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Don’t Blame Black Voters: The Obama Non-Effect

By Jonathan L. Walton

…to the GOP. Moreover, let’s not forget about the over 80 percent of conservative white evangelicals who supported the amendment, and the 64 percent of Catholics as well. These two groups comprise 17 and 29 percent of California voters, respectively. So when we consider the disproportionate influence of these demographics on the state electorate in relation to the small number of African Americans, it is inconceivable to argue that African America…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ould mostly succeed. But I’m also looking for my students to do a little reflection on their own assumptions about what religion is and does, to do a little research, and to think about the variety of ways religion has been described, defined, defended, and derided through the ages. Here begins the downturn of their GPA. On the first day of class I provide my students with a ten-page list of brief definitions of religion assembled by my hardworkin…

Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…e walls tumbling down? When the Freedom From Religion Foundation puts your phone call on hold, you don’t hear muzak. Instead, the phone system plays a homegrown jingle featuring lines like “Everyone is tired of your piety / get off your knees and get to work” and “We’ve got to fight the battle of church and state / or the walls come tumbling down.” The receptionist told me that FFRF co-president Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and occasi…

Religious Hostility to Gay Nigerians; The Pope’s Visit To Africa; Ireland’s Religious Schools Can’t Discriminate Against Gays; Orthodox Church in Georgia Leads Anti-Gay Forces; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…t kind of guy. He is self-contained and he’s not worried about public approval or disapproval, which I really appreciate. I wasn’t as brave when I was young but stepping forward and trying to do the right thing is something to really be applauded for.” She said she has heard from critics: “I feel for those who live here, who have to deal with it on a regular basis,” she said. “I have already had phone calls from irate family members: ‘how could I…

Gay Marriage Opponents Running on Empty

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…. At the first, about a dozen volunteers spent the night making almost 300 phone calls and collecting pledges of volunteer support and contributions from 50 new supporters. Add that to the five other locations holding similar phone banks or collecting post cards of support, and I’m sure we easily got our 300 today. In addition, Equality Maryland hosted an interfaith meeting to mobilize supportive faith leaders. It was so great to see such a wonder…

Cloverfield: Sin & Redemption, with Monsters

By Gabriel Mckee

…g before the monsters became gods in a much more literal sense. Mothra and Varan the Unbelievable are both worshiped by rural villagers, and when modern, urban society intrudes on their turf, they take revenge. Kaiju films take a certain pleasure in unleashing this destruction, and lurking at the dark heart of that pleasure is a sense that, somehow, we deserve it. The kaiju bring punishment; the human drama explains the sin. Godzilla wouldn’t atta…

Mormons Prepare to March in LGBT Pride Parades Nationwide

By Joanna Brooks

…en taught my whole life?” For example, my eighteen-year-old son received a phone call from the bishop for an interview to set him on the road to preparing for his missionary service. So we are in the hall, and I’m telling him, “You need to call the bishop.” My son looks at me and says, “Mom, I can’t do this.” We talked over many things he was concerned about. One of them was that he has an openly gay teacher who, he told me, “is one of the most sp…

A Tale of Religious Tolerance… On Reddit

By Joanna Piacenza

…patience of a preschool instructor teaching her students how to share, briefly describes Sikh beliefs that reject vanity in place of creating positive change: When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully,…

The Lady Vanishes: Trump’s Communications Team Tries to Topple a Monument

By Spencer Dew

…ng poignant pictures of Lady Liberty as a manifestation of shared American values of inclusion and possibility. David Green in Haaretz wrote that the “extemporaneous remarks” in reaction to the question about the poem “betray the real attitude of both Miller and the administration he represents: a closing of the door, not only on entry to America, but to access for those already in the country to all the things that the United States has symbolize…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

…ise. The problem is that theological definitions of what makes someone an evangelical vary widely—and tweaking them, Wuthnow shows us, can generate substantial changes in poll results. Nobody actually agrees on the borders of this group. Many of those definitions also map onto a much more politically and ethnically diverse set of people than white heartland social conservatives. Black Protestants and Latino Pentecostals, in particular, tend to get…