Religion Dispatches
…is running against House Democratic incumbents Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8), Betsy Markey (CO-4), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1), John Boccieri (OH-16), and Tom Perriello (VA-5). In a press release about the $125,000 ad buy, FRC highlighted its campaign against Perriello, a Democrat representing a swath of central and southwest Virginia who was once considered a poster child for the Democrats’ faith outreach. After helping to launch Catholics in Alliance…
Read More…orth Vietnam, the way he turned to the thought of his fellow captives, the code of honor of the US military, to the Constitution itself, one never hears that he turned to his God, or to prayer. I do not suggest that he ought to have done, of course. I simply note that this absence is glaring, and his religious silence is deafening. That is what made the appearance of both men together on the bizarre political platform of a Baptist church all the m…
Read More…uired to solemnise same sex marriages, and continues to regard marriage as between one man and one woman, the advent of same sex marriage, widely supported across the political spectrum, creates an acute divergence between the church’s teaching on marriage and the civil law of the land. “It is likely that the ease with which same sex marriage was accepted in Parliament reflects a more general social move away from the church’s traditional understa…
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…which was not affected by the bill, continues to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. According to Estonia Public Broadcasting, former justice minister Kristen Michal said, “Estonia is very small. There are too few people for building walls between neighbors.” BuzzFeed’s Lester Feder notes that the law, if enacted, would make Estonia the first former Soviet country to recognize same-sex partnerships. Although the bill does not esta…
Read More…, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” As always, since intelligent design was ruled unconstitutional in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the introduced bills rely on such creationist code words as “teaching the controversy,” “academic freedom,” or “critical analysis.” However, in the case of Florida, the bill’s sponsoring lawmaker Rep…
Read More…ts civil unions. “I’m going to nursing school now, and part of the nursing code is to be nonjudgmental,” Smith said. “In hospitals, if a same-sex partner couldn’t visit or get information about their partner’s health? I just think that’s wrong.” With election season right around the corner, the “value voters” in Iowa agree with those who huddled in DC this past weekend – there are more important things to worry about than what the gay couple up th…
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…es of social injustice may be at times interrelated (i.e. the relationship between racism and classism, or the cultural connection between sexism and homophobia), they are still distinguishable and historically contingent. Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ageism, etc., are all independent categories. We know that white women can fight against male hierarchy even as they ignore their own complicity in terms of racial stratification. And middle…
Read More…America. But speakers at today’s press conference suggested the church has better options. “Surely Archbishop Oscar Romero is a more worthy candidate for the Hispanic peoples of the Americas,” said Norma Louise Flores, author of a MoveOn.org petition opposing the canonization. Steven Newcomb, co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, connected…
Read More…lthy gays and lesbians want to end our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinners they are.” As a Christian, who just also happens to be a lesbian, I take offense at this continuing campaign on the religious right to promote this false dichotomy of gays vs. God. No one in the gay and lesbian community wants to curb anyone’s “religious freedom.”…
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…y of white supremacy and racism in this country are demonized, the divides between “good” and “evil” become more extreme and more prone to promoting violence against those deemed “threats” according to whatever “moral” or “family” values Christians think they’re upholding. No matter how amorphous the belief system, this vague notion of “Christian nationalism” based on “Christian values” still upholds white heteropatriarchal supremacy, with the pot…
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