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Neal Pollack Has Written a Jewish Basketball Noir Novel

By Neal Pollack

…mber. A bunch of guys were sitting around the schvitz at a fancy resort in Utah, and the topic of Jewish basketball history came up. I’d never known there was such a thing, and it sparked my imagination. When I got home, I started doing research, and the novel began to take hold, both on the page and in my mind. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? That Jewish cultural history doesn’t have to be boring and ethnographically duti…

Atheists are Americans Too, Vuvuzelas, Etc.

By Michael J. Altman

…ork on scripture memory? There’s an app for that. You can even use your iPhone to tweet the latest execution news, like the Utah Attorney General. But for others the internet is a place for anti-religious rage. Over at the Huffington Post, they have debuted a new discussion between religion and science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science continues to seek dialogue between science and religion. University of Colorado psyc…

Why are Romney SuperPac Donors Shy?

By Joanna Brooks

…bscure his identity. The donor? Steven Lund, one of the founders of Provo, Utah-based NuSkin, a multilevel marketing cosmetics company. NPR remarked on the “Go down the list of people who have given a million dollars to a superPAC, and you realize many of them are not shy about their wealth.” But not so for this particular Romney donor. Why? Wealth means status in the world of Mormonism, as it does just about everywhere else. But Mormon culture an…

LDS Church Response to Prop. 8 Begs Question of Polygamy

By Joanna Brooks

…ourt panel that heard the appeal: Judge N. Randy Smith, a native of Logan, Utah and graduate of Brigham Young University and the BYU Reuben Clark Law School, who wrote the dissent. Within hours of the ruling, the LDS Church also issued a statement: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice determined in a general election that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a wom…

Historic Prayer by Woman at LDS General Conference Signals Growing Concern with Gender Equality

By Joanna Brooks

…Church’s global proselytizing missions—an advance that follows a surge in numbers of women missionaries. Some observers believe that the changes are part of a concerted LDS Church effort to bolster its rates of retention among younger women. Increased attention to the theology of gender and equality is also evident, both among rank-and-file Mormons and on the part of leaders. Last month, advocates of women’s ordination to the Mormon priesthood—a…

God is My Co-Belligerent: Avatar Priests, Hijacked Theologians, and Other Figures of Right-Wing Revolt

By Frederick Clarkson

…tream media and even from the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press. A goodly number of faithful Catholic writers also found it dark and threatening, however, although I had intended it to be positive and optimistic.” “My avatar priest,” he continued, “looked back from the vantage point of 2030 to reflect on recent ‘history’: the story of American Catholics who became confessors and martyrs to the faith as the federal government of the ‘Culture of De…

7 Religion Stories to Watch in the 2012 Battleground States

By Joanna Brooks

…igration reform) may also matter as a swing voter demographic. But the big numbers will come from white evangelicals and Catholics, who make up 26%. Romney performed well among Catholics in the primaries, and better among evangelicals here than he did in South Carolina or Iowa. Why Florida evangelicals feel better about Romney is a story that remains to be researched and told, and one that could potentially play a role in this big prize of the bat…

How Mormon is Mitt Romney? Over 50 Jokes For Trump

By Joanna Brooks

…hot at the former GOP presidential candidate at a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah on Friday, asking the crowd, “Are you sure he’s a Mormon? Are we sure?” Responding to Trump rhetoric may be like feeding a Gremlin after midnight, but we at RD were lucky to have the following in the archives from the 2012 election season. — eds Earlier this week, Florida evangelical Christian leader John Stemberger endorsed Rick Perry’s campaign for GOP presidential…

Top Ten Religion & Science Stories of 2009

By Lauri Lebo

…telligent design. In response, SICB chose to hold its annual conference in Utah, whose state Board of Education recently passed a resolution recognizing that “the Theory of Evolution is a major unifying concept in science.” 4. Ms. Evolutionary Dead End 2009 When the 47-million-year-old fossil Ida was first revealed in May, she was originally touted as a direct link from all primates to earlier life forms—in other words, a transitional fossil link…

Mexican Marriage Marches Show Struggle Between Church and Secular State; Pro-LGBT Mormon Group Grows After ‘Apostate’ Declaration; Botswana Gives Anti-Gay US Pastor the Boot; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…march drew tens of thousands – or hundreds of thousands depending on whose numbers you believe – of anti-marriage-equality Catholics and evangelicals to Mexico City, the culmination of weeks of protest organized by the National Front for the Family. Days before, the Supreme Court ruled that adoption by same-sex couples should be considered, like other adoptions, according to the best interest of the child. In preparation for Saturday’s anti-marria…