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Pro-Choice, Progressive Jewish Groups Weigh In On Kagan

I just got off the phone with Nancy Ratzen, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, who said the group would be issuing an endorsement of Elana Kagan later today. Ratzen, who said the NCJW has, since 2001, “engaged consistently on reviewing and taking positions and educating and mobilizing progressive Jewish community” on judicial nominations, said that the group would be working hard to see Kagan confirmed. “We think she has an except…

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Praying To The God Of The SUV

…d Security to acknowledge it can’t keep the state safe without God’s help. American Atheists Inc. sued in state court over a 2002 law that stresses God’s role in Kentucky’s homeland security alongside the military, police agencies and health departments. Of particular concern is a 2006 clause requiring the Office of Homeland Security to post a plaque that says the safety and security of the state “cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon almigh…

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Accused of Anti-Semitism, Trump Aide Makes Ancestry Appeal

…Jewish tradition, and still claim a Jewish identity. In a major survey of American Jews a few years ago, the Pew Research Center asked American Jews whether it was possible to still be Jewish if you accept Jesus as the messiah. Despite the matrilineal legal technicalities, a substantial majority said No. The larger point here is that ethnic identity is complicated. While some Jews are willing to understand Jewishness exclusively in ancestral term…

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Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t: The Problem of the Rape Exception

…es to the ‘aughties that number rose from 16% to 21%—more than one in five Americans.   Meanwhile the GOP has, since January, been busy trying to shrink the very definition of rape to only deem those who suffered “forcible rape” eligible to receive federal funding for an abortion. Forcible. Not statutory rape. These are the kinds of distinctions they find it crucial to draw. What, you thought they’d give up after the public outcry in February? Ah,…

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Mormons Prepare for WA Marriage Equality Fight

…asked them if the LDS Church was getting involved, and the staffer on the phone said, “We’re meeting with church leaders right this minute; they’re at lunch with Focus on the Family and [National Organization for Marriage-sponsored] Preserve Marriage Washington.” To this day, we don’t know whether it was local or general church leaders who met with Preserve Marriage Washington—we believe they were local leaders. But a reporter for the Boston Glob…

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Pentecostal Prayer Gangs: New Film Documents Religion in a Brazilian Prison

…es would talk to me and let me do interviews. There were times when I made phone calls to inmates’ family members to let then know that visiting times had changed, to save them a long trip to the prison. I also visited the families of inmates with pastors and other volunteers to bring food, sometimes a gift a child’s dad had made. I basically become part of the lives of the people whose lives I wanted to document. How did a project you undertook f…

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United Methodists Elect 1st Gay Bishop; Canadian Anglicans OK Same-Sex Marriage

…translation by Google] Juan Alberto Vazquez writes in Milenio.com that the number of cities in Mexico holding pride celebrations is booming, but that visibility and progress go hand-in-hand with continuing resistance, bullying, homophobia, and violence. Bosnia and Herzogovina: Anti-discrimination law protects LGBT and intersex people The House of People of the Parliamentary Assembly adopted amendments to the country’s anti-discrimination, includin…

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The “Marginalization” of Tim Keller: When Anything Short of Adulation Is Oppression

…ians like Tim Keller are unworthy of honor and deserve to be marginalized, American Christianity is in serious trouble. He kept using that word “marginalized,” but to quote Inigo Montoya, I don’t think it means what he thinks it means? He later walked back his eyebrow-raising choice via Twitter, saying different wording “might have been more appropriate.” But the blunder was evidence of a growing trend to cry “oppression” when the opinions of infl…

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Friending Pope Benedict on Facebook?

…n Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout this year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. H…

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Senator Ted Kennedy: A Catholic We Could Canonize

…d as kin by those who share their heritage, age, or religion. I remember a phone call with my doctor immediately after the election of Barack Obama. We were rejoicing at the victory and he, an African American, said, “You cannot believe what this means to my family.” For Catholics, the election of John F. Kennedy and the successful work for justice of the Kennedy brothers and sisters were grace moments of acceptance and vindication; balm on the wo…

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