Religion Dispatches
…ify hate and violence. And while the coincidence of being born under the “Sign of the Beast” in Topeka 666 is still a little unnerving, there are differing opinions about the number’s translation. Some theologians suggest the number should really be 616, in which case, all eyes on Peoria, Illinois….
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…financing. In some cases, those activities have tentacles in more than one city.” Contrast this sort of argumentative, interpretation-driven map with Grinnell College’s new Mapping Islamophobia project. This map takes the wise, engaging strategy of eschewing analysis in favor of data. Interactive maps offer detailed accounts of what the project calls “Islamophobic attitudes,” broken down into categories such as “Crimes Against People,” “Crimes Aga…
Read More…e, Tennessee and other cities like Detroit, Little Rock, Omaha, and Kansas City announcing the second coming. The cheesy billboards remind me of signs teasing a television series or the opening of a Broadway show. Jesus is about to make his big entrance only his final number will feature the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Tom Evans, spokesman for Family Radio said their math for setting the return date came from a verse in Luke 17: “As it was in…
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…ment. There is a widespread feeling that, despite impressive growth in the numbers and capacities of organizations promoting queer/LGBTIA+ issues, there has been little impact on the everyday lives of African queer/LGBTIA+ individuals and communities. Discriminatory laws and policies remain stubbornly in place in almost all countries, and the hostile public perceptions of queer/LGBTIA+ identities that sustain these laws and policies seem as pervas…
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…d that it had produced a program titled Is Jesus God? which would air on a number of television stations (mostly religious) across the country. “It is just amazing what God has done in history, and we as Christians need to know this information because our faith is challenged,” said Dr. Jerry Newcombe, senior producer of The Coral Ridge Hour. “But it’s challenged by baseless feelings and opinions, a lot of which is based on people’s desires to rej…
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…ey and Jan Schakowsky. The doctor said she is worried about the increasing number of restrictions on abortion states are implementing. (To get a sense how women’s access to abortion is shrinking across the country, take a look at this map assembled by the Guttmacher Institute.) Twenty-four hour waiting periods, for example, can cause a woman to miss the one day a week a clinic performs abortions, pushing the procedure off another week and making i…
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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…ing vertically next to the elevated train tracks, in time-honored New York City tenement tradition. Only, in contrast to Chinatown or the Lower East Side, there is nearly nothing left of Little Syria. I walked what remains of Little Syria with Joseph Svehlak, a longtime tour guide and founder of Friends of the Lower West Side, whose mother, of Czech heritage, grew up in the neighborhood. He hadn’t realized its significance to the Arab American com…
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…e, in 2012, we won the first judgment in Oaxaca,” Méndez marveled during a phone interview last week. “In the two years [since], we have succeeded in covering almost the entire country. Even some LGBT rights supporters are a little mystified that marriage equality rulings haven’t sparked a national backlash. The fight over Mexico City’s 2009 marriage equality law brought strong opposition from the country’s Catholic hierarchy. Yet while some state…
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…va turned what was to have been their first Pride parade into a protest at City Hall after police, citing “religious sensitivities” and potential violence, broke a promise to allow the parade to go down Rager Boulevard, the city’s main street. The Israeli National LGBT Taskforce (known as Aguda) had appealed to the High Court of Justice, but the court declined to overturn local official’s decision to require the parade to go down side streets. Jam…
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