Religion Dispatches
…dismay turned to laughter when I saw immediately below Winters’ screed the code of conduct for comments on National Catholic Reporter. His post is a primer on violating NCR’s own rules for respectful conversation. Maybe someone at NCR can give him a much-needed tutorial. NCR Comment code: Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Use appropriate language. Avoid vulgarities and slurs. Keep to the point. Deliberat…
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…l codes. Tunisia’s anti-sodomy laws are derived from the 1913 French Penal Code, while section 347 of the penal code in Christian Cameroon is a French colonial law. Similarly, the Ottoman adoption of French codes would ban the köçek. Across the Muslim world, many of the laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ people are direct relics of colonial law. It would take generations to gradually align the region with European colonial sexual values through a shift in…
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…was imported to colonized Asia and Africa, as the British drafted a penal code in the mid-1800s which outlawed same-sex acts. Internalizing the homophobia which underpinned this legislation, colonized Muslims eventually came to regard same-sex love and relations as immoral. “Although EHT might explain the infiltration of law and official politics in colonized Muslim societies, it doesn’t explain precisely how colonial homophobia transformed the e…
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…ink a life-or-death question like that is unimportant, but using the legal code as a vehicle for a slogan is totally important and a good use of their time. 3. I would like them to say whether they think that families who’ve used assisted reproduction—like in vitro fertilization—should not have the children they have. And if that’s not what they think, then how can they explain why they’re supporting this legislation? 4. I would like them to say t…
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…ls living in a northern city because not arresting LGBT people “amounts to promotion,” reports Pink News. Homosexuality is illegal put the government has put a moratorium on enforcement of the law. Malawi’s Justice Minister, Samuel Tembenu, said it would be better for pastors to focus on pastoral care than matters of state. He said: “Let our pastors continue doing their good work of saving lost souls. However, they should let experts in human righ…
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…nd of extremism seems to have become the “conservative viewpoint.” In many news accounts, including a Fox News piece by Steve Doocy and Tucker Carlson, the panel of experts is described as three conservatives and three liberals. Doocy, in characterizing the advisory panel, held up his fingers to emphasize the balance, an issue that particularly irks Texas Freedom Network’s Dan Quinn. “This is not a debate between left and right,” Quinn said. “This…
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…” that arose in the fallout of the media attention surrounding The DaVinci Code provided much of the impetus for a new book: Women of Opus Dei. A collection of essays and interviews by women involved in “The Work,” Women of Opus Dei is meant to set the record straight when it comes to the subjugation of women within the order. However, the hot pink book cover is a good sign that this book is anything but a manifesto for women’s rights. In fact, th…
Read More…an threat of “radical Islam” and shari’ah law. King lashed out against the New York Times this week over the paper’s recent editorial, which called King’s “sweeping slur on Muslim citizens” “unacceptable.” “I have more contempt for The New York Times than anything or anyone I can think of,” King said this week. (Remember, the Republicans love the Constitution! Especially the First Amendment!) But while King’s planned hearings on the “radicalizati…
Read More…ed faith.) Still, West is correct. Discovery Institute folks had long been promoting critical analysis – when they weren’t busy also promoting intelligent design. As is their modus operandi, they switch between intelligent design and coded phrases like “teach the controversy” when it serves their purposes. For an example of their promotion of intelligent design in public school science class, see their 1999 booklet Intelligent Design in Public Sch…
Read More…ons with tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Those changes were set in motion after record amounts of campaign spending by (c)(4) groups in 2012, and tea party complaints that their applications for (c)(4) status were improperly denied for partisan reasons. Although Congressional Republicans tried to make a scandal of the application process, further congressional investigation showed both conservative and progr…
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