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Religious Discrimination and the Violence Against Women Act

By Sarah Posner

…tatutory protections against religious discrimination or to create a broad free exercise right to receive government grants without complying with applicable regulations that protect taxpayers.” Last year, civil liberties groups lobbied hard to have a non-discrimination provision included in VAWA. The resulting statutory language reads: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin…

The Blockbuster Spirituality of John Green’s “The Fault In Our Stars”

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…ably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it—or my observation of it—is temporary? Here it is, a cosmology for our times: a passive yet hopeful plea to a vast, personified universe. In the book, Hazel’s father credits this inspiration to a college professor. In interviews, Green credits it t…

Pope Calls Out “Bad Shepherds” as Conservatives Prepare to Fight Change

By Patricia Miller

…riage policy would undercut other positions related to sex. Kasper also accused conservatives of having “an ideological understanding of the Gospel that the Gospel is like a penal code.” The hardliners on divorce were backed by an open letter to the synod signed by 48 conservatives, including prominent Catholics like natural law scholar Robert George and former US ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon, but also conservative protestants like…

Russian Multimillionaire Makes Peace with Anti-Christ Milk

By Joseph Laycock

…ndoff with Russian authorities, barricading themselves within a bunker because they believed that barcodes on food packaging are Satanic. In a statement, Christian dairy tycoon Boyko-Veliky explained the crosses: Russian Milk is forced to place bar codes on its packaging, as without this, we will only be able to sell our goods at farms, not in stores. . . . By placing the cross on the bar code, we want to demonstrate our stance: We are with our Lo…

Australian Prime Minister, Church Leaders Resist Marriage Push; South Korea’s Anti-Gay Christians Block Pride Parade; Morocco Arrests Men for ‘Obscene Act’ of Kissing; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…that there had been calls for the judges to resign after they “ruled the abuser’s acts should not be considered ‘gravely dangerous’ in legal terms because the boy already ‘was making a precocious choice’ of his sexuality, an apparent reference to homosexuality.” Cambodia: LGBT magazine debuts NCB News’s Kristi Eaton reported from Phnom Penh this week on Q Cambodia, a print magazine directed at LGBT people and their allies, the first in “a country…

Justice v. Revenge: The Question Beneath the Question of Prison Reform

By Xarissa Holdaway

…rent. Justice is meant to be impersonal, balanced, and fair to both the accuser and the accused. Revenge is red-blooded, vindicating, even pleasurable: think of the phrases “sweet revenge” and “just desserts.” When we have been wronged, our inclination is to blame and punish out of all proportion to the offense, reacting with what Locke called “the passionate heats” of our will. There’s some evidence that even thinking about revenge activates the…

Rage Against the New Age Machine: Three Days at the Osho International Meditation Resort

By Diane Winston

…not have AIDS, a lengthy registration and payment. Although Osho’s guesthouse and “multiversity” accept credit cards, the registrar requires cash for the resort’s day passes, food and other amenities. Discovering that I lacked the rupees to cover the class’ costs, a serene blonde volunteer taxied me to an off-campus cash machine. Each time the ATM refused my request, my adrenaline surged. I knew Citibank could be unreliable, but why was a peace-a…

Brits Get A Dose of Christian Nation Politicking

By Sarah Posner

…ther religious faiths, too.” (Like the Prime Minister using his office to promote his Christian faith.) But then Cameron reveals his politician’s circumspection, arguing on the one hand that advocates of “secular neutrality fail to grasp the consequences of that neutrality, or the role that faith can play in helping people to have a moral code.” That accusation is abruptly followed by the disclaimer that “[o]f course, faith is neither necessary n…

On the 20th Anniversary of Waco

By Kate Blanchard

…never be discovered embezzling money, enjoying kinky sex, or (The Da Vinci Code notwithstanding) fathering surprise children. It’s not necessary to label something a “cult” to understand the potential peril involved in looking to a living guru. However honest and virtuous that guru might be, she—like the rest of us—is susceptible to tripping and falling right up until the day she dies. What makes some folks willing and able to trust in a charismat…

Inventing “Jihad”

By Asma Afsaruddin

…lding, and the need was soon felt in official and certain legal circles to promote the military jihad as a religiously meritorious activity. This is precisely what happened during the expansion of the Islamic empire after the death of Muhammad during the late seventh and eighth centuries of the Common Era. Certain hawkish scholars, starting already in the late seventh century, framed Realpolitik concerns focused on security and territorial expansi…