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

By Sarah M. Pike

…o manifest their ideals on the playa: a community based on gifting; a leave-no-trace policy that models sustainability; financial support for art and artists who are arguably the members of this community with the highest status; and LGBTIQ friendly neighborhoods and streets. Of course the outer world is not absent here. The “default reality” intrudes at every moment. Rampant consumerism occurs before the event and trash bags are tossed on the roa…

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

By Austin Dacey

…entirely to make way for the announcer’s voiceover—“Please make sure your phone and all electronics are switched off and stowed”—as a single chord hovered to a simple four-beat pulse in the fashion of light pop radio. Gone were the jaunty, urbane syncopations that will forever mark the arrival of the jazz idiom—and with it the bluesy sinews of the American soul—to the hallowed halls of Western art music, smothered under a featureless musical goo…

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

By Marion Grau

…r discredited as false—swept through the terminals, sending passengers, law-enforcement, and airline workers scrambling for cover and eventually onto the tarmac. The responding authorities found neither shooters nor evidence of any shots fired. The most likely explanation offered for the panic was that the cheering of Olympics fans for Usain Bolt’s performance in the 100 meters sounded like gunfire. In an episode titled “The Monsters are Due on Ma…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…ro—the real matter was that Egypt is not only very conveniently located vis-à-vis the Arabian Peninsula, it is also a very highly populated Muslim country and too many people request visas for hajj. Like Indonesia, one has to plan two or three years in advance. No walking up to the embassy three weeks before. So, mostly I was nervous because of the failed experience before—I know what it is like to be denied. But honestly that is only part of the…

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

By Sarah Posner

…lls showing him significantly behind both Romney and Gingrich. For this one-of-19 daughter of a reality show that depicts a fundamentalist Christian view of the role of women, motherhood, and reproduction, supporters look at Santorum and say, “hey, he’s like us, he’s a man of character, he’s a humble guy, he’s on our level, he’s somebody we can relate to. He’s somebody who can make a difference for America. And that’s what we want to do, we want a…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…e having trouble reporting exactly which image of the Internet’s many Putin-gay-clown memes is now illegal to share,” The Washington Post reports. “Because, you know, it’s been banned.” Finland: 800+ same-sex couples married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The…

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

By Daniel Silliman

…-filled religious figures in contemporary memory. But here it is, a connect-the-dots portrait of a powerfully complicated American religious landscape, circa 2014. Vincent Gordon Harding Historian and theologian Vincent Gordon Harding died at 82. Harding founded Atlanta’s Mennonite House with his wife Rosemarie in 1961, a headquarters for consciences objectors and civil rights activists. He helped Martin Luther King, Jr. make the argument against…

Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…dedicated social conservative. Campaign Life Coalition, an aggressively pro-life and anti-gay marriage religious organization, gives Scheer top marks for his voting record. That record includes votes against bills to legalize gay marriage, enshrine human rights protections for transgender people, and to allow physician-assisted dying. Scheer has also voted in favour of legislation that would re-define when, during pregnancy, a fetus is considered…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various participants bring to the playa each year. With issues like these in mind, part of how I’ve come to understand this event is by looking at the various ways in which participants are…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…ust one of many. As we kept talking, it became clear that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on much of anything. While I saw the showing of this film as indoctrination, tying political propaganda to a Bible study lesson, Miranda argued it was appropriate, since “America is one nation under God.” While Miranda suspected that all news media was biased, portraying believers as ignorant and out of touch, I recognized a persecution complex I used to share. When…