Religion Dispatches
…d. According to the Associated Press, the two-day conference was called to promote a global dialogue about religions, cultures and common values. The dialogue ensued. President Bush attended and spoke, and a statement on the importance of religion and humanity’s common values was issued. The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins pointed out that Leonard Leo and Donald Argue, members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said th…
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…eocracy” and that the bills don’t “mimic or enact any particular religious code.” However, the inclusion of “The Ten Commandments Display Act” isn’t very convincing on that score. They further insist that the model bills promote “religious tolerance” and that they “do not force any religion on anyone,” yet the “National Motto Display Act” calls for the posting of the Christian religious slogan “In God We Trust” in public schools and buildings. And…
Read More…al healing practices appear to be protected under one part of the criminal code but not under another) violates their right to due process of law. Wisconsin’s “treatment through prayer” provision is not unique: More than thirty other states offer similar kinds of apparent legal protections for devout parents who reject medicine and turn to prayer when their children are ailing. A number of groups have lobbied for the repeal of such religious exemp…
Read More…rty wishlist (a merger Robison endorsed last year while helping Ralph Reed promote the launch of his Faith and Freedom Coalition). In a nutshell: America should be ruled by God, not government, with no abortion, gay marriage, or jurisprudence Robison disagrees with; the market should be kept “free, healthy, and under the influence of people who understand that importance of personal responsibility,” as “out of control spending” and “intrusive regu…
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…ried to present negative arguments against the validity of evolution using code words like, “teach the controversy” and “sudden emergence.” Intelligent Design is “the Logos theology of John… in the idiom of information theory.” In 2004, when the Dover Area School District became the first district in the nation to include intelligent design in its science curriculum, its board members were under the impression that they were implementing DI’s stra…
Read More…ooklet’s content isn’t religious: This may be the first nonreligious moral code based wholly on common sense. It was written by L. Ron Hubbard as an individual work and it not part of any religious doctrine. Any reprinting or individual distribution of it does not infer connection with or sponsorship of any religious organization. It is therefore admissible for government departments and employees to distribute it as a nonreligious activity. (Repr…
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…roy successfully included in the Texas’ science standards such creationist code as “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil records.” Another amendment says students will: “analyze and evaluate the scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.” The wording could be used to justify the adoption of pro-intellig…
Read More…it’s unclear how the case would proceed. According to the Brazilian penal code, criminal charges for genocide can be brought against nationals but foreigners cannot be prosecuted under national law. One possible explanation for FUNAI’s approach is to generate awareness of the detrimental outlook for the agency and the indigenous communities they protect. The incident comes on the heels of growing threats to indigenous sovereignty by a new right-w…
Read More…, when a federal judge in Wisconsin found the relevant portions of the tax code to be unconstitutional, but the three judges on the appellate panel did not tip their hand, although they showed few outward signs that they agreed. The regulation at issue is more than sixty years old, enacted in the 1950s to ensure that ministers at churches who could not afford to provide them with housing could nevertheless benefit from the same tax breaks as minis…
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…s not enough to purchase a gallon of milk there! It barely buys a Big Mac! Today no one can claim ignorance. Workers have journeyed to the U.S. to give gut-wrenching accounts of their travails. Journalists and watchdog groups have exhaustively exposed the injustices workers making Nike products endure. Read, for example, this recent article based on interviews of eighteen women in Vietnam who have experienced intimidation, abuse, and threats but s…
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