Religion Dispatches
…stitution meant,” she continued. “The homosexuals get it — it’s a struggle between our religious freedoms and their right to do what they want to do.” Ah, there’s the old canard that always gets trotted out by those on the religious right — it’s gays vs. God! Those filthy gays and lesbians want to end our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinn…
Read More…America. But speakers at today’s press conference suggested the church has better options. “Surely Archbishop Oscar Romero is a more worthy candidate for the Hispanic peoples of the Americas,” said Norma Louise Flores, author of a MoveOn.org petition opposing the canonization. Steven Newcomb, co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, connected…
Read More…ts civil unions. “I’m going to nursing school now, and part of the nursing code is to be nonjudgmental,” Smith said. “In hospitals, if a same-sex partner couldn’t visit or get information about their partner’s health? I just think that’s wrong.” With election season right around the corner, the “value voters” in Iowa agree with those who huddled in DC this past weekend – there are more important things to worry about than what the gay couple up th…
Read More…ntific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” As always, since intelligent design was ruled unconstitutional in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the introduced bills rely on such creationist code words as “teaching the controversy,” “academic freedom,” or “critical analysis.” However, in the case of Florida, the bill’s sponsoring lawmaker Rep. Stephen Wise had proposed similar legislation in 2009. The bill died in comm…
Read More…uired to solemnise same sex marriages, and continues to regard marriage as between one man and one woman, the advent of same sex marriage, widely supported across the political spectrum, creates an acute divergence between the church’s teaching on marriage and the civil law of the land. “It is likely that the ease with which same sex marriage was accepted in Parliament reflects a more general social move away from the church’s traditional understa…
Read More…orth Vietnam, the way he turned to the thought of his fellow captives, the code of honor of the US military, to the Constitution itself, one never hears that he turned to his God, or to prayer. I do not suggest that he ought to have done, of course. I simply note that this absence is glaring, and his religious silence is deafening. That is what made the appearance of both men together on the bizarre political platform of a Baptist church all the m…
Read More…cannot do within the guidelines of the IRS rules. He cited the part of the code that prohibits influencing legislation and labeled it “legalese,” before a lengthy parsing of what counts as legislation and then what counts as influencing— none of which substantially departed from everyday understanding of those terms. The talk sounded much like the “word study” sermon style found in many fundamentalist churches. He was careful to clarify that wheth…
Read More…d) will be free to focus on the crucial matter of the latest Dan “Da Vinci Code” Brown adaptation. As of this writing, we are still waiting for advance word on the subject of Obama’s graduation speech. As any professor can tell you, a college commencement address frequently falls into one of three genres. The first strives to inspire with insipid platitudes equal to the occasion. (“Your graduation is a change I can believe in.”) The second ignores…
Read More…immigration reform. And, to be sure, religious arguments for UAFA fared no better; they were met with religious arguments against including UAFA in any comprehensive package because naturally some allegedy loving religious advocates can’t find a place in their heart for the gays. Which brings me back to the Netroots Nation panel, which was not, as one might predict, a dismissive and reductive portrayal of Tea Partiers as racist; instead, panelists…
Read More…l was also a good way to “house” a lot of people without running into fire code violations. I could not find any other religious events advertised. Could it be that people of other faiths simply held private devotions? Perhaps, but more likely the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and their friends were the major sponsors of the whole weekend but just wanted it to appear more broadly based. The Poli…
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