Religion Dispatches
…essay, the number of people who can be labeled in this way would “fit in a phone booth.” (Actually there are significantly more than he recognizes, but I take his point.) My point, though, is that this is the wrong question. Far more interesting, I think, is to look at the influence of Christian Reconstruction; how has it impacted the style of the conservative Christianity that makes up the religious right—which is not to say that if I can show in…
Read More…on any side of a controversy when there really is no controversy to begin with—not for the roughly 99.95% of scientists with relevant expertise, anyway. That’s in fact the whole point. In any case, he then recounts a rather nasty disagreement that we had on the phone during the Dover trial back in 2005. I have to admit his recollection is pretty accurate. At one point he said, “How dare you say that we’re stupid.” I told him that I wasn’t calling…
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…back a thoughtful note and we struck up a correspondence. We spoke on the phone a couple times and I had always dreamed of someday visiting him at his home in Winchester — “Come on down!” he said — to spend an afternoon on his front porch listening to him tell stories, while he strummed on his mandolin. It never happened. For the past couple years, Bageant, who believed the US has descended into oligarchy, had been living in southern Mexico. He h…
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…id she have the kind of consensual hetero sex that is rather like a mobile phone contract with a hidden pregnancy fee buried in the contract? [shrug] Nobody held a gun to her head, so she has no right to complain… or, you know, make her own healthcare decisions. (The crassest versions of this argument are those dazzlingly astute Didn’t want ____? You shouldn’t have had sex! lines of logic that crop up in every mainstream newspaper comment thread a…
Read More…ones has any brains at all – and I’m not saying he does – he’ll get on the phone to the ACLU right now, begging its attorneys to take his case. What’s so incredibly stupid about all of this is that it seems like the community couldn’t have more bungled the handling of this raging bigot. Now, Jones – who is obviously one of the biggest spotlight-seeking jerks out there – will be made into a martyr and now stands to make a lot of money from the taxp…
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…American military cadre some hours ago in Pakistan, but the legion of cell phone-toting protestors earlier this year in Tahrir Square. They have helped to complete the erosion of legitimacy that has undermined the jihadi activists in recent years within the Muslim world. For the past thirty years, the jihadi movement has crested on a wave of popular unrest and been propelled by the moral legitimacy given by their violent interpretation of the…
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…rts and shows, as well as contributing to these dialogues we’re having. My phone’s ringing off the hook, and I’m participating as much as I can in discussions with LGBT lay people and clergy. There are so many people who want to have a positive dialogue about this. I’m getting to the point that I feel like I can engage at a positive level and contribute to that conversation. So, did you follow the recent change in the Presbyterian Church-USA? Th…
Read More…anization for Marriage (NOM) urgently called on its supporters to get more phone calls into Senate offices. NOM is urging Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to use his power to keep marriage from coming to the floor for a vote. Meanwhile, Archbishop Timothy Dolan is getting increasingly shrill in his efforts to stop the shift toward equality. This week, on his official blog, he wrote: “Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in N…
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…t began to isolate us from the outside world by cutting off power and cell phone towers. One hundred people sought refuge in the town’s Catholic church. They were forced out with tear gas. Some were hauled away by security forces. Some were killed, among them a priest, an attorney, aid workers, and people targeted because of their ethnicity or politics. This happened under the noses of UN peacekeepers who did not keep the peace. People who escaped…
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[Jump to Update.] When I reach Dr. Ronald Yeomans on his cell phone Thursday evening, he is out fishing—just as his wife Helen has said he would be. After all, Dr. Yeomans has put in two long days at work. On Wednesday and Thursday he saw more than twice the usual number of patients at his abortion clinic, Aid For Women, in Kansas City, Kansas. But then, this has been an unusual few weeks. Since mid-June, Dr. Yeomans (and the other abortion prov…
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