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Does Romney’s Religion Condone Torture? [UPDATED]

By Joanna Brooks

…ding to be torture, Romney responded “I don’t.” Romney’s stance led one UN official to warn last week that his election would amount to “a democratic mandate for torture.” While some LDS media observers have denied a pattern of Mormon involvement in torture, others in the Mormon community have called for closer consideration of this serious moral and ethical matter. And it does matter. It matters because unlike in most contemporary American religi…

Marriage Equality: A Civil Religious Moment

By Jay Michaelson

…ur country is a place in which ethical values are adjudicated, even if our official institutions officially deny it. Fortunately, one of those values has to do with the separation of church and state, so the zone of adjudication is somewhat limited. But there’s no sense in denying that civil religion is at play in these contemporary debates, and has been in similar debates for two hundred and thirty years. My intention is neither to be fatalistic…

Mitt Romney’s Best-Known Mormon Critic Tells it All. One Last Time.

By Joanna Brooks

…I went to Uganda, and it was an incredible experience. I came back, and a number of Mormon feminists said, “We want to go with you.” I organized a trip of Mormon women to build homes for the most vulnerable women in vulnerable neighborhoods. The first week we arrived, there were bombings. We slept at St. Monica’s, a tailoring school for girls run by nuns. Night commuter children came to sleep on the school lawns during the war—it was a refuge for…

Not God’s Army: The Front Lines of the Fight Against Proselytizing in the U.S. Military

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

Since this interview took place RD has learned that one member of the armed forces, having been the object of persistent harassment from a military superior in their direct chain of command for their religious afﬁliation, has attempted suicide. In the coming weeks, this MRFF client faces an ofﬁcial military proceeding. Due to the sensitive nature of the situation all identifying information has been omitted. –Eds. Last month, right before his ret…

Clint Eastwood Upstages Mitt Romney with a Chair

By Anthea Butler

Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech for the official nomination was a historic moment for the LDS Church, much as the nomination of President Barack Obama was for so many of us; I’m sure that for many Mormons it was a long-awaited moment of acceptance after years of persecution. Grumpy old Uncle Clint, talking to President Obama’s empty chair, however, upstaged that poignant moment. In a monologue that was clearly a WTF moment, Clint Eastwood perform…

Profiling of Muslims Produced No Terror Leads, NYPD Concedes

By Sarah Posner

…s that in court testimony unsealed yesterday, a New York Police Department official conceded that the Department’s Demographic’s Unit, which targeted Muslim citizens in mosques, stores, restaurants, and other locations, failed to produce a single investigation of a terrorism threat. [Thomas] Galati, [the commanding officer of the NYPD Intelligence Divisio], testified as part of a lawsuit that began in 1971 over NYPD spying on students, civil right…

The Curious Case of Mormons and LGBT Rights

By Alan Michael Williams

…t no longer wants to exclude. In December 2012, the Church launched the website “Mormonsandgays.org,” which points to a new tactic for a new generation; the “closet” is now considered an ecclesiastical hindrance. Openness about gayness can seem revolutionary on its face, but queer discourse is being sifted through church protocol with an aim to fortify “love the sinner, not the sin” ideology, rather than tear it down. As an example, in the summer…

Freedom Through the Eyes of Bishops and Filmmakers

By Peter Montgomery

…he San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. The festival features a number of religion-themed films not likely to be endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In fact, there are 22 films tagged by festival organizers as having religious or spiritual themes. Among them: Joy: Portrait of a Nun profiles Sister Missionary P. Delight and other members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the San Francisco-based performance art / po…

Historic Prayer by Woman at LDS General Conference Signals Growing Concern with Gender Equality

By Joanna Brooks

…Church’s global proselytizing missions—an advance that follows a surge in numbers of women missionaries. Some observers believe that the changes are part of a concerted LDS Church effort to bolster its rates of retention among younger women. Increased attention to the theology of gender and equality is also evident, both among rank-and-file Mormons and on the part of leaders. Last month, advocates of women’s ordination to the Mormon priesthood—a…

Conservative Mag: Glenn Greenwald Hates America

By Rob Shryock

…Wahhaj. CAIR, a Muslim civil liberties group, has long been a cog in any number of far-right conspiracy theories—Spencer refers to them as a “notorious Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood Front Group.” Although CAIR’s past isn’t entirely spotless, the overarching conspiracy theories are utterly bogus. According to an article in the Times, “more than one [U.S. government official] described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as…