Religion Dispatches
…e men from murdering women or to send a moral message. In the 1983 Revised Code of Canon Law, only two groups are protected. A Catholic may incur automatic excommunication if he or she attempts to assassinate the Pope (you don’t even need to succeed, just trying is enough) or if one successfully procures an abortion. Only fetuses and popes are worthy of consideration. The rest of us are on our own. Perhaps most cruel in the Brazilian case is the f…
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…the public acknowledgement of God—all hang by one vote. Among that laundry list of liberties supposedly under siege, roughly a third have to do with LGBT people. “Religious freedom” has become a code-word for those looking to stymie LGBT equality. Any “threat” to marriage always seems to come from those hoping to access the institution, but never from heterosexuals (despite escalating rates of divorce, domestic violence, and infidelity in such uni…
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…gaging in religious offense (listed under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code) can face a prison sentence, a hefty fine, or an extra-judicial killing. Whatever the trigger is, and whether or not arrests are made, we see that violence often takes place shortly after. Often, these rumors spread via Facebook or WhatsApp. Soon, a mob will gather. They will destroy homes, shops, and places of worship belonging to the minority community. Law enforceme…
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…eloped world to make our country and continent, the dumping ground for the promotion of all immoral practices, that have continued to debase the purpose of God for man in the area of creation and morality, in their own countries. Honduras: LGBT advocates meet in country plagued by violence The Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers reported this week on the more than 100 people who attended an LGBT equality strategy session in Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Ad…
Read More…seats tens of thousands every Sunday. The leader of that church, televangelist and best-selling author Joel Osteen, gave the opening prayer as Houston inaugurated Annise Parker as mayor last week. Parker took the oath on her grandmother’s Bible, held by her partner, Kathy Hubbard. That’s right, Mayor Parker is a lesbian. Osteen blessed the new mayor, praying at her inauguration: “God, we just thank you for raising her up. We honor her today and o…
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…‘Preaching Water, Drinking Wine’ Denis Nzioka notes that television journalist Larry Madowo criticized Kenyans for claiming they hate homosexuality at a time when Google listed Kenya as the world’s top country for searches for gay porn. Madowo wrote in the Daily Nation that Kenyans are “preaching water, drinking wine.” Says Madowo, “In a country that’s mostly Christian and rabidly opposed to homosexuality, there sure are many odd sexual preferenc…
Read More…the only person who thinks this is an insane provision to have in the tax code? Medical science is evidence-based and faith is the “evidence of things not seen,” according to the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews. So I guess they’re really the same, right? Let’s fund them both! But no, no, and NO to any federal dollars for abortion, saith the good senator from Salt Lake. Hatch narrowly lost his push to get this prohibition into the Se…
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…cies require restructuring to do exactly that. Based on what I define as holistic justice, the foundation of an effective national security framework will simultaneously recognize White nationalists as domestic terrorists and excise the multitude of Muslim Americans from this depiction. If the United States of America is to remain protected against all enemies foreign and domestic, the willful colorblindess and complicity of White America must not…
Read More…s interactions with Kendrick. Why? Why would a well-established male journalist say to a female blogger young enough to be his daughter, “Hey, even though there’s no reason to sexualize our interactions, let’s sexualize them anyway!”? Maybe he wanted to feel young and frisky and cool, and thought he deserved to feel those things at her expense? In our collective imagination, prostitutes are people whose consent can be purchased, after which it can…
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…ons, such as a Sikh who successfully sued the Army in 2015 over a grooming code that would have required him to shave his beard and remove his turban. Justice, not to mention old wisdom about geese and ganders, demands that our judicial system should treat like cases alike. Either sincere religious conviction should be a defense, or it shouldn’t. There should be a healthy debate about the place and extent of religious exemption in contemporary, pl…
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