Religion Dispatches
…k titled The Change Manifesto which according to the Institute’s Faith and Freedom Newsletter, “reminds us” that despite talk by the “presidential candidates … about reducing taxes, lowering gas prices and reforming Social Security…. none of that will matter unless we first restore the rule of law and abide by the Constitution.” “We are on the cusp of a new era of progress, but we can’t sit back and hope our elected officials will carry us there….
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…ater and sunscreen. Inside, Moms for Liberty, who claim to be champions of free speech, used this display of their fellow Americans exercising their 1st Amendment rights to paint themselves as victims of the “radical Left” and the “Marxists” who have forced them to endure unjust abuse and vilification (even as they claim that the pushback really is proof that they’re doing the right thing). Yet the mood, amongst all this talk of sacrifice and war,…
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…ill. Was Ukraine a test case? Until this vote, a Venn diagram of MAGA, the Freedom Caucus, and congressional evangelical Republicans was essentially a circle. But in the days before the vote, it became obvious that there was a split on this issue. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most vocal and extreme evangelicals in Congress, appeared on Steve Bannon’s show, insisting that Russia was a champion of religious freedom and Ukraine was its enemy: L…
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…ergefell will fall. The decision will be handed down most likely in June of 2024, but almost certainly no later than June 2025. This will cause havoc for LGBT couples. Overnight, 34 states will go back to banning same-sex marriage, and most of them don’t have viable mechanisms in place to bring it back. Horrible legal questions arise: Will marriage licenses issued by Texas between 2015 and 2024 still be legal? What about military couples stationed…
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…ady, with the same 31% attendance in 2016, 30% in 2020 and 2022, and 32% in 2024. But women’s attendance declined precipitously, dropping five points between 2012 and 2020. Since then it’s been holding steady at 27%. Overall, women’s weekly attendance dropped nine points between 2008 and 2023, according to Burge, while men’s dropped a mere two points. So by 2023, college-educated men were five points more likely than college-educated women to atte…
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…fforts among the Democratic base, or on powerful messaging on reproductive freedom, which has worked strongly in Democrats’ favor since the illegitimately stacked Supreme Court overturned Roe. Democrats also have a lot of work to do to shore up their base this year given how many have been alienated by Biden’s refusal to stop supplying Israel with the weapons the IDF has used to commit atrocities. It would be exceedingly foolish to now go and furt…
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…gs are shrinking before our eyes. The text encourages priests to exercise “freedom and spontaneity” whereas the press release specifies blessings to be just a few seconds, like maybe at drive-by speed! Likewise, the text refers to “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex,” though in his late January comments, Pope Francis insists this is really about blessing individuals, not couples. Say what? He’s walking back…
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…mocratic voters (83%) and Independents (73%) are Skeptics or Rejecters. The 2024 election will be largely contested over the few Republicans suspicious of Christian nationalism and Independents friendly to it. You can literally map out these differences. Blue states have very low levels of support for Christian nationalism. Red states are just the opposite. And the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisc…
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…ches will present a series of articles from the magazine’s Fall 2023/Winter 2024 issue. To fight a War on Terror, the state needs terrorists. Indeed, it creates them. As author, researcher, and organizer Dr. Maha Hilal observes, “If you followed the logic of the U.S. government when it comes to post-9/11 detentions, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that if you treat a person like a terrorist, they become one.”[1] The Public Eye, Fall 2023/Winter…
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…ocratic turnout. Trump understands that if the abortion issue dominates the 2024 campaign, his bid may well be doomed. So he’s seeking to elicit a reaction so visceral and powerful that it overshadows abortion rights. This is precisely what making the election about his use of fascist tropes would accomplish. The 2024 election will either be about abortion rights, or it will be about Trump. One way or another, it will be a referendum. Which framin…
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