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Justice v. Revenge: The Question Beneath the Question of Prison Reform

By Xarissa Holdaway

…our brains, which makes the admonition “an eye for an eye” in Hammurabi’s code sound less like savagery and more like a way to keep everybody in check. To punish more than the guilt deserves has been a legal problem, apparently, since at least 1792 B.C.E or so. The distinction between justice and vengeance matters, because vengeance costs an enormous amount to taxpayers, and, as reformers on both sides of the aisle argue, our own moral selves. Pe…

Tennessee Anti-Evolution Update

By Lauri Lebo

…on proposed by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes intelligent design. David Fowler, head of the conservative Christian Family Action Council of Tennessee, which is affiliated with Focus on the Family, and is one of the bill’s primary lobbyists. In defending the bill’s language, he has tried to draw on comparisons to the famous Scopes monkey trial that took place 86 years ago in his state. “…[T]oday’s evolutionary…

Israeli Right Demonizes Israeli Left, With American Money

By Diane Winston

…lear of causes, issues, or ideas that would place them in the progressive (code name for lefty-socialist) camp. In the meantime, the legacy media has muzzled itself, likewise fearful of the right’s blanket criticism of the “liberal press.” (For more on this see David Domke’s study of the post 9/11 press: Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the ‘War on Terror’ and the Echoing Press.) Returning to the initial question: why have American new…

HHS Issues Proposed Rule Expanding Religious Exemption for Contraception Coverage

By Sarah Posner

…efs; and is a non-profit organization as described in the Internal Revenue Code. Religious organizations protested that this four-pronged test would only exempt houses of worship, but not, say, a church that served people of different faiths through a soup kitchen. Under the new proposed rule (which is still subject to a public comment period), an employer seeking an exemption would only have to meet the forth prong of the test, thus widely expand…

Overnight Sensation ‘The Rich Men North of Richmond’ isn’t Just a Window into a Forgotten America — It’s an Invitation into a Worldview

By Bradley Onishi

…ot to pay for your bags of fudge rounds It’s hard not to read “welfare” as code. Welfare has long been used in conservative circles as a dog whistle for Black people, immigrants, and others who are supposedly too lazy to work and thus draining the life from our society. The idea of the “welfare queen,” a single Black urban mother, was introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1976: “At a campaign rally in 1976, Ronald Reagan introduced the welfare queen into…

This is not a Religion Column: Biblical Capitalism

By Jeff Sharlet

…ion to what we hope will merely be our greatest recession, the doctrine of free market fundamentalism remains the alpha and the omega of American conservatism. That doesn’t prevent Christian conservatives from favoring government subsidies for the rich; they simply reframe it as God’s will, recruiting the creator as a crony. Biblical capitalism isn’t, ultimately, a supply-and-demand religion. Between business conservatism’s love of laissez-faire a…

Secure Borders? Not a Chance, Senator

By Ira Chernus

…own spiritual/cultural values. Liberals see porous borders as a symbol of freedom: free movement, free choice, and the free creativity generated by the intermingling of peoples. To conservatives, the very presence of so many Illegal “aliens” proves that the borders they once imagined as the key to a safe, orderly life have long been crumbling around them. To give undocumented people legal status would be further proof that the nation’s walls and…

In Order to Move Forward We Must Believe the Unbelievable: Some Choose Death Over Democracy

By John Stoehr

…he said recently, “My people are happy, and they’re happy, because they’re free.” Our heritage is rife with heroes choosing death over tyranny. “Live free or die,” for instance. See also: “Don’t tread on me.” But nowhere is there a hero choosing death over democracy. We must reconsider the credit we give. In places like South Dakota, individual liberty is being perverted in the interest of the group, of the tribe, of the collective, so that indivi…

Religious Right in a Froth Over Hate Crimes Legislation

By Bill Berkowitz

…e American Family Association, Donald Wildmon states: America’s most basic freedoms of speech, conscience and the free exercise of religion are under attack and the time to act is now. If President Obama succeeds with his priority of passing the Hate Crimes law, H.R. 1913 – the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it could lead to the criminalization of the Biblical view of homosexuality in sermons and elsewhere. An offended homosexua…

State-Licensed Ministers Can’t “Pray Away the Gay,” SCOTUS Affirms

By Sunnivie Brydum

…in all 50 states. In fact, even the California minister who filed suit is free to practice the debunked “therapy”—he just can’t engage minors in the practice, and can’t represent himself as a state-licensed therapist offering that treatment. In his ministerial duties he is free to preach about the power of prayer (or, in some cases, more nefarious tactics) to “rescue” people from the bonds of queerness. But what he can’t do, according to the newl…