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Obama’s Religion Problem, Marriage Equality, and a Bush Executive Order

By Sarah Posner

…he religious beliefs of some dictate the deprivation of rights for others. Today the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (CARD) is calling on Obama to honor this week’s anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s signing of an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination by military contractors, by finally putting an end to a Bush-era executive order that permits religious organizations receiving federal grants to discriminate in hir…

Why is the Pope Popular Among Nones?

By Kaya Oakes

…r of Catholics was so rampant that nativists in the 1800s regularly spread rumors that Catholic immigrants were going to install the pope as America’s leader in a coup, and in 1844 Catholic churches were burned and Catholics hunted down by mobs. Protestant army officers abused Irish Catholic soldiers so badly some defected to the Mexican side during the 1846 war (they were subsequently hanged), and the KKK unleashed verbal attacks on Catholics in…

Gay Marriage Opponents Running on Empty

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ncluding one in Indianapolis today. Courage Campaign staffers who attended today’s rally reported: “I have hand-counted 29 non-NOM staffers attending the rally—about the same number that have attended every other event on this tour.” They were outnumbered by those who came in support of marriage equality. … about 95 marriage equality supporters marched in to the event to counter-protest NOM on a sidewalk across from the event. Impressive. Once aga…

Pastors Urged to Defy IRS to Defeat Evil, Hitlerian Obama

By Peter Montgomery

…campaigns designed to influence the outcome of the November elections. On today’s call, John Hagee insisted that St. Paul had instructed Christians to stand on the evil day, and that “the evil day is here.” He cited Bonhoffer looking the evil of Naziism in the face in Hitler’s Germany. Americans, he said are being “trampled” by the “secular left” because churches and pastors have “stopped defending the truth fearlessly.” Hagee said “We as a peopl…

Behind the Inclusive-Sounding Ads of this $100 Million PR-Blitz-for-Jesus it’s the Same Old Conservative Christian Fantasy

By Chrissy Stroop

…see those people who are living that lifestyle as they’re living it in our world today would [sic] REPENT and turn from that lifestyle.” As the CT report cited above notes, the “He Gets Us” website is working with Gloo, a Koch-connected company that uses big data to help churches target the vulnerable for outreach and conversion. The report also mentions that “He Gets Us” promotes Alpha, a global initiative launched in the UK known for its homopho…

Prop. 8 Stay Lifted

By Joanna Brooks

…itted same-sex couples to prepare to complete marriage license paperwork. “Today justice won out,” said Samuel M. Chu, Executive Director of California Faith for Equality. “Today’s decision by US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to overturn Prop 8 and lift the stay on same gender marriages in the state of California on August 18th is a giant step toward equality. “The Supreme Court has affirmed that marriage is a fundamental right. Justice Walke…

Is Proselytizing Ever Okay? Are We All Proselytizing All The Time?

By Chrissy Stroop

…powers, some of which treated their Jewish populations better than others. Today, a significant proportion of the world’s Jews reside in the modern state of Israel, founded in 1948, but more than half of the global Jewish population is spread throughout other parts of the world, with the largest concentration outside Israel in the United States. In medieval Western Europe, where the notorious blood libel—the false belief that Jews need the blood o…

Fight the Power: How to Read, and Re-Read, the Book of Revelation

By Wil Gafney

…il power embodied in the great beast. But other Christians have said to me today, “Well, this book is a prophesy against empire and it shouldn’t be appropriated by the powers that be.” This book is a book of rebellion. It’s a book of challenge to the people in power, and that is the way it has been understood in very powerful movements in this country. If we were going to reinterpret this text today, if Christianity is in the American sense, in th…

Would Gandhi Disband Occupy?

By Ira Chernus

…he title he chose for his autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth. He believed firmly that truth can be found only through the open-minded attitude of experimentation—which means that truth, insofar as any human can grasp it, is inherently fluid. Today’s fixed set of demands may easily seem like tomorrow’s folly. Gandhi’s program was especially vague in the earliest years of his work, in South Africa. To demand a detailed list of spe…

Mormons Absorb SCOTUS Prop 8 Ruling

By Joanna Brooks

…ture came from bloggers at Feminist Mormon Housewives who changed the long-running blog’s background to rainbow colors, honoring Mormon feminists’ longtime commitment to marriage equality. Meanwhile, Mormon conservatives seem to be accepting the news quietly, with some staking out a defensive position in defense of religious freedom. (Read the official LDS Church reaction here.) In one Washington, D.C., area stake, LDS Church leaders sent an email…