Religion Dispatches
…y, instead of seeking to prevent gay and lesbian people from serving their country, they should be doing more to weed out the heterosexual sexual predators in the armed forces….
Read More…n gays and lesbians who want to marry. Jesus, who said nothing about homosexuality, had plenty to say about heterosexual couples who divorced. Throughout the Bible, divorce has been strongly condemned and only allowed under certain circumstances—mainly when the woman cheats (but not the husband)—but even then, divorce is a great source of shame for both parties. A lot has changed in religious circles over the millennia. When my father divorced my…
Read More…who has spoken at tea party rallies and who claimed at Michele Bachmann’s Code Red rally against health care reform that health care reform was “against the law of nature and nature’s God” and “against the Judeo-Christian ethic that this nation was built upon.” Broden also appears in Maafa 21, a propaganda film that claims that reproductive rights are a conspiracy to commit “black genocide.” The film has been promoted by the Frederick Douglass Fo…
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…he new board whether it should apply or ignore the standards. So, if the Texas textbook controversy were to end up having little impact on textbooks either across the country or even in Texas, was it all just a tempest in a teapot? The answer, Hillis says, is no. Unfortunately, young inexperienced teachers in small districts will look to the curriculum standards for guidance. And while teaching creationism is illegal, someone would have to be will…
Read More…slavery.) And what about secret paganistic societies with odd behind-closed-doors rituals? That too is classic Americana—just as American as the Freemasons. What really breaks the good Christian folks code of conduct is not engaging in questionable behavior but rather exposing the indiscretions of other good Christian folks, especially after they get established and powerful….
Read More…ed Christian whose faith is not to be questioned? Because as we all know (Exhibit A, Barack Obama), for a Democrat to say he’s a Christian is not enough to insulate him from questions about his religion. Rand Paul walked free from his Aqua Buddha past because conservative Christians think he’s a good Christian now, and others, like the reporter Jason Zengerle, who broke the story, think he’s just a fun-loving, anti-authoritarian prankster. (That’s…
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…e in the Denver Archdiocese of the Catholic Church. But after a decade of explosive sex abuse scandals, most prominently involving minor children, Birge’s story doesn’t fit the recognized narrative. She was already an adult when it happened, and her alleged attacker is not an ordained member of the clergy. Both facts point to under-recognized trends in the Church that touch on its continuing problem with sex abuse: that adults are often its victim…
Read More…to determine the constitutionality of section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which criminalizes the practice of polygamy, in light of sections of the Canadian Charter of Freedom pertaining to religious and civil liberties. Polygamy-practicing Mormons began fleeing to Mexico and Canada in the 1880s, after US Supreme Court Justices upheld the conviction of George Reynolds on polygamy charges in 1879, declaring polygamy an “odious” “Asiatic” prac…
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…nd active commitment to “social justice,” something that Beck has said are code words for Communism and Nazism. Look, Frank Capra wasn’t exactly known for his subtle messages. Yet, somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market ideological Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks Mr. Potter is the hero…
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…lacebos may be the most effective and important tool in any healer’s toolbox, though they certainly raise complex medical and ethical problems. Informed consent, for instance, should still guide medical ethics. Substituting sham treatments for an effective, known treatment for a serious illness is always out of bounds. The good news, however, is that patients can and should be informed about the benefits of a holistic approach that includes CAM an…
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