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Is Pro-Life Cause Célèbre Chen Guangcheng Actually Pro-Life?

By Lindsay Beyerstein

…Help From Beijing Born in a rural village in Shandong Province, Chen, who lost his sight as a child, nevertheless managed to teach himself Chinese law. He acquired a reputation as an advocate who was willing to go to court on behalf of his neighbors. He became aware that many of the women in his village were being forced to abort and undergo sterilization. In 2005 he exposed these coercive tactics. Forced abortions and sterilizations are illegal…

Mitt, the Marriotts, and Porn

By Joanna Brooks

…ernet technological and capacity innovation before the advent of the smart phone. And if we want to start a serious conversation about where presidential candidates get their money and how ethical that money is, let’s do it. I have a laundry list of labor, environmental, feminist, and human rights issues with multinational corporations I’d love to start working through. But don’t give me a thin, opportunistic connect-the-Mormon-dots story and pr…

War on Christmas Affirmed by Southern Baptist Convention

By Mark Gstohl

…offensive resolutions. I’ve done this since 1997 when I was awakened by a phone call from a Lutheran friend that began, “What’s with you Southern Baptists and Mickey Mouse?” I was unaware that the messengers voted on a resolution to boycott Disney because of its policies toward homosexuals. One resolution approved by the messengers this year that may not be so widely publicized is a resolution “On Affirming the Use of the Term ‘Christmas’ in Publ…

How Not to Rescue Muslim Women

By Shabana Mir

I like visiting cafés. Cafés are to me what the phone booth is to Superman. Except I never go in Supermom, sparkling with sugar sprinkles, and armed with multiple strategies to nurture and educate. Nor do I emerge Exceptional Academic, rippling with cerebral muscles. I go in Struggling Momma, and I emerge Dr. Barely There. Cafés help me transition from one mode to the next. In my study, surrounded by onesies and jangly toys, I can’t really transi…

Is Herman Cain’s Long-Running Minstrel Show Finally at an End?

By Anthea Butler

…raud and larceny). Both Bakker and Swaggart left the Assemblies of God and lost their huge followings. Both men, like Haggard, still pastor small churches. Long paid off his accusers, and is hanging on by a thread at his church. Bryant is still in the pulpit, and Lyons is as well. What is different? All of the white pastors had to leave their denominations/churches to continue; but the black pastors did not. Pastor Cain knows this fact well from h…

Vatican Instruction on Cremation Rankles Many, But Give it a Second Look

By Karen E. Park

…earlier this year, at age 44, her body was cremated, a choice now made by close to half of the people in the US. She wanted her ashes to be scattered in various places that were meaningful to her, including the arena where the Boston Celtics, her favorite basketball team, play. Of course her wishes would eventually be honored by her friends and family, but that couldn’t happen for a few days or weeks at least. So after the funeral, her partner bro…

High Ark: A Geologist on the True Meaning of Noah’s Flood

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…illing to talk about science as a human endeavor. I spoke to Montgomery by phone to find out more about these surprising aspects of his story. ______________ BWL: You write in your introduction that you started out to write a more traditional debunking of creationism’s flood geology, from your perspective as a geologist. And you ended up with something different. What happened? DM: I learned a lot writing this book. And I like it much better than…

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

By Joanna Brooks

…n continued through September. Mormon volunteers were coached to avoid disclosing their ties to the LDS Church. “When we went to our training meetings, they said, don’t bring up the fact that you’re Mormon. Don’t wear white shirts and ties; don’t look like missionaries. When you go out [canvassing], bring a non-member friend. When you’re calling people, don’t say I’m a Mormon,” says Laura Compton. On October 8, LDS Church members in California att…

Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

By Daniel Schultz

…ference. My son and daughter—we all—live in an America that is perilously close to all against all, where only the strong and the well-connected can look ahead with some measure of security. Those who cannot—the young, the sick, the victims of layoffs and mergers and jobs leaving the nation—lose their houses, their savings, their opportunities, their futures. We drown in a sea of personal debt, live in fear of an accident or an expensive illness,…

Much-Married Newt Gingrich Converts to Catholicism

By Bill Berkowitz

…ical strategies failed dismally, he broke up with his second wife over the phone (just as he’d done with his first) as she lay immobilized in a hospital bed. Blumenthal devotes a good bit of his article on Newt’s conversion to an interview with Deal Hudson, a key Catholic advisor to Team Bush. “From a Catholic point of view,” Hudson told Blumenthal. “Newt’s sins no longer exist–they’ve been absolved. He’s made a fresh start in life. So Newt will c…