Search for "cheap airline tickets to newark nj from omaha ne phone number 1-800-299-7264"

UPDATED: Oklahoma Personhood Bill Not Dead…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…rom Oklahomans for Life began circulating a discharge petition: a bit of maneuvering which, if signed by enough legislators, would have forced a floor vote over the objections of the Speaker and Floor Leader. Well, how well do you think that endeared the bill’s supporters to the party leadership? I suppose one has to consider the possibility that Speaker Steele and Floor Leader Dewitt are superhuman in their charity. Perhaps Speaker Steele was utt…

As New Poll Finds “Increased Xenophobic Streak,” Republicans Heighten Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

By Sarah Posner

…r the prospect that someone with this ideology could be the Republican nominee, one might do well to take note of another PRRI finding: that the people reporting the most enthusiastic interest in the presidential campaign are conservative Republicans. Only 40 percent of moderate and liberal Republicans, 43 percent of Democrats, and 35 percent of independents reported being “very interested” in the 2016 campaign, compared to 61 percent of conservat…

Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…fore the anticipated floor fight. Well, there was a fight, but SB-1433 was never heard, and now the deadline has expired. In the aftermath, it seems to me that two factors contributed to the bill’s defeat: 1) Deep disagreement, between the personhood movement and more mainstream pro-life Oklahoma voters and legislators, on the advisability of amendments to the bill; and 2) The development of ill will between the personhood lobby and the Republican…

Magic in the Air: How Intellectuals Invented the Myth of a Mythless Society

By Jason Josephson Storm

…ly premonitions. After a number of the patrons had shared such anecdotes, one Japanese man asked me, curiously, if these sorts of things didn’t go on in America. Before I could answer (and describe America’s own enchantment), a European patron jumped in, assuring everyone that Japan was much more spiritual and magical than the West. He looked to me to confirm the sentiment, which I did my best to refute. But that reflexive response reinforced in m…

Gen Z’s Religious Affiliation Stats Are Confusing … But Only When Viewed From a Christian-Centric Perspective

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…tive dissonance forces us to notice the many other practices we use to define religiousness: by the family that we were born or raised in, by what kind of prayers we say, by the church we attend, or don’t. Which brings me to my second point. It’s Complicated. Even if we ask about practice instead of belief, the answers don’t do justice to the complexity with which most people “do” religion (or not). It’s easy to fall into authenticity traps when a…

Mormons Prepare to March in Seven LGBT Parades this Weekend

By Joanna Brooks

…sing and employment. While there are large carve-outs for church-related/owned businesses, the ordinances in SLC inspired a number of other Utah and Idaho towns and cities to follow suit and opened many conservative Mormon’s eyes to some problems they’d never before considered. – There have been no church-sponsored efforts aimed at mobilizing Mormons to fight same-sex marriage at the polls the way Mormons were mobilized in California in 2008, desp…

Census Reveals Gay People are Shockingly… Normal

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ng on to the lies being told by the religious right. Gay and lesbian people don’t want to “redefine” marriage—they want the same kind of marriage everyone else has, complete with kids, a dog, and a nice neighborhood. Weird, right?…

The “Mormon Moment” Yields… Not So Much

By Joanna Brooks

…ffering a positive word like “good,” or “honest,” increased from 18% in 2011 to 24% in 2012. All of these gains were concentrated among Republicans voting for Romney, naturally. Still, the number one word survey participants associated with Mormons? “Cult.” And fully 27% of survey respondents still have no idea what religion Mitt Romney is….

Will the Pope’s Woman Problem Alienate Young Catholics?

By Patricia Miller

…’s blind spots when it comes to women, fearing that they will perpetuate a number of injustices and lead to an exodus from the church—particularly among millennials. The forum, convened by Call To Action, Catholics for Choice, CORPUS and nine co-sponsors, was especially appropriate coming in the midst of a robust discussion of Pope Francis’ relationship to women in the Catholic Church. Writing in the American Prospect, Adele Stan argued that if Fr…

Trump is a Nightmare, Sure, But Can He Actually Do Anything?

By Sunnivie Brydum

…rve as checks and balances. Vanita Gupta, the former acting assistant attorney general who led the Department of Justice’s Office of Civil Rights from 2014 until this past January, stressed that agency guidance—like the DOJ’s religious freedom memos issued earlier this month—cannot unilaterally change existing law, only clarify it. “The guidances don’t articulate new law,” Gupta explained. But such guidance is intended to inform policy-making, and…