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The Democrats, The Gays, And The Evangelicals

By Sarah Posner

…t. As I’ve written before, “The only group that has more opponents of open service than supporters is white evangelicals.” Even Republicans support it by 47-43% margin, according to a recent Pew poll. One of the head-scratchers of last Tuesday’s exit polls was how the Republicans increased their share of the gay vote from 19% in 2008 to 31% this year. On LGBT issues, there can be only two factors worrying the White House: religion and religion, or…

‘He Gets Us’ and Sleazy ‘Swift Boat’ Ads Share a Central Figure — Further Evidence of a Right-Wing Bait-and-Switch

By Chrissy Stroop

…veteran, such a big sad that he had to go whine about it in Religion News Service. And that’s where things get really funny, at least to me. But funny or not, things certainly get revealing. Bringing in other examples of recent conservative Christian infighting—over Chick-fil-A’s new cauliflower sandwiches (you can’t make this stuff up) and the Asbury revival specifically—Pinkston opined that just about anything Christians do “faces an immediate…

Will Internet Kill Mormonism Too? Or Just Missionaries?

By Holly Welker

…missionaries convert, on average, six people during their 18- to 24-month service, the online apostles in Provo have averaged around 30 converts per missionary per year, says [BYU Professor Gideon] Burton. And these people stick around. Ninety-five percent of the Internet converts have kept active, a retention rate more than triple the norm…. The idea that a “self-selected cohort curious enough to reach out directly” yields better teaching contac…

No God but Country: The Religion of John McCain Has Something Important to Tell Us

By Kathryn Lofton

…chool, matriculated to the Naval Academy, then devoted himself to military service before transferring his duty to elected office. In high school, he attended mandatory chapel every morning and mandatory church twice on Sundays. He learned every line of the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed, acts of memorization which would later earn him the role of ad hoc prison chaplain in the Hanoi Hilton. When he married a woman more regularly religious, h…

Why the King Hearings Should Matter to Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…problem. There are good people on this earth who think they’re doing God a service to kill us.” What Mormons experienced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sounds pitifully familiar to the Islamophobia we witness today, when political operatives exploit popular fear of terrorism to promote base anti-Muslim sentiment, as Sarah Posner shows in this important RD article. If LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith recognized that there…

Mexican Bishops Exorcism Against Equality; African Bishops Oppose ‘Enemy of Human Race’; Israeli Islamic Leader Anti-Gay Op-Ed

By Peter Montgomery

…an. Lithuania: Army’s says men who love flowers are gay and unfit for Army service. A report from Eric Rosswood at the New Civil Rights Movement: The Lithuanian army has reintroduced compulsory military draft this year, and randomly selected candidates will have to report to a military recruitment office in order to be screened for suitability for military service. According to the Lithuania Tribune, that screening includes a psychological test th…

What About the Religious Liberty of Liberal Military Chaplains?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…int not lost on Gundlach, who writes: “So where is the threat to religious freedom? And where could their right to free speech be limited? It will no longer be acceptable to speak about fellow gay and lesbian service members in demeaning ways in the workplace and other public settings. The fact that this has ever been acceptable by anyone anywhere, but especially by chaplains, is regrettable. And chaplains from the religious groups who are now dem…

Unreleased Religious Freedom Manifesto Isn’t the Culture War Compromise It Hopes to Be

By Frederick Clarkson

…the voices of those most likely to suffer should this vision of religious freedom be fully realized. There are many freedom struggles in the United States that demand attention and redress. But the immediate targets of the Charter group would seem to be the struggle for LGBTQ equality—which is confronted by well-funded efforts to gain legal exemption from everything from providing health care, adoption and foster care services for LGBTQ people—an…

The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

By John Fea

…tely successful life as judged by God” and asked them to consider that the freedoms they enjoy come with a sense of duty and service to others. Indeed, as Carter said, “We decide whether we tell the truth, or benefit from telling lies. We decide, do I hate, or am I filled with love? We’re the ones who decide: do I think only about myself or do I care for others?” Carter delivered a gentle, yet powerful, exhortation to a Christian university run by…

Mormon ‘Humorist’ Robert Kirby Is Butt of His Own Dirty Joke

By Holly Welker

…nvention center hallway was, “Let’s pretend I picked you up from an escort service and we’ll walk over to that table over there together and sit down and chat.” Kirby posted an apology Thursday on his page, acknowledging that “much of what she describes in her account took place, albeit without some of the more sinister intentions many have alluded to.” Kirby’s defenders may likely protest that my framing of the interaction also exhibits “sinister…