Religion Dispatches
…r, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen that have very different notions of free speech and the separation between church and state. It was thoughtless for the library to check the box marked “occult” when planning their Internet filtering policy, but what’s even more disturbing here is that something as central to a democratic society as which sites can be accessed in a public library have been outsourced to a foreign corporation. How many America…
Read More…s make against LGBT equality is that civil rights for LGBT people infringe on the religious freedom of Christians who believe homosexuality is sin. Therefore they insist the government shouldn’t give them, in Santorum’s words, “special privileges.” Conservatives frame this as a free exercise, or religious freedom issue, and, like Bachmann, skirt the church-state separation issue. Because these conservatives believe that the government should endor…
Read More…ally the inaccurate descriptor. After all, Arizona already has a Religious Freedom Restoration Act; SB 1062’s supporters even described it as a way of closing that statute’s alleged “loopholes.” What’s more, since Arizona, unlike its neighbor New Mexico, doesn’t recognize sexual orientation as a protected class in its anti-discrimination laws, all the photographers and bakers and everyone else in Arizona were already perfectly free to turn LGBT pe…
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…o words emblazoned on your chest. It’s time. You’re gonna make a break for freedom. You will not be a slave anymore.” But she isn’t feeling free: she’s trapped in a deep depression. Midway through the season, Rabbi Raquel has an epic breakdown in the days leading up to Passover. She’s preparing for a seder and conversing with Sarah, the eldest Pfefferman sibling. Sarah has been having some contact highs with Judaism throughout season, while Raquel…
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…just laws wherever there is a Christian presence because ‘Until we are all free, we are none of us free.’” Anglican Communion: Gay couple’s church wedding expected to rile Communion’s conservatives The first wedding by a same-sex couple in an Anglican Church in Britain is expected to further exacerbate tensions within the Anglican Communion. Excerpts from The Guardian’s Cathering Pepinster reporting: The first gay Anglican wedding in Britain took…
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…e reasons why we don’t do that. In the face of uncertainty, we think it is better to err on the side of letting the guilty go free than on the side of shattering the lives of the innocent. And so, even if we’re pretty confident of a person’s guilt, reasonable doubt is enough to set them free. Or at least that’s how things work in the context of the criminal justice system. On a more personal level, the presumption may well go the other way. Suppos…
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…y. Ephrem reminded Covenanters that foregoing sexual intimacy was meant to free them from themselves, not create a privileged class of Christians. ‘Without good deeds,’ he bluntly affirmed, ‘sexual renunciation is worthless.’ Ephrem’s insights could be arrestingly prescient. He warned that if celibacy were to become institutionalized in the church, it could result in great harm. Ambitious churchmen, he said, might use it as a stepping stone to pri…
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…numerous reputable sources since the landmark Congressional study. Casino Free Mass board member Leo Maley, writing in the Amherst Bulletin cited, for example, “a 213 percent increase in suicides (from 24 to 75) in the first two years after casinos opened” in Gulfport, Mississippi. “Such numbers,” he wrote, “are replicated elsewhere.” In a powerful video recently posted by Casino Free Mass in anticipation of the next round of debate over introduc…
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…s of the United States.” The ACLU often tries to resolve the same tensions between religious freedoms and civil rights that Prothero alludes to. In this instance, the organization, which has a long and impressive track record of work seeking to “guarantee that all are free to follow and practice their faith – or no faith at all – without governmental influence or interference,” came out against SB 101 at both the local and national level. In an op…
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…o believe differently from the rich and the powerful is a prerequisite for free speech and a free press, the other two elements of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.” How does your report fit into today’s political landscape? Over the years, the Christian Right has evolved, shaping events and not merely reacting to them. Conservatives have consistently responded to changing social roles and increasing efforts at equality for the historica…
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