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U.S. Religious Right Groups Support Move Toward ‘Illiberalism’ of Hungary and Poland; and More in Global LGBT Recap

…report in-depth on the “moral panic” that has led to at least 57 arrests: Most of the detainees are held incommunicado, but one, Sara Hegazi, told her lawyer that guards goaded other inmates to beat her in her cell. On October 1, Egypt’s dreaded secret police force, with its long record of disappearances and torture, got involved, arresting at least two more accused flag-wavers. Egyptians have a term that’s sometimes used for disappearing into th…

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Where are the Clergy? A Report from Occupy DC

…60s in how they frame and address economic issues, yet have abandoned protest strategies in favor of the model of maintaining a Washington office whose purpose is to lobby members of Congress. Other religious activists are too focused on “events-oriented things” like staged arrests, “where they’ve pre-negotiated the thing, which is not to me civil disobedience.” At the same time, national religious political organizations “paternalistically” decid…

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Terror In South Carolina

…as a result these edifices have been the location for many of our nation’s most egregious racial terrorist acts.” In 1822, one of Emanuel’s founders, Denmark Vesey, was one of 35 black men hanged after “white residents of Charleston discovered that one of their worst fears had come true: a slave conspiracy to rise against their masters and slaughter all white residents was afoot in the city.” The church building was also burned to the ground. Afte…

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Obama’s Muslim Strategy 2.0

…ct determinant, but they’re better than any other determinant we have. The most important consequence? Because America has Muslims, America is a Muslim-minority nation. That means America is as much a part of a global Muslim conversation as any other society. But that’s not the greatest change Obama has indicated. Through the president’s strategy, America has given herself the right to participate in Islamic conversations. America, a Muslim-minori…

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How (and Why) A Determined Sit-In Worked

monitoring the progress of the Congressional Democrats’ sit-in last night mostly by Twitter. Still, what I saw was fascinating, and frankly, inspiring. It’s hard not to admire a 76-year-old John Lewis using the same tactics he used in the campaign against segregation for a new kind of liberation. We’ll come back to his determination later. First, to answer your questions: Was the sit-in a publicity stunt? Yes, and a successful one at that. The De…

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Lessons Learned this Ramadan

…the community around my shaykh (whom I have known for 8 or 9 years), with most of them American converts about my age and level of education, and the worship was sweeter. Go figure. Family matters. I did take a few days off from the intensified worship just to be with my family who lives farther away from me. Still, we fasted and prayed and ate together and that too was a reminder of what is good and meaningful in life. It brought me to that plac…

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“God Created You”: Bishop Supports Gay Ugandans, Defies Death Threats

…Them,” it said.  Kato’s murder frightened Senyonjo to the extent that he almo*]}*st didn’t want to go to the memorial for his friend and former colleague. “At first, I thought I did not want to go out of doors today but then I thought I wanted to get to the funeral,” he said. Senyonjo received a call informing him of the murder at around midnight the day the activist died; the news kept him awake almo*]}*st all night. “I hardly had slept, but I was determ

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Book Bannings Are Bad Enough, But Where Those Involved Are Considered Demonic, the Stakes Could Get Much Higher

…33, some 40,000 people gathered to watch the Nazis burn about 25,000 books—mostly taken from public and university libraries—and to hear Joseph Goebbels declare “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Book burnings, American style There have been many religiously motivated burnings of the Qur’an and many other books in the US so far this century. Anti-abortion leader Rev. Flip Benham, for example, staged burnings of the Qur’an, the Rainbow flag, a…

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Escape From Manhattan: Tech, Tragedy and Storytelling in Sandy’s Wake

…scrambling for gasoline to power their generators, where some have gone almo*]}*st a week without fresh water or unspoiled food, and where people have lost their homes, their cars, and some even their loved ones. In recent years, I have become deeply fascinated by our cultural commitment to mediated worlds: what scholars increasingly label “transmedia franchises.” In his book Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins explains that these constructed story sp

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Safety Not Guaranteed

…ike the woman I met in front of Jacob Riis, who lived unequivocally in the most dangerous area but felt she couldn’t leave, no matter what the risks, the map must have meant something different, something like “duh.”   It showed her what she already knew—that she lived in the evacuation zone—but offered no easy solution. * Almo*]}*st a week after Hurricane Sandy I know the neighborhood much better than before. Sheens remained open throughout four days

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