Religion Dispatches
…T OUT OF HARVARD LAW, HE “WORKED” AS AN ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ACTIVIST IN CHICAGO. HE THEN ENTERED POLITICS AT THE STATE LEVEL AND THEN MOVED TO THE NATIONAL LEVEL—WHERE HE SCRAMBLES TODAY WITH VERY MINIMAL EXPERIENCE IN ANYTHING—WHILE OTHER PEOPLE WRITE HIS SPEECHES FOR HIM. IN ALL HIS TIME IN THE STATE AND NATIONAL LEGISLATURES—HE’S NEVER LAUNCHED ANY IMPORTANT LEGISLATION WHATSOEVER. MOSTLY, HE’S OUT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. HE CLAIMS TO BE “PRO…
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…nnect with other clergy persons. Over the past 18 months, I’ve developed a number of relationships with people who contact me because they find themselves in a similar situation. They ask questions, I don’t push. I’m simply a listening ear…someone safe for them to talk to. What was the response to your coming out as an atheist? An enormous number of Christians have threatened to do physical harm to me. Many others have been kind in their response…
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…position as “USA Country Representative” and has spoken on IFTCC stages a number of times. In many ways Haynes embodies the US conversion network presence at the Warsaw conference. In addition to her affiliations noted above, she wrote a letter to the UN that was published by Family Watch International; she was interviewed by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins; and, on behalf of the IFTCC, she drafted a declaration against conversion…
Read More…sion talking about the LGBT people being less than human. For example, the number two person in the state broadcasting company – actually now he’s the number one person – hosted a show devoted to the question of whether it was enough to protect our children to ban homosexual propaganda or whether more needed to be done. He argued that more needed to be done. He said and we need to outlaw blood and sperm donations by them. And if they die in car ac…
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…y Six”) The summer months, usually the least busy time in DC, brought us a number of political earthquakes, each of which, under normal circumstances, would have dominated headlines for weeks. First, the FBI searched the former President’s Mar-a-Lago residence, prompting bitter reactions from a number of Republicans, in some cases openly weighing political violence as a tool of reaction. Lindsey Graham predicted “riots in the streets,” should Trum…
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…is is important because it’s a tight race. And there are a lot of Arabs in Florida (as indeed there are a lot of Muslims), and they might be up for grabs. As Hassan put it, “I’m economically and socially conservative”; in fact, we had a hard time getting time with him because he’s a busy businessman, the kind of entrepreneurial type who’s supposed to be naturally, organically Republican. When I asked him if his treatment by the leading GOP candida…
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So here we are again, after Newtown, after San Bernadino and Orlando. This time the rampage is in Las Vegas, with more dead, more people hospitalized, more deep trauma inflicted, but with the same shitty debate over prayer-vs-action and same despair over the potential for action being recycled. There are some differences, of course. Rather than the NRA paying $3 million to elect a senator from Iowa, we now have a president elected with $30 millio…
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…olitical power. When talking on June 14, 2016, about the mass murder at an Orlando night club committed by an American-born Muslim, Limbaugh went after Obama in similar terms, saying he was always “really, really bothered out there about offending Islamists,” yet did “not seem concerned about Christianity. He is a Christian. If he is [sic] get upset about attacks on Christianity, he never comes out defends [sic] Christianity.” Again, Obama is real…
Read MoreLast night’s GOP debate in Orlando was occasionally contentious, actually featuring some moments of real debate. But not when it came to education reform. (I’ve written about the GOP candidate field and education here.) We saw a clear illustration of how far to the right the Republican Party has moved; how far it has moved, in fact, toward the religious right’s long-standing goal of dismantling public education: Since the Reagan era conservatives…
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…st positions, including one in which he celebrated the June massacre at an Orlando gay bar. Mamba Online says the decision “follows a determined campaign by LGBT activists, led primarily by GaySA Radio, to stop the preacher, who calls for the execution of gay people, from spreading his shocking views in the country.” More details: “We have a duty to prevent harm and hatred in all forms against LGBTI, as any other person in a democratic state,” sai…
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