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An Untold Tale: American Fiction vs. The Religious Right

…rl Sagan, and Dan Brown’s popular religious mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code. Sagan has a reputation as a proto-New Atheist, but his novel suggests he was intensely sympathetic to religious experience and authority. By the end of his novel he has his scientist protagonist embark on a career of “experimental theology” after she has discovers the “signature” of God in the very structure of the universe. At the same time, Sagan was not impressed b…

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What American Flag-Worship Looks Like to a New Citizen

…s fiftieth anniversary, the Pledge was incorporated into the National Flag Code. Ten years later, in the shadow of the Cold War, two weighty words, “under God,” were added. It has become the creed of the state religion, taught early and often to our children. The Very Revd Will H. Mebane, Jr., Interim Dean at St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, NY, grew up in the South in a fairly conservative religious household. He encountered the Flag at…

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World Congress of Families Draws Anti-LGBT Activists to Budapest; More in Global LGBT Recap

…ve also argued that Taiwanese society has its roots in Confucianism, which promotes a strong adherence to traditional family values, and of course, producing offspring. They argue that the fundamental concept of marriage should be between a man and a woman, otherwise it would be “very confusing for children.” The South China Post said the court ruling in Taiwan “has reverberated across Asia, but the fight for equality is not over yet in a region w…

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Black Women and the Sacred: With “Lemonade,” Beyoncé Takes Us to Church

…ing a black Christian woman in America. “To make lemonade out of lemons is code for powerful spiritual practice in the hands of women. Since the beginning of chattel slavery in this country, black women have been magically making something from nothing, conjuring up lives for themselves and their families with nothing but crumbs, dust and ashes.” The water imagery in “Lemonade” is about barely keeping one’s head above water after betrayal, heartbr…

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Burma’s Spirit Festival, and More in This Week’s Global LGBT Roundup

…lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people in Poland is contained in the Labor Code. This ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation was introduced as a requirement for EU accession. There is no similar measure covering gender identity. There are still no legal avenues allowing same-sex couples to register their relationships with the state. Children born to LGB Polish parents abroad are denied Polish citizenship. Due to a presidential veto of…

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Will International Criminal Court Bring Charges Against ISIS For Gender-Based Persecution?; And More in Global LGBT Recap

…gal equality: The government continues to retain Section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalizes sex between men. The law is sandwiched between codes that ban sex with corpses (Section 377) and sex with animals (Section 377B) in the Penal Code, indication of official attitudes towards homosexuality in the wealthy city-state. Convictions under 377A allow for two-year prison terms. In a bid to placate both liberals and conservatives, the governme…

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Oedipus Complexity: Is it Enough to Fire Men Accused of Sexual Misconduct?

…actions are beyond the reach of law. And we do not share the kind of moral code that could exact penalties between those of the state and those of the employer or marketplace. This is a strange thing about our moment in history. The story of Oedipus reminds us that banishment and ostracism were once standard practices for protecting a community from the danger and rupture implicit in certain kinds of crimes. Early Christians who lapsed from their…

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Despite Reversal on Hillary and Hellen Keller, ‘Christian Americanist’ Bias Remains in Texas Curriculum

…elated rubric already includes the Jewish Ten Commandments and Justinian’s Code of Laws as influences on contemporary political systems, the work groups removed the assertion of “Judeo-Christian” origins for democracy. However, the board rejected the change. The board rejected a similar change involving another Christian Americanist tenet, the claim that trial by jury, the presumption of innocence, and equality before the law “originated from the…

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With Kurdish Genocide a Real Danger, How Ethical Was Mattis’ Resignation?

…institutions like the 1788 Constitution, the presidency, and the military code of honor. But at what costs do we maintain a revered institution like the military code of honor? Holocaust levels of genocide threaten the Syrian Kurds. Why isn’t the prospect of mass murder enough to make Mattis reconsider the politics of personal honor? If that grim prospect is not enough, what is? Mattis’ deferral to presidential rights, for instance, should challe…

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Texas Woman Opposes Divorce Citing ‘Blood Covenant’; Will Anti-Sharia Law Get in the Way?

…exas’s H.B. 45 (codified at § 22.0041 and § 22.022 of the Texas Government Code), states that “litigants in actions under the Family Code involving a marriage relationship… are protected against violations of constitutional rights and public policy in the application of foreign law.” The bill doesn’t explicitly reference sharia or Islamic law (likely because a similar bill in Oklahoma that did specifically mention sharia was struck down as discrim…

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