Religion Dispatches
…es are active Mormons. My uncle served a mission to Finland, my cousins to Venezuela and Minnesota. My father is a high priest, my aunt a former Relief Society president. Gary’s is an old Salt Lake family with generations in the Church. One of his brothers is a branch president of a Spanish branch in Salt Lake, and the other is a former bishop and current temple worker. Gary’s nephews and nieces have served missions in Ireland, Italy, Argentina, E…
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…” Loesch concludes. “I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.” Holley gets the context of the video right, I think: If Loesch’s rhetoric is an attempt to draw battles lines and stoke outrage, she’s feeding into a clearly-defined narrative that exists among right-wing websites on the Internet, one that views a clash between conservatives and liberals in almost prophetic terms. I think Holley means “apocalyptic t…
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…who look like them represented as the originators of a tradition. There’s freedom in connecting to traditions available to everybody, in honoring ancestors erased from history, in letting that wisdom fortify their existing faith. Also, the activism articulated in teachings of ancestral traditions offer strength and purpose. And while this return to roots is not entirely unique to Christians of color (strains of white Christians have been harnessi…
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…he is the only one with free will (though this may still be an illusion of free will, as the code for the game is likely to be quite deterministic). Since she is the only one in the game that suffers pain but no death, it will be interesting to see the evolution of her ethical code within the virtual world. The transformation of Tamara from a helpless lost soul to a gun-toting avenger sets up the stage for her probable showdown with Zoe—a continua…
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…example, some of the achievements of our last “liberal” administration: a “free trade” pact deeply opposed by working people; the partial privatization of welfare; and the passage of a “religious freedom” act that allows conservative evangelicals to influence foreign policy according to their analysis of other faiths’ religious customs. Each of these projects had been long dreamed of by the avant-garde of American fundamentalism. That’s not to say…
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…: Independent justice reform group criticizes Aceh’s harsh anti-LGBT legal code The Jakarta Post reported on April 1 that the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform “has lambasted the Aceh administration’s Islamic criminal code bylaw, or Qanun Jinayat, saying it could potentially provoke discrimination and over-criminalization of LGBT communities and other vulnerable groups.” The Aceh province is governed by the conservative Islamist legal code. No…
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…and Islam as director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Program to Promote and Protect America’s Freedom. Santorum, who is considering a presidential run, depicts an American battle against radical Islam as a civilizational war against “Christendom.” The theological warriors include Jewish groups as well. “Shari’ah is an Arabic term referring to a legal framework to regulate public and private aspects of life based upon specific Islamic te…
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…uples. The third criterion Dr. King identifies is that “an unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” For same sex couples to have legal access just like heterosexual couples…
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…bidden and punishable by life imprisonment under a section of the criminal code forbidding “offences against morality.” South Korea: Activists denounce LGBT-free education guidelines LGBT equality activists called on the Education Ministry to do away with new sex education guidelines that exclude LGBT topics. According to the Korea Herald, “The government remains reluctant to bring the LGBT topics to the fore in the education field, citing anti-LG…
Read More…ght legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom, claims “the future of religious freedom depends on a free pulpit to communicate fundamental, biblical principles to congregations across America” and urges pastors to “join a growing movement of bold pastors preaching Biblical Truth about candidates and elections from their pulpits.” In AU’s letter, executive director the Rev. Barry Lynn argues that “it would be detrimental for our country and the democra…
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