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Making ‘The Link’: AIPAC’s New Crises

By Matthew Duss

…isagreement escalated. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a 45-minute phone call to Netanyahu. Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, after being summoned to the State Department for a dressing down, reportedly called the dispute a 35-year nadir of the US-Israel relationship. Subsequently, in an attempt to tamp down concerns, Oren took to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to deny that he had engaged in such a characterization, and to minimize t…

Honey, I Shrunk the Church: The Vatican Manages Sexual Abuse, Canonization and the Nuns

By Mary E. Hunt

…y or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It’s that last part in bold that’s so chillingly familiar in the Catholic cases. This time, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s U.N. ambassador, tried to take refuge in its postage-stamp sized headquarters as the extent of its responsibility, the same shrinking tactic, with similar results. He didn’t take except…

BSA Gay Okay?—Delay.

By Joanna Brooks

…ch. Since Proposition 8 in 2008, the LDS Church has largely dropped out of official political involvement in boots-on-the-ground anti-LGBT equality initiatives and the aggressive anti-gay rhetoric those campaigns have engendered within Mormon communities. (It did, however, file an amicus brief against gay marriage in the Supreme Court last week.) The Church has acknowledged that gay people are a part of the Mormon community and sought to foster an…

Significant Changes to LDS Scripture Reflect Shifting Church Views on Racist History

By Joanna Brooks

…he Pearl of Great Price—includes editorial changes that reflect a shifting official view on issues like polygamy, the Church’s history of racism, and the historicity of LDS scripture. Perhaps the most significant is the inclusion of a new heading to precede the now-canonized 1978 announcement of the end of the LDS Church’s ban on black priesthood ordination: The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond…

Does Pope Francis Support LGBT Civil Unions?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…Argentina. Hale cites NBCLatino’s reference to an interview with Francis’ official biographer, Sergio Rubin: …Bergoglio was politically wise enough to know the church couldn’t win a straight-on fight against gay marriage, so he urged his bishops to lobby for gay civil unions instead. It wasn’t until his proposal was shot down by the bishops’ conference that he publicly declared what Paulon described as the “war of God”—and the church lost the iss…

Why Atheists Should Fight For Establishment of State Religion

By Shanny Luft

…r words, the ACLU was arguing on first amendment grounds that Rowan County officials were favoring Christianity. In response, these North Carolina lawmakers proclaimed that the first amendment did not apply to North Carolina. The wildly overshooting lawmakers garnered immediate media attention (“North Carolina May Declare Official State Religion Under New Bill,” reported The Huffington Post) and alarmed those who felt that Christian theocrats had…

Did Mormon Morality Teachings Really Make it Harder for Elizabeth Smart to Run?

By Joanna Brooks

…he one Elizabeth Smart attended. Mind you, such lessons are nowhere in the official sex education curriculum of the state of Utah. Nor are they to be found in the current handbooks or youth instructional manuals of the LDS Church. The most current LDS youth manuals (released in January 2013) reflect a steady effort on the part of LDS Church leaders to revise out especially punitive messages about sexuality, especially those that might compound fe…

The Mormon Version of Infallibility

By Holly Welker

…e the following statement on the board: The prophet cannot err when making official pronouncements of faith and morals. Go ahead: Like Stevens, ask a few Mormons you know if they agree with this statement. Chances are good that you’ll get results much like his: All but one man in the priesthood class said, “Oh, yeah. That’s true. That’s what we believe.” When, at the end of class, Stevens admitted that this was his paraphrase of the doctrine of in…

Was Prof Wrong to Ask Students to Not Thank God?

By Hollis Phelps

…ultural critic Slavoj Žižek has often noted that in addition to the set of official mores, rights, and laws that govern a society, is an unwritten code or set of assumptions that govern how the former are to be interpreted and enacted. For example, if an acquaintance at work passes me in the hall and says, “Hey. How are things going?,” I’m aware that it’s not a real question, that she’s not really interested in how my day is going. Why? Because th…

Can You Be Liberal and Catholic?

By Patricia Miller

…or not, many in the media have bought into the idea that there’s only one “official” Catholic voice. Maybe it’s because the jovial Dolan, who’s no longer head of the bishops’ conference but frequently functions as its spokesperson, is right out of central casting’s idea of an old time Irish bishop. Or maybe it’s because dissenting voices are hard to find. Progressive nuns have been systematically marginalized. Now they’re dying off and aren’t bein…