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“God Created You”: Bishop Supports Gay Ugandans, Defies Death Threats

By Jocelyn Edwards

…etermined to be at the funeral of David,” said the bishop. Speaking on the phone the day after Kato’s murder, Senyonjo said he was shocked by the death of his friend, who he had known for the past seven years and worked with at the religious LGBT organization Integrity Uganda. “I was very much surprised. I didn’t know that they [people in Uganda who are anti-gay] would be so serious as to kill somebody like that who had been mentioned in Rolling S…

Pro-Gay Marriage Mormon Keeps Faith Despite Church Pressure

By Joanna Brooks

…and within days an official at LDS Church headquarters placed a concerned phone call to Melanie S.’s local clergy. Three times her bishop met with Melanie to discuss the video. Because she had affiliated with “Mormons for Marriage,” he questioned whether or not Melanie and her husband should be allowed to keep their temple recommends—certificates that allow the most worthy and devoted Mormons to participate in the faith’s sacred temple rites. Nor…

To: Discovery Institute;
Re: Creationist Tactics Pre-Dating the Exposure of ID as a Fraud

By Lauri Lebo

…g a lot of energy responding to a blog post I recently wroteabout a record number of creationist bills introduced in state legislatures since January. I write numerous posts about intelligent design and the Discovery Institute’s disingenuous attacks on evolution education, so I’m not sure why this particular post has gotten them so hot and bothered. First, David Klinghoffer had a bit of a snit on DI’s Evolution News last week over the issue of pee…

Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: 1946-2011

By Lauri Lebo

…erful moments in his writing came from his descriptions of the inherent conflicts in his people’s faith and his unflinching look at the hard-edged doctrine of his evangelical upbringing. “In any case, Guilford County, North Carolina, didn’t hand out money to people, no matter how miserably poor, if it could be avoided. And it could indeed be avoided through court orders to force folks to work, as the Good Lord intended poor folks to do. Single men…

Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t: The Problem of the Rape Exception

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…id she have the kind of consensual hetero sex that is rather like a mobile phone contract with a hidden pregnancy fee buried in the contract? [shrug] Nobody held a gun to her head, so she has no right to complain… or, you know, make her own healthcare decisions. (The crassest versions of this argument are those dazzlingly astute Didn’t want ____? You shouldn’t have had sex! lines of logic that crop up in every mainstream newspaper comment thread a…

Lessons Learned this Ramadan

By Amina Wadud

…ends said hajj would be a challenge because of gender restrictions. Then a friend described people doing tawaf, or circumambulation around the kaaba, while sending text messages on a mobile phone. I just cannot see totally giving up my one-on-one moments with Allah just for a blog. That being said, let the preparations to meet the king begin….

This Narrative of Death that is So Powerful Among Us

By Daniel Schultz

…it is… I heard the story of this pastor that worked and worked to get the flag out of the sanctuary, and then ten years later came back for an anniversary and the flag was back in. He asked somebody about it and a layman said, “Oh, every time a new pastor comes, we organize a lottery about how long it will take him to get it out. Because as soon as he leaves, we’re going to put it back in.” Dan: John Thomas wrote this wonderful piece about saying…

Gay Marriage Bill Totalitarian Says Head Bishop

By Peter Montgomery

…anization for Marriage (NOM) urgently called on its supporters to get more phone calls into Senate offices. NOM is urging Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to use his power to keep marriage from coming to the floor for a vote. Meanwhile, Archbishop Timothy Dolan is getting increasingly shrill in his efforts to stop the shift toward equality. This week, on his official blog, he wrote: “Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in N…

The Abandoned Orphanage: Hillary Clinton’s Mother Teresa Moment

By Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce

…ow, the building that had housed the orphanage (on Western Avenue in the affluent neighborhood of Chevy Chase, in DC) has no more bassinets. In fact, when we reported on the house in 2006, it was for sale: a $3 million Tudor mansion being advertised as an ideal embassy location in one the most affluent neighborhoods in the country, home to a host of foreign military commissions and attachés. Several houses down from the now-empty “center for babie…

As Long As There’s Fear, We Aren’t Ready for Atheism: A Conversation with Theologian and Ex-Priest Daniel Maguire

By Alana Massey

…in the morning and seeing the sun shine and the sky blue and the birds in flight and saying, ‘Thank you God,’ and you’re taking that away from me.” You write “theism promises simplicity and security and delivers neither,” but you do refer to a world that was “not yet ready for atheism.” Do you believe the world is now ready for atheism? As long as there is fear, it will never be fully ready. Fear makes you reach for a supernatural insurance polic…