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A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…hours and sometimes, daringly, a beer. Everyone showing up to help someone move house or bring casseroles to a mom down with nasty case of mastitis. We loved each other’s kids, too, and held them on our laps beside our own kids and listened to their jokes and sang “This Little Light of Mine” for hours of children’s church. “Don’t let Satan blow it out!” we sang with our wide eyes and serious smiles and we did this all for our children, our future,…

“Guerilla Warrior of Judeo-Christian Political Commentary” Stars in Anti-Newt Video in Iowa

By Sarah Posner

…chmann. Pastor Gordon, who previously supported former Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore before his presidential campaign fizzled, adds, “many Iowa conservatives don’t care who’s on top.” Update: Via Brian Tashman, some more background on Molotov: @sarahposner Molotov also made anti-choice terrorist movie bit.ly/j3zQlw & backed Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill youtube.com/watch?v=EmWdEx… — Brian Tashman (@briantashman) December8, 2011…

Joyless Primaries Grind On

By Joanna Brooks

…ed. There’s been nothing so dramatic to punch up the storyline as the anti-Mormon flare-ups we witnessed late last summer and fall. In fact, while evangelical Christians continue to opt for Santorum as the not-Romney, there is little solid data that isolates anti-Mormonism as the cause: region, social conservatism, and economic class also drive the narrative. As the race moves past Super Tuesday, the real story is the grind that the 2012 race is b…

Is Pro-Life Cause Célèbre Chen Guangcheng Actually Pro-Life?

By Lindsay Beyerstein

…s been trying to cut funding to the UNFPA for decades. Romney also favors defunding the UNFPA. The anti-abortion movement isn’t alone in its admiration for Chen. In a post on Feministing, one of the most influential feminist blogs on the web, Lori Adelman argued for a more precise label: “More apt than the whitewashed ‘human rights activist’ label he’s been given in the news is ‘reproductive rights activist’ and perhaps even ‘feminist.’” “The worl…

A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now?

By Tom Bartlett

…e else wondered if it might be seven days considering that seven is a holy number, or forty, the same amount of time Noah was forced to sail around with a boatload of animals. When those deadlines passed, another narrative took shape. What happened was a test. God knew that believers would be mocked when He failed to return on the assigned date. Would believers hold firm or would they allow the jeers of the world to weaken their resolve? The Lord…

Mormons Prepare for WA Marriage Equality Fight

By Joanna Brooks

…and Scott Holley are LDS Church members and founding members of Washington Mormons for Marriage Equality. I spoke with them this weekend about the campaign season ahead. Everyone has been bracing to see what role the LDS Church takes in each state-level ballot fight over marriage equality. Tell us about Washington. Scott Holley: My wife and I moved from Massachusetts to Washington just a few weeks before gay marriage became legal in the state [in…

The Latest to Botch Mormonism: Garry Wills

By Joanna Brooks

…terpret, and apply the US Constitution. According to Wills, an 18-year-old Mormon student once told him that: “Like his fellow Mormons, he held that the Declaration of Independence is divinely inspired—in that sense, it is part of Mormon Scripture.” Except for the fact that it really isn’t part of Mormon scripture, either in doctrine or practice. Wills continues: The young man was learning Portuguese, to do his missionary year in Brazil, for which…

400 Churchgoing Mormons March in SLC Pride Parade

By Joanna Brooks

…the Salt Lake City, Utah LGBT Pride Parade with the grassroots-organized “Mormons Building Bridges” group. From the beginning, Mormons Building Bridges founder and organizer Erika Munson, a straight, churchgoing LDS mother of five from Sandy, Utah, focused on one very simple message: that as followers of Jesus Christ, Mormons should show love to LGBT people. Munson sent word out across the Mormon grapevine, through email, phone, and Facebook, inv…

A Journalist in Church, Hiding in Plain Sight

By Andre Tartar

…t or point when belief becomes faith. Close enough, in fact, that when I recently grasped hands with a modern-day Apostle (as Valdemiro Santiago, miracle curer and head of Brazil’s World Church of God’s Power, proclaims himself), I momentarily implored God for a miracle for my mother, who six months ago survived the latest in a harrowing series of medical ordeals. With that little bit of prayerful business out of the way, I turned from the ecstati…

Pennsylvania Rep. Says Contraception Mandate Is Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

… the first things that popped into his mind were bodies, death, fire, and smoking twists of metal. Maybe he thinks that the only people who have ever experienced a truly grievous affront to their agency and well-being are these three groups: 1) victims of the Pearl Harbor attack; 2) victims of the 9/11 attacks; and 3) the boss who thinks Unitarian Stella from accounting shouldn’t be using birth control and by gum he’s not going to pay for a policy…