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What Irish Marriage Vote Means for Catholic Church; The Lonely Fight for Equality in Belize; Progress and Backlash in Tunisia; Global LGBT Recap

…he vote was celebrated by Catholic U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and other American officials. NY Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, sponsor of the state’s marriage equality legislation, wrote in a letter to the New York Times saying that even though he was a visible Irish American he had often felt that he didn’t belong. Irish people from all over the world returned home to vote in this election. I returned to the birthplace of my family to help in…

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The Visceral Vote: Obama-as-Sojourner v. McCain-as-Mythic-Hero

…ich to live,” according to Wuthnow. Since the true threat came from within American life itself, it is hardly surprising that the communist threat was seen as much inside as outside the nation: “Americans feared that their fortress could be invaded at any time. They spent increasing amounts on national defense [and] built bomb shelters,” while at the same time they “searched for subversives in their midst.” It could hardly have been otherwise. Whe…

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Inside the American Family Association

Today’s Times piece on the American Family Association frames AFA’s hosting of the Rick Perry prayer rally, The Response, as its assertion of itself as a player in presidential politics. But AFA founder Don Wildmon has long been a part of a group of religious right activists who hosted “policy briefings” to introduce GOP candidates to pastors; in 2008, the group zeroed in on Mike Huckabee, who was shunned by many GOP and conservative activists. W…

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#SorryNotSorry: What U.S. Christian Denominations Teach About Homosexuality

…ed.” 83% of members believe homosexuality should be accepted by society.   American Baptist Churches USA (Mainline Protestant) Members (as of 2009): 1,310,505 In 1992, the American Baptist Churches USA General Board affirmed a one-sentence resolution on homosexuality: “American Baptist Resolution on Homosexuality”: “We affirm that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” In 2005, the board added the same language to…

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With Christian Schools At Risk In Israel, Crickets from American Christian Conservatives

…situation “a ‘death sentence’ for Christian schools in Israel.” Given the American Christian right’s interest in religious freedom, particularly for Christians, and particularly in the Middle East, where Christians are enduring and fleeing persecution, one might expect a massive outcry over this. Just imagine the objections to unequal treatment, by any government, of any Christian organization. But when I reached out to three major conservative C…

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How “Race Tests” Maintain Evangelical Segregation

…, the eleven o’clock hour on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of American life. Despite all that’s occurred over the past 50 years in the culture more broadly, and all the Christian hand-wringing, American churches have remained largely segregated. And, while many have sought more benign explanations, others have spoken for quite some time, albeit in hushed voices, about the racial gatekeeping that persists in much of white Christian Ame…

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Islamophobia and Racism: Civil Rights at the Breaking Point

…there anything you had to leave out? I wanted to look more closely at Arab American civil rights activism in the 1980s and earlier. Fortunately, several excellent books (like Pamela E. Pennock’s The Rise of the Arab American Left) provide in-depth discussions of this history. I also devoted far too little attention to the relationships between primarily “immigrant Muslim” advocates and African-American and other “native Muslim” advocacy efforts. W…

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Obama as Lord and Savior

…depict a black man as Jesus; and, finally, this is not the first piece of American art by a white individual that portrays an African American figure as God’s son.  Depictions of Obama as a messianic figure are nothing new. Since his emergence at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama has become an icon of salvation. One statue had him in a robe, with a neon halo around his head; another had him riding a donkey just as Jesus had done f…

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Female Deacons: Pope Francis Walks It Back, Women Clergy Weigh In

…those religions, with the first Orthodox female rabbi recently hired by an American synagogue, but the Mormon excommunication of Kate Kelly, an advocate for opening the Mormon priesthood for women, unfortunately mirrors a familiar pattern for American Catholic advocates of women’s ordination. In the most high-profile case, peace activist Father Roy Bourgeois was dismissed by his religious order in 2012 for participating in the ordination of a Roma…

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The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism

…intellectual history. Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism Mark Stoll Oxford University Press (May 29, 2015) In Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism, Stoll, a professor at Texas Tech University, explores the religious roots of environmentalist concepts of nature. Doing so, he challenges the preconception that conservationism and religion are inherently hostile towar…

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