Religion Dispatches
…own spiritual/cultural values. Liberals see porous borders as a symbol of freedom: free movement, free choice, and the free creativity generated by the intermingling of peoples. To conservatives, the very presence of so many Illegal “aliens” proves that the borders they once imagined as the key to a safe, orderly life have long been crumbling around them. To give undocumented people legal status would be further proof that the nation’s walls and…
Read More…ty of business owners to discriminate against LGBT people, using religious freedom as an excuse, or restricting access to reproductive health care. They represent the heart of the religious conservative worldview on religion in public life. 1. The Upside-Down Health Argument. The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute and other related groups have filed a brief charging that contraceptives are actually detrimental to womens’ health, and that the Insti…
Read More
…this when she said recently, “My people are happy, and they’re happy, because they’re free.” Our heritage is rife with heroes choosing death over tyranny. “Live free or die,” for instance. See also: “Don’t tread on me.” But nowhere is there a hero choosing death over democracy. We must reconsider the credit we give. In places like South Dakota, individual liberty is being perverted in the interest of the group, of the tribe, of the collective, so…
Read More…in all 50 states. In fact, even the California minister who filed suit is free to practice the debunked “therapy”—he just can’t engage minors in the practice, and can’t represent himself as a state-licensed therapist offering that treatment. In his ministerial duties he is free to preach about the power of prayer (or, in some cases, more nefarious tactics) to “rescue” people from the bonds of queerness. But what he can’t do, according to the newl…
Read More
…bout a title that would call attention to the central conflict in the book between Craddock and Comstock and also perhaps between Craddock and her posthumous psychoanalyst, Theodore Schroeder. But I could never make one of those work. How do you feel about the cover? I feel ecstatic about the cover—and not just because it has two nearly nude figures on it. In Craddock’s diary she called attention to William Bouguereau’s painting of Eros carrying…
Read More
…s unable to bring to justice whoever ordered the killing. … In an open and free society, this chain of events would be cause for alarm: secret torture chambers, runaway authority, intimidation of the press. But Russia is not free, and Mr. Putin hardly seems perturbed. He tolerates brutality and coercion as instruments of state power, deaf to the cries of anguish from its victims. In a commentary for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Anna…
Read More…ristian Groups’ Complaints Lead to Cancellation of Queer Art Exhibit Queermuseu, or Queer Museum, an exhibition at Santander Bank’s cultural center in Porto Alegre was closed a month early after protests by anti-gay Christian groups. From the Guardian: Supported by evangelical Christians, protestors from the Free Brazil Movement accused the exhibition – which included 263 works from Brazilian greats such as Candido Portinari and Lygia Clark – of p…
Read More…e American Family Association, Donald Wildmon states: America’s most basic freedoms of speech, conscience and the free exercise of religion are under attack and the time to act is now. If President Obama succeeds with his priority of passing the Hate Crimes law, H.R. 1913 – the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it could lead to the criminalization of the Biblical view of homosexuality in sermons and elsewhere. An offended homosexua…
Read More
…eing strictly nonviolent, creating justice, making a better world for all, promoting freedom, and advancing personal spiritual growth were all merely different ways to describe the very same process. Could it really be true? so many people wonder—and worry. Because if it is true, it should be the path everyone would want to follow. Yet so few of us do. If it were true, we would have to ask ourselves why we don’t follow it. We would have to put our…
Read More
…t that aims to “sabotage Christian supremacy.” “By framing their case as a betrayal of the Free Exercise Clause, [Trinity Lutheran] argues that not getting to put their hands in the money pot is a transgression against their absolute entitlement, and that limiting their access to all resources is an attack on their ability to freely exercise their religion,” Herrin continued. That tactic isn’t novel, of course, but a Supreme Court ruling that affi…
Read More