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“Freedom” vs. “Liberty”: Why Religious Conservatives Have Begun to Favor One Over the Other

…liberty suggests a “defensive response.” “I think you could say we are all free, but what does free mean? It’s such a general concept,” said Green, noting that liberty can have more immediate and personal connotations, when spoken to the right audience. “That word seems to resonate with a particular segment of society,” he said. It’s very clear which segment that is. Over the past ten years, lobby groups on the religious right have latched onto “r…

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Liberals Need Not Choose Between Sexual Abuse Survivors and the Religious Minority Communities That Failed Them

…er, as our own campaigns recognize, Islam is a religion that advocates for freedom of conscience and speech, and also one that recognizes the pursuit of knowledge. We maintain that the right balance between both of these considerations requires a respectful, open and honest dialogue that protects the rights of all members.” It took an extraordinary amount of courage for ordinary Ahmadis to speak up given the reported sanctions against those who sa…

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Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

…ong” for May and the Conservative Party to be aligning themselves with and promoting “an organization that promotes hatred, homophobia and misogyny born of religious fundamentalism and masquerading as religious freedom.” The UK’s general election will be held on June 9. Poland: Warsaw Pride parade draws crowd in spite of opposition from church, gov’t, nationalists A crowd estimated by organizers at 50,000 people and by police at 13,000 marched in…

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Does Religion Condemn Homosexuality?

…h sacred texts as the Kama Sutra and Krittivasa Ramayana. It was not until India came under British colonial rule—with its Christian assumptions about sex—that Section 377, the first Indian law banning “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” was passed, in 1860. The efforts of modern-day Indian activists—both Hindu and non-Hindu—for sexual rights finally led to the overturning of Section 377, in 2009. A religion is not practiced in a vac…

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Christianity Today’s ‘Humble’ Hindu-to-Jesus Conversion Story is Still a Story of Christian Triumphalism

…many Hindus living under Christian contexts face. For example, in southern India, where Sankaran (and my parents) hails from, many poor Hindus couldn’t receive an education unless they converted to Christianity. The same applied to countries like Guyana, where my wife’s dad and others of his generation took Christian names for schooling purposes. It was based on the idea that one couldn’t get educated—or enlightened—unless they rejected their iden…

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RDBook: Bernard Avishai’s The Hebrew Republic

…s its expertise in high-tech. Yet the fact of the matter is that China and India, with their massive populations, have a much bigger human resource pool to draw upon than Israel. If the instability created by constant conflict continues, Israel will continue to see an exodus of innovators and venture capitalists-the very population it needs to retain its market. I say “continues” because the brain drain has already begun. Though Israel experience…

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Good Hair, Good God! The Divine Politics of African-American Hair

…hat the hair cut for temple sacrifices is now the number-one export out of India. The fact that tonsure, a religious act, has turned into a profiteering scheme is remarkable. But there also exist unscrupulous people who are stealing women’s hair, either while they sleep or in movie theaters where their braids or hair hang over the seats; while a woman is enjoying the latest from Bollywood, someone is cutting her hair and exporting it to be sold in…

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It’s Up to You, New York… To Oppose Islamophobia

…When Pieter Stuyvesant, director-general of the colony for the Dutch West India Company, sought to suppress Quakerism, the citizens of Flushing protested. The Flushing Remonstrance of 1657, one of the earliest calls for religious disestablishment in America, insisted on freedom of religious expression. Significantly, none of the thirty signatories to the Remonstrance was himself a Quaker. Following the English Conquest of the colony in 1664, Gove…

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Obama To Skip Golden Temple: Part of A Larger Problem With Religion

…aid that he is not Muslim, but so what if he is. The Constitution promises freedom of religion, which means there is no requirement of religion, or even religiosity, in order to be president. After becoming president, rather than seizing the pulpit to educate people about religion, he is caving to political cowardice. Sikhism is a distinct religion from Islam, and the Golden Temple is one of the holiest sites in the religion. In one fell swoop, Ob…

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Obama Gets Religion in Indonesia

…sia (and Turkey, Malaysia, and countries with large Muslim minorities like India), have successfully kept what they wanted of their traditions and integrated what they wanted of other traditions. They are navigating what it means to be modern, which the Arab world is having difficulties with. Because of the popular conflation of Arabs and Muslims, both in terms of number and authenticity, including at bodies such as the Council of Foreign Relation…

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