Religion Dispatches
…Act call, led by Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Joshua Dubois, Director of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, included Noel Castellanos of the Christian Community Development Association; Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, VA; Pastor Joel Hunter of Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood, Florida; and Pastor Rich Nathan of Vineya…
Read More…in the U.S. House of Representatives, calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “domestic enemy of the Constitution” at a health care reform town hall meeting. November 9, 2010—U.S. Representative-Elect Allen West of Florida’s 22nd Congressional District hires conservative radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman as his Chief of Staff. On July 3, Kaufman told a crowd of Tea Party supporters, “I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers d…
Read More…sther story as a cautionary tale about anti-Semitism, but rather one about domestic culture wars, or a cosmic clash of civilizations, they’d be unlikely to read Palin’s reference to blood libel as sympathetic to Jews. Instead, it was quite obviously an effort on Palin’s part to make her followers sympathetic to her, regardless of the other consequences of her words. What’s more, the Esther analogy is applied to Palin despite her very un-Esther-lik…
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…s allies continually employed when he attempted, as the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, to expand government’s ability to fund social services through direct grants to churches and other deeply religious groups. He depicted statutory and regulatory barriers that had, in the past, prevented such grants as unfair impediments to churches participating in the nation’s social-service fabric. Bush and his surrogates contended their efforts were atte…
Read More…ittee, had asked King to expand the probe to “a broad-based examination of domestic extremist groups regardless of their ideological underpinnings.” A coalition of interfaith and civil rights groups has denounced the hearings as divisive and McCarthy-esque. But for King, who believes 80% of American mosques are “controlled by radical imams,” and has ignored warnings from retired miltary brass and scholars at esteemed institutions like West Point t…
Read More…ibe it as one of their “signature issues”—but their “Get Informed” page on domestic adoption consists of a downloadable brochure on “steps to adoption,” a guide to tax implications of adoption, and links to agencies working in Rwanda. Last year I asked Warren’s PR firm for comment on how his congregation prepares adoptive families and never heard back. To give credit where it’s due, though, some groups at least try to prepare parents. In an interv…
Read More…then separately registered with her partner of 15 years under Wisconsin’s Domestic Partnership Law. She reported both actions to the church’s Wisconsin Annual Conference, the governing body for the church in the state, as part of her annual accounting of her ministry. I have not much to add to that. Historically, these church trials have not ended well for the defendants, even when the courts sympathize with them. The UMC’s Book of Discipline is…
Read More…a conservative lifestyle where fathers lead and women honor their highest domestic calling by becoming “prolific mothers” of “full quivers of children.” In service of that goal, Carlson, who has helped craft policy for ultra-right Senator Sam Brownback and Representative Lee Terry of Nebraska, hopes to involve the state in a pro-family welfare system, where tax laws encourage large families, and the government encourages a family-and-faith-center…
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…d face the consequences. This is only one theological argument for cutting domestic government spending. There are surely others, but all lead back to the premise of original sin. Whether we, the people of the United States, should accept that ancient doctrine as a foundation of our collective political life is the great question of our time. Unfortunately, it remains virtually undebated in public political discourse because its central role remai…
Read More…slims and for banning them from military service; claimed that gay sex is ‘domestic terrorism’; called gay adoption a ‘terrible, terrible, inexcusable, inhumane thing to do to children’; and claimed that Hitler and his stormtroopers were all gay.” All of this, and more, has been on display for public consumption for some time. That didn’t stop the Values Voters Summit from bestowing a prestigious award on Fischer’s boss, Don Wildmon, which deemed…
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