Religion Dispatches
…onged meditations on repression. It began, actually, in the show’s original 1966 pilot, in which the character Number One (played by creator Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett) showed none of the emotional hysteria expected of onscreen women at the time. Deemed too racy by the network, her demeanor was given to Spock, the half-Vulcan who spent the next three years’ worth of episodes struggling to stay logical amid the raging passions of his fr…
Read More…nty, thought crime, much?) The ACLU submitted an amicus curiae brief to the 19th District Court in defense of Jones’ right to protest, which says, “If the First Amendment has any meaning, it is that the government cannot suppress the free speech because it — or anyone else — disagrees with the speech.” The Thomas More Law Center has pledged to file a suit on Jones’ behalf. By the way, I’ve seen TMLC in action. Its lawyers defended the Dover school…
Read More…” The Washington Post reports this morning that Democratic Senators, on a phone call yesterday with White House senior advisor David Plouffe, argued against adopting the Bishops’ position. My source says it’s “not a done deal” yet, but expected action from the White House within a week. UPDATE: Another womens’ rights advocate tells me that she has “no reason to think” that the Obama administration feels it “owes” the Bishops for health care refo…
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…e a video of the performance, despite a Secret Service prohibition on cell phones, because Makana’s guitar is tuned with a smartphone app. Or, reporters are interested in how Obama, his guests, and security detail responded—or didn’t, as it turned out. But this misses the heart of the story, as Makana’s set at the APEC dinner was less dissenting performance than performative utterance—the songs he played, the protest t-shirt hidden beneath the com…
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…w are you going to announce it over social media if you don’t have a smart phone? And smartphones: they are helpful, but they are also limited. I’m working with some of my guides to develop what’s called a WisePhone, and it’s smarter than a smartphone. What are some of the features of the WisePhone? You won’t lose it anymore because it won’t be influenced by gravity, so it won’t fall down the cracks of your couch. It will also be able to tweet or…
Read More…a, Kansas, hospice after being excommunicated from the church he founded in 1955. But I remain a hater. The student who asked me this question had revealed a lot about himself the first day he wheeled into class. He was what we community college types call a “non-traditional student,” an older, grizzled, white-bearded Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair (I later learned his amputations came after a round of neglected diabetes, not enemy bombs). On tha…
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…go a long way toward repairing the economic system. (Glass-Steagall was the 1933 law, repealed in 1999, which mandated the separation of commercial and investment banking activities; its repeal led to the financial services products that were central to the catastrophic economic collapse of 2008.) Actions with Consequences In the main, the sign listing the Occupy DC goals was heavier on wonkery than anarchism; albeit laden with some highly general…
Read More…000 Mormons and their supports rallied in a Salt Lake City park on November 14 as part of a campaign of mass resignations following the release of new anti-gay policies that prohibit the baptism of children of gay couples. Organizers told Reuters last Sunday that about 1,500 people had resigned. Church officials urged people to think twice. A Church spokesman said: “We don’t want to see anyone leave the Church, especially people who have been stru…
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…lovers, queer friends and childless Catholic couples as well. An estimated 1.1 billion people belong to the Roman Catholic church. But even many of those who aren’t Catholic consider the pope’s words influential or have concerns about how his words can affect cultures, laws, and policies. I understood why they were dismayed. As an interspecies minister and animal chaplain who identifies as bisexual, doesn’t have children, and lives with her husba…
Read More…look after the family home. Back in North Carolina, on Saturday, September 10, Bryan bought a gun at Wal-Mart. He fed the family’s animals, cleaned the house, handed the keys to a neighbor, sent a message to a family member that they needed to come to the house, and then went on the front lawn and shot himself. News of Bryan’s suicide immediately circulated on the LGBT Mormon grapevine, where some voices expressed concern that publicizing the dea…
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