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The Gospel Church and the Ruining of Gay Lives: An Interview with Anthony Heilbut

By Douglas Harrison

…poor man’s psychoanalysis of a popular hymn book, and by his count, ninety-some of the hundred-odd tunes were, as he classified them, some kind of homoerotic meditation on love for a bleeding and beaten Jesus. Fascinating, because of his work with Gertrude Stein and fascinating because in 1941 Thomson did a piece on Utah Smith, who is this guitarist whom the white blues boys just love. His big hit was “Give Me Two Wings to Veil My Face.” Of cours…

Catholic Church Bans Gay Film: This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ivist Named Family Ombudsman Adrian Bukovynsky, who has supported a Russian-style anti-gay “propaganda” law, has been named the cabinet’s Ombudsman on Family Matters. As President of the ‘Family’ Ukranian Charitable Fund, Bukovynsky took part in a 2013 press conference in support of a ban on pro-gay “propaganda.” At the press conference he said “gay culture leads to the destruction of the world, and therefore we uphold and reflect the views of the…

Is Torture Utilitarian?

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…nt and as invisible as he has been since Inauguration Day. Justification-by-Numbers What is striking about the quality of this debate is that it is being conducted in strictly utilitarian terms. And that leads to some very bizarre moral reasoning. Utilitarianism is number-crunching, but of a very peculiar kind; in its crudest forms, it seems to imply that you can measure pleasure and pain, and that by maximizing the pleasure of the greatest number…

Why We Must Reclaim “Religious Freedom” from Christian Conservatives

By Bill Berkowitz

…is hell-bent on redefining it to the point where it no longer means what most reasonable people think it means. A more comprehensive and integrated discussion of the religious freedom strategy of the Christian Right is urgently needed. These things are often viewed from the heat-of-the-moment concerns about such matters as anti-LGBTQ discrimination and erosion of access to reproductive health services. I have never liked the term “culture war,” bu…

Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

…few articles about my experience in conversion therapy with Emerick in one-on-one meetings and about the time I attended one of his group meetings that was dubbed “Band of Brothers.” In response to my articles, I’ve received an overwhelming number of messages from other Liberty alumni who suffered, but survived, Emerick’s specious counseling. I reached back out to these men, some of whom agreed to share their experiences here. You will of course…

Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

By William E. Smith

…think for a minute about how same-sex marriage went from novel idea to law-of-the-land in just a few short decades. The ascent of same-sex marriage in the United States gained much (but not all) of its initial support from churches. Many local Universalist Unitarian (UU), Disciples of Christ, and United Church of Christ (UCC) congregations, and some Episcopal churches, for example, started blessing same-sex unions as far back as the 1970s, as wor…

Republicans “Evangelizing” Catholic Voters

By Patricia Miller

…aptist mega-church. Chris Christie who? By contrast, Jeb Bush’s brand of go-to-church-in-polo-shirts, cozy-up-to-powerful-bishops (who then turn a blind eye as you preside over a record number of executions) and occasionally make-noise-about-how-much-you-care-for-the-poor-as-you-gut-social-welfare-programs-type of Catholicism, as detailed by the New York Times, seems positively 20th century. The question now is whether, just as his brother used “c…

The Great Secret of Constitutional Law: Why Proposition 8 Will (and perhaps should) Be Upheld

By Bruce Ledewitz

…good at protecting our rights. Thus, the Supreme Court twice declared anti-flag-burning statutes unconstitutional as violations of the right of free speech. The courts also resisted Bush administration insistence that the War on Terror necessitated the abandonment of warrants for searches. The courts are also pretty good at defending long-held conceptions of checks and balances. For example, the Supreme Court blocked the executive seizure of the…

Awakening, Counter-Awakening, and the End of Church

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…xploring their spirituality in different ways.’ I think eventually a large number of those people will re-affiliate in some way, shape, or form—but when they do, the actual institutions of religion will be very different because of the demands those people make on new kinds of churches. I look at that whole arc of people who are leaving church because of the failure of the institution, and I don’t see that as threatening. I see that as a really ex…

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Overthink the New Pew Data’s Impact on Politics

By Sarah Posner

…than denominationally). They asked, “Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian, or not?” Thirty-five percent of all U.S. adults said yes to that question. That figure includes evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Orthodox Christians. What are the potential effects of these changes politically? Before you do your secularist victory lap, here are fi…