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The Facts About ‘Sharia’ May Surprise You

…taken out of their ancient context and tacked onto existing Western civil codes and enforced by the government. That is not shariah, which has a sophisticated legal methodology of application. That’s just making up Islamic-sounding laws and calling it “shariah law.” The shariah-based legal system, which had operated for a millennium, was dismantled under Western colonization of Muslim lands, starting in the 18th century. Nearly 90% of Muslim land…

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The War Within: Religion and Our Tangled Relationship with Our Bodies

…s both the notion of “self” that the salvation myth of physical perfection promotes (i.e., Descartes’ sovereign, unencumbered, self-sufficient individual), and the more-better-faster culture the ideal body/self represents and serves. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? I’d say there are three main messages I’d like readers of Shameful Bodies to take to heart: First, body shame is not a natural response to being physically impa…

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The Hypocrisy in Protests against Ultra-Orthodox in Israel

…same Torah and commentaries, study the same Talmud, live by the same legal codes, and adhere to the same basic belief system. Yes, the haredim have a very narrow reading of these sources but it’s a safe bet that they can cite chapter and verse to support their views—often more adroitly than their modern counterparts. In his Mishneh Torah (Code of Law), Maimonides explicitly advocated the position that women should stay mostly in their homes. The k…

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Romania’s “Witch Tax”: Magic Meets Bureaucracy

On January 1, Romania implemented new tax codes that, among other changes, added the occupation of “witch” to the nation’s labor codes. Those charging clients for tarot readings, curses, and blessings must now pay a 16 percent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programs. The ire of the witches, some of whom responded by performing rituals to hex the government, has become fodder for scores of offbeat news stories throughout t…

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Catholic Groups Leading Mifepristone Ban Are Part of Century-Long Tradition Who See it as Patriotic Duty to Protect the Family

…s invoked by Catholic officials and physicians. When expanding the medical codes in 1948, Rev. Gerald Kelly, a Jesuit priest, told the Catholic Health Association that many non-Catholics would be “eager” to follow these ethical codes because they “pertain not merely to Catholic teaching but also to moral law.” The 1942 NFCPG resolution also declared that abortion and contraception were an affront, not just to the Catholic, but to the American fami…

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Morality Police, Jihadists, Religious Competition, Grindr, & Americans Abroad: Global LGBT Recap

…is may be the first time news has broken of women being arrested under the codes’ prohibition on lesbianism in Malaysia, said Justice for Sisters’s Thilaga Sulathireh. Scotland: Clergy Leaving Church of Scotland; LGBTs Debate Leaving UK The Scotsman reports this week that two more clergy members have left the Church of Scotland in protest of the denomination’s “continuing drift” from the Bible, including the naming of gay clergy. They have applied…

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Is God Irrelevant?

…stential questions that have underwritten all the religions—and most civil codes of law—throughout human history: Who am I? What am I serving that will outlive me and carry my love and my work forward? How should I live so that when I look back on my life, whether a year or decades from now, I can honestly be glad I’ve lived the way I did? Theologians, ministers, and active congregants may say, correctly, that their religions still offer some resp…

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Is Army’s New “Humanist” Designation Just Semantic Hooey?

…ather than “Agnostic,” “Atheist,” “no religious preference,” or “none”—the codes previously approved by the Army Chaplaincy for service members with non-religious beliefs and practices. The new faith code is significant in a number of ways. First, for Bradley and Humanist service members, it means that their existential disposition and associated practices are designated in their military records with language not shaped primarily in opposition to…

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Obama Foes Misrepresent Islam with “Apostate” Tactic

…ven if not a written constitution like Saudi Arabia), legal systems, penal codes, etc. It is therefore misleading to invoke general principles of Shari`a, even if we accept for the sake of argument that they may have applied in the pre-colonial era, as if they are the legal system of nation states today. Apostasy is only a crime in the penal codes of four or five out of the 40 Muslim-majority countries today. Dr. Luttwak claims that “another provi…

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Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

…. In most cases, the current laws on the books are the same colonial penal 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…

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