Religion Dispatches
…local concern that he wasn’t going to comment on, when he otherwise has (albeit in a perfunctory way) called for the promotion of women’s rights in other parts of the Middle East? And since Obama was promoting the rights and freedom of religious minorities last night, wouldn’t this case fall under his concern? There are good religion questions. They just don’t get asked….
Read More…rty wishlist (a merger Robison endorsed last year while helping Ralph Reed promote the launch of his Faith and Freedom Coalition). In a nutshell: America should be ruled by God, not government, with no abortion, gay marriage, or jurisprudence Robison disagrees with; the market should be kept “free, healthy, and under the influence of people who understand that importance of personal responsibility,” as “out of control spending” and “intrusive regu…
Read More…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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…nary of them all. There’s power to be gained in reframing the fight as one between two kinds of modernity, not between the time-tested past and an unknown future. EuroPride is going ahead this week as planned, despite having been officially canceled by the Serbian President who cited pressure from far-right groups and the Serbian Orthodox Church in his decision. Those who join the festivities are undoubtedly arguing for a future that breaks from t…
Read More…the practice of polygamy, in light of sections of the Canadian Charter of Freedom pertaining to religious and civil liberties. Polygamy-practicing Mormons began fleeing to Mexico and Canada in the 1880s, after US Supreme Court Justices upheld the conviction of George Reynolds on polygamy charges in 1879, declaring polygamy an “odious” “Asiatic” practice not protected by First Amendment freedom of religion guarantees. Mormons founded and continue…
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…of entire groups of people, it relies on the same eliminatory principles. Between 1993 and 2016 eleven people were murdered by anti-abortion extremists, and there were 26 attempted murders; and between 1977 and 2015 there were 7,200 reported instances of anti-abortion violence. This includes some 200 instances of arson and bombings of abortion clinics. And, even with legislation passed in their favor, the anti-abortion rhetoric hasn’t stopped, in…
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…, wielding government power will mean a dramatic expansion of the criminal code. It will not be enough, for example, to reach an accommodation with the abortion regime, to agree on ‘reasonable limits’ on when unborn human life can be snuffed out with impunity. (…) The Dobbs decision was in a sense the end of the beginning of the pro-life cause. Now comes the real fight, in state houses across the country, to outlaw completely the barbaric practice…
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…log post titled “Israel’s political striptease show.” Drawing a comparison between Netanyahu’s opposition and German Jews who supposedly allowed the Holocaust to happen because they were too “busy insulting each other [and] drunk on the wine of pride,” his underlying message is that Jews who resist Israel’s far-right agenda—even in the slightest—constitute one of the greatest existential threats to the Jewish people themselves. To some prominent C…
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…heology that pits life and death against one another in a battle. This war between life and death weaponizes life against mortals who live and die, and it’s this militant theology that animates reproductive politics in America. For years, it’s been clear that giving birth in America is life-threatening. Maternal mortality rates here are shockingly high, especially for a nation with this much wealth. This is especially true for Black women, whose m…
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…’re now firmly in the territory of conspiracy and resentment. The division between “people like me and you” and “others” gets more specific as the song goes on. In the final verse, Anthony decries the “300 pound” people living on welfare. Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds It’s hard not to read “welfare” as code. Welfare has long been used in conservative circles as a dog whistl…
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