Religion Dispatches
…King was a Personalist: when distinguishing between moral laws and social codes, he believed (in theory at least) that dignity, respect, choice, equality, and subjectivity were the moral rights of all human beings. However, these rights were stymied by social codes, which led to all sorts of disparities, including but not limited to racial and economic injustice, which King argued were morally evil. Thus, King’s dream was a public censure of Amer…
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…. In most cases, the current laws on the books are the same colonial penal codes. Tunisia’s anti-sodomy laws are derived from the 1913 French Penal Code, while section 347 of the penal code in Christian Cameroon is a French colonial law. Similarly, the Ottoman adoption of French codes would ban the köçek. Across the Muslim world, many of the laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ people are direct relics of colonial law. It would take generations to gradually…
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…stential questions that have underwritten all the religions—and most civil codes of law—throughout human history: Who am I? What am I serving that will outlive me and carry my love and my work forward? How should I live so that when I look back on my life, whether a year or decades from now, I can honestly be glad I’ve lived the way I did? Theologians, ministers, and active congregants may say, correctly, that their religions still offer some resp…
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…s invoked by Catholic officials and physicians. When expanding the medical codes in 1948, Rev. Gerald Kelly, a Jesuit priest, told the Catholic Health Association that many non-Catholics would be “eager” to follow these ethical codes because they “pertain not merely to Catholic teaching but also to moral law.” The 1942 NFCPG resolution also declared that abortion and contraception were an affront, not just to the Catholic, but to the American fami…
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On January 1, Romania implemented new tax codes that, among other changes, added the occupation of “witch” to the nation’s labor codes. Those charging clients for tarot readings, curses, and blessings must now pay a 16 percent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programs. The ire of the witches, some of whom responded by performing rituals to hex the government, has become fodder for scores of offbeat news stories throughout t…
Read More…rmons and Latter-day Saints are expected to respect Mormon beliefs, Mormon codes of behavior, and Mormon missionary work as righteous, benevolent, beneficial and admirable. Simultaneously, everyone should share the mutual and tacit understanding that post-Mormon beliefs, post-Mormon codes of behavior, and post-Mormon missionary work are vulgar, divisive, harmful and shameful. If one wants to condemn “unneeded stress and pain” caused by intolerant,…
Read More…s. India: Materials targeting adolescents challenge gender stereotypes and promote respect The Health Secretary published materials designed to be used by adolescent peer educators on health issues. The materials aim to dispel gender stereotypes and promote relationships based on respect, reports Abantika Ghosh in The Indian Express: The legality of homosexuality may still be an open question for the judiciary and the Government is yet to change t…
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…s both the notion of “self” that the salvation myth of physical perfection promotes (i.e., Descartes’ sovereign, unencumbered, self-sufficient individual), and the more-better-faster culture the ideal body/self represents and serves. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? I’d say there are three main messages I’d like readers of Shameful Bodies to take to heart: First, body shame is not a natural response to being physically impa…
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…same Torah and commentaries, study the same Talmud, live by the same legal codes, and adhere to the same basic belief system. Yes, the haredim have a very narrow reading of these sources but it’s a safe bet that they can cite chapter and verse to support their views—often more adroitly than their modern counterparts. In his Mishneh Torah (Code of Law), Maimonides explicitly advocated the position that women should stay mostly in their homes. The k…
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…taken out of their ancient context and tacked onto existing Western civil codes and enforced by the government. That is not shariah, which has a sophisticated legal methodology of application. That’s just making up Islamic-sounding laws and calling it “shariah law.” The shariah-based legal system, which had operated for a millennium, was dismantled under Western colonization of Muslim lands, starting in the 18th century. Nearly 90% of Muslim land…
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