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Record Number of Stealth Creationism Bills Introduced in 2011

By Lauri Lebo

The National Center for Science Education has tracked a record-setting number of nine anti-evolution bills introduced in state legislatures since Jan. 1. The latest is Texas’ HB 2454, which would prohibit an institution of higher learning from “discrimination related to research related into intelligent design.” “PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RESEARCH RELATED TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN. An institution of higher education may not discriminate…

The Incredible Shrinking Catholic Church

By Paul Gorrell

…expectations. Hauerwas’ church engages with the world by transforming its members, not by seeking to transform the ethics of its non-members. This is where the resemblance between Benedict and Hauerwas ends. While Benedict is leading his church into a period of contraction through strict orthodoxy, he wants to maintain the influence of Catholic moral theology on the larger global society. For instance, the Vatican maintains its presence at the Un…

Scottish Episcopal Church Angers Conservative Anglicans With Embrace of Same-Sex Marriage; and more in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…sonnel file in the archives to determine why people were released from the military. Israel: Survey says even members of religious party support civil unions or marriage A survey published on the eve of Tel Aviv’s massive Pride celebration found that 79 percent of Israelis support civil unions or marriage equality for same-sex couples. Even 65 percent of members of Jewish Home, which the Times of Israel calls a “religious-nationalist” party, suppo…

‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

By Catherine Wessinger

…News and One American News Network (OANN), along with a not insignificant number of elected members of Congress. A great deal of the concern on the part of white people is over their potential loss of status in America. This concern is being expressed in current Trumpist Republican efforts to curb access to voting by people of color and the social panic being fomented about “Critical Race Theory,” which has been turned into a pejorative term by p…

Competing Visions of Family & Freedom at UN; Methodists Try to Avoid Schism on Sexuality; Catholic Cardinal Denounces LGBT ‘Demonic Ideology’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…his or her conscience on the issue.” Catholic Bishop Denis Wiehe called on members of the National Assembly to “vote according to their informed conscience, free from all irrelevant external interference” and only taking into account “the impact your vote will have on the future of our society.” He noted that homosexuals have dignity like every human being while also stating that all the Biblical and moral tradition of the Church teaches that homo…

Anti-Gay Violence Rages in Gambia; Conservative ‘Complementarity’ Confab; Coming Out in Iraq Can Be Death Sentence; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…have little communal safety or protection from family, tribal or community members. Once exposed, family and community members, along with the authorities, are often complicit in abuses against LGBT individuals. The Guardian reports: Shia militias acting under Iraqi government cover are leading the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis, sharply increasing their risk of death or exile, a report has found. LGBT Iraqis l…

Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

By Scott Blaine Swenson

…ify hate and violence. And while the coincidence of being born under the “Sign of the Beast” in Topeka 666 is still a little unnerving, there are differing opinions about the number’s translation. Some theologians suggest the number should really be 616, in which case, all eyes on Peoria, Illinois….

The Threat to Democracy Runs Deep, But Mathematics Could Address the Abominable State of Representation and Voting

By Ismar Volić

…vely end gerrymandering. The House should be increased so that each of its members represents a manageable number of constituents. These are all basic structural changes. No politics, no partisanship, just plain math. The parallels between Bosnia and the US exhaust themselves quickly—after all, I’m comparing a country of 3 million to the world’s most dominant and domineering superpower—but the political paralysis shored up by faulty mechanisms of…

Contraception Isn’t Meat

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ario, Jains run a number of large institutions with many employees, a high number of whom are not Jain. At some point, a number of people realize that the current system is a complicated and inefficient way to feed people, and so there are attempts at reforming the system. One of the questions that the would-be reformers have to consider is: What do most people, in fact, eat? That’s important, because they are trying to craft a system that takes i…

Tokyo Governor Says Tsunami is Divine Punishment—Religious Groups Ignore Him

By Levi McLaughlin

…al” Japanese groups, they are putting their lay adherents to work in large numbers. Beginning March 12, Rissho Koseikai members began assembling themselves into “Aid Brigades” to gather emergency supplies to transport into the Tohoku region. The Shingon Buddhism-affiliated new religion, Shinnyo-en, has mobilized teams from its volunteer organization SeRV to travel into Tohoku to assess damage and offer relief support. The largest-scale New Religio…