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Same-Sex Marriage: The Cure for Unemployment (Worries)

By Joanna Brooks

…alifornia, a lightly-populated, largely agricultural desert county east of San Diego, appeared as the only governmental entity in the state of California to seek standing as a proponent in the case to overturn Proposition 8. Whether or not the County has the standing to participate in the appeal is up to the panel of judges to determine. (Attorney Robert Tyler, appearing on behalf of Imperial County deputy clerk Isabel Vargas, proved himself embar…

Murdering Sleep: Madoff and MacBeth

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…sband’s victims. Two stories jump out at you. The first took place at Cabo San Lucas on Bernard Madoff’s 70th birthday (on April 29, 2008). Ruth had arranged an elaborate and intimate gathering with some of his oldest friends, many of whom were also investors. At the roast that preceded the dinner, one of his friends jibed, “And Bernie, you know you’re a complete shyster.” Ruth Madoff came uncorked, a stream of expletives pouring out of the mouth…

The Shared Fantasy of Redemptive Violence Between ISIS and the Islamophobic Right

By Donovan Schaefer

…claim. Unlike previous terror attacks claimed by ISIS in the West—like the San Bernardino and Orlando shootings—Lahouaiej Bouhlel made no declaration of loyalty to ISIS. Authorities have not uncovered any ties to terrorist organizations or recruiters. Lahouaiej Bouhlel was Tunisian. But he was not a practicing Muslim. According to his neighbors and his father, he drank alcohol, ate pork, danced, womanized, never fasted, never prayed, and never wen…

Status Updates at the End of the World: The Religious Imagination and Our Latest Apocalypse

By Spencer Dew

…“92200.” Did you ever notice that the job of the Rock in the disaster film San Andreas was primarily to airlift women, just as “the woman” that is the true community of God will (possibly) be airlifted this coming Friday/Saturday? Lythgoe notices for you, memes it, repeats it, and posts in on multiple platforms for you to find the signs (which you, in turn, can then share). “Keep Calm and Flee to Petra” reads one meme, offering a take on a recentl…

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

By Frances Kissling

…heir wrists, are more lauded for their courage than Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent nearly 15 years under house arrest. Months before the election is the perfect time for the CHA to press its case for an exemption from the policy, which would not only allow it freedom from following the law on contraceptive insurance, but also to assert without scrutiny that any number of health services violate its religious beliefs. In her intervi…

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

By Mark LeVine

…d brilliant and well worth the trip. Of course in the end Nietzsche went insane. Come to think of it, the New York Times Book Review called Heavy Metal Islam “moderately mad” (but in a good way), so I guess after five years and twenty trips to fifteen-odd countries perhaps a bit of Nietzsche rubbed off on me! Certainly it’s hard to imagine heavy metal without Nietzsche—who, let’s not forget, was a fan of Wagner, one of the progenitors of the metal…

Perry To Accuse Obama of Appeasement

By Sarah Posner

…onth, Hagee spoke and brought a sizable contingent of congregants from his San Antonio church. Perry has prayed at Hagee’s church, and agreed with him that non-Christians are doomed to hell. The appeasement accusation is as old as Neville Chamberlain, and deployed with frequency by Christian Zionists to argue that Israel faces a threat as dire as Nazism. Perry wouldn’t be the first Republican to accuse Obama of appeasement; George W. Bush did it i…

Rehabilitating McCarthy: Doug Phillips’ Festival Award

By Julie Ingersoll

…ligious right in the tea party, Christian Reconstructionist Doug Phillip’s San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival gave its Jubilee Award to a film entitled Agenda: Grinding America Down; watch the trailer and you’ll find all the major talking points of the tea partiers. Even the spokespersons interviewed in the film represent the demographics of the tea party: over 50, almost entirely white and overwhelmingly male. If, like many, you have…

To Let It Go and So To Find A Way: U2, (A)Live with Grief and Grace

By Cathleen Falsani

…concert at The Forum arena in Los Angeles on May 27. Photo by Cathleen Falsani for Religion Dispatches. After attending a U2 show in San Jose, Calif., earlier this month, Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis described it as a “psychedelic experience” that was “staggering.” “It starts off as a punk rock gig but then it gets intimate, there’s a lot of truth in it about where they come from and the people that they are,” the notoriously prickly Gallaghe…

Controversial “Bishop of the Poor” Dies at 86

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…udying at the Gregorian University in Rome, Bishop Ruiz led the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas from 1959 to 2000. In the 1990s he served as mediator in an attempt to end the conflict between the Mexican government and the indigenous Zapatista National Liberation Army in Chiapas. Though he was asked to step down as mediator for supposedly favoring the Zapatistas, the tentative truce between the two groups has been sustained since 1998. He is…