Religion Dispatches
…which means a person may be born with a “propensity” to be gay, but, hey, that doesn’t mean they have to be that way. They have a choice, after all. People choose many things in life. You know, there is a bias in favor of non-celibacy. It’s part of how the species re-creates. And yet there is a substantial amount of people who choose celibacy as a religious vocation or for other reasons. Gingrich is blowing all the right notes on the religious rig…
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…n the army. The Modern Orthodox protesters’ lack of attention to the fact that these haredim read the very same texts is somewhat hypocritical. They read the same Torah and commentaries, study the same Talmud, live by the same legal codes, and adhere to the same basic belief system. Yes, the haredim have a very narrow reading of these sources but it’s a safe bet that they can cite chapter and verse to support their views—often more adroitly than t…
Read More…se their clientele. Now, if you run a facility – religious or otherwise – that offers its space to the general public, that’s a whole ‘nuther matter. General public means “general” public, whether they agree with your beliefs, or you agree with theirs. Public is public – whether you’re a B&B, a religious facility renting space or a lunch counter. If religious beliefs are more important than opening your facility to the public then become a private…
Read More…grich “tough guy” dynamic Sarah Posner wrote about here. I’ve often noted that Romney doesn’t code traditional “tough-guy” masculine, which I believe is attributable to Mormon culture. 5. Religiosity subsumes ethics. Despite last-minute revelations of marital infidelity that could have impacted religiously-identified voters, Gingrich soared. That too is a curious South Carolina outcome that begs for clarification. I’ll be talking about “God and Po…
Read More…f course, this does nothing to assuage the critics of the practice. “Yes, that’s lovely that you think so. But outside of Pretend Happy Land, robbing women of the vote is disempowering, and I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation.” Anyway, the municipal government, for many compelling practical reasons, wants the church to serve as the polling place. The church insists that it cannot, in good conscience, allow its sincerely-held teachi…
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…t be fooled by Santorum’s defense that he believes Obama when the president says he’s a Christian. Listen to the world salad Santorum and Stewart dropped onto the national airwaves. Anyone steeped in the “Christian worldview” (including Stewart’s old boss Bachmann) would fully understand that code as “Obama doesn’t govern from a ‘Christian worldview.’ And you know what that means: he must be a secularist, or an Islamist, or some other enemy of Chr…
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…ore friendly to “religion” (read: Christianity) than the Republican Party—whatever that even means. More importantly, attempts to convince Americans of Democrats’ religious bonafides lead once again to the erosion of the party’s stated values. After all, “religious” or “friendly to religion” is essentially code for deference to the conservative Christian values of exclusion and exceptionalism. If Democrats wish to embody their espoused values of i…
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