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Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

By Holly Welker

…lt, particularly since the church wouldn’t leave me alone. (I got repeated phone calls, letters, and visits to my home from missionaries and people in the congregation, despite formal requests that they stop.) Eventually I sought a community of people also striving to come to terms with what it meant to have been but no longer be a devout Mormon. Luckily a diverse community of ex-, post-, or lapsed Mormons (we differ on what to call ourselves) thr…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…ou need to know to keep on reading? I’d cheerfully watch that man read the phone book. So, when my buddy Rev. El Mundo sent me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the pie…

Pope Invites his Flock to Join Facebook: Is the Digital Reformation Here?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…ackyard with a cup of coffee and Il Papa’s latest digital missive. “New Forms of Shared Awareness” I couldn’t possibly have expected the day to offer much more than a thumbs up from one of leading thinkers and activists on education, spirituality, and social change. But it turned out that the Pope seems to have cribbed much of my commentary on his 2010 letter on digital social media. Whereas that letter focused on the special responsibilities of p…

The Environmental Politics of Vodou, New Orleans Style

By Joseph Laycock

…especially, race. This matrix of associations is evident in the example of phone psychics like “Miss Cleo,” who uses an affected Caribbean accent. We also saw it in Pat Robertson’s gaffe following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, when he claimed that the nation of Haiti had made a pact with the Devil. Glassman conforms to no stereotypes about Vodou. Born in Maine, her parents were of Ukrainian Jewish heritage but were not religious. S…

Mitt, the Marriotts, and Porn

By Joanna Brooks

…y the Book of Mormon stashed in the nightstand drawer in Marriott hotel rooms, courtesy of the mega-Mormon Marriott family.) The hotel chain says that the decision is economic: in-room porn profits have tanked because the porn industry has moved on-line. But it’s being reported that the move is actually an effort to protect Romney against another round of flak from socially conservative and evangelical voters in Iowa, where the Marriott-porn i…

Lila Rose Targets Planned Parenthood with Lies

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…And commenter Karen West writes: “Lila has the beauty and brains to do any number of things, but instead, she is laying down her life for those most innocent of all.” But not everyone on the religious right believes that Lila Rose is acting out God’s will, let alone laying down her life. After all, Lila Rose lies in order to get the footage she seeks. She and her colleagues pose as underage pregnant teens, as sex traffickers, as statutory rapists….

“God Created You”: Bishop Supports Gay Ugandans, Defies Death Threats

By Jocelyn Edwards

…etermined to be at the funeral of David,” said the bishop. Speaking on the phone the day after Kato’s murder, Senyonjo said he was shocked by the death of his friend, who he had known for the past seven years and worked with at the religious LGBT organization Integrity Uganda. “I was very much surprised. I didn’t know that they [people in Uganda who are anti-gay] would be so serious as to kill somebody like that who had been mentioned in Rolling S…

Pro-Gay Marriage Mormon Keeps Faith Despite Church Pressure

By Joanna Brooks

…and within days an official at LDS Church headquarters placed a concerned phone call to Melanie S.’s local clergy. Three times her bishop met with Melanie to discuss the video. Because she had affiliated with “Mormons for Marriage,” he questioned whether or not Melanie and her husband should be allowed to keep their temple recommends—certificates that allow the most worthy and devoted Mormons to participate in the faith’s sacred temple rites. Nor…

To: Discovery Institute;
Re: Creationist Tactics Pre-Dating the Exposure of ID as a Fraud

By Lauri Lebo

…g a lot of energy responding to a blog post I recently wroteabout a record number of creationist bills introduced in state legislatures since January. I write numerous posts about intelligent design and the Discovery Institute’s disingenuous attacks on evolution education, so I’m not sure why this particular post has gotten them so hot and bothered. First, David Klinghoffer had a bit of a snit on DI’s Evolution News last week over the issue of pee…

Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: 1946-2011

By Lauri Lebo

…e everyone to buy his books) the following piece from Rainbow Pie better sums up his writing better than I ever could: Economic, political, and social culture in America is staggering under the sheer weight of its white underclass, which now numbers some sixty million. Generally unable to read at a functional level, they are easily manipulated by corporate-political interests to vote against advances in health and education, and even more easily m…