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Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

…st-century Christians, a people under siege, the authors used allegory and coded language to convey a message of hope to believers and to protect authors from certain death at the hands of their oppressors. The author of Revelations suggests readers may not understand the severe trials and tribulations of their time, but reminds them that Jesus teaches in Christ all is well. Where Revelations was, “once seen as encouragement to have faith,” Schlin…

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Does “Religious Freedom” Deserve Scare Quotes?

…the very least, the clearly coordinated and targeted effort to rebrand the freedom to discriminate as “religious freedom” meets the Oxford English Dictionary’s criteria for the use of scare quotes (emphasis mine): Quotation marks used around a word or phrase when they are not required, thereby eliciting attention or doubts. Increased attention and elevated skepticism are precisely what is required of claims that suggest “religious freedom” cannot…

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Roy “10 Commandments” Moore Doesn’t Want to Reform the Senate, He Has a Higher Calling

…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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Trump’s Nominee to Fill RBG’s Seat Is Unfit. By Definition.

…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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GMO or No: Problematic Intersections of Religion, Biotechnology, and Food

…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…

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Op-Ed: The Real Muslims?

…details, and it is always difficult for an outside observer to detect the coded messages of an in-group. (Think of the McCain campaign’s disturbing “The One” attack ad, which basically called Obama the Antichrist—but on a frequency that only evangelicals reared on apocalyptic conspiracy theories could pick up.) Chellew-Hodge quotes the following catechism from an evangelical organization: 1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, au…

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UNESCO on Religion, Culture and SOGI in Asia; Orthodox Family Sues to Stop Cremation of Israeli Trans Woman; Struggles of Iraqi Queer Activists; Global LGBT Recap

…dentifiable group” protected by the hate speech provisions of the Criminal Code. Catholic Church: Francis who? U.S. Bishops stick with culture war political priorities Despite widespread expectations that Pope Francis’s focus on poverty and the environment might influence the political priorities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, the bishops approved a “Faithful Citizenship” guide for 2016 that continues making the U.S. hierarchy’s polit…

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How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

…words, as Nones. The economists involved in this study focused on the zip code where a clergy sex scandal had occurred. They found a “large and statistically significant effect” on charitable contributions in those zip codes after a scandal, and not only to Catholic-based charitable organizations. The researchers theorize that perhaps once a person stops attending church, the social pressure to be charitable declines. Interestingly, however, thes…

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When Mormons Mobilize: Anti-Gay Marriage Prop. 8 Effort ‘Outed’?

code (or “ward”-level) supervisors for grassroots campaigning. One LDS zipcode supervisor reported that the Mormon Church was “the only member of the Protect Marriage coalition” to participate in the Yes on 8 ground campaign. On August 16, the Yes on 8 ground-campaign began its voter-identification phase, with a reported 15,000–30,000 Mormon precinct walkers knocking doors each weekend in August to identify “yes,” “soft yes,” “undecided,” “soft n…

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Express? It’s the Straight Talk Script

…s. The man with no religious record to speak of has virtually been given a free pass by his own party’s evangelical base—however lukewarm their support—and the man with a religious record of some depth has been paying for it on a regular basis. Senator Obama is faulted for going to the wrong churches, hearing the wrong sermons, possessing the wrong religious convictions. And all the while, John McCain, unquestionably a man who has sacrificed and s…

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