Religion Dispatches
…le for the exemption. This will, Catholics for Choice argues, increase the number of employees of Catholic organizations who would be deprived of contraception coverage, even if they aren’t Catholic themselves (or are Catholics who dissent from the church’s opposition to birth control). HHS notes in its rule that “the exemption should not exclude group health plans of religious entities that would qualify for the exemption but for the fact that,…
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…hurch in America (OCA). Both are, unsurprisingly, characterized by a large number of American converts in their ranks. Nearly 70% of those in the AOA are converts, while the OCA is about evenly split, 50-50. Similarly, the GOA, arguably the most progressive Orthodox body in America—“progressive” being a relative term—remains almost exclusively composed of ethnic Greeks. Focused on their own ethnic political concerns, including the position of the…
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…r movement? The Black Lives Matter movement as I have experienced it has a number of queer black women on the ground doing the work. It also has trans women and trans men on the ground doing the work. They are part of the leadership. As you know the Black Lives Matter movement is a “leaderful” movement, and that is to say that not one or two persons are in charge of any action but that the movement itself very beautifully recognizes and utilizes t…
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…this time—after all of the atrocious and dangerous behavior—a significant number would turn away and vote for a return to conventional presidential leadership. Where are these defectors? As I write this, election boards around the country have already counted the votes of over 67 million people who want more death, more deception, and more openly racist and exclusionary public policies. And a huge number of these voters identify as Christian. And…
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…ive the wrath that is to come in November. We’ll see. Ted Cruz opened door number three on Tuesday: “This man is a pathological liar,” Mr. Cruz said, ticking off Mr. Trump’s distortions, his infidelities, his penchant for conspiracy theories. “The man is utterly amoral.” As I mentioned the other day, the rejectionist route seems to be the one Baptist leaders are taking as well. Any of these options involves some risk, but door number three is a pa…
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…ted. Only 149 groups existed before Obama was elected in 2008. In 2012 the number had expanded to 1,360. Not all are plotting terrorist attacks, of course. But some are. In September 2012, Daryl Johnson, a terrorist analyst for the US Department of Homeland Security testified before a Senate committee that there was an “upsurge” of potentially violent non-Islamic extremist activity in the United States. So fingers point toward right-wing Christian…
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…enship? Or should we identify them and deport them? The general population number is about 60-40: a little more than six in 10 Americans [agree with a] path to citizenship and the rest are divided among these other positions. But what we’ve seen are two things. The [second] option has thinned out a little bit and the deportation number [option 3] has gone up. That’s mostly been because Republicans have shifted. They’ve actually followed the lead o…
Read More…ength to believe in a better future. Muslim Americans also report that the number of non-Muslims who have been kind to them has risen in the past year. They believe in the American dream by a greater percentage than non-Muslim Americans. Over nine out of ten Muslims say that they are proud to be American. The question this poll raises for non-Muslims is: over the next fifty years, will our actions strengthen or weaken the surprising optimism of Mu…
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…really knows how to drive, it seems, and the water buffalo and cows are outnumbered in the streets only by the small and fast-moving motorized rickshaws. So when I was taking a four-hour taxi ride from Delhi to Agra I had to have something to distract my attention from the harrowing video game-like scene out the front window. A friend who was riding with me handed me a book called What Makes You Not a Buddhist. Written by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse…
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…ay even about the five newspapers that I do cover in my book. But the vast number of people and papers that I wasn’t able to concentrate on in the book just underscores how much work there is left to do on the black press. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic? Outside of a small group of specialists in early African-American print culture, most people that I’ve talked to about my subject are surprised to learn that black wo…
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