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Swift-Boat Veterans of American Jewry Charge Anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street

…Barack Obama. Antisemitism is a serious, real thing. When it is used as a cheap shot—as when pro-Palestinian advocates throw around terms like “Nazi” and “concentration camp”—it is an offense against all those who were murdered over the centuries. Diluting the meaning of the term ‘antisemitism’ is, itself, antisemitic. Second, as I described in a recent post, there is indeed a structural similarity between some of the Occupy movement’s concerns a…

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Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…

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What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail

…items within their borders (as is already the case federally with lottery tickets). A Republican-controlled Congress could then impose a nationwide ban on the mailing of abortion pills or certain contraceptives. (Republican-controlled state legislatures have already demonstrated a willingness to enact questionable legislation for nothing more than its intimidation factor.) Which brings us back to Anthony Comstock. In 1878, the Supreme Court uphel…

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Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

…called Pillars of the Saints listed Ten Tenets, including: “Do not covet world peace or any other conclusion. Life is alive with infinite possibilities and infinite worlds that are yet to come.” On a back street in the city, I came across “The Twistine Chapel for Bad Catholics” which offered Burners an opportunity to pray to ”Our Lady of Questionable Virginity.” For “bad Catholics” and other backsliding Burners, confession is a popular practice,…

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Refusing the Monsters on Maple Street: A First-Person Commentary from the Mass Hysteria at JFK

…nals of atomic warheads pointed at each other. From my point of view, the world seems safer now in some ways, and so much less safe in others. Still, it is we who must make some decisions about how we deal with such a heightened level of anxiety. Authoritarian forces in governments all over the world can stoke our anxiety in order to justify more control. They can fake a coup, botch the response to an attack, and push through “heightened security…

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An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

…ual recompense. In the video message that was played before my last United Airlines flight, you expressed your desire to greet each and every passenger; you invited us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. If I could greet you now, I would want to know: were you unaware of the monstrosity that was about to follow? There, rising above the hiss of the pressurized air, as the video monitors snapped to the image of an engorged sun bursting from be…

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Invited by Allah

…ccurred to me it would be a very easy to make hajj from there. I bought an airline ticket and was in contact with the family of one of my graduate school friends. They would pick me up from the airport and host me during my stay and the days of ritual. Nice plan. So I went to the embassy to get the visa and was denied because (as an American) I needed proof that I was Muslim. How do I prove I have been a practicing Muslim for a decade? I went to t…

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Gingrich Downplays Adelson Money, Stokes Fear of “Second Holocaust” at Florida Church

…and others, at Aloma Baptist Church in Winter Park, Florida, just north of Orlando. Gingrich was running late, so the event co-sponsors filled time with over-the-top God-and-country songs, prayer, and speeches about the causes their organizations promote. Liberty Counsel, the Christian right legal group headed by Liberty University Law School Dean Mat Staver, was the lead co-sponsor. Others included the Florida Family Action, which spearheaded the…

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Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

…million Jesus film in 1979, and a $30 million campaign to evangelize the world by 1980. He gave $1 million to help start the Moral Majority and financed the founding of Tim LaHaye’s Council for National Policy in 1981. Hunt also tried to buy all the world’s silver as a hedge against the financial collapse he believed the Bible predicted. He lost $1.7 billion and went bankrupt in 1989. He died at 88. Johnny Lee Clary A Ku Klux Klan leader who reje…

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‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

…lectorate than it is with straight voters. LePen’s Party, which includes a number of openly gay officials, still pledges to roll back the marriage equality law in favor of civil unions. As AP notes, LePen is not the only nationalist leader who uses fear of radical Islamist violence to attract LGBT support: In the Netherlands, Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders said that his party, which is hostile to Muslims and wants to halt immigration, shou…

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