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A Bill Passes, Westboro Baptists Shrug

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…who were harmed by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, from 1957 to 1987 and addressing veterans’ health, housing, education, benefits, and burial needs). The bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses of Congress, with the president calling attention to the section of the act that restricts picketing military funerals. Similar restrictions are already in place at federal cemeteries such as Arlington National Cemetery, but this act…

Surprises in Survey of Hispanics on Homosexuality

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…xuality proves anything, it’s that Hispanics are religious and that social contact with LGBT people influence them in much the same way it does the general population. Just as in white and black communities, there are traditionalists who won’t be convinced no matter what, fundamentalists who are heavily influenced by their clergy and their churches, and progressives who are socially integrated and far more accepting of LGBT people (and many who ev…

The 50 Shades of Evangelicalism

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…at any outsider, today, would call evangelical. But, back then, through the 1980s and ’90s we were “Born Again” or “Charismatic.” We evangelized, but never referred to ourselves as evangelical. Perhaps this is because it has always been difficult to know what one means by “evangelical.” Is it a theological construct, as some argue, or a social categorization? David Bebbington, a British historian who studied the movement, famously defined evangel…

Romney on Israel: More GOP Than LDS

By Sarah Posner

…terity also have a role to play and are heirs to promises given to him.” In 1979, the flagship magazine of the Church published an article entitled, “Ishmael, Our Brother,” and has paid “tribute to Muhammed, among other religious leaders, as having received a portion of God’s light used to serve his people, a very positive statement for a Christian group to make, before that was really politically correct.” That was not a break with previous LDS t…

Evangelical Writer “Struggles” after Chick-fil-A Outing

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…admitted in an interview with Ed Stetzer that he had engaged in “physical contact that went beyond the bounds of friendship,” with the blogger, but that he does not identify as gay simply because he’s, y’know, tempted to kiss and fondle other guys. What makes me the most sad, however, is the continued peddling of the lie that to be Christian one must “suffer” or “struggle.” This is the line we hear the most from gay and lesbian people hoodwinked…

Ralph Reed’s Divinely Profitable Mission: Defeating Democrats

By Peter Montgomery

…volved as a “divine appointment.” Not one to think small, Reed pledges to contact 27 million conservative voters between 7 and 12 times this year with turnout messages. And he hopes to have a $100 million budget by 2015. With the Wisconsin recall election as an example, Stan describes in detail what a strategist like Reed can do with access to cutting-edge technology and the bottomless pockets of guys like the Koch brothers. The article also reve…

Personhood Leaders’ Smear Campaign Debunked

By Lara Riscol

…had undermined their investigation. “You don’t release a press release and contact the media if you want to protect your children. But that’s just from a police perspective.” In a culture war against reproductive health and rights, however, drama is a key weapon. Because it works. What ultimately got a guffaw out of Investigator Spottke was prominent pro-lifer Jill Stanek’s unwarranted assertion that “whether this is deemed a terrorist attack or h…

Richard Land, Under Investigation for Plagiarism, Wages Religious Freedom War With Bishops

By Sarah Posner

…’t be any surprises when the investigating committee issues its report June 1. How many people in the pews are listening to the 350 “leaders” who gathered in Washington yesterday? As Weaver and the historian and journalist Brian Kaylor noted about Land when the plagiarism charges broke, Land’s status is propped up by journalists, but not necessarily respected at the grassroots. “He’s the go-to expert and supposedly has his finger on the pulse on S…

Errol Morris’ Tabloid Sensationalizes Mormonism and ‘Cult’ Deprogramming

By David Mihalyfy

…certain socially marginal religious groups as “cults” was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s, and was often accompanied by the abduction and “deprogramming” of adult members. What happens when adults over the age of consent come into contact with a foreign-seeming religious group like the Hare Krishnas and suddenly eschew their previous life and values? In such situations, those left behind frequently adopted the explanation of brainwashing: namely…

What Caused the Catholic Church Child Sexual Abuse Crisis? Blame the Sixties.

By Joanna Brooks

…contributing to a sharp peak of reported and documented abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s, including social trends among ordination cohorts, changes in seminary curriculum, and psychological pathologies and social behaviors of abusive priests. Its conclusion? The sixties—social movements and sex, drugs, and rock and roll—are to blame. Study authors summarized their findings: “No single ‘cause’ of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests is ide…