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Carrie Prejean, God’s Prophet or Porn Star?

By Paula M. Cooey

…If You See Someone Ugly-Looking, Don’t Judge ’Em Almost concurrently, the news broke on the first face transplant in America. Connie Culp, shot in the face five years ago by her husband, standing with shotgun a mere eight feet from her, appeared on the screen. Her new face, still a work in progress, is a grotesque image in no way resembling her earlier likeness, though a definite improvement over the face her husband left her with. Before the tra…

Does “Religious Freedom” Deserve Scare Quotes?

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ion (See: Indiana, Arkansas, Mississippi) have changed the RFRA game. This new framework shifts RFRA’s intent from remedying an actual injury, to instead serve as an enforcement mechanism for the socially conservative understanding of law and, most crucially, sexual morality. (The question around what extent Congress should be legislating our bedroom behavior is another beast entirely.) This new, mutant form of “religious liberty” does indeed dese…

Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

By Scott Blaine Swenson

…h deep within, are rare.” Someone Else’s Fear Far from spreading the “Good News” and attracting new converts, prolonged exposure to Rev. Fred Phelps’ interpretation of scripture turned at least one of his sons into an atheist. Nate Phelps is one of four children to flee their father’s madness; a path four grandchildren, so far, have followed. While growing up hiding my sexuality in Topeka 666 may have made me feel like the Antichrist, the stories…

Common Ground: Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War

By Chip Berlet

…policy fronts under special political leadership.” These facts are neither new nor news except, perhaps, inside the Beltway. “White evangelicals are the most likely to have social issue priorities,” Green explains. The way voters concerned about values lean in any specific election after weighing social and economic issues “may simply be differences in values prompted in large measure by campaigns where the GOP stresses morality with success and t…

The Democrats Got Religion, At Huge Cost

By Sarah Posner

…ntrists” was about a “broader agenda” than the culture wars. They wanted a new president to address poverty, health care reform, and global warming. But it was clear, nonetheless, that these leaders and the constituency they supposedly represented still demanded that Democrats stop being so strident on abortion. By August, then, Democrats agreed to let Rick Warren be the arbiter of the candidates’ faith cred; Obama cringed at abortion questions an…

The (Mostly Catholic) Anti-Abortion Roe v. Wade Schlep

By Mary E. Hunt

…. It included Mass followed by Confession, the National Rosary for Life (a new concept), and the observance of the Holy Hours for Life (another theological novelty) led by pro-life seminarians. Perhaps in addition to being a spiritual exercise the Vigil was also a good way to “house” a lot of people without running into fire code violations. I could not find any other religious events advertised. Could it be that people of other faiths simply held…

Pat Robertson’s Women Warriors Leading Spiritual Warfare In Zimbabwe

By Sarah Posner

…ocess of drafting a new Constitution that will supposedly pave the way for new elections. The African Centre for Law and Justice is aiming to do in Zimbabwe precisely what the religious right seeks to accomplish in the United States: declare the country a “Christian nation” guided by biblical principles, outlaw abortion, and ostracize and criminalize LGBT people. In the ACLJ, Bourland and Mpofu have powerful allies. Sekulow, who has been named one…

Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church: When Adults are Victims

By Kathryn Joyce

…n Diego, a pastoral and family care center dedicated to “the formation and promotion of Catholic leaders in the Hispanic community.” In her lawsuit, Birge charges that Hernandez was such an involved participant in Centro San Juan that its Director, Luis Soto, referred to him as an employee. Hernandez, who was trained at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and the Mexican-American Catholic College in San Antonio, was also the 200…

Indonesia’s Anti-Porn Bill is Anti-Pluralism

By Fatemeh Fakhraie

…ated into criminalizing such styles, coming uncomfortably close to a dress code. Many of those against the bill are worried that it threatens national unity; though Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country, it has significant minorities from other religions who feel that this bill is pushing a definition of pornography under the guise of “Islamicizing” the entire nation or riding roughshod over Indonesia’s secular pluralism. There are…

How (Not) to Understand Romney’s Time as an LDS Bishop

By Joanna Brooks

…cigarette and a beer (both forbidden according to the LDS Church’s dietary code, “The Word of Wisdom”), more substantial coverage this week is focusing on Romney’s service as bishop of his LDS congregation in Belmont, Massachusetts in the 1980s. On Monday, the Washington Post offered a revealing account of Bishop Romney’s interactions with Boston’s robust Mormon feminist community during tense years for the movement, when the LDS Church played a…