Religion Dispatches
…ree on abortion continue educating their students together? Shouldn’t anti-Iraq War Sunnis and pro-Iraq War Kurds send their kids to the same Little League baseball camps? Participating in civic activities with people you disagree with on political or theological issues is not, as Hulsether states, “excus(ing) an exceptionalist ideology that deepens ruts in a two-tiered legal system and sanctions US military presence abroad.” It’s being a good cit…
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…e Mediterranean coastline and some of the inland plains). Meanwhile, as in Iraq, Syria’s Kurds have wrested more sovereignty for themselves, meaning their relationship to Turkey will remain vexing. Syria’s majority Sunnis may be left with what’s in between. Syria would go three ways, like Iraq essentially has. To Intervene or Not Intervene One of the most persuasive arguments against Western intervention in Syria was that neighboring states would…
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…ene, as the Egyptian authorities did in 2007 when they banned The Da Vinci Code. The Coptic community—which accounts for roughly 10 percent of the nation’s 80 million citizens—had raised alarm and demanded that both the book and movie be banned. Now, three years on, Zeidan’s bestselling novel is is prompting angry demands from that same community. In early May a group of Coptic lawyers demanded that the government imprison the author for five year…
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…ke away that free will, except for those who have the capacity to hack the code and reprogram the car. We normally think of robots as almost pure code, yet the scene last week when Graystone orders the Zoebot to rip off her arm raises some interesting stakes in this. It seems to me that people may be treating the Cylons differently depending on what mix of code and law they believe governs their behavior. And of course, those of you who study reli…
Read More…we find an investment advisor named Sean Hyman pushing “The Biblical Money Code,” which claims that advice “woven” into Scripture has helped him go from earning $15,000 to giving away up to $50,000 a year. Unlike Hovind, Hyman is giving away his system for free. All you have to do is sit through an hour-long video, during which Hyman explains how “to unlock vast amounts of wealth safely and ethically.” Fancy explanations are provided, but it’s act…
Read More…ther setback in the struggle for gay rights on the continent. Chad’s penal code is more than half a century old and does not explicitly mention homosexuality. But section 361 of a draft new code states the punishment for anyone who has sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex is 15 to 20 years in jail and a fine of 50,000-500,000 Central African francs (£60-£600), according to a document seen by Agence France-Presse. The cabinet claims that…
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…societies, and continue to suffer for it. Not to mention the suffering in Iraq. Ferguson says nothing of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died, and the hundreds of thousands more who suffer, who were expelled, maimed, forced into prostitution, and otherwise traumatized. To Ferguson, humans are second-order policy considerations, though he might ask: Would you rather Saddam was still in power? I would counter: Would you rather hundreds of t…
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…l perspectives,” as Sadr “is a populist clergy man with great following in Iraq, and has been considered a political and military powerhouse in the post-Saddam Iraq.” More analysis: Mr. Sadr’s fatwa was not an acceptance of same-sex practice or cross dressing. Rather, the new ruling classifies homosexuals and cross-dressers as individuals “suffering psychologically” and committing sinful acts, but society should respect their right to life, hoping…
Read More…ned that they should be dealt with “within the law.” In a 2015 report, the Iraqi group Iraqueer and the US-based organization OutRight Action International (formerly the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) documented the kidnapping and murders of gay men by members of Iraqi militia groups, including the Brigades of Wrath (Saraya al-Ghadhab) and League of the Righteous (Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq) between 2009 and 2015. The groups condem…
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…frica, who were among 13 human rights activists detained and charged with “promoting homosexuality,” were deported: Local police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said they had been “promoting homosexuality”. “Tanzanian law forbids this act between people of the same sex, it is a violation of our country’s laws,” said Mambosasa. Just days later an NGO, the Community Health Education Services and Advocacy (CHESA) centre, was suspended on the same charge and a…
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