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The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…r “Ripple” conversation, and today, there are hundreds of Dead songs on my phone and dozens of live recordings in playlists, even a nod when I see a Deadhead sticker on a car. I am a relapsed Catholic, and thanks to my friend, I am also a repentant Deadhead. Dear Jesus, let me confess: I even wear Birkenstocks. Shannon. Deadshow, Deadhead. Dominquez Hills, 1990. Photo by ChasM3/https://www.flickr.com/photos/chasm3/ “Sugar Magnolia,” however, still…

Pope Compares Abortion to Nazi Eugenics

By Sikivu Hutchinson

…draconian anti-abortion laws in predominantly Catholic countries like the Philippines and El Salvador have made serious injury or death by illegal abortion routine for poor and working class pregnant women saddled with caring for large families on substandard wages. According to the Guardian, three women die every day in the Philippines from abortion-related complications and “More than 65% of women don’t use modern contraceptives, and maternal m…

The Top Five Pope Francis Quotes of 2015

By Patricia Miller

…t good Catholics don’t have to breed like bunnies on his way home from the Philippines was widely hailed as another “stunner” from the pontiff. But the Catholic Church as taught since the 1950s that it’s acceptable, and in many cases desirable, for Catholics to limit their family size. The church’s prohibition is against artificial means of contraception, not family planning itself. The pope’s remarks not only highlighted the basic inanity of this…

Reports of the Death of ISIS Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…d with ISIS took over a town in Mindanao, the insurgent region of Southern Philippines, and controlled it for months in a stand-off with the Filipono army. And, of course, this past November a rented truck veered down a bicycle path in lower Manhattan, killing eight; the driver, as he abandoned the vehicle, left behind a note in Arabic that read, “ISIS lives!” Whether or not ISIS lives is a debatable point. The fact that various groups and individ…

Global LGBT Recap: Mandela and Equality; Elton John Defies Russian Ban; Fake-Healing of AIDS

By Peter Montgomery

…e out. US Embassy in Manila Issues First Fiancé Visa The US Embassy in the Philippines announced it had granted its first fiancé visa to a same-sex couple. Same-sex couples cannot get married in the Philippines, the announcement noted, but thanks to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the portion of the Defense of Marriage Act that limited federal recognition to marriage between a man and a woman, the rights available to same-sex couples includ…

What We Need to Understand is that Fascism is Intersectional and Erotic—’Thy Rod is Thy Gun,’ With a Hip-Thrust

By Annika Brockschmidt

…my own reporting about The Family, which nobody gave a damn about until a number of Family members started getting caught in affairs. You know, did they care [that The Family was] providing lists of communists to Suharto for the genocide? Or about total war in Somalia? I remember a producer saying to me, and I kid you not: “What’s a Somalia?” What’s a Somalia? But! Oh, he had sex with someone he wasn’t married to! Who? Tell us more! We all have t…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…lonial-era law criminalizing homosexuality; a petition had been filed by a number of prominent gay individuals. The Court, which had effectively recriminalized homosexuality in 2013 when it overturned a 2009 lower court ruling tossing out the law, sent the measure to the Chief Justice of India, who is considering other “curative” petitions. Rama Lakshmi notes in the Washington Post: Some members of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Par…

Warships, Animals, Pubs Eligible For Blessings From Church of England, But Not Same-Sex Couples; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…f and is believed to have supported the arrest, detention and torture of a number of people on suspicion of homosexuality by the country’s National Intelligence Agency. While Barrow has so-far espoused a far more democratic and human rights based approach than his predecessor, his views on homosexuality have never been publicly expressed, until now. His reported comments do not quite suggest that he is planning to decriminalise homosexuality, but…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…

Israel’s Immigration Debate: “Where is the Jewish Spirit?”

By Mati Wagner

…foreign workers (30 percent) came from Thailand but many migrated from the Philippines (18%), and from China (10%), Nepal (6%) and Romania (5%). They were willing to work harder than the average Israeli for longer hours at a lower salary (40% lower on average according to the Bank of Israel). Many stayed on after their permits expired to defray the initial payments made to the middlemen for the chance to come or simply to enjoy Israel’s economic b…