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Religious Opposition To LGBT Equality Softening

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…, show even religious opposition is softening. The UK-based religious think-tank Ekklesia is claiming that a growing number of Christian groups are now identifying as supporting gays and lesbians than in previous years. In a press release, Symon Hill, associate director of Ekklesia, noted that a welcoming religious presence has grown in gay pride parades around the world: The increasing Christian acceptance of same-sex relationships is highlighted…

Mormon Leaders Slam ‘Counterfeit’ Gay Families; Vatican Resists Gay Ambassador; ISIS Executes Man for Homosexuality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…” of many Christian cultures, the lethal fuel for homophobia and the “hyper-violence” of gay-bashing incidents. As [Japanese author Taq] Otsuka puts it: “Homosexuality was never considered a sin here, just shameful.” Dominican Republic: Presidential contender slammed, apologizes for anti-gay comments Former president Hipólito Mejía, who is positioning himself for another run at the office, came under fire last week for making anti-gay comments whi…

Updated: G-O-D Plays a Bit Part in First GOP Debate

By Daniel Schultz

…onent will hit. Except of course Trump, who went after everybody with a two-by-four. Even the god talk—normally red meat for the Republican base—was strangely attenuated. Walker, as is his wont, dodged Kelly’s question about whether his opposition to abortion even in the case of rape or incest put him out of the mainstream (it does) by saying he is now and always has been pro-life. According to Walker, that’s “a position that’s in line with everyd…

“That Guy In Rome”: A Catholic Town in Idaho Where The Pope is a Heretic

By Jason Wilson

…mon with each other than we do with that guy in Rome.’” Apart from the long-term attraction of Idaho, there’s the fact that this is one of the places where anti-modern traditional Catholicism got started. First here was the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, which was founded as an approved congregation in 1967 with the permission of the bishop of Spokane. Its originator was Francis Schuckardt, then a layman with a long history as a fervent or…

Who Would the Buddha Bomb?

By Danny Fisher

…what happened… If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.” As Buddhist scholar Stephen Jenkins counsels, “We must be careful to understand what ‘nonviolence’ means [when the Dalai Lama uses the term]. Under the right conditions, it could include killing a terrorist.” Indeed, the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism’s co-authors, Donald S. Lopez, Jr., and Robert E. Buswell, Jr., have it rig…

What’s So Troubling About Funding a Playground? How Trinity Lutheran Undermines the First Amendment

By Elizabeth Reiner Platt

…argued that directly subsidizing a house of worship—even for ostensibly non-religious expenses such as playground surfaces—is proscribed by the Establishment Clause. It’s notable that the Court has previously declined to require religious organizations to distinguish between their religious and secular activities. A 1987 decision, Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, involved an Establishment Clause challenge to a religious exemption that…

Is Abortion No Longer Significant for Evangelicals — or Has it Just Become Like Water?

By Bradley Onishi

…en more effective at turning out the base in the future.” I agree that the number of single-issue voters seems to have dissipated. It’s also true that over the last five years race and immigration have become expressed priorities for white evangelical voters. But, there’s more than one way to interpret the data. It doesn’t have to be either/or. It is not simply that abortion has been replaced. A more nuanced conclusion is that Trump’s presidency u…

Boo! Trump’s Lead With Religious Voters Not As Bigly As You Might Think

By Daniel Schultz

…holics 48-41, he gets absolutely crushed among Hispanics, 84-12. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations put us firmly in “Holy shit” territory. Even assuming a generous 50-50 split of black, Asian, and other Catholics, Clinton comes out ahead something like 56-36. It’s highly unlikely the race will be that much of a blowout among Catholics, much less Americans overall. Still, strong turnout from Hispanic voters could do serious damage among the r…

Is Army’s New “Humanist” Designation Just Semantic Hooey?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…on Adam to name all the plants and animals in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:19-20) helps humans to understand their surroundings and their place in the newly created world. So, too, the renaming of Abram as Abraham (Gen. 17:1-14) expresses his new, covenantal relationship to God and marks the future trajectory of his lineage. Indeed, in many religions, choosing a name that expresses a close coherence between self-identity and religious identity and…

Religious Kids Are More Selfish: The Stickers Don’t Lie

By Michael Schulson

…d midway through the rant, friends will adopt kindly, exasperated who-gives-a-shit? expressions. It’s a fair response. But this stuff matters. Western societies have developed specific tools with which to make generalizations about human beings. Some of the more traditional tools here include stereotyping and prejudice. Often, these get ideologized into more potent generalization-generators: racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, sexism, and so on….