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Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…s pretty much it. Evangelical leaders themselves didn’t believe the Gallup numbers were right, and [they thought that] the best way to combat those Gallup numbers was to ask Gallup to do another survey. And so in 1978, Christianity Today, a leading periodical for evangelicals, paid Gallup to do a big survey and in addition to just asking the born-again question, they asked questions about belief in the Bible, belief in Jesus, and intent on convert…

Global LGBT Recap: Homogeopolitics; Dalai Lama Says Gay is OK; Pope Says Civil Unions May Be

By Peter Montgomery

…of U.S. Freedom to Discriminate Debate While Americans debated “religious freedom” or “freedom to discriminate” laws, a British politician, Lewes councilor Donna Edmunds, got into hot water suggesting that business owners should be free to refuse to provide services to women and gays. After an outcry, she said she regretted her comments: “I in no way endorse any form of discrimination. I believe in cutting red tape for business and I also strongl…

Huckabee Teams Up with Citizens United to Promote Fetal Personhood

By Sarah Posner

…onsibly peddles the falsehoods that abortion providers try to maximize the number of procedures they perform in order to profit, and that fetuses feel pain. The anti-choice activist Carol Everett claims she once worked for an abortion provider that aimed to perform three to five abortions on 13-18 year old girls so they would be accustomed to using abortion as a birth control method into adulthood. Dr. Laube called these claims “pure nonsense,” “p…

The “Shrinking Influence” of Social Conservatives at the United Nations

By Sarah Posner

…egarding the IGLHRC’s support for the internationally recognized rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression.” Because, for them and their allies in the religious right, LGBT rights mean restrictions on religious freedom — that’s been their principal, and losing, argument against everything from same-sex marriage to hate crimes legislation to the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. (The Family Research Council’s fundraising appeal this w…

Debate Over Mother Earth’s ‘Rights’ Stirs Fears of Pagan Socialism

By Bron Taylor

…s. 3. The right to a clean life Means the right of Mother Earth to a life free from pollution, because not only we humans have the right to live well, but also rivers, fish, animals, trees, and the Earth itself have the right to live in a healthy environment, free from poison and pollution. 4. The right to harmony and balance with everyone and among everyone Mother Earth has a right to be recognized as a part of a system in which all living crea…

Shari’ah (Panic) Threatens the Constitution

By Sarah Posner

…at a mortal threat to the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States by its own terms, and the freedoms that we hold dear that are guaranteed by it. . . I’ll finish the sentence to make the guessing a little easier: “. . . if we accept the insinuation and ultimately the adoption of shari’ah in the United States.” That’s right, Frank Gaffney, speaking on the grounds of the United States Capitol with his band of fear-stoking prop…

The Kids Are All Wrong: Texas Tosses The Enlightenment

By Burke Gerstenschlager

…rative. It’s a revisionist narrative about the founding and purpose of the United States as a whole, whether the majority of the citizens of Texas (or the United States) believe this narrative or not. On the day of the final vote, board member Cynthia Dunbar, opening the meeting in prayer, said as much when she prayed: “I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, n…

Booing Gay Soldiers and Expressing Faith in the Public Square

By Sarah Posner

…s make against LGBT equality is that civil rights for LGBT people infringe on the religious freedom of Christians who believe homosexuality is sin. Therefore they insist the government shouldn’t give them, in Santorum’s words, “special privileges.” Conservatives frame this as a free exercise, or religious freedom issue, and, like Bachmann, skirt the church-state separation issue. Because these conservatives believe that the government should endor…

Weeks After Turkey’s Failed Coup, Thousands Have Been Arrested Over a Book

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…fited from a casual association with members of the Hizmet movement in the United States. But I didn’t get a free trip to Turkey. In my case I had given talks in spring of 2015, that were jointly sponsored by a Hizmet interfaith center, the Pacifica Institute of Long Beach, California, and two academic institutions, the religious studies department at Cal State University, Long Beach, and the Bayan Claremont Islamic School in the Claremont School…

Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland

By Bill Berkowitz

…tics Is it too late for another Top Ten list for 2008? Check out Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s “Top Ten List of Church–State Stories for 2008,” where “The Role of Religion in the Presidential Campaign,” occupies the top spot. And if such longtime religious right organizations—including Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition and Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association—have their druthers, one of next year’s top…