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DADT Repeal and DREAM Defeat: A Failure of Evangelical Influence?

By Sarah Posner

…AM Act, and voted, finally, to repeal the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on gays and lesbians in the military. Viewing today as a microcosm of religious political activism, these two votes caused me to wonder: do elected officials give a damn what religious activists have to say? Let’s take DREAM first: there was a pretty wide coalition of religious activists who supported DREAM and brought their message to the Hill. The activists include…

Want to Know What Public Education Would Look Like Under Project 2025? Just Take a Look at Oklahoma

By Andrew L. Seidel

…Project 2025’s emphasis on personnel, even quoting the axiom “personnel is policy” in the first substantive note in the 900+ page playbook. Project 2025’s plan for public education includes “sunsetting the U.S. Department of Education altogether” (a goal Trump echoed during his August 12 Twitter conversation with Elon Musk, when he vowed to “close the Department of Education”). That would pave the way to make every state’s public education as woef…

C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with Jeff Sharlet

By Bill Berkowitz

…the economic crisis, Afghanistan and other issues, and how do they affect policy? The Family would say that it doesn’t do policy, and in the strictest sense, that’s correct. For years, the confidential memos the Family prepared for members of Congress involved with the group emphasized that the “prayer cells” were not to take action as prayer cells. Rather, boilerplate at the top of every memo read, action should grow out of the relationships fo…

Resisting the “New Normal” of Parasitic Capitalism in the Two Americas: The Religious Imperative

By Peter Laarman

…ors be averted to unjust suffering, and (not least) to expose those who perpetrate and benefit from injustice, along with the complicit civil rulers (politicians) and the compliant priests whose connivance only adds to the injustice. Not that a true prophet takes any pleasure from the duty of calling oppressors and their enablers to account. Knowing that such calling out will inevitably stir enmity and resentment, the prophet makes it clear that s…

Islam=Peace: What’s in a Slogan?

By Brie Loskota

…ng factors that are important to understand, so that we can begin to craft policy solutions to problems too often ignored or treated reductively by the policy community as simply religious, tribal or cultural.” Read as part of a larger in-house movement to reassert the soul of Islam and push back against the forces of extremism, this bumper sticker had new meaning for me. And I realized that I had cynically underestimated its power. Photo credit:…

Equally Blessed: Wear a Rainbow Ribbon to Mass

By Alex McNeill

…n change policies from there. What are the biggest obstacles in the way of policy change in the Catholic church? With LGBT issues, the greatest obstacle is silence, though the obstacles run the gamut from silence to violence. By breaking the silence, even in small ways, we are planting the seeds of change. What’s next? The ultimate goal is to have a Catholic church that accepts and respects all of its members. LGBT people and youth are definitely…

Supreme Court: Law School Christian Group Can’t Exclude Gays

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…tyle,‘” was refused an exemption from the law school’s anti-discrimination policy, which includes sexual orientation, in order to gain that recognition. The Court ruled 5-4 that the college’s decision did not violate the group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech, and free exercise. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority: In requiring CLS—in common with all other student organizations—to choose between welcoming all stu…

Are the Girls Scouts Evil? And What About Thin Mints?

By Patricia Miller

…anization ginned up by conservatives associated with the Ethics and Public Policy Center and given credence by an “investigation” by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. These charges boil down to the organization’s membership in the World Association of Girl Guides and Girls Scouts (WAGGGS), which, according to the bishops, advocates for “so-called ‘sexual and reproductive health/rights’.” Conservatives are also upset because some local Girl…

That Not-So-Mystifying Rick Warren

By Sarah Posner

…ist” ideas conservatives revile, but that are in reality merely Democratic policy proposals to regulate the economy. Just today, on Twitter, Warren used 140 characters to make a completely unsubstantiated claim about the superiority of the church over government in helping the poor: The Church has helped the poor far more than any govt, & for 2000 yrs longer! In 2011 our 1 church fed 70,000 unemployed. — Rick Warren (@RickWarren) April 9, 2012 Let…

Homosexual Thoughts and Feelings Not a Sin, Says New LDS Handbook

By Joanna Brooks

Changes to LDS Church policy on homosexuality will be presented to LDS lay clerical leaders worldwide this Saturday, November 13. The changes are being introduced through a global leadership training satellite broadcast for the release of the newly revised Church Handbook of Instructions (CHI), a 400-page lay priesthood manual reserved for use by LDS Church members in local and regional lay leadership positions. Multiple advance copies of the CHI…