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The Conservative Christian Case for Separation of Church and State

…politicians can appeal to spiritual leaders and gain their endorsement because the opportunities for abuse and ambition are too rampant. The same quid pro quo corruption that taints those tempted by lobbyists will await pastors when their support can yield inexhaustible American power. This is why America has passed laws to preserve the dignity and purity of the pastoral office, exchanging tax exemption (a unique phenomenon in the world) with the…

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Catholic Sex Teaching is No Laughing Matter

…as observed, and so might well respond that statements about homosexuality used in Persona Humana are those of psychologists and biblical writers, not its own. But no amount of indirection can obscure the Vatican’s decision to use this vilifying language and not some other, in Persona Humana as well as in the much more widely read Catechism of the Catholic Church. And have no doubt, such language has serious effects. Here in the US, the media regu…

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‘Pregnant Women’ or ‘People Who Can Get Pregnant’: How Do We Balance Recognition of Anti-Abortion Misogyny with the Erasure of Transmasculine People?

…less “froufrou” cocktail, are common insults in male groups and masculine-coded spaces. One of our social pathologies is a fear of the “feminization” of men (or people society insists are “supposed” to be men). Right-wing authoritarianism always stresses hypermasculine ideals, and right-wing authoritarians also tend to focus on having babies, often fearmongering about declining birth rates and a supposed “replacement” of “us” by racially coded “o…

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Ignoring the Pope on Climate Change is Not Like Using Contraception

…rsal on Contraception — ed.]. Studies have repeatedly shown that Catholics use contraception in identical numbers to non-Catholics, and generally in good conscience. As Republican attempts to privatize the climate crisis already suggest, conservative Catholics may continue to reject Laudato si just as the vast majority of Catholics have long since rejected Humanae vitae, as Patti Miller noted here on RD. Yet the two issues are not in fact equivale…

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God is a Terrifying Monster, and Other Takeaways from the Study of Vampires in Pop Culture

…napped with my iPhone while on a trip to southern Ohio. I didn’t intend to use it for the book; I just thought it was a great picture. But as I considered cover ideas, that image of a decaying church perfectly embodied what I was trying to say in the book. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? How do you even narrow down a question like this? Fiction? Non-fiction? Historical? Contemporary? Other than naming my all-time favorite novel…

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Why I Joined Over a Thousand Faith Leaders in Masterpiece Case Brief

…Court in support of that belief. If he were a pastor, he could legally refuse to perform a wedding for a same-sex couple. But Masterpiece Cakeshop is a business open to the public; it cannot choose to deny service to same-sex couples. If Phillips believes baking a cake for a same-sex couple violates his religious beliefs, he can choose not to operate a business. The same would be true if an atheist baker believed that baking a cake for a baptism…

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Romney “Walks the Line” on Immigration

…ng the line” (and fomenting outrage among base conservatives about Obama’s use of executive order—never mind the Bush administration’s use of the same) is meant to distract from the fact that the GOP does not have a viable, reasonable strategy for addressing the broken immigration system in a way that balances even the interests of its own stakeholders.   Yes, immigration is one of those big-time challenges that requires an everyone-at-the-table s…

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Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

…” (through his work with the United Nations in the first Gulf War). This caused few of Robertson’s neoconservative allies to break with him in any decisive way—although one former neocon, Michael Lind, denounced him in a major exposé in the New York Review of Books. Moral of the story: Although this item overlaps with the one just considered—Robertson as central to the Republican coalition—I rank it separately and higher because anti-Robertsonite…

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Can Democrats Question Amy Coney Barrett’s Faith? Yes! Should They? Well…

…ing pundits who otherwise couldn’t give a damn about the life of faith because it gives them the opportunity to wax on about how the Democrats are doing everything wrong. Likewise, what the Biden VP campaign used to refer to as the “bedwetter caucus,” otherwise known as anonymous “senior Democratic strategists” have been out fretting about Dems taking on Barrett’s faith, among other things. All of this is quite ridiculous. Like any sane political…

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Step Right Up And Get Your Low-Priced ‘Pro-God Content’! Donald Trump Enters the Bible Business

…ople have it. You have to have it for your heart, for your soul.” Why? Because “Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country and I truly believe that we have to bring them back and bring them back fast. . . that’s why our country is going haywire, because we have lost religion in our country.” The “Christians are under siege” language is old hat, but embedded within this rhetoric is a newer development. Trump never re…

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