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How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

…words, as Nones. The economists involved in this study focused on the zip code where a clergy sex scandal had occurred. They found a “large and statistically significant effect” on charitable contributions in those zip codes after a scandal, and not only to Catholic-based charitable organizations. The researchers theorize that perhaps once a person stops attending church, the social pressure to be charitable declines. Interestingly, however, thes…

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Is Religion the Only Tool Left for Legal Discrimination?

…ur trans female employee as a woman, which means she’s violating the dress code when she arrives to work wearing clothing that meets your company’s guidelines for women. When she inevitably sues for wrongful termination, you’ll have a federal judge on your side—at least if you live and work in Michigan. That stunning decision is an outlier among current case law, and is likely to be overturned on appeal, says Elizabeth Platt, director of Columbia…

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Gay Men Detained and Killed in Chechnya, and More in the Global LGBT Recap

…hnya. The disappearances, confirmed by Novaya Gazeta, a Russian opposition newspaper, and reported by the New York Times on Saturday. It began, Novaya Gazeta reported, after a Moscow-based gay rights group, GayRussia.ru, applied for permits to stage gay pride parades in four cities in Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, of which Chechnya is a part. The group had not focused on the Muslim areas. It had been applying for permits for…

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The Democrats Got Religion, At Huge Cost

…ntrists” was about a “broader agenda” than the culture wars. They wanted a new president to address poverty, health care reform, and global warming. But it was clear, nonetheless, that these leaders and the constituency they supposedly represented still demanded that Democrats stop being so strident on abortion. By August, then, Democrats agreed to let Rick Warren be the arbiter of the candidates’ faith cred; Obama cringed at abortion questions an…

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Does “Religious Freedom” Deserve Scare Quotes?

…ion (See: Indiana, Arkansas, Mississippi) have changed the RFRA game. This new framework shifts RFRA’s intent from remedying an actual injury, to instead serve as an enforcement mechanism for the socially conservative understanding of law and, most crucially, sexual morality. (The question around what extent Congress should be legislating our bedroom behavior is another beast entirely.) This new, mutant form of “religious liberty” does indeed dese…

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How (Not) to Understand Romney’s Time as an LDS Bishop

…cigarette and a beer (both forbidden according to the LDS Church’s dietary code, “The Word of Wisdom”), more substantial coverage this week is focusing on Romney’s service as bishop of his LDS congregation in Belmont, Massachusetts in the 1980s.  On Monday, the Washington Post offered a revealing account of Bishop Romney’s interactions with Boston’s robust Mormon feminist community during tense years for the movement, when the LDS Church played a…

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Indonesia’s Anti-Porn Bill is Anti-Pluralism

…ated into criminalizing such styles, coming uncomfortably close to a dress code. Many of those against the bill are worried that it threatens national unity; though Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country, it has significant minorities from other religions who feel that this bill is pushing a definition of pornography under the guise of “Islamicizing” the entire nation or riding roughshod over Indonesia’s secular pluralism. There are…

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Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church: When Adults are Victims

…n Diego, a pastoral and family care center dedicated to “the formation and promotion of Catholic leaders in the Hispanic community.” In her lawsuit, Birge charges that Hernandez was such an involved participant in Centro San Juan that its Director, Luis Soto, referred to him as an employee. Hernandez, who was trained at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and the Mexican-American Catholic College in San Antonio, was also the 200…

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Pat Robertson’s Women Warriors Leading Spiritual Warfare In Zimbabwe

…ocess of drafting a new Constitution that will supposedly pave the way for new elections. The African Centre for Law and Justice is aiming to do in Zimbabwe precisely what the religious right seeks to accomplish in the United States: declare the country a “Christian nation” guided by biblical principles, outlaw abortion, and ostracize and criminalize LGBT people. In the ACLJ, Bourland and Mpofu have powerful allies. Sekulow, who has been named one…

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The (Mostly Catholic) Anti-Abortion Roe v. Wade Schlep

…. It included Mass followed by Confession, the National Rosary for Life (a new concept), and the observance of the Holy Hours for Life (another theological novelty) led by pro-life seminarians. Perhaps in addition to being a spiritual exercise the Vigil was also a good way to “house” a lot of people without running into fire code violations. I could not find any other religious events advertised. Could it be that people of other faiths simply held…

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