Religion Dispatches
…lthy gays and lesbians want to end our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinners they are.” As a Christian, who just also happens to be a lesbian, I take offense at this continuing campaign on the religious right to promote this false dichotomy of gays vs. God. No one in the gay and lesbian community wants to curb anyone’s “religious freedom.”…
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…religious millennialists’ crusade for ideological purity has torpedoed the Republican Party, creating a “Republican Gomorrah,” as Max Blumental called it, that cannot appeal to both swing voters and its insane rightist base. In other words, unless millennialists are right that a massive change is coming, they tend to subvert the realization of their dreams. December 21, 2012, the absurdly popular Left Behind series, Christian Zionism, and the view…
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…families in concrete ways. He’s talking about a “more family-friendly tax code.” He wants the government to pay people to procreate. It’s a “big government” Republicans can get behind—a “baby government.” Though women of childbearing age are the people Douthat wants to get busy getting pregnant, he doesn’t talk about women very much—or the social, physical, and financial costs women still pay for having kids. Douthat blames women without talking…
Read More…, could he possibly come out in favor of arresting women for praying? Or even, with a straight face, say it was a matter of local concern that he wasn’t going to comment on, when he otherwise has (albeit in a perfunctory way) called for the promotion of women’s rights in other parts of the Middle East? And since Obama was promoting the rights and freedom of religious minorities last night, wouldn’t this case fall under his concern? There are good…
Read More…oll after poll has shown that Americans are far to the left of this year’s Republican party platform, with its total ban on abortion (and by constitutional amendment at that) and opposition to same-sex marriage—to take but two bellwether issues. If the swing voters in the swing states knew about these stances, they’d be less likely to vote for Romney, even though he won the first debate in convincing, alpha-dog style. So it’s obviously in Romney’s…
Read More…the day in 1954 when the “Johnson amendment” language was put into the tax code was the day that “changed America” and set the stage for bad Supreme Court decisions and everything else that has gone wrong since the 1960s. Pulpit Freedom Sunday participants agree to preach political sermons, send them to the IRS, and dare the agency to sue them. The Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund) has offered legal help to c…
Read MoreOne unexpected aspect of being in Tampa for the Republican National Convention is the visibility of the Church of Scientology, which is headquartered in nearby Clearwater. The drive from my hotel into downtown Tampa every day brings me by a Scientology billboard, the first I can remember seeing. And tonight, after I left a Rick Santorum rally and was heading into the secured perimeter around the convention center, someone handed me a booklet call…
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…ctor of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Black Campus Ministries in the New England Region, to speak to a group of conservative students on campus. Moreover, it was also reported that the faculty was more liberal than the student body, which came largely from orthodox churches. After her presentation, Brown-Collins reportedly gave a student a copy of The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert Gagnon—a 500-page attempt to demonstrate biblicall…
Read More…fer, and RD contributor), on the other hand, in both his recent book and a new piece at AlterNet, places a very strong emphasis on the central role of Rushdoony’s thinking in the intellectual foundations of the tea party movement. The New Yorker piece focuses primarily on the roots of Bachmann’s views on homeschooling and on her recent gaffes (at least strategic gaffes) with regard to the issue of slavery. It’s often difficult to trace the lineage…
Read More…areers for women; and reforming the media such that 1950s gender norms are promoted and “sex and the city lifestyles” are discouraged. He claims the only other alternative to these “reforms,” which he acknowledges are restrictions on women’s rights, is “the creation of a network of surrogacy facilities in low cost countries and basically ‘outsource breeding,’” with the state as foster parent because “career obsessed” women would not prioritize car…
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