Search for "= Copa Airlines Reservations 800-299-7264 Copa Airlines Official Site Copa Airlines Flights"

The Religious “Right” to Denounce Homosexuality

By Sarah Posner

…Martinez, in which the CLS argued that Hastings Law School should grant it official recognition as a club, even though it required “members and those wishing to hold leadership positions in the club to be professing Christians and to disavow ‘unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle,‘” in violation of the school’s non-discrimination policy. Although CLS lost that case at the Supreme Court, it was one in a long line…

Who Benefits From Standardized Universal Time? And Other Questions to Ask As You Set Your Clocks Back This Weekend

By Michael Schulson

…ch of the world, rituals and religious institutions used to control time’s official demarcation. E.P. Thompson’s apocalypticism aside, that throwdown didn’t end entirely in favor of the modernists. We still group our days in clunky sets of seven, following a pattern laid out in the first chapter of Genesis. And, despite the best efforts of business leaders and other reformers in the early 1900s, who wanted a year of 13 evenly spaced months, we sti…

Newt Gingrich’s Apocalypse

By Sarah Posner

…of EMP’s allegedly lasting impact is purely theoretical, EMP awareness advocates can make outlandish claims regarding the threat that even the smallest nuclear arsenal poses. They can also point to allegations made by the official EMP Commission, ignoring the fact that many outside experts dispute its findings. So just how far out there are Republican apocalyptic theologies? In the 2012 campaign, they will probably be par for the course….

SCOTUS’ Bladensburg Cross Ruling Is a Church-State Mess

By Andrew L. Seidel

…ity around the world should not loom over public thoroughfares, suggesting official recognition of that religion’s paramountcy”—Justice Alito and his shaky majority instead “look[ed] to history for guidance.” The history he cited includes legislative prayer, George Washington declaring a day of national thanksgiving, a disembodied quote from the Northwest Ordinance, and a line plucked from Washington’s Farewell Address about “religion and morality…

C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with Jeff Sharlet

By Bill Berkowitz

…—owned and organized by the Family since its founding in 1953, despite its official appearance—isn’t “one tenth of one percent” of what the Family accomplishes behind the scenes. That penchant for “invisibility,” as he calls it, makes him unusual, but don’t mistake him for some humble servant of the Lord. Above all else, Coe admires strength, of the iron fist variety. Over the years he’s acted as a de facto lobbyist for strongmen ranging from Hai…

Moscow Suffers its Most High Profile Defection Yet

By Katherine Kelaidis

…h, the Russian Orthodox Synod met to discuss the UOC’s declaration. In the official document outlining the results of that meeting, the Moscow Patriarchate made it a point to assert in its introduction that the decisions “were also made in connection with the continuation of hostilities in Ukraine, increased pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the ongoing seizure of its churches, multiple facts of discrimination and violation of the rights…

Faith-Based Initiatives in the Obama Administration?

By Bill Berkowitz

…s rewarding contracts to administration cronies, noting that “A former top official in the White House’s faith-based office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant under pressure from two senior Bush administration appointees, according to current and former DOJ staff members and a review of internal DOJ documents and e-mails.” ABC pointed out that a $1.2 million grant “was jointly awarded to a consulting firm run by Lisa Trevino Cummi…

Fear Not, The IRS Isn’t Colluding With Angry Atheists

By Sarah Posner

…at audits of churches be authorized by an “appropriate high-level Treasury official.” During the uproar over the supposed IRS targeting of tea party groups, conservative Christian groups tried to claim that they, too, were targeted by the IRS for their religious beliefs. IRS movement on the audit procedures will likely trigger more complaints from conservative legal and religious groups that the agency is attempt to stifle their free speech. Throu…

‘Barbaric’ v ‘Progressive’ Islam; Catholic Church Objects to Mexican Court OK For Gay Adoption; Malaysian Court Weighs Boundaries Of Civil and Shariah Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…upported by US while American evangelicals promote homophobia U.S. embassy officials took part in Pride activities in Kampala last week and last weekend, reports the Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers. Activist Richard Lusimbo praised the Obama administration’s “very beneficial” diplomatic efforts promoting LGBT human rights and slammed American evangelicals who continue to promote anti-gay attitudes and policies. The U.S. last summer cut aid to Ug…

Thanksgiving Reveals More About Us Than About 17th Century Events

By Ed Simon

…ays been an enigma, a paradox. The nation that held disestablishment of an official religion as one of its most sacred dictates, and which could still speak of political concepts as being “sacred dictates.” Louis A. Ruprecht goes to the source of much contemporary thinking about this enigma, the steadfastly secular nation that has the soul of a church, when he writes about Robert Bellah, the sociologist who coined the term “American civil religion…