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Humiliating “Kim Davis Bill” To “Protect” Anti-LGBT County Clerks Passes Texas Senate

…ding the protocol for who can issue a license if those elected to do so refuse is daunting. If a county clerk, their deputy clerks, and a judge all refuse to sign and issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, the bill allows the clerk to appoint someone—who need not be employed by or appointed by the state, county, or locality—who can administer the oath and sign the license. Imagine if you’re a same-sex couple living in Texas who has decided…

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Op-Ed: Bishops vs. Catholic Politicians

…ative moral absolute. Indeed, contrary to Vatican theology, the failure to use condoms when one’s spouse is HIV positive is morally wrong. There are many other circumstances where the failure to use artificial contraception could not be morally justified. Abortion is also not seen by Catholic theologians as “intrinsically evil.” The following are cases from real life. Few theologians and few others would accuse these women of sin. Case #1: A woman…

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Layoffs on the Religious Right

…and Donald Argue, members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said that the language was “a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion.” Moon’s UN project? Still in the hopper! To gain a better appreciation for Moon’s powerful political, religious, and economic empire, check out John Gorenfeld’s Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created th…

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Democrats Have Seized the Narrative Frame From the GOP, But Can They Find a Better Story to Tell About an Inclusive, Pluralist US?

…have “a problem with religion” while insisting that they’re starting to do better because they let pastors preach sermons at the DNC; or, hilariously, assuring the Catholic public that Catholics won’t go to hell for voting for Democrats. (Note: once you’re associating hell with Democratic support you’re just reinforcing the right-wing Christian frame.) The point is, asserting that “religion is of major importance to many Democrats,” no matter how

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What Does Satanism Have to do With QAnon?

…aren’t so much sober accusations of individuals’ crimes than an insiders’ code for ‘elite liberals.’ The Satanic abuse panic of the 1980s and 90s led to the persecution and false convictions of many innocent people and caused traumatic rifts in communities. The panic involved gothic stories of bloody ceremonies conducted by community-members in black robes, including graphic claims of child and adult sexual abuse and rumors of specific “cult” loc…

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Trump as GOP’s New Televangelist

…nd, at the time under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for misuse of tax-deductible donor funds, claimed Huckabee was on his side because, in Huckabee’s words, Copeland was “trying to get prosperity to the people and they’re [Congress is] trying to take it away from ’em.” Such efforts to win the hearts of televangelists (and by extension, their audiences) date back to the early days of the first George H.W. Bush presidential campaign….

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Sit Down and Shut Up: Pulling Mindfulness Up By Its (Buddhist) Roots

…st cultures. Buddhism absorbed Chinese religion when it spread to China, Tibetan religion in Tibet, and so on. But mindfulness—what we think of as “meditation,” as opposed to prayer or ceremonial observance, for example—does have deep roots in the tradition. The Pali word sati, which can be translated as mindfulness, is frequently used in Buddhist scripture. (The noun comes from the verb sarati, meaning “to remember,” and alternative translations…

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Obama’s Pick Sotomayor Derided by Conservatives For Empathy

…empathy occurs at a time when Obama has chosen a woman for the court. Because empathy is often improperly defined in terms of feeling and caring, it is more closely associated with women (who are, according to social prejudices, more emotional). This bias is used to question women’s ability to make effective, tough and fair-minded decisions. In comparison, so called “rational” approaches to adjudication tend to be associated with men, who are sup…

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Mexican Bishops Exorcism Against Equality; African Bishops Oppose ‘Enemy of Human Race’; Israeli Islamic Leader Anti-Gay Op-Ed

…errible mixing’ … sick is to call for the downfall of Syria (sic.) not because its regime is undemocratic, but because its president is Alawite. What is sick, and nothing but sick, is that you don’t respect people and impose your opinions on them.” The Jerusalem Post reported that on Monday, June 15, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation “voted down a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT people in any way.” The legislat…

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Is God a Winning Strategy for Democrats?

…the argument that secular activism often drags religion into progressive causes. Again, most Christians are better than Christianity. Liberal believers might need to argue over which party a “true” Christian would support, but politicians do not need to make these arguments. Which brings us back to the 2020 election. Coons suggested that the Democrats inject more religion into their party. Buttigieg seems to agree and is using it as a cudgel again…

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