Religion Dispatches
…ul” that they crowd out any other meanings of value in regard to the complexities of sexuality and sexual behavior. Those of us who care about Christian languages and practices—languages of theology, ethics, or Biblical interpretation and practices of formation, compassion, or social justice—have some capacity to begin to create those other meanings of value; forging connections between the value-laden meanings of “Be faithful” and the value-laden…
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…Burkhart had trouble finding doctors for her own clinic, when she started exploring the idea of reopening the practice several years ago. One in-state doctor expressed interest, but after his local hospital learned about it, Burkhart said, they threatened to terminate his contract. An anonymous doctor who will work at the clinic described to the LA Times how they’ve planned for her protection: flying in every other week, then being driven to the c…
Read More…ther religious faiths, too.” (Like the Prime Minister using his office to promote his Christian faith.) But then Cameron reveals his politician’s circumspection, arguing on the one hand that advocates of “secular neutrality fail to grasp the consequences of that neutrality, or the role that faith can play in helping people to have a moral code.” That accusation is abruptly followed by the disclaimer that “[o]f course, faith is neither necessary n…
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…A gay man is legally challenging seven sections of law that criminalize sex between men: Yeung Chu-wing, a volunteer from local sexual minorities rights group Rainbow Action, argued that such laws were discriminatory since they targeted only gay men without providing equivalent criminal sanctions against heterosexuals or lesbians for the same or comparable conduct. Chile: Presidential Candidate Rejects Abortion, LGBT Equality AND Radio reported,…
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…bbing you and your mother!” someone stepping forward to state the obvious exclaimed. That this story was expressed with knives, and not guns, says something about how far we have failed to come. The edgy nun came for a school year and was soon gone. Shortly after she left, there was a new principal and a new pastor. The parish kept the folk mass, but by the end of eighth grade—1972—posters of fetuses began to appear on the street outside the churc…
Read More…, he argues, distinguished her beliefs from the pious rules-oriented religious right of American politics, ostensibly making her a more independent-minded evangelical. It’s the same image raised by the popular photographs of Palin sitting on couches draped with bear-skin rugs, next to taxidermied Alaskan King Crabs: a new archetype even a purist can appreciate. Tough, Western Christian women in dresses with guns. The truth of the matter to remembe…
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…ermissible if SB 522 becomes law. The bill also highlights the fact that Texas marital code still only identifies “a man and a woman” as the two parties who may apply for a marriage license. Even for Texas Republicans, this bill is a mean-spirited (though not at all unprecedented) attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality in pursuit of accommodating a vocal minority who claim their faith trumps their neighbors’ pursuit…
Read More…“suspended the business” of CHESA. From Pink News: In Tanzania, male homosexual sex carries a sentence anywhere between 30 years and life in prison. Their Colonial-era penal code criminalises anyone who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature.” Earlier this year, Tanzania stopped health clinics from providing HIV services, saying they “cater to homosexuals.” It is believed 33,000 people in Tanzania died from AIDS-related il…
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…wo Corinthians”) as ordinary Americans are with the loopholes of the IRS tax code…‘The Art of the Deal,’ his campaign biography by default, is a human billboard for pride and lust…‘I’m a greedy person,’ he told an Iowa audience, ‘I’ve always been greedy.’ Prothero’s explanation is structured around the notion of evangelicals’ loss of their fundamental religious identity through politicization. In supporting Trump, Prothero insists, evangelicals “a…
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…ministrators and fund raisers. They are businessmen who handle extensive tax-exempt property holdings. They are very active lobbyists. They are not professional theologians though they often play one on TV or in the press. They go before cameras to give their amateur theology as though it were the one and only true “Catholic teaching.” Complex and debatable issues are treated simplistically in ways that insult the subtleties of the Catholic moral…
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