Religion Dispatches
…ver.” Although encouraged by the Democratic Party’s “pledges to reduce the number of abortions, … [he] now worries [that] the party is using abortion as a wedge issue by running ads sharply contrasting Palin and Obama on abortion rights,” AP reported. “Strang said he’s waiting for the Republicans to talk more about health care and the economy—and is both intrigued and unmoved by Palin. ‘It’s a great story, but I don’t know what’s changed,’ he said…
Read More…Listen to a podcast of the Ticket 2016, during which I talked about religion in the 2016 presidential campaign with Austin, Texas NPR affiliate KUT’s Ben Philpott and the Texas Tribune’s Jay Root:…
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…to continue to shrink into the insularity and disorganization that caused the Philadelphia Archdiocese to decline so precipitously? It remains to be seen. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics and others who want to see the Pope may be losing heart. 10,000 tickets for the Pope’s Speech at Independence Mall sold out in two minutes on Tuesday, with 394k people trying their best to get a few. Tickets are already being scalped at $100 and up on craigslist. I…
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…d just been “taken” for the cost of a decent meal. Was the movie worth the ticket price? I think so, but then again I am a fan of stage-magic history and (references to) Nietzsche. And I’m less inclined than others to complain about Magic in the Moonlight being a “hollow shell,” because, well, I think the raison d’etre of magic itself is to create miniature containers for critical thought. My only hope is that, even with our persistent fascination…
Read More…tion in all instances except to save the mother’s life, and has joined the ticket with McCain, a man who has opposed efforts to institute wage equality, saying instead that women need more education and training. This twisting of feminist history and rhetoric to protect a champion of anti-feminist causes, traditionalism and sex-kitten objectification, is particularly unnerving for exactly the reasons that Palin’s biggest supporters claim it is: fo…
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…upted over this behavior, Nehlen responded by posting the names, telephone numbers, and email addresses of some of his critics. Nehlen’s so reviled that even Steve Bannon’s Breitbart has disavowed him, though no less accomplished a racist than Donald Trump himself praised Nehlen during the primary. Nehlen won’t come anywhere near unseating Ryan, of course, but that doesn’t mean the WisGOP—which appears not to have made any recent statements disavo…
Read More…th us. Tap your toes with us. And as Phil says, get “HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY.” Ticket prices range from $100 for an individual seat to $10,000 for a “Commander” table. Last year, Robertson’s homophobic remarks to GQ magazine, along with his assertion that blacks were “happy” before the civil rights era, caused a temporary suspension of Duck Dynasty by the A&E network, and an outcry of so-called persecution from the family’s conservative supporters. In…
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…er, she meets Jerry Ricks, a handsome LDS missionary who sends her a plane ticket to Utah after he leaves Austria. Jerry’s stint as a missionary exacerbates his hatred of rules; he’s unhappy to find himself saddled with a wife who insists everyone pray six or seven times a day and get out of bed early each morning for an hour of scripture reading. His wife, for her part, is beyond disappointed to find herself married to a man who cheats on her, us…
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…’ve never laid flowers at a veterans cemetery or followed troop deployment numbers. Doing so would not occur to most. Since the end of the draft and the initiation of the All-Volunteer Force in 1973, veterans have not been distributed widely through civilian communities, and Americans have allowed themselves to support the troops in a distant, spectatorial fashion that may signal gratitude or at least political correctness, but also underwrites a…
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…exercise clause into a broadly applicable special rights provision. A free ticket for the religious to exempt themselves from federal and state laws—most importantly, public health and anti-discrimination laws. JS: Do these special rights provisions apply equally? The court is on a mission to remake free-exercise law. Not too long ago, it held that religious people and organizations could not claim special exemptions to generally applicable law so…
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