Religion Dispatches
…eveloping charismatic and photogenic representatives of the lifestyle they promote. To this end, VF creates a beautiful glossy catalogue populated with high quality photographs of [the] Phillips children and friends in romantic historic costumes and settings: Jamestown, the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, and the Wild West. In these images, and generally in the literature and stories of Vision Forum, gender roles are greatly exaggerated and glamorized…
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…to make sure this predator was not around children. No one challenged the code of deference to those higher up and obedience to the rule of secrecy. Now we have “the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in Church history,” declares the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial. The New York Times, which broke the story of abuse at the deaf school in Wisconsin, quotes a priest in Berlin as saying the crisis is “the worst in 100 yea…
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…christ. The fact that the US Postal Service assigned “666” as Topeka’s zip code prefix the year I was born underscored my destiny as ultimate evil; even if Phelps said that about all homosexuals. Phelps is currently making his case about homosexuality to the US Supreme Court in Snyder v. Phelps. Legal scholars think the case is about First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion; military families think it’s about honoring our war dead; and many…
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…us freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance,” wrote Martin R. Castro, Chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, in his closing remarks on the commission’s recent 300-page report on “Peaceful Coexistence” between nondiscrimination principles and civil liberties. “Religiou…
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…funds personally. (It’s not entirely clear whether she can meet the dress code, once she were to arrive, however.) Shrouding Sexual Titillation and Drooling Voyeurism with the Patina of Beauty and Virtue One commenter on the Miss USA site, a budding theologian identified only as “CF,” asserted that it was obvious that God intended heterosexual sex only, based on anatomy and electricity (not election). CF likened male-female intercourse to pluggin…
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…l from Alabama’s Supreme Court—twice. While there is a clear hierarchy and code of judicial ethics for state and federal judges, no such restrictions are placed on Senators. It’s exceedingly rare (though not unheard of) for a Senator to be removed from office by colleagues for some kind of ethical or procedural breach. This reality only adds to the motivation for Moore to stick with the schtick that got him elected, and which demonstrably appeals…
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…mpartiality and integrity are ethical commandments for federal judges. The Code of Conduct for United States Judges lays out ethical canons. Canon #1 says that judges must uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary. Canon #3 requires that judges perform their duties fairly, impartially, and diligently. For no credible reason the Supreme Court has no written ethics rules; its unwritten rules ought to be the same. In their desperation to…
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…Plants? As Brunk and Coward are careful to point out, no religion or moral code is monolithic. Expert scholars may hold different views than lay practitioners of a particular faith. Throughout the book, lay adherents and expert interpreters alike offer perspectives on how GM foods intersect with their religious and ethical dietary traditions. Each author conducted additional focus groups among their respective discipline or tradition. In Lyne Lét…
Read More…s comments, I note that he didn’t use the phrase “Stupak amendment” and only made vague references to “strong feelings on both sides” and that the final House bill didn’t preserve the “status quo.” What Obama would be satisfied with as preserving the “status quo” (code for no federal funding for abortions) is unclear — and more to the point, what he would be willing to capitulate to is equally unclear. This morning, Rep. Stupak postured that there…
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…e, especially if they come from a background with a strict religious/moral code and a bend toward evangelicalism, is not only reasonable but necessary and in no way suggests that a specific faith practice should be disqualifying. As Geoffrey Stone and Eric Segall noted in the New York Times: …asking a nominee about her strong faith, and whether she can put her religious views aside when deciding cases that implicate those views, is nowhere close t…
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