Search for "부산수영노래방↖〖sgbusan。ⓒoⓜ﹚♟부산수영바 부산수영스포츠마사지✷부산수영노래방 부산수영아로마 부산수영출장마사지"

Anti-Gay Celebration in Uganda; Weddings in England; ‘Francis Effect’ at the Vatican

By Peter Montgomery

World Vision Commitment to ‘Biblical Marriage’ Focused on Gays, Not Divorce Last week we wrote about the decision by World Vision’s American branch to allow the hiring of legally married gay Christians and its quick reversal after a wave of attacks on the decision by conservatives. Nathaniel Frank describes his unsuccessful efforts to get World Vision to explain how its renewed commitment to “Biblical marriage” can be seen as anything other than…

A Public Monument to Atheism—In Florida

By Becky Garrison

On June 29, 2013, in heavily Christian Northern Florida, American Atheists will unveil the first public monument to atheism. A bench engraved with quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Benjamin Franklin, and other atheists and freethinkers will be placed alongside a monument of the Ten Commandments on display in front of the Bradford County Courthouse. How did this come about? As reported by news4jax.com: American Atheists had sued…

Keep These Satanists Out of Congress!

By Joseph Laycock

On April 1, Jake Rush, a conservative congressional candidate from Florida, was outed for his involvement in vampire role-playing games. The story, which was apparently spread by supporters of his opponent, incumbent Ted Yoho, accused Rush of living a “bizarre double life” and dropped plenty of choice words like “ritual,” “occult,” and “Satanic.” Unfortunately for Yoho’s supporters the appeal to moral panic may have backfired. Rush released a st…

Noah’s All-White Ark, and Other Odd Directorial Choices

By Wil Gafney

In Noah Darren Aronofsky has crafted a provocative cinematic midrash weaving the stories of Genesis and stories from the book(s) of Enoch set in an antediluvian Iron Age. Midrashic commentary traditionally fills spaces in scriptural stories, asking questions of the text, and answering those questions. Aronofsky’s choices create a new interpretation of the story of Noah—neither a good nor a bad thing in itself. Some will care that the movie deviat…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

Mitt Romney’s delusional 2012 pollsters got nothing on apologists for last week’s Pew Poll that found no real “Francis effect” from the pope’s first year. According to Daniel Burke at CNN.com in a lengthy, mostly anecdotal piece, “there’s more way than one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to fin…

Global LGBT Recap: Promise and Peril in the New Year

By Peter Montgomery

The new year dawns with more LGBT people than ever before living in states and countries that recognize marriage equality. But, thanks to the Supreme Court in India, this year also begins with more LGBT people living in countries that declare them and their relationships to be illegal than at the same time last year. The conservative Catholic Family & Human Rights Institution (C-FAM) is celebrating resistance to LGBT equality and reproductive ch…

Google’s Benevolent Interfaith Big Tent

By Lucia Hulsether

The scene opens in a bustling restaurant in Delhi, where a young woman leans in close to her grandfather, whose eyes sparkle with memories of his childhood in Lahore, Pakistan. He points to faded photograph of two young boys: “This is me. And this is Yusuf.” Every evening they flew kites together, before stealing jhajariyas from the sweet shop owned by Yusuf’s family. A harsh reality interrupts these wistful recollections: “When partition came, w…

Reza Aslan’s Viral Fox News Interview Reveals More Than Just Christian Privilege

By Jeffrey Scholes

Unless you have been completely unplugged from all forms of media for the last week, you’ve probably seen—or at least have heard or read about—the interview that religion scholar, Reza Aslan, gave on the FoxNews.com webcast, “Spirited Debate”—or as Buzzfeed put it, “The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done.” If you haven’t had the chance to see it, or if you aren’t able to watch it now (below, right), here’s what happened, briefly….

Update: Fox News Tries Gotcha Game with Reza Aslan

By The Editors

Update: The video, which went viral thanks to Buzzfeed, has boosted Aslan’s book sales considerably. According to the New York Times: On Friday, “Zealot” was in the No. 8 spot on Amazon.com, the nation’s biggest seller of books; by Sunday, it had hit No. 1. Random House is rushing to meet the surge in demand for the book. On Monday, the publisher ordered 50,000 copies, bringing the total to 150,000 copies in print by the end of the week. *** Cre…

Review: Is the Religious Right Dying?

By Laura R. Olson

In recent months, many observers have wondered (some not so silently) whether the religious right might be dying. The movement’s putative founder, Rev. Jerry Falwell, passed away last year, and several other original movement leaders, especially Rev. Pat Robertson, are far less politically relevant today than they were in their heyday. We now hear comparatively little about religious right interest groups, and the once-powerful Christian Coalitio…