Religion Dispatches
…to defend “traditional” marriage and defend “religious liberty,” which is code for defending the religious right’s ability to bully gay and lesbian people at will using God as their shield. But, wait, there’s more. Gingrich has hit the conservative Christian trifecta by sitting down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to affirm that opposition to marriage equality stating that there is a “big difference between saying that you’re to ha…
Read More…, who wants a Christian president, particularly one who would revise the tax code “so we can rejoice together because it would stimulate economic growth.” (Huckabee’s hosted debate, though, this past weekend, was more of a snooze than a circus.) In 2008 Huckabee got a fundraising boost from Kenneth Copeland, Word of Faith megastar. Copeland, at the time under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for misuse of tax-deductible donor funds, c…
Read More…adhering to the LDS Church’s conservative positions on gender is nothing exceptional for a Mormon bishop. Like most clergy, bishops typically uphold the policies of the institution they serve. This, of course, does not excuse Romney’s egregious incidences of coldness and disrespect towards women as reported in Salon and elsewhere. But it’s wrong to depict Mitt Romney as some kind of hardliner, because as far as Mormon men of his generation go, on…
Read More…ame-gender attracted. LDS. Mormon. Active. Less active. Unorthodox. Open. Ex. Mixed-orientation married. Same-sex married. Partnered. Single. Divorced. Pick any two or three of these adjectives. Link them with a conjunction like “but” or “and.” As many combinations as you can imagine: that’s how many ways there are to negotiate being gay in the Mormon tradition. And this weekend in Salt Lake City, Mormons from across the sexuality and orthodoxy sp…
Read More…ent implantation of the FEP. Also unthinkable under such a law is medical experimentation on embryos. Hey, those are people you’re experimenting on! Even microscopic persons have rights. Fertility clinics? Shut your doors. You can’t kill FEP’s just because you want to make a baby. Also, how do the poor IRS people handle those who add FEPs as dependents on their tax returns? The Census Bureau will also be hobbled in estimating the actual population…
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…ind him. He holds in his right hand a ghostly “Q+” (according to some, the code name Trump himself uses when he posts on Q message boards) and the text reads “The World Will Soon Understand/Nothing Can Stop What is Coming,” a direct reference to “The Storm.” As I wrote back in 2020: The QAnoners’ apocalypse, unsurprisingly, is one of political partisan violence, culminating in “The Storm,” when all of the so-called “deep state leaders” will be arr…
Read More…em together in a same-sex love story, the novel reminds readers that homosexuality has existed for centuries in every society and culture. In the New York Times, Andrew Siddons examines the plight of American Foreign Service officers whose same-sex spouses cannot get long-term visas in countries that do not recognize same-sex couples’ marriages. The story says, that about half of State Department positions “are effectively off-limits for Foreign S…
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…here will come a time for my people when nothing of the Quran will remain except its outward form, and nothing of Islam will remain except its name – and they will call themselves by this name, even though they will be people furthest from it. ISIS is the black and white, blood-soaked face of a fallen Islam with no historical or intellectual substance; an Islam that bears no resemblance to the Islam it’s trying to replace, or the Islam that it’s s…
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…le in need might be more inclined to prayer than others if they have some existing belief. The prayers that were going back and forth between Libya in 2011 and Foley’s family and community were a silent but deeply felt exchange of love. Whether it’s supernatural or not is immaterial. And while Foley’s captivity in Syria was decidedly more grim, we can hope that the “cosmic reach of the universe” penetrated the fortifications of the impossibly crue…
Read More…scene up: “If we let them do this, let them take Christmas away, what’s next?… If you ruffle the feathers of the people of Franklin County, you better be ready to fight because they know how to counter punch.” Elsewhere in Indiana, a group of worshipers celebrate Christmas in a small one-room white frame church with no electricity. I’m dreaming of a simple Christmas. ‘Simple Gifts’ is this year’s holiday theme at the White House. A new survey fro…
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