Religion Dispatches
…zes certain actions or statements on the basis of sexual orientation Homosexual Adoption—Expanding laws to permit adoption by homosexual couples Sanctity of Life: Constitutional Right to Abortion—Roe v. Wade was correctly decided Protecting Infants Born Alive—Laws requiring protection for infants born alive born alive as a result of a botched abortion Prohibiting Partial-Birth Abortion—Laws banning the procedure known as partial-birth abortion Mak…
Read More…ls lived their lives in clubs, engaging in cheap, easy, and often public sex, or were sexually abused. For all the claptrap the religious right yells about how they don’t want to think of us “that way,” the trailer for the film is positively voyeuristic! Let’s face it, gay sex is completely titillating to heterosexuals, especially conservative Christian heterosexuals. They can’t stop thinking about us in bed! Remind me again, who’s the perv here?…
Read More…trying to follow the movement is that every time we write about something extreme, it’s dismissed with “well, every movement has its fringe folks.” I started to write this a week ago but had second thoughts because the whole exchange with Joan seemed like a one-off. Then today Salon.com is reporting that Tea Party Nation leader and founder Judson Phillips is calling for the defeat of Congressman Keith Ellison because he is a Muslim. Tea Party Nati…
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…inciple that imagining creates reality has captivated modern readers,” the promo copy explains. The publisher probably didn’t expect the book to resonate quite so uncomfortably with the political moment when they chose November 8th—Election Day—as its publication date. But indeed, Donald Trump’s distinctive style has roots in the spiritual tradition of which At Your Command and The Secret are both a part. Neville was just ahead of his time. Born i…
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…uchin this past Wednesday, declaring unconstitutional a provision of the tax code that’s made it possible for clergy to enjoy higher standards of living than their salaries might suggest. At issue is section 107 of the U.S. Tax Code, which contains two subsections pertaining to “the case of a minister of the gospel.” (The term was originally intended to refer only to ordained Christian clergy, but its meaning was later expanded by the Internal Rev…
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…administration prescribes between 30 years to life in jail for gay male sex. Lesbian sex isn’t against the law. Activists say that, despite the law, former president Jakaya Kikwete, who was in office from 2005 to 2015, mainly left LGBT people alone. But since his successor John Magufuli was elected, that tolerance has evaporated, they say. “[Magufuli] is religious and very traditional,” says Queen M. “The new government believes that sex work and…
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…gregators. Denying same sex couples legal access to marriage which heterosexuals have implies inferiority to the same sex couples. The third criterion Dr. King identifies is that “an unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willi…
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…n to a related for-profit entity (an arrangement that raised eyebrows of tax experts), but that other “experts” in spreading Islamophobia draw big salaries from their nonprofits. Other frequent witnesses in Islamophobic documentaries, including Woolsey, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have had financial stakes in companies that profit from consulting on homeland security and counter-terro…
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…costs for LGBT people are a result of some abnormal activity. (Yes, that’s code for anal sex. Or gender-affirming surgeries. Or marrying the person you love most in the world, if that person happens to have the same gender marker as you.) Given that it took the president-elect more than three weeks—and upwards of 700 documented hate-crime incidents—to “denounce and reject” the hatred his scorched-earth campaign emboldened, I have zero confidence t…
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…villain, commit atrocities on other players, and in the process, begin to experiment with and potentially exorcise the darker side of her own personality? Or, should she become one of the good ones, going out to do heroic deeds, sharing the loot with others in her party, rescuing those in distress and helping newbies learn to play, and developing a sense of responsibility and accountability to others in her guild? Should she design an avatar that…
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