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United Nations Affirms the Human Right to Blaspheme

…ecommendations is that controversies over blasphemy are not just conflicts between “free speech” and faith, but clashes between competing claims of conscience. This stance is defended by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and elaborated in my forthcoming book, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights. The message of General Comment No. 34 is not only a clear condemnation of the blasphemy laws of countries…

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A Religion Scholar Gets It Wrong on Indiana’s RFRA

…e federal RFRA, SB 101, and other states’ RFRAs are not identical just because they all use the moniker “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” In fact, “not all RFRAs are created equal,” as Aaron Weaver wrote recently for a Religion News Service blog: “If [SB 101’s] conservative champions were truth tellers and not trading in deception trying to pretend the Indiana RFRA is the same as the federal RFRA, they’d acknowledge that the goal is not to rest…

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It’s Only a Game: How Not to Think about Video Game Violence

…and spiritually destructive influence of cyberspace technologies that are used to produce high fidelity and that promote degrading and evil purposes… Beware of digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience. If courts seem to be failing to get to the heart of digital violence’s complex blurring of idea and action, maybe it’s time for religious and philo…

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Flagship Biblical Studies Group Faces Bitter Divide Over Statements on Israel/Palestine

…ourse people would feel intimidated … Language performs things, right? The use of the rhetoric of ‘barbarism’ is performative because it intimidates others, it silences those who dare to think differently. This kind of discourse will literally place people who have different opinions into the same box as those barbarians.” Nonwhite scholars also found the asymmetry between the letter’s signers, who were almost entirely White, and the SBL leadershi…

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Bill to Stone Gays to Death Introduced in Kenya

…sexual harassment, molestation of children, and unfaithfulness to one’s spouse.” No distinction is made between homosexual and heterosexual behaviour—both must be free from harm; with mutual consent; the breaking of a commitment to another person is not involved; and sexual behaviour must be carried out with the intention to express affection with respect, and give pleasure to each other. These precepts apply irrespective of one’s gender or sexual…

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Why We Must Reclaim “Religious Freedom” from Christian Conservatives

…o believe differently from the rich and the powerful is a prerequisite for free speech and a free press, the other two elements of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.” How does your report fit into today’s political landscape? Over the years, the Christian Right has evolved, shaping events and not merely reacting to them. Conservatives have consistently responded to changing social roles and increasing efforts at equality for the historica…

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Global LGBT Recap

…osexuality, people of faith should agree that no one should be violently abused because of who they are. We need to hear from faith leaders around the world that persecution and violence directed toward LGBT people are unacceptable. The Prayer Breakfast is a most appropriate time to assert such leadership.”  Speaking of anti-gay violence, the Family Research Institute, a group led by discredited American anti-gay activist Paul Cameron, declared th…

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Booing Gay Soldiers and Expressing Faith in the Public Square

…now, will you have a national church in the United States? He said no, because we believe in freedom of conscience, we believe in freedom of religious liberty, and expression, and speech. That’s a foundational principle in the United States. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t people of faith and that people of faith shouldn’t be allowed to exercise religious liberty in the public square. Of course we should be able to… (APPLAUSE) … (inaudible) e…

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The Irony in the “Religious Liberty” Argument

…lowed suit, and both schools continue to reject federal money to this day. Free to run their organizations as they see fit, they are also free from government dependence. Even if you disagree on the particulars, you have to respect the consistency. These days, there is reason for skepticism whenever “religious liberty” clamors to the fore. Researchers have found, unsurprisingly, that frames touting liberties and rights serve as rhetorical veils, a…

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Tony Perkins: Atheists Can’t Be Chaplains

…n important role in that context. So what about the debate surrounding the use of the word chaplain? Personally, I don’t feel particularly attached to it. But when it is the standard used for other community care practitioners, as it is at Harvard and in the military, then it should be applied across the board. I feel similarly about the debate over whether to call legally-recognized same-sex partnerships “marriages” or “civil unions;” when one te…

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