Religion Dispatches
…ou’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too. I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…
Read More
…that happen before my eyes. But if you live in the southern states of the United States, you’ve seen Santa Muerte. You’ve seen the icons of this skeleton wearing a dress and probably said to yourself, “What the hell is that?” And it’s a big religion. I’ve seen estimates between 5-10 million adherents in Mexico and America. But of course, migration patterns have transformed Santa Muerte’s reach, so now there are dozens of Santa Muerte temples in t…
Read MoreAt oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties, Inc. v. Sebelius this morning, the Supreme Court justices spent a great deal of time questioning the lawyers in the case about whether corporations have a religious conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia So…
Read More
…ironic, ally of Fidel Castro and his revolutionary cohorts in Cuba. In the United States, football has arguably supplanted baseball as the national pastime. Cuban baseball has had no such rivals. It is not surprising then that a game in the hallowed Estadio Latinoamericano would produce what at least one U.S. sports journalist perceived as religious moods. JP Morosi of Fox Sports described the sacred aura of the pregame pomp: A Cuban women’s choir…
Read More
…democratic freedoms: expression, conscience, and religion. Precept sixteen states that Knights need to understand “how others get close to God.” Credo sixteen extols the virtue of patriotism. Number nineteen advises humility and nobility, while twenty-two announces that no woman should fear a Knight, but, rather, should feel protected by him. Twenty-nine reiterates that every Knight should be “firmly and truthfully in the just cause of God.” Numbe…
Read More…olivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. The report covers areas such as education, labor, health care, and protections against discrimination and violence. Last year the IAHCR released a major report on anti-LGBTI violence in the Americas. The anti-LGBT C-Fam complains that the Organization for American States is emerging as a “global LGBT rights advocate.” Marianna Orlandi writes, “Ur…
Read More
…ce reports that David Gibbs III, a “conservative Christian lawyer from the United States who has suggested that legalizing gay marriage would lead to a catalogue of social ills will be one of three guest speakers headlining a religious rally in Cayman” on September 11. Organizers say the gathering, “The Future is Now: Preserving Values for a Better Tomorrow,” will promote “a biblical perspective of family.” David Gibbs III, who takes an anti-gay s…
Read More
…te segregation and economic favoritism. When I spoke with Rothstein on the phone, he underscored the long-term effects of this last policy. During the 1940s and 1950s, suburban subdivisions were built in St. Louis, and throughout the country, using federal loans stipulating that no homes be sold to African Americans. Priced at about $125,000 in today’s dollars, these were affordable—with a mortgage—to working class families, black or white. Yet bl…
Read More
…NAFTA, which opened the door to many agri-businesses to move farms down to Mexico, putting small farmers out of business. And while the number of undocumented border crossers is down, Brother David says, it will be virtually impossible to eliminate them as long as the opportunities for jobs exist. As we continue to search for people along the road, Millsap complains that no politician wants to acknowledge these deaths: “Most of the people dying do…
Read More
…f Parents, Family Network, ConFamilia, CitizenGo, HazteOir, Dilo Bien, and Mexico is One for the Children, among others. “Yesterday was a historic day in Mexico,” Dabdoub Giacomán emphasized on June 6, and underscored that the protest vote called for by the National Front for the Family was “a mechanism to oppose the decision of President Peña Nieto to regularize so-called homosexual ‘marriages’ and adoption.” “The important part was that in less…
Read More