Religion Dispatches
…our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinners they are.” As a Christian, who just also happens to be a lesbian, I take offense at this continuing campaign on the religious right to promote this false dichotomy of gays vs. God. No one in the gay and lesbian community wants to curb anyone’s “religious freedom.” What our community is fighting for…
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…talist takeover—particularly when you refuse to consider how the theology that shapes that culture is of a piece with the protection of white male leaders over all “others”—women, children, people of color, and queer people, as you note. I don’t see any serious stakeholders in the SBC willing to consider how patriarchal theology and attitudes are the root of the abuse problem. While Russell Moore has left the SBC, in part over its leadership’s fai…
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…apologized for single-handedly bringing an end to the sexual revolution. What critics have missed is that Eros and Thanatos are pals from way back, and the connection between them is not necessarily a message of moral judgment. Add some powerful religious symbolism, stir, and you have strong drink indeed. Cody, a serious fan of the genre, understands this connection—which rings true in her take on it, in a script that crackles and pops with her s…
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…
Read More…n being recruited into homosexuality. They ignore the historical evidence that shows that same-sex relationships are not new in Africa. They seek immediate recourse to the law in ways that are deeply reminiscent of colonial propaganda that sought to subjugate and eradicate the myriad ways through which difference was dealt with. Naimasiah also criticizes western gay-rights activists who “posit sexuality and sexual desires as necessarily political…
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…resting in the present moment” carries a slight whiff of the New Age, but what it means is that the mind has been practiced-upon enough that it can stop worrying, stop thinking so many thoughts, and stop rewinding and fast-forwarding through time. And, as such, it allows a wider, deeper journey to unfold. Objections, moral reasoning, pros and cons can be seen and held clearly. The body itself can convey messages of “works for me” or “doesn’t work….
Read More…ur trans female employee as a woman, which means she’s violating the dress code when she arrives to work wearing clothing that meets your company’s guidelines for women. When she inevitably sues for wrongful termination, you’ll have a federal judge on your side—at least if you live and work in Michigan. That stunning decision is an outlier among current case law, and is likely to be overturned on appeal, says Elizabeth Platt, director of Columbia…
Read More…Christian organizations appeared in court in defense of the law, arguing that sexual orientation was not innate and that decriminalizing LGBTQ sex would lead to the transmission of H.I.V., the large, mainstream religious organizations and figureheads, including Adityanath and Ramdev, did not participate in the debate. And when the Supreme Court unanimously voted to extend all constitutional protections under Indian law to LGBTQ Indians and that a…
Read More…ship. Kyle, who was in seminary when the Boston abuse cases were at their height of media coverage and now considers himself only loosely Catholic, says that he no longer has “that respect for the church” that previous generations did….
Read More…m not alone in this idea of marriage. Another interesting statistic shows that divorce rates are lowest in “blue” states—those states that generally tend to vote for liberals or progressives. The lowest divorce rate can be found in Massachusetts, where gays and lesbians have been able to marry since 2004. The differing views of marriage between “red” and “blue” states are at the heart of those statistics, according to Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-d…
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