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Brexit Boosters: Why the Religious Right Hates the European Union

By Peter Montgomery

…e “Trojan horse” of the sexual revolution. At last year’s WCF gathering in Salt Lake City, Okafor denounced “the West” for pressuring African nations to legalize abortion and “yield to sexual orientation and gender identity and what-have-you.” Conservative Catholic and Orthodox church officials and activists find common ground in their opposition to international agreements that support a woman’s right to abortion or legal equality for LGBT people…

Ex-Mormons Shouldn’t Proselytize Mormons… Really?

By Holly Welker

…alian TV. Armed with a copy of The Origin of Species, Safran flies to Salt Lake City to promote atheism. I love when Safran offers one woman “a reading from 1980s concept band XTC,” quoting the lyrics to “Dear God,” just as I shake my head when an old man attempts to silence Safran by announcing that he’s “a bishop in the LDS church,” as if that’s an obvious reason why no one should attempt to share their beliefs with him, or when another simply s…

Elizabeth Smart Kidnapper Guilty, But Not Insane

By Joanna Brooks

A jury in Salt Lake City has found Brian David Mitchell guilty, on counts of kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines for the purposes of having sex, in the 2002 kidnapping of then 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart. Mitchell, who has entered the courtroom each day (including today) singing hymns from the LDS hymnal, was portrayed by the defense as an anti-social narcissist led by delusional thinking to believe that he was directed by God…

“I Chose Esther”: Elizabeth Smart Testifies

By Joanna Brooks

…l marriage, as well as forays into the strange urban subculture where Salt Lake City’s ravers, absinthe-drinkers, street people, and mental illness sufferers mix. What’s so important about her testimony is this: until the 1970s or 1980s, it was not uncommon to hear LDS leaders advise women that their “virtue” or virginity was more important than their life. Our culture is slow to change, and it’s possible to encounter the remnants of that attitude…

Mormons Declare Same-Sex Marriage Apostasy, Deny Baptism to Children of Same-Sex Couples; Colombian Court OKs Adoption Over Church Objections; Franklin Graham Praises Putin’s Anti-Gay Policies; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…resh from playing a visible role at the World Congress of Families in Salt Lake City, announced this week that children living with a same-sex couple, whether adopted or the natural child of one of the parents, cannot be blessed or baptized. Natural or adopted children living in a same-sex household will only be allowed to be baptized once they are 18, disavow the practice of same-sex cohabitation or marriage, and stop living within the household,…

What’s Eating Mitt Romney?

By Joanna Brooks

…campaign, Peggy Fletcher Stack, an award-winning religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, interviewed members of the Mormon congregations (or “wards”) Romney led in Boston. They remembered him, Stack recalls, as a full human being: someone who gave his time generously to church service but had trouble remembering names; he couldn’t tell a joke, but he did attempt a Michael Jackson-style moonwalk. On issues of gender, Romney made some mistakes,…

NOM’s Gallagher: “Don’t Call Me a Bigot!”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…re opposed to interracial marriage in the public square.” Speaking in Salt Lake City this week, she complained about the “relentless torrent of accusations and hatred against anyone who speaks, no matter how civilly, for marriage.” One of those “torrent[s] of… hatred” happened recently as Gallagher testified before a House committee on the Defense of Marriage Act. GetEqual cornered Gallagher in the hallway on the way to the hearing to give her an…

What’s Wrong with the Controversial Businessweek “Mormon Money” Cover?

By Joanna Brooks

…of a foundational moment in Mormon history. As Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune describes: It features an illustration of John the Baptist with his hands on the heads of LDS founder Joseph Smith and his assistant, Oliver Cowdery, and a quote bubble which reads: “And thou shalt build a shopping mall, own stock in Burger King and open a Polynesian theme park in Hawaii that shall be largely exempt from the frustrations of tax…” The profo…

Masculine Christianity, Praying Ballplayers, & Satanist Discrimination

By Michael J. Altman

…Painter of famous scenes from the Book of Mormon, Arnold Friberg, died in Salt Lake City at the age of 96 last week. Meanwhile, one New Yorker found a tombstone on the sidewalk and began a quest to find its rightful owner. HBO’s new documentary No One Dies in Lily Dale details the lives of Spiritualists in the town of Lily Dale, New York. Spiritualism arose in the nineteenth century among women mediums who channeled messages from the dead. Then,…

Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence: People of Faith Can Help Break the Linkages

By Chip Berlet

…deral authorities just a few weeks before the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was destroyed. Stern, disheartened by the failure of government officials to act on the information, turned his report into a book, A Force Upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate. Some social scientists, especially Mark S. Hamm, now argue that Timothy McVeigh had moved past the Patriot and armed militia movements into an underground neo-…