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Two people on a podium with a board that reads "Project 2025 kills democracy"

Project 2025: How Trump Loyalists and Right-Wing Leaders Are Paving a Fast Road to Fascism

By Peter Montgomery

…ose who “want to be in the vanguard of taking down the Leviathan.”[50] The policy roadmap for a right-wing strongman Project 2025’s policy agenda runs more than 900 pages, with prescriptions for every U.S. department and scores of agencies.[51] The plan for a far-right transformation of government, law, and society embraces the anti-feminist, anti-choice, and anti-LGBTQ priorities of the Religious Right,[52] calling for “government power” to be de…

The “Obamosque” Smears and the Money Fueling Them

By Sarah Posner

…“Obamosque,” is today touting a Time magazine poll showing one quarter of Americans apparently believe President Obama is a Muslim. (A Pew poll out today shows that figure at 19%). Why do that many Americans believe that? Could it be the use of terms like “Obamosque?” Or this photograph on the Special Guests website? Today Special Guests is also promoting the special guest of Scott Wheeler, a long-time operative of right-wing smear campaigns agai…

Palin’s Israel Trip

By Sarah Posner

…r her Israel trip, as it has done for other presidential hopefuls, instead booking it through a Christian tour agency. He thinks, perhaps, that Palin is miffed that he and other RJC board members have been critical of her, but that she’s unwise to rebuff them because they could be so helpful to her. But this is characteristically Palin behavior — with or without the criticism. She is, for example, the only GOP aspirant who has never spoken at the…

The Theodicy of George Carlin

By Kathryn Lofton

…otic presidencies, into social control. Consider Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason (Pantheon, 2008) which offers in every chapter the same ritual set-up for optimism only to be debunked by low educational standards, video culture, and religious fundamentalism. “Scientists assumed that the expansion of knowledge about every aspect of the natural world would produce a less credulous American public,” she writes, “that assumption was wrong….

“I’d Be Stupid Not To Go Packing Now.”

By Rev. Irene Monroe

…eferring to the news about the cop beat down of Duanna Johnson, an African American transwoman, in a Memphis booking room that was captured on a surveillance video. “I’d be stupid not to go packing now.” Williams lives in Oakland, just outside of San Francisco, and he’s going to check out the San Francisco chapter of Pink Pistols. As a national organization that encourages lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender to arm themselves to prevent hate cr…

Trans Protections in India and Malta; Death-by-Stoning Law in Brunei; Church-State Divides on Marriage

By Peter Montgomery

…before the parliamentary year ended in March. As we reported in January, American religious conservatives like Peter LaBarbera and Brian Camenker attended a conference in Jamaica at the end of last year to rally opposition to changes in the “buggery law.” Hungary: Neo-Nazi Jobbik Party Gains in Parliament The Jobbik Party won more than 20 percent of the vote in Hugary’s April 6 parliamentary elections. The Jobbiks, which operate a paramilitary…

Perkins and MSNBC

By Sarah Posner

…y the group Faithful America launched a campaign to pressure MSNBC to stop booking Perkins as a guest on its programs, because of his history of anti-gay bigotry. The group attempted to place an ad on MSNBC that sets out their complaint, but MSNBC rejected it: Faithful America’s petition reads: “The Family Research Council is a hate group, and journalists ought to treat it as such. MSNBC must stop inviting Family Research Council spokespeople on t…

New Theory for Tucson Tragedy: Blame the Atheists

By Lauri Lebo

…lier post on some of the spins Special Guest is promoting here. Today, the booking site is promoting Ted Shoebat, who says that being an atheist leads one to commit mass murder. “It’s actually very simple,” Shoebat was quoted in Special Guest’s promotion, “When God is not in your life, evil will seek to fill the void.” And who is Shoebat? As Sarah wrote in a post in August: …(He) is the son of “ex-terrorist” Walid Shoebat, an over-exposed figure i…

SoulCycle Looks to Sell its Soul

By Michael Schulson

…orms of penance helped inspire the Reformation in Europe. The landscape of American religion is often conceived of as a market in which churches and denominations compete for worshippers. Sales tactics influence evangelists, and companies use religion to push political agendas. Nevertheless, there’s an anti-commercial texture to spiritual life, even in the United States. Mosques, churches, synagogues, and temples are nonprofits. Even Joel Osteen’s…

Inside InterVarsity’s Purge: Trauma and Termination at the Premier Evangelical Student Org

By Deborah Jian Lee

…he racial justice and gender equality initiatives I presented. As an Asian American, I turned to the handful of Asian-American staff workers like Jao for pep talks, and he always made himself available, offering encouragement and some damn good advice. A former lawyer, Jao was nimble with words in a way that impressed and entertained his students. I saw him as someone who could relate to anyone; evangelicalism’s answer to Ira Glass, crackly voiced…