Religion Dispatches
…on protest chant—“Iglesia. Basura. Vos sos la dicatura!” (Church. Garbage. You are the dictatorship!)—today became—“Bergoglio. Basura. Vos sos la dictadura.” Habemus Papam Franciscum! Check back (or sign up for the newsletter) for a more detailed profile of the new pope. …
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…On Saturday, Henderson-Espinoza and Rev. Traci Blackmon were outside Emancipation Park offering prayerful presence and witness when neo-Nazis, fascists, and unhooded Ku Klux Klan members descended on the intersection, unleashing violence that caused the security detail protecting Blackmon and Henderson-Espinoza to literally yank Rev. Blackmon off-camera during a live interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid. (Video from that segment can be found below.) Ju…
Read More…tter than denying bigotry exists at all). I also received an e-mail from a participant in the event who came by because of RD: Dear Haroon, Thanks for your talk at WSU tonight and [for] your perspective on things. In many ways I feel that the American attachment to sensationalism, half truths and fear makes your perspective all the more important. I work with internationals at WSU and lately have made some friends among the Islamic community. I ha…
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…antorum seem to speak with one voice. At CPAC in February, Michelle Duggar participated in a panel satirizing The View, and was feted by fellow panelist Star Parker for having 19 children because, as Parker proclaimed, “We win if we just keep having children, ’cause we’re going to outnumber them!”—a staple argument of the Quiverfull movement. Weeks earlier, Santorum had transformed this rhetoric into policy proposal at a South Carolina Fuddruckers…
Read More…have rituals, sacred texts, and physical spaces that all serve to bind the participants together. Atheism has none of these things—most of the time it’s an individual choice, made and kept alone. In my piece, I point out how even Democrats still resort to appeals to faith, but: The religious right has given the secular-humanist-atheist community a huge opening: by placing conservative religious doctrine front and center in the healthcare debate, t…
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…ome out and the Boy Scouts of America voting to allow openly gay scouts to participate. (LGBTQ adults and atheists still cannot do so openly.) As I read about Utah Pride in preparation for my remarks this upcoming weekend as the 2013 Boston Pride interfaith speaker, I couldn’t help but reflect on what I learned during a recent visit to Utah. It was late in the evening when I arrived, and I knew I would be there for only 24 hours. I was met by Alas…
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…-all and that we should be using it in all elections. This would encourage participation and increase political diversity. Using popular vote in primaries and presidential elections would give each person a voice and prevent small bases from dictating the outcomes. Congressional and state districts should be larger and should elect multiple candidates (again with RCV). This would engender representation commensurate with more people’s preferences…
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…he one thing that they got right in this case. The U.S. has on the books a number of valuable laws against discrimination in the workplace, and all organizations (businesses, nonprofits, schools, governments) are expected to abide by these laws. Except religions, or so it now seems. According to the Tabor ruling, religious groups get a pass on the law when it comes to employees who are considered “ministerial.” The right to the free exercise of re…
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…slim; Hassan, for example, points out that he and his “massive family” are part of “a vast Palestinian community… in North Florida, nearly all of them Greek Orthodox or Catholic.” But Hassan gets the anti-Muslim bigotry, especially because it comes back to haunt him (he, an Arab Christian American, is tarred with Islamist Hamas). For those in the GOP who might be reading this, allow me to tell you: The percentage of Christians among the Palestinia…
Read More…either in one “ovotestis” or with one ovary and one testis). An increasing number of public and commercial health insurance companies now include defined benefits for sex reassignment surgery, and the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers, have declared the denial of such benefits discriminatory. And intersex conditions are likely to increase, since some of them, at leas…
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