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Gay Marriage Bill Totalitarian Says Head Bishop

By Peter Montgomery

…Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to use his power to keep marriage from coming to the floor for a vote. Meanwhile, Archbishop Timothy Dolan is getting increasingly shrill in his efforts to stop the shift toward equality. This week, on his official blog, he wrote: “Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America—not in China or North Korea. In those countries, government presumes daily to ‘r…

God Dissolves into the Occupy Movement

By Nathan Schneider

…ntional religious categories onto something this new and undefined. A fair number of commentators and headline writers have been using the first part of the old Stephen Stills lyric in relation to OWS: “There’s something happening here…” I wish they would add the rest of that lyric: “…what it is ain’t exactly clear.” Instead, the eager pundits rush to tell us exactly what is happening here. Tom Hayden is right to be pleading for people to “just le…

Where are the Clergy? A Report from Occupy DC

By Sarah Posner

…is not so much occupying McPherson Square as “holding space for the 99% to come and gather.” There was, notably, no drum circle, which has become a symbol of both liberal and conservative scorn of the New York movement (conservatives scoff while some liberals cringe). Why Aren’t There 50 Clergy? But there was a tiny glimmer of progressive religious activism. I was there to meet a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Brian Merritt, the gregarious, affab…

Suicide Leads to Calls for Improved Treatment of LGBT Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…ble to a disease like alcoholism, or to pornography addiction—an unhealthy compulsion to be battled and overcome. We’ve bought into the idea—and many Mormons still do—that it is possible to change one’s sexual orientation through various therapies, or marriage, or prayer and fasting. We’ve been led to believe that equal rights and protections for same-sex couples constitute a threat to our religious freedom. But do any of these serve the thousands…

Even Tougher Questions to Ask Mormon Presidential Candidates

By Joanna Brooks

…actually proposed a very moderate line of questioning gauging candidates’ commitment to the values of a pluralistic civil society, even if that commitment cost them the votes of the religiously zealous. No more doublespeak. No more coded encouragements to extremist religious voters. No more breezily righteous jabs at science. Wrote Keller, “I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protect…

Ralph Reed’s Group Goes after “Union Thugs” in Wisconsin

By Sarah Posner

…be canvassing the state, in preparation for “a full-scale get-out-the-vote phone bank operation to make sure every last pro-freedom and pro-family voter goes to vote on behalf of our values.” So far, the right’s anti-union battleground in Wisconsin hasn’t been explicitly framed as a “pro-family” issue, but here’s Marx: Please join Tony Nasvik and join the fight with 100 plus FFC activists who will be going door-to-door encouraging the Badger State…

Presbyterians, Change Hearts & Minds, Begin Ordaining Gays

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

…t Network group in Blackhawk Presbytery set a goal of calling every single commissioner, urging them to come to the meeting and in many cases, offering to meet to talk further. Some presbyteries employed scripts and talking points; others were more informal. “There were a lot of cups of coffee shared,” says Peterson. She noted that whereas floor debates over this issue have sometimes been rancorous—what she calls the “Nazis and child molesters” ar…

Abortion’s Not in Kansas Anymore?

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…due process, based on the swiftness with which they were required to show compliance with the new rulings. The AP also reports that the Department of Health and the Environment plans to implement restrictive TRAP laws, possibly identical to the ones blocked by Murguia, on a schedule that would make them permanent. In order to be permanent, the regulations would have to take effect only after a period of public comment. By contrast, the regulation…

ACLU and Thomas More Law Center Rush to Terry Jones Defense

By Lauri Lebo

…ones has any brains at all – and I’m not saying he does – he’ll get on the phone to the ACLU right now, begging its attorneys to take his case. What’s so incredibly stupid about all of this is that it seems like the community couldn’t have more bungled the handling of this raging bigot. Now, Jones – who is obviously one of the biggest spotlight-seeking jerks out there – will be made into a martyr and now stands to make a lot of money from the taxp…

Will a Video Game Make Sense of Qaddafi’s Death?

By Rachel Wagner

…f what we might call algorithmic sorting: the cultural attempt to simplify complex historical and social issues into patterns that we can recognize and make sense of. Typically, this is accomplished by vastly reducing the variables and historical contexts involved and effectively transforming lived events into games with predictable rules, defeatable “bad guys,” and the hopeful celebration of an “epic win.” Part of the problem with representing an…