Religion Dispatches
…atholic populations. After that came Srebrenica, which may have forced the international community to act after years of containing the conflict within the former Yugoslavia. In the days leading up to July 11, 1995, Bosniaks had come to Srebrenica from surrounding areas, because it was declared a UN safe area; then Dutch UN peacekeepers stepped aside, having no mandate to resist the Serbs by force, and the slaughter commenced. Civilians raced blin…
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…e loss of their careers as this was an Olympic-qualifying match. No longer internationally competitive, the team will not be funded by the state and will die an unfortunate death—in a field characterized by racial and cultural diversity. Or is international soccer merely a field for Western cultural assimilation, a sphere that rejects cultural diversity? Muslim women’s head-covers again prove to be the ultimate political and cultural test of plura…
Read More…r Parliament to turn down the bill, Uganda must hear more reality from the international community. As the bill draws ever closer to become law, now is the time for renewed international outrage and pressure. Will religious leaders in the U.S. speak out? Will U.S. political leaders speak out or threaten aid to Uganda? Will the evangelicals who fostered support for this bill and animosity for gays and lesbians do anything to stop its passage? All O…
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…s founder and chairman Mat Staver said, “is a gross attempt to use a vague international law to silence, and eventually criminalize, speech by U.S. citizens on homosexuality and moral issues.” Last year RD Senior Editor Sarah Posner, wrote about Staver and his other role as Dean at Liberty University Law School, which revealed how he taught his students that they should engage in “civil disobedience” against court orders that conflict with “biblic…
Read More…led with creationist and intelligent design claims. An organization called International Databases Inc., based in New Mexico, has submitted supplementary material featuring outright promotion of intelligent design. NCSE’s Josh Rosenau also said the material was filled with misspellings and typos. According to TFN: NCSE found creationist claims and factual errors throughout International Databases’ materials, including: * Religious claims such as “…
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…shares’ motion for pre-trial permission to proceed with a defense based on international law and necessity (in which a criminal act is excused if it is undertaken as “necessary” to preventing a greater harm), “that they can turn their trial into what they perceive to be a referendum on United States defense strategy.” That motion was denied, as typically happens. Even when the defendants are prevented from speaking about necessity and internationa…
Read More…n and Treatment,” tackles this question and others on the eve of the XVIII International AIDS conference in Vienna. Faith-based organizations receive a significant amount of public funding, and while acknowledging that these organizations have been at the forefront of AIDS and HIV health care, the report also raises the question of the effectiveness of these groups in light of preventative care (think condoms and abstinence education). The documen…
Read More…liamentary Affairs Committee after its introduction in October 2009 caused international outrage. Now, with the eighth Parliament in its lame duck session, sponsor David Bahati appears to be working to move the bill from committee, and finally into law, as early as next week. Stephen Tashobya, Chairman of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee told NTV: “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has generated a lot of debate and interest in our populatio…
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…the Brotherhood is well aware of the potential backlash, both locally and internationally, if it is seen to have captured the state, which is certainly a factor in how it approaches the coming transition. In the introduction to the 2008 edition of his book, Who Needs An Islamic State?, Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi writes: [T]he Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success ha[s] made it more vulnerable as a target of the ruling regime. It has also become…
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…is that Kato’s death is now being used to whip up new pressure to pass the internationally-condemned “kill the gays” bill. “We’re not sure of anything, but if you look at everything that preceded (Kato’s) death you can’t help thinking that this is a conspiracy of some sort, or it is being used to reignite greater hostility in the public around this issue to support the bill,” Kaggwa said. LeGendre points out that even if the bill is reintroduced i…
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