Religion Dispatches
…nce “same-sex attraction” or “same-gender attraction,” while adhering to a code of morality that forbids all sexual contact outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage. Others claim and openly affirm a gay identity while carefully negotiating a path to maintaining church activity and membership. All of these paths entail profound risks, costs, and consequences. All require a level of conscious deliberation on matters of sexuality and spirituality…
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…rly Fiorina said, government taxation and regulation crush growth. Her tax code is three pages long. In some contrast, T.R. thought government promotes growth by, among other things, regulating business. Cruz proposes a flat tax 10% so, he said, a millionaire doesn’t pay less than his secretary. Yet Lincoln found that his initial flat tax burdened the lower and middle classes far more than the rich, and he made it progressive. Cruz said his flat t…
Read More…o accept that the Obama administration opposes it, a refusal Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg calls “a mistake several times over.” Danon, though, is the hardest of the hardline that has taken up McCarthy-esque tactics to beat back political opposition in Israel and even in the U.S. Back in March, Danon staged a show trial intended to depict the American Jewish group J Street, which is for a two-state solution, as “pro-Palestinian,” and demand…
Read More…us just keeps saying gutsy things—like when he told a roomful of people, one of whom was Governor Haley Barbour: Few politicians today use outright race baiting, but we see the symbols some use and the phrases they utter and everyone knows what the code is—what really is being said. Oh, and he’s also called attention to how voter ID laws endanger the voting rights of poor and elderly people, and was named a Champion of Justice by the Mississippi C…
Read More…at you believe about God.” Miller goes on to present an embarrassingly simplistic dichotomy: Romney “stands for the individualistic version of American success; Obama for the collectivist.” One of these views (of God) favors slashing taxes and government; the other shared sacrifice and gay marriage. These are not, though, two cleanly differentiated views of God that in fact inspire each candidate’s politics. (There aren’t even, of course, two clea…
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…t the perspectives of our opponents. Too often in public conversations, we listen to the opinions of others just long enough to create a caricature. The philosopher Iris Murdoch suggested that love is the “nonviolent apprehension of difference.” We approach different perspectives not to do violence, but to honor difference as a moral demonstration that something other than our perspective is also real. Rule #2: Show Compassion The word “passion”—a…
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…also be pedestrian, taking place year-round on every continent, every zip code. It is a game, proven by its global appeal, which defies socioeconomic standing. Therein lies further emphasis of the World Cup’s importance, too: the world stage. Marxism has long been called the world’s secular religion, but a football fan knows economic ideology pales in comparison to the world’s devotion to football. John Carlin of Time magazine is right when he sa…
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…e this last particular episode was fairly annoying, I generally don’t mind listening to people’s stories as long as these strangers aren’t asking me questions about myself. (Incidentally, Rev. Daniel’s and my experiences are directly opposite of a cartoon I keep in my office, in which a man with a t-shirt on that reads “LET’S TALK ABOUT JESUS,” says to another man, “It guarantees me an entire seat all to myself.”) I also share the Reverend Daniel’…
Read More…d beliefs opposing same-sex marriage so long as they do not incite harm or promote hate through their speech or actions. “However, individuals have a right to be treated equally and be protected from discrimination regardless of how unpopular such rights are and how small the number of people who hold those rights may be.” While the proposed partnerships would offer couples “most of the rights afforded to traditional marriages,” there are signific…
Read More…views on everyone else, but make sure they’re free to mock that very moral code. Democrats fear that argument. That’s why their approach has been, especially since about 2006 or so, to try to make themselves out to be the “authentic” Christians who truly care about their neighbors and all that. The Aqua Buddha ad may have been a bad strategic move in Kentucky; we’ll never really know. But Conway — without, as far as I can tell, invoking treacly re…
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