Religion Dispatches
…against the mega-corporation BP. Right now roughly a third of all Gulf of Mexico areas available for commercial fishing (where roughly a third of the US mainland’s seafood comes from) are closed. The impact of this, according to a report from the Mississippi Coalition of Vietnamese American Fisherfolk and Families, is that 80 percent of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian families in the Gulf will feel some economic squeeze. Of the 40,000 Vietnamese f…
Read More…tion of marriage and human sexuality. Jackson has big-name allies. Jackson lists Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the Latino evangelical leader who will give the benediction on the first night of the GOP convention, as one of his partners in the effort. Among those scheduled to take part in his summit in Orlando, which includes a training for pastors and leaders followed by a public rally in the evening, are: Brian Brown, whose National Organization for Mar…
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…t, when Americans have experienced this collective amnesia, he reminds his listeners, the results have been such unsavory historical events as the mistreatment of Native Americans, slavery, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two, and recurring outbreaks of nativism and anti-Catholicism. Which brings him to the second point: Who is best equipped to remind America of this more complex history? Catholics, who “have a special dut…
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…es portrayed these extraterrestrials as comical, or even friendly. A journalist named Frank Scully wrote a book claiming that aliens dressed in “the style of 1890” had been recovered from a saucer crash in the Mojave Desert in 1949. The Californian George Adamski claimed that in November 1952 a cigar-shaped spacecraft landed near his campsite in southern California. Its occupant, a tall blonde Venusian named Orthon, promised to help Adamski save t…
Read More…ctor. He cites the recent advent of gay marriage in Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico City. And in the last two years, Ecuadorean authorities closed down 15 “clinics” that supposedly cured homosexuality, their patients often admitted by their families against their will. Violence has also spurred some positive political response, says the story. In 2012 Chile passed an anti-discrimination law that had been stalled in Congress for seven years, “after a…
Read More…Latino Mormons, and the Church has enjoyed tremendous missionary growth in Mexico, Central, and South America. Over the years, some American Indian and Latin American indigenous Mormons have actively claimed a “Lamanite” identity and positioned themselves as the direct heirs of the Book of Mormon. (I have heard Navajo LDS friends tell me that what they read in the Book of Mormon resembles stories they’ve heard from their grandparents.) Today, the…
Read More…international phenomenon. Last November, nearly 10,000 people assembled in Mexico City to imitate the living dead, though Russia has attempted to suppress the spreading zombie phenomenon. Yakovlev received permission from the city to organize a “Zombie Parade” earlier this summer, but his permit was revoked. It is not entirely clear why the city decided to shut down the zombie parade, but it appears to have been in response to a coalition of relig…
Read More…1.7 million members throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Guam and Spain. In a press release about the $1 million donation, spokesperson Patrick Korten stated: “From the day we were founded 126 years ago, strengthening and protecting the family has always been central to the mission of the Knights of Columbus. Preserving marria…
Read More…n (rural, small city, large city), and socio-economic class. Russia: Journalists arrested, but not anti-gay protesters or Orthodox extremists The Olympics in Sochi got underway with the arrest in St. Petersburg of LGBT activists carrying a banner that read “Discrimination is incompatible with the Olympic movement,” quoting Principle 6 of the Olympic charter. Protesters were later released. Amnesty International has drawn attention to the case of E…
Read More…t has been in the news and, as Gabriel also notes, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has led to a disaster of devastating proportions. In this episode, drilling by humans to an unprecedented depth impinges on an underground dwelling of Silurians, a race of bipedal humanoid reptiles who once dominated planet Earth, long before the emergence of humankind. Although this was only the first part of a two-part episode, we have already been given hints that…
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