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Lesbian Rabbi to Lead SoCal Board, Includes Orthodox

…bbis pushing for more inclusiveness, and what I assume to be a significant number of modern Orthodox (as opposed to ultra-Orthodox) Jews who have plenty of sympathy for gays and lesbians, and probably number many of them among their friends, but can’t yet see a way to harmonize this personal sentiment with their larger religious commitments. It’s important to bear this denominational scorecard in mind when considering Eger’s appointment, because a…

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Hajj Journal: Using the Toilet at the Grand Mosque

…sque is gigantic, full of beautiful and elaborate designs, with an immense number of repetitions to them. The stairs and the escalators are deceiving, taking two for each floor in one tower and only one escalator per floor in another tower. I never did figure out which was which. I knew the fastest way up to the third floor from my hotel, but this was always early and therefore less chaotic. It also involved a wide ramp straight from the outer fro…

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Global LGBT Recap: Catholic Polling, Religious Violence, International Advocacy

…logger Blabbeando reminds us that during Brewster’s nomination process, “a number of religious leaders the Dominican Republic criticized the nomination of an openly gay man for the diplomatic post.  Leading the charge was Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez who called the then-nominee a ‘faggot’ on national television.”  Last month the Cardinal urged church goers to show respect for the new ambassador, but some people aren’t willing to let g…

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Magic in the Air: How Intellectuals Invented the Myth of a Mythless Society

…th me about various protective talismans and ghostly premonitions. After a number of the patrons had shared such anecdotes, one Japanese man asked me, curiously, if these sorts of things didn’t go on in America. Before I could answer (and describe America’s own enchantment), a European patron jumped in, assuring everyone that Japan was much more spiritual and magical than the West. He looked to me to confirm the sentiment, which I did my best to r…

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Obama’s Gay Marriage Support Shocks Black Church

…s, stunted sexuality, homophobia, and sexual abuse are competing for issue number one in their churches; at many, they are tied at the number one slot. It is high time to for the leaders of the black church to ‘put away childish things’ and to engage in a real conversation about sexuality, same-sex marriage, and the homophobia embedded in the black church community. Pontificating and posturing props up preachers, and does little to edify congregat…

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The Fourth of July Is Not America’s Birthday

Over the past few days I’ve seen a number of references to “America’s Birthday” coming up on Friday. If a commercial advertiser wants to say this, fine (I guess). But I have spotted a couple of otherwise sober-minded writers using the “birthday” tag as well, and their ignorance is more disturbing. July 4, 1776, was in no way the birthday of anything. It was the start of a long and savage struggle against the world’s most powerful empire at the ti…

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The Harlot Shall Be Burned with Fire: Biblical Literalism in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

…ty, and Mass Media” students to watch one hour of television, to count the number of dead bodies they saw, and to keep track of who those bodies belonged to. On television, the dead bodies were women’s; on the evening news, they were the bodies of people from other countries, and usually they weren’t white. Judith Butler argues in Precarious Life that whose dead bodies we are allowed to see, and whose remain hidden, tell us something about which l…

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RDPulpit: Rick Warren and the Limits of Empathy

…Rick Warren signed a statement of concern about global warming, joining a number of the new breed of evangelicals, much to the chagrin of the old guard like James Dobson. The press began to talk about the expanded agenda of the “new evangelicals,” an agenda not limited to the old shibboleths of abortion and opposition to gay marriage. The Five Non-Negotiable Issues Despite all the above, on a number of issues critical to women’s lives, he remains…

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New Poll: Evangelicals Backing Trump

…urrently, 78% of white evangelicals support Donald Trump (identical to the number that voted for Mitt Romney in 2012). John McCain? 74%. George W. Bush 2000 and 2004? 68 and 78%, respectively. And despite the whopper of zombie lies told by Ted Cruz, no, 54 million evangelical voters did not stay home in 2012, rather than vote for Romney. In fact, white evangelicals have made up around one-quarter of the electorate ever since 2000. According to Pew…

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Infanticide Still Not a Growing Movement: 30 Years of Pro-Life Fudging

…sota who said children only become people at age 5. Another said “a common number that is going around is 4 years old.” Arguments that college students make to provoke activists and demonstrators should probably not be taken at face value, but more importantly neither these people nor McArdle’s article offered any data indicating an increase in support for infanticide. In fact, Gallup polls show Americans are pretty evenly divided on abortion. A r…

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