Religion Dispatches
…. Log Cabin executive director R. Clarke Cooper praised Ros-Lehtinen as “a reliable ally and leader time and again on legislation to secure freedom and fairness for all Americans. Log Cabin Republicans are grateful that she has once again stepped forward as an inclusive leader by cosponsoring the Respect for Marriage Act.” It’s wonderful to see gay Republicans moving the ball forward for equality within the ranks of the Republican party. The gay R…
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…requests to release the salaries of individual staff members. According to reliable sources, this breakdown would reveal massive discrepancies between the compensation of executive elders and that of staffers who must supplement their church income with food stamps. Also, a quick review of Mars Hill* indicates that the executive elders and not the church are listed as members, thus raising the question: “Who Owns Mars Hill?” Now that a former empl…
Read More…hen in the South, and widely elsewhere, many churches effectively ignored the plight of the poor, as they go on doing today—as I still do, socketed as I am in the deluxe surroundings and tended by warmhearted and reliable family and friends. Then, more slowly, I grew aware that the churches’ intolerance of any forms of sexuality beyond the traditional choices of marriage or chastity left me a literal outlaw.”…
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…roups like PEGIDA, and remain entirely unmoved. Would the arrival of great numbers of refugees, mostly but not wholly Muslim, without any authority having any reliable indicator of who they are, or how they would be cared for, make things better or worse? Seeking asylum in countries plagued by escalating Islamophobia seems like jumping from the fire into the frying pan. It may not feel hot yet, but give it some time. And, as the example of prior i…
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…lity and grace.” For four decades, Rush Limbaugh had the biggest media megaphone through which he spat poison every day straight into the ears of 20 million Americans. He lied and lied, and he lied and lied. If there were no Limbaugh, there would be no President Trump, who himself told more than 30,500 lies, falsehoods and misleading claims during four years. Their canon of lies includes lies about the covid pandemic, culminating in a death toll n…
Read More…on beginning in 1979, the SBC generally (and correctly) has been seen as a reliable barometer and leading voice of religious right politics. In 2009, the convention passed the following resolutions in reaction to the election of President Obama: RESOLVED, That we strongly urge the President to nominate strict constructionist judges who seek to make decisions based on the original intent of the United States Constitution and, therefore, faithfully…
Read More…sion talking about the LGBT people being less than human. For example, the number two person in the state broadcasting company – actually now he’s the number one person – hosted a show devoted to the question of whether it was enough to protect our children to ban homosexual propaganda or whether more needed to be done. He argued that more needed to be done. He said and we need to outlaw blood and sperm donations by them. And if they die in car ac…
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…d inside the mosque one day, I came across Bab raqm tis’wa thamanin, “door number 89,” literally. The door with no name. Facing the mosque at door number one, bab maalik ’abd-al-’Aziz, this door is off to the left. Looking at the mosque floor plan, this is where the building structure of the mosque is deepest. This is “the women’s section.” I noticed as I was walking through the first floor toward door number one, the kings’ door, on my way out af…
Read More…dy and that is morally wrong.” But, using your wife’s death to score a few cheap political points against a group of people you hate isn’t “morally wrong”? But wait, there’s more! Garlow also uses his dead wife to point out just how fake the relationships between living, loving gay and lesbian partners really are. He talks about the delight he experienced being married to his wife, something gay and lesbian people certainly couldn’t have, right?…
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…n Right and the GOP—an assault that’s advancing to disturbing degrees in a number of Republican-controlled states, even if a court in Texas has stayed the investigation into the Does, for now. Apart from that context, I wouldn’t bother writing a column about an incident of online bullying, something I and every vocal marginalized social media user with any visibility, along with every journalist who covers controversial topics—especially if the jo…
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