Search Results for:

VIPREG2024 1xbet free promo codes Cape Verde

Democratic Egypt Tests a Divided Israel                             

…to democracy. And yet, in Israel democracy still rules, the press is still free, the courts still function, and human rights is still a value in principle—if not always in practice. Part of the belief in democracy is that it is by nature a moderating force (one can even see this with Hezbollah in Lebanon). We cannot support democratic change contingent on what democracy will bring; even if it may not serve our interests in the short run, it’s stil…

Read More

Mormons Fight Marriage Equality in Mexico; Is Catholic Church Italy’s Anti-Gay NRA?; Nigerian Anglicans Cut Ties With UK Diocese; Global LGBT Recap

…id showcased anti-LGBT rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Mexico: President promotes constitutional guarantee of LGBT equality; Mormon Church objects As Mexico’s complicated march toward nationwide marriage equality continues, President Enrique Peña Nieto wrote in Huffington Post about initiatives he introduced in May to establish a constitutional right to marry, “independently of gender identity or sexual orientation,” as part of a broader effort…

Read More

Taking On The Religious Right…In Kansas? Yes.

…ng to be a leader for all Kansans, so that we can continue our legacy as a Free State, where discrimination and bigotry – against anyone – is not tolerated.” Why is this so good (or at least why am I so excited by it)? Let me count the ways: It’s true. Check the Holland site for the citations, which are difficult to refute. Lou Engle has horrible politics. Brownback should have his judgment questioned for hanging around with him. More to the point…

Read More

Change, Not Charity: What Ails the New Left-Right Coalition Against Poverty

…aith leaders who claim to care about the poor slurping up the same reality-free brew and proclaiming, essentially, that there are really No Enemies On The Religious Right and, by extension, No Enemies On The Political Right. Memo to religious middlers: God actually does take sides In recent years Jim Wallis has made himself the leading exemplar of what we might call the No Enemies On The Right viewpoint among religious celebrities. Wallis achieved…

Read More

When Is Hosni Mubarak?

…vernment, perhaps a unity coalition guaranteed by the military, leading to free and fair elections after the shortest time possible within which campaigning can be organized. This requires all the stakeholders on the ground, who are not representatives of the dictatorship, to come to the table, and to receive guarantees both from one another but also from regional powers who can help nudge the process forward. The military has won itself a seat at…

Read More

Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

…on, but it’s hard to know what else to call it. Such misrepresentations of Freemasonry tend to reinforce the organization’s self-image as a benevolent and admirable society—powerful, yet harmless, like a friendly giant. Brown stresses their inclusiveness and tolerance, even to the point of fallacy. At one point Langdon is rescued by an African-American man who is a thirty-third degree Mason of the Scottish Rite and a lodge brother of Peter Solomon…

Read More

Book Burning and the Scapegoating of Islam

…Cross, Heim points out that the crucifixion, while a story of sacrificial scapegoating, deliberately exposes the scapegoat for what he is: an innocent. More significantly, the crucifixion gives to the victim the very voice of God: The passion narratives tell the old story of redemptive violence, but tell it entirely from the point of view of the sacrificed one. Even more dramatically, they tell the story of redemptive violence as a sinful human co…

Read More

New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists

…lic, and hailed from economically successful families. Their families were free during the antebellum period, and they were politically active. Their séance records are utterly fascinating. Nearly all the communications were recorded in French, and messages arrived from Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Brown, Montesquieu, Robert E. Lee, Confucius, Robespierre, George Washington, Jesus and Toussaint Louverture. And that’s an abbreviated li…

Read More

RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?

…acknowledges climate change, for example, but he is a fierce proponent of free markets—and so ideologically rigid that it is difficult to imagine him getting behind the kinds of solutions that could address what needs to be done. Similarly, he is so fiercely antigay, and supports African political and religious leaders who advocate criminalization of homosexuality, that it is difficult to imagine that the HIV/AIDS work for which he receives such…

Read More

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

…hat is political, but respectful of the constitutional limits on religious freedom. It has correctly taken the position that public policies established to serve the common good require a clear and narrow definition of what is and what is not a religion. We do not just abandon the common good to unexamined claims that a public health or education provider is required by faith not to comply.  We are prepared to give an actual religion an almost fre…

Read More