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The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…limited to procreation; that it was acceptable to limit family size for a number of reasons; and that it was licit to use the naturally occurring sterile period to do so. Enter Catholic physician John Rock. By designing a contraceptive that used hormones already present in a woman’s body to mimic the natural infertility of a pregnant woman, he hoped the Vatican would find a theological basis to approve the method. In 1958, when the Pill was alrea…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…lves as charismatic or Pentecostal Christians (38%).” Pinning down precise numbers for LLDM is almost impossible. The church claims to have more than three million members abroad, and 1.5 million in Mexico, which would make it the country’s largest non-Catholic religious institution. The 2010 Mexican census reported only around 200,000 members, but that number may well be low (the Mormon church in Mexico has argued that the religious count was ina…

How Religion Shapes (or Doesn’t) Our Views on Public Issues

By Daniel Schultz

…dy late last week looking how religious beliefs influence perceptions on a number of different issues. A quick-and-dirty look at the results would tell you that religion doesn’t change much, with a few notable exceptions. For example, this surprising statistic: “60% of those who oppose gay marriage say religion is the most important influence on their views.” One wonders where the other 40% comes from. Likewise, social issues come in dead last on…

Did North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?

By Peter Montgomery

The most dispiriting number to come out of North Carolina today was the huge margin of victory for a constitutional amendment that, as Candace has noted, will not only forbid same-sex couples from getting married, but will strip couples of any legal protections that might have been offered through domestic partnerships or civil unions. The broad wording of the amendment is more evidence that anti-gay advocates are lying when they say they’re only…

‘It’s a Gay Problem,’ and Other Myths From the Catholic Church’s Sexual Abuse Crisis

By Joelle Casteix

…re that tolerates them. In reality, the allegedly disproportionately large number of gay priests may be related to the problem, but it isn’t the cause of it. As Robert Mickens wrote in July, and as others have noted for years, the pathologizing of queer sexualities has driven many men to the priesthood, as the vow of celibacy offers what appears to be a safe haven from negotiating a forbidden path. As a result, although he’s careful to point out t…

Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC

By Frederick Clarkson

…ed, and the number may even exceed a hundred thousand. Whatever the actual number at the Mall, the audience was much larger since the event was live-streamed on Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble and translated into several languages. The Jumbotrons that lined the Mall were alternatively closed captioned in English and Spanish. It’s difficult to imagine any other religious or political event on the Mall this year with such reach. Even if the numbers ar…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…trospective Rundowns who had very traumatic experiences. There have been a number of cases in which people have died under mysterious circumstances in Clearwater, Florida, [the center of Scientology in the U.S.], but nothing as traumatic as what Lisa went through. That was truly unique because it happened in Church headquarters. What I would say is that some of the Scientology processes have a destabilizing effect on some people. And certain peop…

Punks vs. Monks: Rockers Speak Out Against Genocide in Myanmar

By M. Sophia Newman

…violence appears to have been incited by Buddhist monks. The Rohingya, who number almost one million, have been denied citizenship since 1982 and subjected to denials of the rights to travel, marry and have children. The discrimination appears rooted in the ethnic group’s Muslim faith, which makes them a tiny minority in the majority-Buddhist nation. The most notable participants in the violence are a movement of Buddhist monks called “969”. The…

Like a Virgin

By Donna Freitas

…forthcoming in April from Oxford University Press on the subject), I met a number of evangelical Christian young women who had “repackaged their virginity” (as one woman called the process). I wonder how dismissive and cynical people would be after hearing some of their stories? There was nothing funny about these young women’s sexual identities. Yes, my feminist radar went up and pushed me to simply critique what, at least on the surface, sounded…

If You Liked The Martian You’ll Love These 3 Sci-Fi Shorts

By Andrew Aghapour

…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…