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Proposition 8, Mormonism, and the Other Fight for Alternative Marriage

By Holly Welker

…ill be familiar to anyone who followed the 2008 controversy and watched as Californians voted to amend the state Constitution so that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” [see also Joanna Brooks’ “8: The Mormon Proposition Gets it Right” —Eds.] But while the details of the story can still astonish, more surprising is what the film misses on two key topics: Mormon beliefs about the afterlife, and polygamy….

Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…s died at 80. Raised Mormon, Hinkins was a high school teacher in Southern California when he discovered “soul consciousness.”He founded MSIA—pronounced “messiah”—in 1971, teaching one could achieve a totally positive state of being with the help of the Mystical Traveler Consciousness he embodied. MSIA attracted celebrity followers including Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and productivity consultant David…

Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

By Patricia Miller

…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…

Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…rimages are much easier now, at least for the middle class that can afford plane tickets to Medjugorje and Civitavecchia. Pilgrims learn from major apparition sites exactly how to watch for the Virgin and what to do when someone spots her. And it’s much easier for the news of an apparition to reach reporters, now that visionaries and their witnesses use video cameras and the World Wide Web. President Obama made the news last week when he made a pi…

What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail

By Steven K. Green

…items within their borders (as is already the case federally with lottery tickets). A Republican-controlled Congress could then impose a nationwide ban on the mailing of abortion pills or certain contraceptives. (Republican-controlled state legislatures have already demonstrated a willingness to enact questionable legislation for nothing more than its intimidation factor.) Which brings us back to Anthony Comstock. In 1878, the Supreme Court uphel…

Gingrich Downplays Adelson Money, Stokes Fear of “Second Holocaust” at Florida Church

By Sarah Posner

…ughter Bella was hospitalized.) Organizers said they had distributed 1,800 tickets, and the pews in the church were nearly full, with several hundred, if not nearly a thousand people in attendance. Gingrich was the only candidate to appear; Staver, the “forum’s” moderator took pains to point out that they had invited the other candidates. Santorum and Ron Paul had commitments outside of Florida. Mitt Romney, the candidate Staver and other leaders…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…g the Grateful Dead another chance. When I began teaching at University of California at Berkeley, getting to know my mostly older colleagues was sometimes a challenge. In my late 20s, I was lost in the sea of 40,000 students from all over the world. One afternoon, desperate for advice, I went to the office of my colleague Steve Tollefson, and we had one of those long, rambling conversations about teaching that inevitably forks into other topics….

Marriage Remains on Hold for California Gays

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…hts said of the ruling: “It is decidedly unjust and unreasonable to expect California’s gay and lesbian couples to put their lives on hold and suffer daily discrimination as second-class citizens while their US District Court victory comes to its final conclusion.” The National Organization for Marriage, forgetting that real human beings are affected by such a ruling, showed its usual class with an “in your face” to attorneys Ted Olson and David B…

It’s the Catholic Bishops, Not Those Who Toppled Junipero Serra Statues, Who Have Failed the Test of History

By Jacqueline M. Hidalgo

…. St. Junípero Serra came to colonial Mexico in 1749 and, upon arriving in California, helped to found mission San Diego in 1769. During that time, he believed himself to be fulfilling the will of God by bringing the gospel to peoples in California who had not yet heard it. Compared to some of his contemporaries, certainly, Serra fought to protect indigenous peoples. For instance, as Archbishop Gómez underscored, Serra responded sympathetically to…

Federal Court Overturns California’s Prop. 8

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…Appeals Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Michael Daly Hawkins have struck down California’s Proposition 8 outlawing marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples, and set the stage for a showdown on the marriage issue before the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling makes it clear that Prop. 8 was unconstitutional because it took away a right that had already been granted to gays and lesbians in the state, and carved out a special place of discrimination aga…