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White House Unveils Contraception Accommodation Plan [UPDATED]

By Sarah Posner

…he said. On that latter point, Archbishop Dolan might want to consult Fox News: The new Obama health care law requires that employer health plans provide birth control coverage as part of preventive services for women. Catholic and other religious-affiliatedhospitals and universities typically have not provided any birth control coverage for their employees, and oppose the new requirement because it violates their religious rights. Overall, do y…

Dispatch from Charlottesville: “It Was a War Zone. It Felt Like There Were a Million Nazis.”

By Sunnivie Brydum

…were together, holding public witness at the corner—and the violence just erupted. I can’t say who initiated. It just erupted. When oppositional forces would meet each other in the street, violence would erupt. You had armed militia there, standing, with assault rifles—you know, the Three Percenters were there in their camouflage and assault rifles. What happened as you were standing at that intersection on Saturday afternoon? It was late-morning,…

Indiana Makes Criminals of Pro-Gay Clergy

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…een on the books since 1997. It has come to the forefront now as the state updates its laws for the digital age. The article points out that it would be hard for clergy to run afoul of the law, meaning they’d probably have to file papers for said “illegal” marriage with a government office to bring about any penalty. However, I don’t think this clarification lessens the hypocrisy of a law on the books that would penalize clergy for marrying a co…

What’s So Scary About the Inclusion of ‘God’ in the Russian Constitution?

By Katherine Kelaidis

…nservative positions of Kirill’s Russian Orthodox Church operate as an instrument of Russian soft-power, drafting reactionary forces around the world onto the Russian side. It is, for instance, difficult not to see the Patriarch’s ongoing ecclesiastical conflict with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, focused on hotspots such as Ukraine and Western Europe, through the lens of Russia’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy and its des…

Why Did Facebook and Instagram Ban #Sikh on the Anniversary of an Infamous Massacre?

By Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal

…blackout and suspension of all methods of communications was enforced. Thousands of Sikhs lost their lives as the battle for Amritsar continued for several days. Throughout the entire process, the media served as the mouthpiece of the government. Communications scholar, Saifuddin Ahmed, notes that “since the beginning of the problems in Punjab, the government had strict control on the media and imposed heavy censorship. The Indian government acte…

Is it Okay to Celebrate the Death of Rush Limbaugh — or Should We Let the Dead Judge the Dead?

By Daniel Schultz

…uch matters. Limbaugh had a very long list of people and groups he’d been cruel to over the years—and he was very cruel. To Black Americans, by deriding the first Black president as “Barack the Magic Negro“; to immigrants whom he called the unassimilated “third world” invading the United States; to the LGBT community through his “AIDS Updates” celebrating the deaths of homosexuals; to Sandra Fluke whom he mocked as a “slut” and a “prostitute”; and…

What Can a Real Life Haunting Tell Us About American Religion? [Updated]

By Daniel Wise

…tions with ghosts often reveal their personal spiritualities and religious worldviews—especially when those worldviews don’t fit neatly into traditional religious boxes. A haunting is like a canvas on which people paint their religious worldviews using the unique tools their culture provides them. I’m not the first to suggest a culture’s hauntings reflect its religious milieu. Psychologist Frank T. McAndrew has argued that, for example, medieval E…

La Carmina, Author of ‘The Little Book of Satanism,’ Talks ‘Satanic Panic,’ QAnon, Japanese Satanism, and More

By Joseph Laycock

…can help people understand the roots of religious Satanism, and put to rest the many misguided ideas about Satanists and their practices. As always, I’ll be sharing updates from my Satanic escapades worldwide on my social media @LaCarmina and website www.lacarmina.com….

Beyond Retribution: Bin Laden’s Death in its Cosmic Context

By Eric Reitan

…rospect of dropping our delusions and rationalizations. But sometimes the truth thrusts itself at us in ways we can’t ignore, driving us towards realizations we’d rather flee. Often this is what victim-offender dialogue achieves, bringing offenders face-to-face with the reality of what they’ve done, making it so real they can’t hide from it anymore. And so, as I thought about how I would sentence Timothy McVeigh, I envisioned something analogous t…

Remembering Rumsfeld: The Defense Department Gospel and America’s Desert Crusade

By Nathan Schneider

…r traditions have provided the spiritual scaffolding for America’s desert crusade. Some might be tempted to think that such arrogance concerning the favor of God has faded since 2003. As Jeff Sharlet’s recent exposé in Harper’s reveals, it hasn’t. The military plays host to a powerful minority of especially strident Christians, who thrust their beliefs on subordinates entrusted to them with the help of an ever-more conservative chaplaincy corps. G…