beasts of the Southern Wild

By Michael Pasquier

…sagree, at least in part. Zeitlin’s characterization of Louisiana is not uncommon, not for a newcomer and not for a native. It’s a variation on the whole laissez les bon temps rouler routine, with every country Cajun and Creole queen living every day like it’s Mardi Gras. It’s also part of the national and international fascination with Louisiana’s disaster streak. Had 1,836 people (1,577 in Louisiana) not died during Hurricane Katrina and had the…

Colorado’s Personhood Initiative Fails—For Now

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…nt going to actually directly literally kill her? No? Oh, so it might just completely wreck her life and re-traumatize her in ways I can never really understand since I’m not her? Yeah, that’s fine. I’m okay with that possibility. Make sure she does what I think she should do. Make sure it’s not her decision.” I doubt most supporters of personhood measures would actually say that. I’d like to think most of them don’t think that. But that just show…

Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

…on Alliance, a grassroots Mormon organization that monitored abuse within the Church, published a study documenting negligence on the part of local members and leaders in addressing abuse—and even the excommunication of some victims and accusers. In 1995, the Church established stronger guidelines and new protocols for reporting abuse, including a 1-800 number for local clergy. …

My God, David Brooks

By John Modern

…dabblings, Facebook profiles, and so many other moments of consumer bliss combining seamlessly with the comforts of self-governance and possessive spirituality. Choice vis-à-vis religion is self-evident and a good thing. Scholars and scientists alike have made a career out of framing religious history as a history of choice. And we, in turn, expect everything to be not just voluntary but also on-demand. But might these everyday acts within our ch…

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…hat he was coming to the LCWR as their “brother.” His humility makes it a commendable sentiment, but they are certainly not coming to the table as equals in the eyes of the Church. The outgoing LCWR President, Sr. Frances Deacon, offered a closing speech that did not let that reality go by: she spoke on the history of and need for greater involvement of women within the Church. She said, “Our situation reflects larger questions and concerns such…