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Showdown Over Shari’ah at Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference

…ed view of the shari’ah “threat,” saying that he opposed a shari’ah “legal code” but stopped short of a full-on endorsement of shari’ah law bans. (That said, Reed does indeed understand his audience, and its fears.) The composition of the Faith and Freedom panel led me to believe he might have been attempting if not a rapprochement, then at least some balance. Ironically enough, the panel followed one on alleged anti-evangelical bigotry, though fe…

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Perry Thinks Palestinians Should Be Shafted, No Surprise

…ikened President Obama to Pharaoh, appeared via videotape at the inaugural Freedom Federation conference last year at Liberty University, saying, “we know you love us and want to commend you for unconditional support for state of Israel,” adding that “Christians and Jews share the same future.” That’s code not only for no state for the Palestinians, but a perpetuation of illegal settlements and purging of Palestinians from occupied land. For Danon…

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Before Breitbart: How Right Wing Media Transformed American Politics

…before bolting the party in 1952 and starting For America, a PAC aimed at promoting conservative politicians. So there’s a tradition of activism within media. But these efforts weren’t movements; they were short-lived and generally the expression of a single personality, without ties to other organizations and efforts. And perhaps most important, the activism was secondary to the media work. For the folks in my book, deciding to start media outle…

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Only Fetuses and Popes are Worthy

…e men from murdering women or to send a moral message. In the 1983 Revised Code of Canon Law, only two groups are protected. A Catholic may incur automatic excommunication if he or she attempts to assassinate the Pope (you don’t even need to succeed, just trying is enough) or if one successfully procures an abortion. Only fetuses and popes are worthy of consideration. The rest of us are on our own. Perhaps most cruel in the Brazilian case is the f…

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“Traditional” Marriage or a Break with Tradition?

…who died before age 65—if the couple was legally married. The federal tax code was rewritten to provide special benefits to married couples. Private employers followed suit, using marital status to determine whether they would provide health insurance or pension benefits to employees’ dependents. Legal statutes strengthened the rights of a spouse at the expense of other kin, including parents and adult children. Lack of a marriage license meant t…

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Pentecostal Prayer Gangs: New Film Documents Religion in a Brazilian Prison

…mise is that the guard-inmate relationship is always violent, so there’s a code of conduct that is enforced by the inmates themselves. They’re hoping to export this model to Africa and other countries in South America, so they were eager to be able to say that an American sociologist had survived two weeks in one of their prisons as a way of proving that their experimental model works! What was it like? There were three other inmates in my cell, i…

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How Many Ways to be Mormon and Gay?

…nce “same-sex attraction” or “same-gender attraction,” while adhering to a code of morality that forbids all sexual contact outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage. Others claim and openly affirm a gay identity while carefully negotiating a path to maintaining church activity and membership. All of these paths entail profound risks, costs, and consequences. All require a level of conscious deliberation on matters of sexuality and spirituality…

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Jack Ryan Uses Bible to Exonerate Wall Street, CIA

…pulpy example of a larger pattern of scriptural citation that obscures and promotes tensions between market forces and nationalism, dynamics I discuss in depth in my book, The Babylon Complex (Oxford University Press, 2014). A reboot of the older Jack Ryan series—based on Tom Clancy novels like Hunt for Red October—Shadow Recruit uses an all new screenplay by Adam Cozad and David Koepp. Still, the film is highly reminiscent of the earlier series’…

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Lindsey Graham and Al Qaeda Share the Same “Allahu Akbar”

…in: “on the right path of religion.” While it does refer to Islamic moral code, it’s hardly a formal or well-defined set of rules and is often the source of much disagreement and debate amongst the most revered legal scholars. The Michele Bachmanns and Louis Ghomerts of the world, however, have convinced many people that Sharia is epitomized by rare instances of hand chopping, hangings, and other gory punishments. It’s doubtful that the governors…

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What’s Behind a Conservative Mormon’s Call For “Religious Freedom” Advocates to “Stand Down” on LGBT Rights

…poraries call “natural law,” loosely defined as a universal and unchanging code determined by God. “My conception of freedom is a moral ecology of things,” Mero says. “It’s not just liberty to do what you want to do as long as you don’t hurt somebody else… I believe freedom requires virtue. We have to be our better selves. And if we are not our better selves, then we are going to lose the free society.” But what does being one’s better self look l…

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