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The Facts About ‘Sharia’ May Surprise You

…taken out of their ancient context and tacked onto existing Western civil codes and enforced by the government. That is not shariah, which has a sophisticated legal methodology of application. That’s just making up Islamic-sounding laws and calling it “shariah law.” The shariah-based legal system, which had operated for a millennium, was dismantled under Western colonization of Muslim lands, starting in the 18th century. Nearly 90% of Muslim land…

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Romania’s “Witch Tax”: Magic Meets Bureaucracy

On January 1, Romania implemented new tax codes that, among other changes, added the occupation of “witch” to the nation’s labor codes. Those charging clients for tarot readings, curses, and blessings must now pay a 16 percent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programs. The ire of the witches, some of whom responded by performing rituals to hex the government, has become fodder for scores of offbeat news stories throughout t…

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Morality Police, Jihadists, Religious Competition, Grindr, & Americans Abroad: Global LGBT Recap

…is may be the first time news has broken of women being arrested under the codes’ prohibition on lesbianism in Malaysia, said Justice for Sisters’s Thilaga Sulathireh. Scotland: Clergy Leaving Church of Scotland; LGBTs Debate Leaving UK The Scotsman reports this week that two more clergy members have left the Church of Scotland in protest of the denomination’s “continuing drift” from the Bible, including the naming of gay clergy. They have applied…

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Roe v. Wade: What Would MLK Do?

…King was a Personalist: when distinguishing between moral laws and social codes, he believed (in theory at least) that dignity, respect, choice, equality, and subjectivity were the moral rights of all human beings. However, these rights were stymied by social codes, which led to all sorts of disparities, including but not limited to racial and economic injustice, which King argued were morally evil. Thus, King’s dream was a public censure of Amer…

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Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

…. In most cases, the current laws on the books are the same colonial penal codes. Tunisia’s anti-sodomy laws are derived from the 1913 French Penal Code, while section 347 of the penal code in Christian Cameroon is a French colonial law. Similarly, the Ottoman adoption of French codes would ban the köçek. Across the Muslim world, many of the laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ people are direct relics of colonial law. It would take generations to gradually…

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The Hypocrisy in Protests against Ultra-Orthodox in Israel

…same Torah and commentaries, study the same Talmud, live by the same legal codes, and adhere to the same basic belief system. Yes, the haredim have a very narrow reading of these sources but it’s a safe bet that they can cite chapter and verse to support their views—often more adroitly than their modern counterparts. In his Mishneh Torah (Code of Law), Maimonides explicitly advocated the position that women should stay mostly in their homes. The k…

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Catholic Groups Leading Mifepristone Ban Are Part of Century-Long Tradition Who See it as Patriotic Duty to Protect the Family

…s invoked by Catholic officials and physicians. When expanding the medical codes in 1948, Rev. Gerald Kelly, a Jesuit priest, told the Catholic Health Association that many non-Catholics would be “eager” to follow these ethical codes because they “pertain not merely to Catholic teaching but also to moral law.” The 1942 NFCPG resolution also declared that abortion and contraception were an affront, not just to the Catholic, but to the American fami…

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Is God Irrelevant?

…stential questions that have underwritten all the religions—and most civil codes of law—throughout human history: Who am I? What am I serving that will outlive me and carry my love and my work forward? How should I live so that when I look back on my life, whether a year or decades from now, I can honestly be glad I’ve lived the way I did? Theologians, ministers, and active congregants may say, correctly, that their religions still offer some resp…

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Is This Finally the Reckoning for the Catholic Church on Sexual Abuse?

…pornography, the Mann Act—any of these could be the underlying crimes for RICO.” The leveling of criminal conspiracy charges against members of the Catholic hierarchy would be a stunning denouement for men who, until recently, regularly met with U.S. presidents and influenced public policy on everything from women’s access to contraception to the simmering argument about transgender identity. It would signal that after a century of acquiescence t…

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Nxivm Scam Is Dead, but ‘Brainwashing’ Pseudoscience Lives On

…l court in New York for allegedly violating federal racketeering statutes (RICO) as we used the mail and phones to discuss how to counter their efforts to promote pseudo-scientific theories in court. That suit was eventually dismissed but not before causing considerable trouble and expense for those scholars. Singer and Ofshe then refiled the suit in California state court as a libel action, but that too was eventually dismissed, and Singer and Of…

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