Religion Dispatches
…were often mistaken for sisters – and still are. People recognize the bond between us, but often hesitate to recognize – or completely deny – the reality of that bond. I know of gay men, lesbians, and transgender people who have been harassed, accosted, even beaten up, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, or even a perception of “deviance.” A dear friend of mine lost her son several years ago in Greenville, South Carolina. He wa…
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…ppeals to what governor Scott Walker called “evil”. Americans could indeed use a primer on most world traditions. But what I wonder is how a desire for empathy might square up against the dichotomized language of “evil.” As Amardeep Singh eloquently argues, the hatred directed towards Sikhs might connect to a visceral reaction to embodied religious otherness. How do we move from promoting basic facts to combatting that profane shudder of hatred? T…
Read More…r party presidential candidate. But I’ll bet you a twelve pack of caffeine-free Diet Coke and a dozen pink-frosted sugar cookies that there is no anti-Mormon phonebanking script in use by Catholics for Obama. Anywhere. Is anti-Mormonism real? Yes. But even if one poorly-trained rogue phonebanker veered off script into an anti-Mormon ad lib, it does not make for a concerted anti-Mormon effort. (Leave that to orthographically challenged “Heaven is…
Read More…ted a church that delivered on its promises of inclusion, tolerance, and love and were failed so profoundly by churches in the stranglehold of homophobic rhetoric and abuse. Young people are repulsed by it. And if this atheist had to venture a guess, I bet that Jesus would be too….
Read More…ike the Sabbathday Lake Shaker site, which is both a religious community, museum, and shop, The Wooster Group has also struggled with the tension between a somewhat Spartan existence and the temptations of commerce—Willem Dafoe, founding company member, left the group, and his relationship with Liz LeCompte, supposedly lured by Hollywood fame. Meanwhile, The Wooster Group recently attracted bona fide movie star Frances McDormand to join their rank…
Read More…e. (Although I do expect our supplies will run out in about 48 hours because we’re the types that feed the neighbors.) Mitt Romney, this tropical storm is in your wheelhouse. I bet your pragmatic mind is spinning through all the logistics. 72 hour kits for everyone! You can do this!…
Read More…isten to pseudo-historian David Barton at gunpoint. While his name doesn’t appear on the list of the company’s “master historians,” Huckabee is clearly following Barton’s template where everything is spelled out in terms of good versus evil and anything in between is simply airbrushed from history. They’re like a Sarah Palin speech crossed with those Davey and Goliath cartoons that my generation used to watch out of desperation on Sunday mornings…
Read More…or of the Senate, asserting that America was on the road to moral ruin because of the separation of church and state. In the speech, Miller backed former Judge Roy Moore (of Ten Commandments fame) and the crafters of the Constitution Restoration Act, which would have stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear Establishment Clause claims. He said: I stand shoulder to shoulder, not only with my Senate cosponsors and Chief Justice Roy Moore of A…
Read More…atives as out of the mainstream (at least for a state like New York) has caused a frenzy against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Charles Pierce: The other day, Cuomo gave a radio interview in which he made the unremarkable point that the kind of Republican who wins elections in, say, Alabama, likely would have something of a tough row to hoe in New York. “If they are extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York,” Cuomo said i…
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…uman rights organization B’Tselem has collected evidence of beatings and abuse in custody (via Emily Hauser). Violent reaction in East Jerusalem is “no surprise,” says Jo-Ann Mort, writing in Dissent: [T]he rabid building for Jewish extremists inside of Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the lack of adequate building permits for Arab residents has angered the population. City services are scant. The atmosphere in the city fuels discontent. F…
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