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“Fast for Families” Immigration Reform Effort Enters 20th Day

By Joanna Brooks

…f compassionate immigration reform. How has that impacted your work? I get phone calls from LDS people who would identify themselves as politically conservative, but they say, “There’s this guy I know . . . Can you help him? He’s a really good guy.” People need to remember that there are many “really good guys” out there waiting for immigration reform. People coming to the US for work get villainized. “Illegal alien” is one of the most unbelieva…

Giving Up God—Not Just a Spiritual Stunt

By Becky Garrison

…od? The only way to find that out is to just go there. What authors have influenced you? Merold Westphal, a theist and a professor at Fordham University, wrote a book titled Overcoming Onto-Theology that influenced me. I came to the point at the end of my pastoral career where the issue of ontology, or the “beingness” of God really didn’t matter much to me. I didn’t really care if God was a person per se—athough I’m very much interested in the soc…

Global LGBT Recap: Culture War Claims More Victims

By Peter Montgomery

…researcher, Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, who has researched U.S. conservatives’ influence on African LGBTQ laws since 2008. “By signing the law, Museveni is strengthening his political base in Uganda among evangelical churches, while blaming the international community’s condemnation of the law for cuts to incoming foreign aid. Through this act, Museveni has declared war, and sanctioned the systematic persecution of sexual minorities. It is hell to live…

Confessions of a Hater

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ly a white pride parade. The red-faced, fist waving man in the picture was flanked by two little girls sitting in the back seat, arms crossed with very pronounced frowns on their faces. “They don’t look all that happy,” I remarked to my student. “Those are my daughters,” he said with fatherly pride in his eyes. “They weren’t happy because the haters were along the sidewalk, yelling at us.” That’s when it hit me. The haters. In his world, that woul…

Bad News for LGBT Anglicans, Mormons, Adventists, Norwegians, Russians, Georgians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Saudis…

By Peter Montgomery

…di Arabia are non-existent. Homosexuality is taboo and punished with jail, flogging, chemical castration or even death. Trans men and women are considered gay and suffer the same fate. Entrapment by the religious police does not necessarily lead to prosecution, but often results in life-long financial and/or sexual blackmail. Ali, a 31 year-old gay law student in Jeddah told Gay Star News: ‘Once the Hay’ah [religious police] have your identity on…

The Real Mormon Moment

By Joanna Brooks

…courts for more than a decade. We used the internet to regroup and grow in numbers. The Church even developed its own web-based resources to acknowledge and address its own controversies—historic and contemporary. This, we thought, was a good sign. A sign that might not need to fear losing our membership, our place, in a cherished tradition, just for having and voicing questions, doubts, and differences. We told ourselves to not to be afraid. And…

Black Masses Continue to Titillate Conservative Catholics

By Joseph Laycock

…cedented attention. Mayor Mick Cornett has already received 450 emails and phone calls opposing the event. Archbishop Paul Coakley has also condemned the event and called on Catholics to protest if it moves forward. Daniels, naturally, has expressed delight that his antics are finally provoking Church officials. This newfound energy has nothing to do with Daniels and everything to do with the events of last May. An online petition features footage…

James Foley Prayed, But He Was Not a Martyr

By Alana Massey

…ect of both personal and corporate prayer. When he speaks to his mother by phone from Libya, she asks if he has felt the prayers coming from his home as well. He tells her that he has felt them and reports, “Maybe it was others’ prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat.” This is precisely the kind of hope that prayer can inspire that should become central to the understanding of it for those of us who do not engage in prayer. Though the old aph…

Satanic FOIA Reveals Deep Confusion About 1st Amendment

By Joseph Laycock

…governor was for or against erecting a monument to Satan. One caller from Florida, who did not understand that the Ten Commandments monument was on government grounds, reported that his pastor had told him that all religious displays in Oklahoma must now feature displays of Satanism as well. Others believed the monument would have seven heads, or that it would be appear on “The White House.” One caller tearfully confessed that in the 1960s she ha…

Religion or Insanity? Two Upcoming Murder Trials Will Ask the (Burning) Question

By Joseph Laycock

…ve written on the case of John Errol Ferguson, a schizophrenic murderer in Florida, who claimed that upon his execution he alone would be seated at the Right Hand of God before being resurrected to save America from a communist plot. Under federal law, the mentally ill cannot be executed—psychiatrists had even identified a fissure in Ferguson’s brain consistent with schizophrenia. However, Florida’s eighth circuit ruled that Ferguson’s delusions w…