Religion Dispatches
…ncreasingly anti-American zone that now runs from the mountains in western Pakistan all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. Gaza is simply the last in a long line of Islamic states and territories that identify the US as the major source of their current troubles. That is a devastating source of global insecurity, and not only for the United States of America. It has also stained our national honor. In that regard, the most important lines of Presid…
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…violence around the world in settings as diverse as Egypt, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. At first blush, it may seem that the United States shares little in common with these developing countries. Yet I have found unsettling similarities. In all these countries, the widespread adoption of a more militant approach stemmed centrally from fears that a historically and culturally dominant religious group was in danger of losing its privileg…
Read More…iqh, Islamic jurisprudence — since shari’ah is more abstract than law). In Pakistan or Nigeria an overinflated interest in penal codes, or the hudud ordinances, has left women to face the brunt of this Islamization project — and usually in a bad way. So if a woman says she has been raped that is taken as confession to a sexual relationship outside of marriage, and she is punished (again, since, rape, a crime of violence is punishing already). In N…
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…nce of Hindu nationalists who have carried on hostilities with neighboring Pakistan for decades, even while erecting statues of the Mahatma in villages all over the country. The West hailed unarmed uprisings against Soviet rule in Eastern Europe but didn’t take its ICBMs off alert for a second. On the back cover of A Force More Powerful, a book by Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall that documents nonviolent movements throughout the last century, no le…
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…he Opera Theatre to be banned. The European Court of Human Rights has on a number of occasions found that the likelihood of counter-events does not justify restricting citizens right to peaceful assembly. The regional police also asked for the ban, although it is they who are obliged to protect all citizens exercising their right to gather. Indonesia: Anti-Gay Islamists Continue Rhetorical War On LGBTs Weeks of escalating anti-gay rhetoric in Indo…
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…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…
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…ings from Arab and Muslim governments with the countries’ legal regimes, a number of which punish homosexuality with death. A hacker identifying with Anonymous flooded some ISIS-related Twitter accounts with rainbow flags, gay porn, and fake “coming out” tweets. Mexico: Church driving down support for marriage equality; activists worry about threats In the weeks since President Enrique Peña Nieto announced plans to push for a constitutional change…
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…rts and shows, as well as contributing to these dialogues we’re having. My phone’s ringing off the hook, and I’m participating as much as I can in discussions with LGBT lay people and clergy. There are so many people who want to have a positive dialogue about this. I’m getting to the point that I feel like I can engage at a positive level and contribute to that conversation. So, did you follow the recent change in the Presbyterian Church-USA? Th…
Read More…. Single women who remained single were not unknown, but were not large in number and remained an anomaly. Wealthy and middle-class or educated single women could hold their own. In the diaspora, professional single women, outside of a traditional Muslim context, will inevitably change the face of the community. Traditional, conservative Muslims may have much to fear from these changes, but they must be faced. Growing numbers of Muslim women are m…
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…up through South Carolina to Washington DC. ______________________ RD: A number of American human rights experts have said that the killing and forced displacement of the Ngok Dinka people from Abyei in May, and their replacement by the Arab, northern-aligned Misseriya, constitutes “ethnic cleansing.” Is ethnic cleansing part of what is happening in Kadugli? Since 1983, many Nuba people have been killed in Lubba Village—men, women, even children…
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