Religion Dispatches
…riously interested in American history and culture. It doesn’t propose any policy solutions to the problems of mass incarceration or extralegal detention. I hope it shows some of the reasons why these problems are so deep and so difficult. Will it piss anybody off? I don’t mind. What alternative title would you give the book? My original title was The Meaning of Solitude, but the book expanded to address a broader range of questions, and now that’…
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…s behind closed doors,” said Harsh Voruganti, Associate Director of Public Policy at HAF. “We had hoped that the Indian Supreme Court would have upheld the lower court’s progressive decision.” More from a press release: “The essential core of Hindu teachings is that an individual’s value is not based on his or her sexual orientation, but on one’s ability to transcend the body, senses, and ego,” said Swaminathan Venkataraman, HAF’s Director of Indi…
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…rch Institute is out with a new poll that shows widespread support for the policy, based on the most lucid and accurate question on the matter. PRRI asked the question this way: should employers “be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception or birth control at no cost?” PRRI broke down the question for different types of employers, a methodology that gets to the heart of the various ways the opponents of b…
Read More…umber of pedophilia cases in the Church. The Vatican issued a long overdue policy Monday that bishops must report sex abuse cases, but it did not impose a zero tolerance policy similar to what is in place in the U.S. Focus on the Family was for the possibility of a gay Supreme Court nominee before they were against it. Televangelist Joyce Meyer condemned the Uganda Anti-Gay Bill despite her similar condemnation of homosexuality. In Nepal, more you…
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…ugh in relations between Russia and the US is about occur.’” In an email exchange, Rob Boston, Editor of Church & State, spoke about this connection between Russian operatives and the religious right. America’s homegrown theocrats are increasingly looking to Russia and other authoritarian former East Bloc nations as models for the United States. These countries tend to be homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic. They’re often run by quasi-dictator…
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…strong policy. But frankly, almost all the major faith bodies have strong policy positions on immigration reform and economic justice (see “What Faith Groups Say About Immigration Reform” [PDF]). From 2007 to 2010, the national Advocacy and Witness staff of the UUA compiled a database of more than 300 UU congregations engaged in education, advocacy and organizing around immigrant issues, created educational resources, and posted both educational…
Read More…ney or President Barack Obama about torture during Monday night’s “foreign policy debate”—but someone should have. Because recently disclosed Romney campaign documents are raising new questions about the candidate’s position, and the recent appointment of a Spokane, Washington LDS bishop who in his professional life as a psychologist pioneered so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” after 9/11 has raised new questions about whether Mormonism…
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…Just as the demise of Christianity within America is linked to government policy, so too are conspiratorial controls over the democratic system in the country. Government policy in support of culture war issues are signs of the progression of a “global power structure” that will end Christianity in America, and through the lens of millennialism bring forth the ultimate battle between good and evil. The mainstreaming of the idea that we’re on the…
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…ated in the 1960s, tweaked in ’94, and it’s not a 21st-century immigration policy. So it would have been really nice if they could have stood in line, but there’s no line. There’s no way. Sometimes I talk about how our economic policies in Latin America have created forced migration, principally because of the change in the value of crops and the capacity to make your living on the land—which is what people had done for centuries in Mexico and Lat…
Read More…ading some to worry that evangelical missionaries could end a decades-long policy of non-contact with isolated tribes. Although Campbell’s missionary misadventure pales in comparison to the broader national changes threatening indigenous communities, several tribes have been outspoken about how infringement on their constitutional rights represents a challenge to their survival. In a letter to the president, representatives from the Aruak, Baniwa,…
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