Religion Dispatches
…ose either secretly or overtly a Taliban-like, religious, strict religious code upon all Americans, which is ridiculous.” Honor killings, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, and other abuses are “un-Islamic,” he said, adding that there is “no debate among serious Muslim scholars about that.” As far as fear-mongering that that Muslims seek to supplant the Constitution with shari’ah, Khan noted, “there is room for individual religious pract…
Read More…s of the military, and that is protecting us from our enemies. The Uniform Code of Military Justice also prohibits things like adultery, so as we look at this slippery slope we’re on, what is the next step? Will we see a move to strike down that prohibition as well? Jackson and others speaking at the press conference also repeated the charge that repeal of DADT will cripple chaplains who will be forced to “water down their teachings” or perhaps ev…
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…asing endogenous opiates in the brain for pain relief. To these we can add new insights about how our mental states can influence our immune systems and regulate powerful hormones in our bodies. Too much mental stress, for instance, releases cortisol in our bloodstream—a powerful steroid that, over time, weakens our immune system. Psychosomatic effects are not really isolated in individual patients, as physicians tend to assume: a better term inst…
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…hey were not even aware he was gay. David’s sister called to make sure we knew that she knew and she supported us. She relayed that his mom was not admitting anything and continued to defend David to anyone who bothered her. His other siblings also messaged us to say that they were being harassed via telephone, in person, and social media… Why would this be such big news in Nigeria? I believe it is because the press still wants to vilify gay men a…
Read More…ics.” The Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart, reports Naith Payton at Pink News, asked that children in Catholic primary and secondary schools be asked to take a 15-page anti-marriage-equality document home to their parents along with a letter from Australian bishops entitled “Don’t Mess With Marriage.” Korea: Conservative Christians seek to prevent pride parade This week police in South Korea refused the Korea Queer Cultural Festival a pride para…
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…action. They would need to support the efforts of groups like the anti-war Code Pink that resorts to reason, empirical evidence and visibility to challenge U.S. development policies, or the Platform for the Movement for Black Lives, (one of the most advanced and inclusive political visions ever articulated), or the Fight for $15 movement that successfully campaigned to raise the minimum wage in many parts of the country. It would mean standing in…
Read More…who has spoken at tea party rallies and who claimed at Michele Bachmann’s Code Red rally against health care reform that health care reform was “against the law of nature and nature’s God” and “against the Judeo-Christian ethic that this nation was built upon.” Broden also appears in Maafa 21, a propaganda film that claims that reproductive rights are a conspiracy to commit “black genocide.” The film has been promoted by the Frederick Douglass Fo…
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…d blog post on the issue, he still wrote, “I think Planned Parenthood is a code name for baby-killing.” Someone who thinks like that is not someone liberals can work with. And what could be more delegitimizing than Republicans clearly demonstrating that they’re no longer dedicated to democratic norms, to protecting the federal bureaucracy from politicization, to fairness, to democracy itself? McConnell’s Senate Republicans pushed through the confi…
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…enured defense of guns. Andy Parker, father of Alison Parker, the Virginia news anchor who was murdered in August while reporting live, suggested that these invocations of prayers and positive thoughts are code words for deliberate political inaction by elected officials. The theological commentary on this shooting is what my grandmother would describe as “too heavenly minded and no earthly good.” These conversations about prayer reflect a graver…
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…cy in some detail for Religion Dispatches. To add a few more examples, the New York Times has established a permanent home for columnists like Ross Douthat, who warns of the “grim data” on declining religiosity. Rather than establish clearly what’s so grim about it, the article makes two seemingly contradictory accusations against people who’ve left the faith. First, Douthat warns of encroaching “scientism” which, in this context, is code for fail…
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