Religion Dispatches
…k titled The Change Manifesto which according to the Institute’s Faith and Freedom Newsletter, “reminds us” that despite talk by the “presidential candidates … about reducing taxes, lowering gas prices and reforming Social Security…. none of that will matter unless we first restore the rule of law and abide by the Constitution.” “We are on the cusp of a new era of progress, but we can’t sit back and hope our elected officials will carry us there….
Read More…view LGBT people—as purely sexual beings. Foster’s screed is simply a long promo for a new ex-gay movie coming out, and the trailer, three-minutes of nauseating footage, centers around how each of these former homosexuals lived their lives in clubs, engaging in cheap, easy, and often public sex, or were sexually abused. For all the claptrap the religious right yells about how they don’t want to think of us “that way,” the trailer for the film is p…
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…mor in the Syrian war frontlines, among other things. As a critical space, Free Arab should be commended for promoting individual rights and civil liberties in the Arab context. The site’s work is also significant because it tries to locate secularism as a vernacular practice, a lived experience in a part of the world exclusively defined by a narrow religiosity and a perpetual combative relationship with the West. The founders believe the remarkab…
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…Were the Russian Empire’s campaigns against the Ottomans into Georgia and Armenia similarly devoid of globalizing sympathies with fellow Christians? But, if we insist upon thinking that religion is only and always good, we will never entertain the way its social function to create identity can causes harm. And, that finally is something that we can be absolutely sure the mass media will never bring to the fore in its 24/7 onslaught of coverage of…
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…same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse young people.” In order to promote acceptance within these educational environments the resources are captioned with lines such as: “this is a discrimination free zone. Homophobia and transphobia will not be tolerated, K thanks” or “safe schools do better”. As well as posters, the scheme also aims to tackle improper language use – such as “that’s so gay” – by showing children how to use other phrases…
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…ed for our Parliament to legislate complex provisions protecting religious freedom and expanding the freedom to marry.” …“Given the increasing number of children being brought up by same sex couples, it is desirable that the state take away any social stigma against same sex parents. “Given the ageing population, the state has an interest in recognising and protecting long term relationships of same sex couples who care for each other. “Given the…
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…interests, for some this incident revealed that the people controlling the code have a lot of power. If one thinks that marketing agents put “Bible” in the code, then they might think of them as predatory, or presumptuous about U.S. Christians and their political affiliations. They might become angry that companies have such power in shaping the public’s perception of Christianity and, indeed, in shaping Christians’ own ideas about their communiti…
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…ement policies in respective regions or countries, and develop programs to promote religious freedom.” But given Brownback’s history of using “religious freedom” as a sword to discriminate against LGBT people, his nomination offers the strongest evidence yet that, when the Trump administration talks about “religious freedom,” it actually means “Christian supremacy.” Though Brownback an equal-opportunity excluder: the Council on American-Islamic Re…
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In Amsterdam in 1709, philosopher John Toland set his eyes upon a remarkable manuscript—what he described in Nazarenus as “a Mahometan [i.e., Muslim] Gospel, never before publicly made known among Christians.” Associated with the apostle Barnabas, the text essentially retold the life of Jesus in terms familiar from the New Testament, but with some major departures. It contended that Jesus denied his divine status; that he had predicted the coming…
Read More…rrible day I am having, that would constitute a violation of the unwritten code, perhaps creating a rather awkward situation. The same goes for religious speech and speech more generally. Although the First Amendment protects freedom of religion and speech, these rights don’t function abstractly; i.e. apart from a larger context that gives them meaning. For better or worse—and, to be clear, sometimes it is for the better, sometimes for the worse—a…
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