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Conservative Catholic Elites Oppose Trump… as He Rides Catholic Vote to Victory in Michigan

…?) And who were similarly silent when the party tried to capitalize on the coded racism of the anti-Obama forces in 2012 or upend the Affordable Care Act, even though the Catholic Church has been advocating for universal health care since Model Ts were on the road. And it’s even funnier that those who helped put Bush and Cheney in office and watched as they led the nation into endless, unwinnable wars, and justified torture to prevent an ever-pres…

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Corporate Personhood Was a Radical Notion… In the 11th Century

…ligious freedom. In the terms of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, these corporations are called “churches,” their “integrated auxiliaries,” and “conventions or associations of churches,” where churches are defined as a “subset of IRC 501(c)(3) organizations organized and operated for religious purposes.” Necessarily, such entities are artificial or fictive persons under the law, subjects capable of claiming rights and bearing respon…

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“Freedom” vs. “Liberty”: Why Religious Conservatives Have Begun to Favor One Over the Other

…y groups on the religious right have latched onto “religious liberty” as a code for this particular sensibility. To be sure, these groups also routinely appeal to religious freedom. But, as recent linguistic shifts have shown, the word liberty brings something extra to the table. “When people talk about religious freedom, they may be talking about the right of everybody to practice their religion, or the right to refuse service to people whose sex…

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Religious Freedom Org Sticking By Trump Clinging to SCOTUS Nominations

…the U.S. Constitution. Among those ready to contort themselves into Trump promotion machines at any cost is the right-wing Liberty Counsel, which describes itself as a Christian legal nonprofit, “dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Liberty Counsel is an anti-LGBT hate group, and a quick scan of the organization’s client roster reads like a who’s-who of elec…

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Santorum’s War on Satan… er, on Higher Education

…in 100 years.” It isn’t a stretch to say that his invocation of “truth” is code for conservative Christian dogma; his real problem with Harvard—and academia in general—is that its scholars do not defer to such dogma. But there’s no need to stretch as Santorum explicitly linked higher education to the work of Satan in a 2008 speech (which has recently gone viral) at Florida’s Ave Maria University. The intimate connection between these views and his…

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Racial Justice and Queer Masculinity: The Gospel of Frank Ocean

…iptures, Job cries, There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast, and take as a pledge the infant of the poor. They go about naked, without clothing; though hungry, they carry the sheaves; […] From the city the dying groan, and the throat of the wounded cries for help; yet God pays no attention to their prayer. Considering the name of the track, a Job-like bleakness permeates Ocean’s “Nights” where he cries, Shooters killing left an…

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Before Breitbart: How Right Wing Media Transformed American Politics

…ividing line at National Review. In 1964 long-time contributing editor Max Eastman published a piece in the magazine asking if atheists could be conservatives. Buckley answered with a resounding “no,” and Eastman left the magazine shortly thereafter. But honestly, these conservative media figures run the gamut when it comes to religion. Rusher rarely had much to say on the matter. Human Events grew out of a Quaker devotion to pacifism that soon di…

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Thoughts from the “Bad Hombre” Debate

…emocracy look like on the other side of this election? It seems clear, at least, that our Trump hangover will be with us long beyond November. Trump has virtually no chance of winning, but after months of decrying “the media” and “the system” as rigged, he used the final debate as an opportunity to announce that he’ll have to decide, when the time comes, whether or not he’ll honor the results of the election. Let that sink in. Now remember that it…

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Will a New Dawkins Foundation-Sponsored App Help Atheists Talk to Believers?

…nality.’” Of course, Richard Dawkins himself wasn’t sitting around writing code and coming up with reasonably civil responses to hypothetical religious proclamations for Atheos (although some less famous but equally antagonistic thinkers like David Silverman did contribute to the app’s content). And for many atheists, even those not prone to Dawkins’ venomous outbursts against religious people, his name lends the app credibility. He remains a figu…

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Does “Religious Freedom” Deserve Scare Quotes?

…eligious ceremony. But modern iterations of this type of legislation (See: Indiana, Arkansas, Mississippi) have changed the RFRA game. This new framework shifts RFRA’s intent from remedying an actual injury, to instead serve as an enforcement mechanism for the socially conservative understanding of law and, most crucially, sexual morality. (The question around what extent Congress should be legislating our bedroom behavior is another beast entirel…

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