Religion Dispatches
…a Jew from Massachusetts. And, this is Darcy Brandon; I’m a Christian from California. If you believe as we do that marriage and sexuality should only be between a man and a woman, please help us stop Mitt Romney. As Governor, Romney signed “Gay Youth Pride Day” declarations, promoted homosexuality in our elementary schools, and unconstitutionally ordered state officals to make Massachusetts America’s first same-sex marriage state. Romney supports…
Read More…, of course, the church has bankrolled anti-same-sex-marriage campaigns in California and other states. Most analysts agree that without the infusion of Mormon cash, Prop 8 wouldn’t have passed. So, as a queer Jew, alldeadmormonsarenowgay.com brings together many of my interests. I’m also, of course, into how clearly it highlights the absurdity of this whole situation. First, there’s the weird belief that dead people can be baptized, or that disem…
Read More…ts, in which these very similar requirements are in place. In New York and California, the Catholic Charities challenged these laws and lost. The courts held that these laws did not violate the Catholics’ — or any religious group’s — free exercise of religion, that in order for a law to violate somebody’s free exercise, it has to impinge — substantially burden — their religious practice. And there is no substantial burden on Catholics’ religious p…
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…ngness of apostate black women to cling blindly to faith in God’s plan. In California, black youth represent nearly 30% of the foster care population, 50% of the homeless population, and 30% of those incarcerated in juvenile facilities. Yet religious right, anti-government activists are vociferously opposed to progressive health care, birth control, foster care, and school discipline policies; as well as to repealing racist sentencing laws and pri…
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…2010); Kathryn Lofton in Oprah: Gospel of an Icon(Berkeley: University of California, 2011); Matthew S. Hedstrom, in The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford, 2013); Elesha J. Coffman, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (New York: Oxford, 2013). Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion,1805-1900; Dorrien…
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…laying Games Says About Religion, Play, and Imagined Worlds (University of California Press, 2015). It should come out in February. This book was a labor of love and I’m very excited about it. It explores why games of the imagination like Dungeons and Dragons became such a source of panic to conservative Christians during the 1980s. I think this book will be very cathartic for anyone from my generation who felt persecuted because their beloved hob…
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…that we are ready to contribute more,” said Tresa Edmunds of Cameron Park, California. “The priesthood is so often spoken of as a burden that we are spared, but we see it as the power of God that we want to experience and share.” In a statement about the actions of Ordain Women, Ruth Todd noted that millions of LDS women do not share the group’s views. “Most church members would see such efforts as divisive,” she said. “Even so, these are our sist…
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…ans were delving into what was known as the gospel of Christian Atheism, a California dance band re-named themselves, and the Warlocks became the Grateful Dead. #6 : “Ripple” is a Spiritual Manifesto by Jim Burklo The Dead sang, plucked, and pounded inexorably onward toward a palpably approaching ecstasy with no knowable when, where, or how… #7 : I Love You More Than Words Can Tell by David Vanderveen It takes humility to admit that we don’t have…
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…cists can be replaced by a complex automated system like the University of California San Francisco’s robotic pharmacy, which is capable of producing hundreds of thousands of labeled doses of medicine without error. This is part of the growing trend within large-scale manufacturing to replace teams of people with customized, automated systems. As John Markoff recently detailed, robotic arms are now picking the lettuce we eat, operating the grocery…
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…ss whether they’re warranted . . . except one. Fifteen years ago, Modesto, California, became the first public school district in the country to have a required course on world religion. The ninth-grade World Geography and Religion (WGR) course devotes nine weeks to religion. The First Amendment Center, which helped design the course, conducted a study to assess its effectiveness, finding that students had more accurate and balanced information ab…
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