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Obama Administration Won’t Defend Federal Defense of Marriage Act in Court

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…back in July of last year by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro, in Boston. He ruled that Section 3 violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and “violated the Tenth Amendment and fell outside Congress’ authority under the Spending Clause of the Constitution.” The Department of Justice appealed the decision in October, but now apparently will abandon that appeal. It’s good news for supporters of marriage equality, even if the f…

Pope Francis: Culture Warriors Out, “Collaboration and Consultation” In

By Patricia Miller

…is singing a different tune these days. He greeted the news that a gay group has been given long-sought permission to march in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade as if nothing would make him happier. He told the Boston Globe’s John Allen that the days of threatening to use communion to discipline pro-choice Catholic politicians were “in the past.” Like all good politicians, Dolan knows which way the wind blows….

Yes, Virginia, There Were Cannibals

By Paul Harvey

…locale. Worse, English settlement of Jamestown predates Plymouth Rock and Boston. Recent archaeological studies aren’t helping matters any. As it turns out, what many historians have long assumed to be true, based on evidence from documents, has confirmation in bio-archaeological findings—namely, that starving Jamestown residents gnawed on human flesh: Archaeologists excavating a trash pit at the Jamestown colony site in Virginia have found the f…

Religion and Violence? Short Answer: “Religion” Does Not Exist in a Vacuum

By Matt Recla

…is fallacious—and sometimes religious—thinking, preventing the incremental progress of creating a better society. There is no all-purpose answer, and it is counterproductive to continue to gamble on it. “Religion” is not to blame for the events in Boston, but if we are successful in isolating this event as yet another example of crazed individuals, cutting off all analysis of the identity religion provides, we will advance no further in understan…

Pope Backs Anti-Gay Referendum; Islamic State Executions Include Gay Syrian; ‘Conscience Clause’ Debated in Northern Ireland; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

The Boston Globe reported this week that the U.S. State Department will appoint a special envoy “to advocate for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people overseas.” Legislation calling for such an envoy had been introduced in Congress last week. But in Congress, Rep. Chris Smith, who heads the subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes human rights and international organizations, declared, “I am a strong believer in traditional…

Beyond Radical: Mary Daly, Feminist Theologian, Changed Worlds

By Susan Henking

…and promotion to full professor, and forced into retirement, the longtime Boston College professor’s career spanned world transformations of Roman Catholicism, higher education, and American culture’s treatment of women. Beginning with her degrees from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where she was the first woman to receive a theological degree, through her witnessing of the debate of Vatican II, her authorship of transformational phil…

AIDS Progress is Paradoxical

By Susan Henking

…What’s wrong here? Perhaps the same thing that is wrong when we see rising numbers in various populations globally and locally? Wedding Bells and Decriminalization And yet, not all the news is depressing. Not even all the news at the intersection of AIDS/HIV and religion is depressing. American governments and courts are hard at work legalizing same-sex marriage which, despite the cynic in me that thinks marriage equality involves joining the cons…

Occupy’s Sacred Mob and the Politics of Vagrancy

By Vincent Gonzalez

…ch some faithful 99%-ers may be opposed. The “Sacred Space” tent at Occupy Boston invites meditation between a Buddha statue and a picture of Christ. Occupy Phoenix built an improvised shrine where First Nations traditions interact with Catholicism and Neo-Paganism. On Zuccotti Park’s makeshift community altar, Gandhi shares space with Alex Grey, John the Baptist, and Kwan-Yin. Here, in sites of religious conjunction that must repel some participa…

Newt’s Obama-Bashing Trinity

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…“tea parties” on Tax Day is even more alarming. As I recall, the so-called Boston Tea Party involved the destruction of private property as a protest against taxation without representation. Is Newt Gingrich inciting Americans to riot, or revolt? Is he suggesting that we do not have proper representation in the legislature, or simply that it is too Democratic? Is he simply whining about paying taxes in time of war? It is a perplexing symbolic prot…

Can the Religious Left be Effective Again? Short Answer: No

By Daniel Schultz

…ivists, but they tend to be in lefty paradises like Madison or Berkeley or Boston. Outside those areas, they’re much fewer and farther between, and in total, they’re outnumbered by the partisan-neutral churches. That’s not nothing to the religious left! A neutral church is not a conservative church, and that helps. But in terms of political effect, it blunts the liberal thrust. Along the same lines, religious lefties often don’t wear their faith o…