Religion Dispatches
…ss of the self-identified Mormon core. But taken together the Pew and ARIS numbers suggest that while the highly active LDS core is highly self-assured, it may also be shrinking—a fact not immediately evident in Church membership statistics. The numbers also suggest that cultural or heritage identity sense of Mormonism may be weakening, especially at the margins of the core and among those who disaffiliate. That may be bad news for twenty-first ce…
Read MoreLast Sunday, January 15, in LDS congregations across Minnesota, LDS Church leaders read a statement over the pulpit encouraging Church members to support a November 2012 ballot initiative that would amend the Minnesota state constitution to restrict the right to marry to heterosexual couples. (State law already bans same-sex marriage.) According to LDS Church data, there are about 30,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…
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…and those who deny it. Aan was arrested in a small town in West Sumatra on January 18 after a number of local residents assaulted him at work in an act of self-styled vigilantism. They were reacting to some of his postings on a Facebook page devoted to atheism: a note entitled “the Prophet Muhammad was attracted to his own daughter-in-law”; a comic suggesting the Prophet slept with his wife’s maid; and a status update reading, “If you believe in g…
Read More…earnest to document his meteoric rise and decline since his first show in January 2009. Some breathe a sigh of relief that Beck will no longer reach millions of TV sets around the nation, while others will follow him to his paid-subscription internet show, Glenn Beck TV (GBTV, forthcoming in September). Much of the coverage relishes his decline into “extremism,” his shift in tone from conservative optimism to apocalyptic vision. David Zurawik of…
Read More…o was murdered; it was a plot,” Mr. Oundo said. “I don’t support the bill.” As for being a “former homosexual,” that, too, was not true. “I’ve always been gay,” Mr. Oundo said, in a timid but growing voice. “I didn’t choose it.” Kato, a gay activist, was murdered in January after a newspaper printed his photo and others with the direction to “Hang Them!” Human rights activists point to Ssempa, who has compared homosexuality to witchcraft and engag…
Read More…echoed those themes during a three-part broadcast on limited government in January 2011, saying “Money does not belong to the government, it belongs to individuals, and to steal money from individuals through whatever government spending program is taking private property and you’re not supposed to do that.” People for the American Way also quotes RD’s Julie Ingersoll from a piece she wrote in August: David Barton, Glenn Beck’s favorite history “p…
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…ferring custody of Isabella to Jenkins. In response to Jenkins’ attorney’s January 2010 motion to hold Miller in contempt of court for not complying with that order to transfer custody, Lindevaldsen reacted with a motion to withdraw from the case (but not from its then-pending appeal—its third—to the Vermont Supreme Court). Lindevaldsen claimed Miller could not be found, and that she had had no contact with Miller and could not represent her since…
Read More…sing. For me, this weird dichotomy hit home during “School Choice Week” in January. I attended a FreedomWorks hearing at the Pennsylvania Capitol, which was filled with tea party groups from around the state. Also in attendance were SB 1’s co-sponsors, senators Jeffrey Piccola, a white conservative Republican from the largely rural district surrounding Harrisburg, and Anthony Williams, a black Democrat from Philadelphia. Williams began his remarks…
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…regulation of religious institutions and organizations: it didn’t. But in January of 2010, The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) informed the program directors of yoga teacher training programs in Houston and Dallas that they may be running career schools as defined by Chapter 132 of the Texas Education Code. They had already sent such letters to directors in Austin. Arguing that the regulation of career schools benefits consumers by monitoring pr…
Read More…made by Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley during a January 14 radio interview to falsely claim that Coakley said “devout Catholics” should not “work in emergency rooms.” In fact, as the context of Coakley’s remarks makes clear, she was discussing individuals who would refuse to provide certain emergency medical procedures and treatments — including emergency contraception — to patients on the grounds of their religious beli…
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