Search for "cheap airline tickets to providence ri phone number 1-800-299-7264"

The Religious Case Against Religious Discrimination in Cakeshop Case

By Patrick Hornbeck

…f religious leaders—the story is not so tidy. While it’s true that the majority of the briefs by religious authors have taken the side of the baker, others have championed the cause of Charlie Craig and David Mullins, the couple to whom Phillips denied service. Because Masterpiece Cakeshop, like most of the arguments against same-sex marriage that have appeared in our public discourse over the past several decades, has been explicitly, or at least…

Debunking the Myth That Democracy Is “Incompatible” With Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

…ot a necessary pre-condition for democracy. Secularism co-exists with authoritarian regimes in many parts of the world, as in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, while there are Western democracies that have established official religions, as in England (Anglicanism), Denmark (Lutheranism), and elsewhere. Political trends are better explained by socio-political and economic variables in culturally specific contexts rather than through ahistorical pronounce…

Black Churches are Burning: Is It the 1990s All Over Again?

By Katie Day

…fter the nation saw video of the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the LA riots triggered by the acquittal of the officers who’d beaten him, as well as the trial and aquittal of O.J. Simpson in 1995. These racially divisive events painfully exposed the different perspectives of African American and white communities writ large. The attacks on black churches, therefore, provided a respite of cohesion—an issue that seemingly most Americans could ag…

A Secret History of Satan

By W. Scott Poole

…out monstrosity tell us about things like American conceptions of sexuality, disease, religion, and race. I’ve given some thought to focusing primarily on popular culture—maybe a focus entirely on film. …

The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon

By Nathan Schneider

…lenge of our age. Another outgrowth of the Enlightenment, too, is the historical-critical scholarship on the Gospels. How much was that a part of your process? Not much. I revere that kind of scholarship, and I looked at it just to make sure I wasn’t being a jerk, but it wasn’t feeding the appetite I was interested in. It wasn’t explaining the ridiculous powers that this character of Jesus has. Why is he such a hit? People went to fundamentalism a…

Mexico moves toward national marriage equality; Greek govt announces civil partnership legislation; Pope warns against ‘secularism and relativism’; Global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s. The statement also reiterated the Gambian government’s opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples. “Even insects and bacteria reproduce respecting the order of nature,” it reads. Guam: Gay couples marry after courts put end to governor’s resistance In Guam, where the governor had been stonewalling efforts to allow same-sex couples to marry, couples Kathleen Aguero and Loretta Pangelinan and Deasia Johnson and Nikki Dismuke were married…

Turkish Police Move Against Activists Who Defied Pride Ban; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…one … South Africa: Paramedic faces punishment for blaming fires on gay marriage Afrikaaner Bossie Boshoff, a paramedic, is facing disciplinary action by his employer after publicly blaming recent wildfires on the Dutch Reformed Church’s decision to allow 12 same-sex couples to marry at a festival last year. “It dared god,” he said in a Facebook post. “They mustn’t cry now about the fire. God doesn’t let himself be mocked.” Taiwan: Did recent cour…

The Quixotic Task of Debunking David Barton

By Paul Harvey

…’s not clear. In recent months, a number of voices have demanded that historians rise to the task of debunking Barton’s claims, insisting that they cannot remain in their ivory towers. Even some historians who consistently have done so, such as John Fea, were criticized; evidently for not doing it enough. In a more popular and polemical vein, Chris Rodda has also exposed Barton’s distortions. Not surprisingly, this has had scant effect on Barton’…

Pastor Convicted in Lisa Miller Child Kidnapping Case

By Peter Montgomery

…d that as he drove home from the border, Mr. Zodhiates tried to call a cellphone number registered to Liberty Counsel, an evangelical legal group. That cellphone number has sometimes been used by Mathew D. Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel, dean of the Liberty University Law School in Lynchburg, Va., and a leader of Ms. Miller’s defense team. The RICO filed by Jenkins includes information that RD readers learned last year from Sarah Posner’s…

Global Religious Right Asks ‘How Far Can We Get?’; And More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…persecution of gay people and forced marriages is not exactly Putin’s top priority, given Russia’s pivot to traditional values. One could even suppose that the Kremlin derives a sort of “dark power” from these abuses, which make its own overtures towards traditionalism tame by comparison. But there is also no advantage for Putin in appearing to be not in control. In light of Putin’s lack of action in this case and with regard to the killing of opp…