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Muslims Helped Legitimize Lowes’ Decision to Pull Ads From All-American Muslim

By Hussein Rashid

…ot a “Muslim” issue, but a free speech issue. However, I think we need to look at how we got to this point. In their statement, Lowe’s says, “We based our decision to pull the advertising on this research after hearing the concerns we received through emails, calls, through social media and in news reports.” So, did this fringe Christianist group, the Florida Family Association, really manage to dominate the media narrative through politically co…

As Culture War Rages, What’s the Status of LGBT Rights on Catholic Campuses?

By Jamie L. Manson

…s in signing the open letter “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together.” It was latest epistle in the growing canon of hierarchical statements aimed at gaining exemptions from federal and state laws that protect the rights of same-sex couples. But as the church leaders fortify their culture-war defenses [see here for some of RD’s recent coverage –Eds.], some Catholic universities seem to be taking a decidedly d…

Muslim Until Proven Innocent

By Haroon Moghul

…ce, however, is far more uncomfortable. For no apparent cause, mosques, schools, restaurants, and college students across the northeast, well outside city limits, were surveilled, spied on, infiltrated and reported back on. Well, there was one apparent reason: All were Muslim. Since these revelations, prominent public figures such as Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Senator Bob Menendez have called for state and federal investigations. Yale’s Presiden…

Cardinal Who Once Compared Gay People to Klan Warns Church is Being “Despoiled”

By Sarah Posner

…ously compared gay rights parades to the Ku Klux Klan, issues a parade of doozies, including a warning that the church is being “despoiled of her institutions.” George later apologized for the KKK comment. But seriously, who would think of that in the first place? George maintains in his comments about the HHS mandate that the government requirement for the contraception coverage may force Catholic hospitals to “secularize,” something he compare…

New Gallup Poll on Religion in Election Has Problems

By Sarah Posner

I don’t want to get too swept up in general election poll-mania, but I would just point out a few problems in the new Gallup poll out today on religiosity and voter preferences in the general election. The poll finds that Mitt Romney is performing better among the “very religious,” by a 54-37% margin, while President Obama has a significant edge among the “moderately religious” and “non-religious,” by a 54-40% and 61-30% margin, respectively. The…

Paul Ryan: I Reject Ayn Rand, She’s an Atheist!

By Sarah Posner

…hem,” Ryan says. “They spurred an interest in economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman,” a subject he eventually studied as an undergraduate at Miami University in Ohio. “But it’s a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.” “I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to…

Methodists Vote to Keep Homosexuality “Incompatible”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…The United Methodist Church voted today to keep intact its section in the Book of Discipline that call homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching” and sanctions only heterosexual marriage. New wording would have removed those passages. The vote came after a debate that became contentious when one African delegate compared homosexuality to bestiality and declared that God would not create humans as gay or lesbian. During the vote, supporte…

Obama Says His Faith Informed His Support for Gay Marriage

By Sarah Posner

…iews of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad an…

Cornel West, Using His Powers for Good

By Edward J. Blum

…izable, even ubiquitous presence. Some know Brother West from bestselling books like Race Matters; some know him as the Harvard professor who battled with President Lawrence Summers (and lost); some know him from The Matrix as one of the elders of Zion, the last human city; and some know him from Real Time with Bill Maher or CNN or as the friend and confidant of radio/TV host Tavis Smiley. West is, for all that, a controversial figure, as religion…

Attacks on Tim Walz’s Lutheran Denomination are Undermined by Reality — I Mean, Is ELCA Even Exciting Enough for Controversy?

By Daniel Schultz

Almost as soon as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, attacks focused on his association with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) started to roll in. Harris herself is a Baptist. Christianity Today played things safe, noting that Walz had upset conservative Christian leaders during his time in office in Minnesota and carefully explaining the difference…