Religion Dispatches
…as many of its leaders are African Americans who reside in the New Orleans East neighborhood where the Vietnamese community is found. New Orleans East is a historically and predominantly African-American region—the largest in the city—so the prospects of cooperation between the two communities was vital. “Both communities have been willing to be in a relationship; it’s just that [the] process has needed assistance, and that was vision of Father Vi…
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…sserted the authority lost by the police before and during the revolution. East Africa: Family with gay brothers flees Burundi; harassment follows in Kenya In “Young, Gay, and on the Run in East Africa,” Jacob Kushner writes for TakePart that “LGBT people in Uganda, Kenya, and other countries are often disowned by their families and face violence and discrimination.” The story profiles two gay brothers and their mother who fled Burundi after a fam…
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…mitted to overthrowing Assad, because we’re not sure if we like the Middle East better with or without him, and so we begin to reproduce a very bad and very dark romantic comedy. By proposing that we slap Assad on the wrist with a few days of air strikes, we are only continuing a pattern of embarrassing indecision. If the primary reason we are pursuing air strikes to war is because Obama drew a red line in the sand, then the fact is we look even…
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…to a great degree, that today has won so many elections across the Middle East; the role of that war in the Iranian revolution likewise should not be underestimated. The running theme of the Arab Spring, and much of regional politics, has been the recovery of sovereignty, dignity, and a respected and respectful place in the world. Being bombed, or watching people like you be bombed, every several years is the opposite of that. Ferguson thinks he’…
Read More…aws “to ensure the ‘no’ camp can speak freely” during the campaign. Middle East: “Oriented” film examines life of gay Palestinians At Good, Yasha Wallin interviews Khader Abu Seir, the protagonist of the film “Oriented,” which examines the lives of gay Arabs in the Middle East. Wallin describes the movie this way: As the Israeli-Gaza conflict escalates in 2014, viewers follow Khader and his friends Fadi Daeem and Naeem Jiryes, all Palestinian, thr…
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…lation theory Mystwood is playing with—he is the universe, the universe is code, his code is part of the important bit, it’s all a simulation, and he’s ready to play. And, importantly, the rest of us might not matter. The language of programming in A Glitch in the Matrix is compelling and difficult. On the one hand, it is literal computer programming. On the other, intentional or not, the movie invokes the language of “deprogramming” that was comm…
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…stay, that he did so against his obvious self-interest, in loyalty to the Code, might demonstrate, as Wallace puts it, that McCain is certifiably insane. But we also know… [F]or a proven fact, that he is capable of devotion to something other, more, than his own self-interest. So that when he says the line in speeches now you can feel like maybe it’s not just more candidate bullshit, that this guy it’s maybe the truth. Or maybe both the truth and…
Read More…gn an honor code,” Farris claimed. “[Homosexuals] could not sign our honor code,” Farris said, adding that he considers the actions of gay men and women “sinful.” “Part of the honor code is to be sexually pure,” he added. Baratko speaks to a couple of the bloggers, who say they were inspired by other blogs at conservative Christian colleges like Bob Jones University (BJUnity), and he asks about the challenges of coming to terms with one’s sexualit…
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…Over time, the churches that have tried to lighten up the Christian moral code and put forth sort of a kindler, gentler version of Christianity as they see it, have not done well. They have not done well demographically and they haven’t done well financially. Churches that stick to orthodoxy do better over time because in part it’s only those churches that tend to create families that can be of size and carry on the Christian tradition. This hark…
Read More…spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill- will between different religious, racials, language or regional groups or castes or communities, or (b) commits any act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony betwe…
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