Search for "Alaska Airlines 800-299-7264 Customer Service Toll-Free Number"

Hungarian Mayor Wants to Import White Christians, Ban Muslims & LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…mple opposed exemptions allowing civil celebrants and businesses to refuse services to customers based on religious beliefs. Almost two-thirds – 65% – would oppose such exemptions if they were specific to same-sex couples. The committee report is expected to contain differences on issues of religious freedom and whether it is reasonable to allow conscientious objections to same-sex unions. Honduras: LGBT activist seeks to become first openly LGBT…

Kagan: Establishment Clause Is “Hard”

By Sarah Posner

…s that there needs to be some “play in the joints.” There needs to be some freedom for government to act in this area without being subject to a claim from the other side – some freedom for government to make religious accommodations without being subject to Establishment Clause challenges, and some freedom on government’s part to enforce the values of the Establishment Clause without being subject to Free Exercise claims. That’s not to say how an…

Sex Buys the Pulitzer Prize

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…e commercials and stay up until the last segment of the news. Sex sells. A free society needs a free press, of that the Founders were certain. Investigative reporting is the true fifth column, a crucial further “check and balance” on the relentless consolidation of power in the electronic age. But with increasingly scarce resources, isn’t it important that investigative reporters are working to save lives, both at home and abroad, rather than titi…

Missing the Forest for the Witches

By Joseph Laycock

…an religion, Wicca, or new religious movements. In addition to the obvious free speech issues involved in Internet censorship, The ACLU argues that Netsweeper privileges Christian perspectives by categorizing minority religions as “occult” and “criminal skills.” Visitors to the Salem Library cannot, for example, access the Wikipedia page on Wicca, though they’re free to read the Catholic Encyclopedia’s page on Paganism. By banning the categories i…

Founder of Liberal Mosque in Germany Under Guard After Death Threats; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…his year’s Pride celebration in Bogotá chose as its theme, “Secular State, Free Beings.” According to Sentiido, “It is a way of remembering that Colombia’s Political Constitution respects and protects freedom of worship, but does not support that some religious and conservative leaders try to have the law sanction what is sin for them.” (Translation by Google.) Church of England: Synod rejects conversion therapy; conservatives angered by invitatio…

Rebuilding the Wall of Separation: A Progressive Discussion on Church & State

By Bruce Ledewitz

…ar. When Thomas Jefferson first proposed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1777, he stated that this right of individual conscience must be extended to everyone, including: “the Jew, the Mohametan, and the Hindoo.” Jefferson was not arguing the demographics of majority and minority religions, but first principles. It took time to advance them, even then. James Madison as governor of Virginia managed to push Jefferson’s bill through the…

The Cynical Use of “Freedom of Religion”

By Kate Childs Graham

…mendment. ADF considers the restriction a violation of a church’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Pulpit Initiative White Paper states: The prohibition also violates the free exercise of religion. Under the Free Exercise Clause, laws are closely scrutinized by courts when they discriminate against religion or when they substantially burden religious exercise and other constitutional rights are also at stake… When the IRS th…

Capricology: Tattoos, Blood, Cyber-Dating

By Anthea Butler

…m the car so that it can not exceed the speed limit and you take away that free will, except for those who have the capacity to hack the code and reprogram the car. We normally think of robots as almost pure code, yet the scene last week when Graystone orders the Zoebot to rip off her arm raises some interesting stakes in this. It seems to me that people may be treating the Cylons differently depending on what mix of code and law they believe gove…

A ‘Vows’ Piece in ‘The Times’ Shows How Doctrinaire Christian Celibacy Has Become Compared to its Ancient Roots

By Joseph Amar

…y. Ephrem reminded Covenanters that foregoing sexual intimacy was meant to free them from themselves, not create a privileged class of Christians. ‘Without good deeds,’ he bluntly affirmed, ‘sexual renunciation is worthless.’ Ephrem’s insights could be arrestingly prescient. He warned that if celibacy were to become institutionalized in the church, it could result in great harm. Ambitious churchmen, he said, might use it as a stepping stone to pri…

McCullen v. Coakley and the Meaning of Protests

By Sarah Posner

…a young woman she cajoled away from Planned Parenthood with a promise of a free pregnancy test. The buffer zone cases really aren’t about free speech, they are about the evolving nature of protest in the anti-choice movement. In this evolution, the protest (“the act of objecting or a gesture of disapproval“) has been portrayed as “compassion,” with words that can only accurately be described as meddling portrayed as “caring.” But it is still a fo…