Religion Dispatches
…hout a fight and not by decisive margins? Can Romney still win? Polls from South Carolina this week show he’s only up by 3 points over Romney. (Even in Texas, Perry’s approval ratings are only 45%.) Romney gets GOP elites and establishment, the Northeast, the West, independents (in open primary states), and everyone who has the foresight to worry about electability in a general election. He also may be able to claim senior citizens, if Perry’s com…
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…from several states pushed this sample legislation. In Florida, Missouri, South Carolina and Alabama, the bills failed. But in June, following overwhelming support in the state House and Senate, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana became the first governor to sign an “academic freedom” bill into law. Observers on both sides of the issue are now waiting for the first school district in the state to adopt a curriculum based on this new language. Of course, t…
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…e who live in Southern states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee (and North Dakota) reported the highest fear of social stigma. States such as California, Washington, New York, and New England states reported the least. (Unfortunately, the article is not available online.) I can’t say I’m really all that surprised at the results. If anyone needs anecdotal confirmation, remember NFL linebacker Pat Tillman, who…
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…010 races, including successful GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley in South Carolina. This strategy shift reflects a refinement of the Romney 2008 campaign’s tactic of downplaying the candidate’s faith entirely as well as a renewed focus (taking a page from his friend California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s playbook) on emphasizing Romney’s can-do know-how as a successful businessman. Romney’s December 2007 George Bush Presidential L…
Read More…ye for an eye” punishment for injuries he inflicted in a fight. Drivers in South Carolina may soon be able to put their faith where their plate is with a new “I Believe” licence plate featuring three crosses. A Hindu woman in Illinois has been fighting the City of Evanston over the chopping down of a tree next to her property. The woman’s belief in ahimsa, or nonviolence, prevented her from having anything to do with the felling of the living tree…
Read More…of former McCain advisors like Richard Quinn, Hunstman will focus on South Carolina and beyond—a cheeky strategy given how well Mormons traditionally do in the South. Romney will hold his national base of Mormon campaign donors and doers, but whatever Romney has in national infrastructure, Hunstman will make up for with his own deep pockets. Scenario two: Huntsman explores, then opts to postpone until 2016 and runs for US Senate in 2012 against “B…
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…enna. Like their Ottoman counterparts, they performed at social events. In South Asia, the hijra were and are third-sex individuals. The term is used for intersex people as well as transgender women. Hijra are attested to among the earliest Muslim societies of South Asia where, according to Nalini Iyer, they were often guardians of the household and even held office as advisors. In Iraq, the mustarjil are born female, but present as men. In Wilfre…
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…of popular culture until the late twentieth century when it was tied to a number of social trends, including the rise of the 1960s British-American counterculture and the concomitant appeal of yoga’s South Asian roots, changes in global consumer culture toward a consumer-oriented approach to spirituality and wellness among bourgeois urban dwellers, and the continued Orientalist gaze that pictured yoga as the spiritual filler to a Western cultural…
Read More…the other four countries. Turkey is particularly singled out for its high number of hate crimes, attacks and murders of transgender persons. Successful prides in Albania, Kosovo and Serbia were welcomed, whereas Montenegro and Turkey were condemned for the ban of the Nikšić Pride and police violence against Istanbul Pride. Concerning legal gender recognition, the report on Montenegro welcomes the adoption of a new protocol for legal gender recogn…
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…e solution: develop Haredi communities in the territories where housing is cheap (through government subsidies), where they can maintain a lifestyle separate from secular Israel, and where their communities can continue to grow at an enormous rate. This is a particularly modern problem. The growth rate of the Haredi world is not solely the result of their big families. When you have a society that is essentially middle-class averaging seven childr…
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