Search for "cheap airline ticket deals right now phone number 1-800-299-7264"

“Freedom” vs. “Liberty”: Why Religious Conservatives Have Begun to Favor One Over the Other

By Stephanie Russell-Kraft

…sure, these groups also routinely appeal to religious freedom. But, as recent linguistic shifts have shown, the word liberty brings something extra to the table. “When people talk about religious freedom, they may be talking about the right of everybody to practice their religion, or the right to refuse service to people whose sexual proclivities they find disgusting,” said Geoffrey Nunberg. “If somebody talks about religious liberty, they’re only…

Hobby Lobby Aftermath: Christian College Demands an Exemption…from the Exemption

By Nomi Stolzenberg

…would logically seem to follow from holding that a religious objector as a right to be exempt from signing a document that triggers the provision of funding the same services by an insurance carrier), then why not hold that a religious objector has a right not to pay taxes to the government that are used to pay for things that the objector deemed to be sinful. The Court has already addressed this issue in United States v. Lee, where it held, for o…

Religious Resistance to Bolivian Gender Law; US Religious Right Celebrates Court OK For Romanian Marriage Initiative; Will LGBTs Be Banned from Indonesian TV?; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…nations. I am proud to stand with my colleagues in Congress and with Human Rights First in defense of human rights and human dignity around the world.” The proposed bill would impose fines for spreading “homosexual propaganda” to minors through public meetings, the media, the Internet, and other means. If passed, the bill would threaten the existence of LGBT organizations and limit the speech, expression, and freedom of assembly of activists, civi…

Patriotism and Piety—Not For Conservatives Only

By Ira Chernus

…se are well to the left of Obama and have long been skeptical about, or outright rejected, the big three values of the right (as Haidt so often complains). Even many who hold them as private values are often resistant to making them a basis for public policy. But there’s no hypocrisy in promoting the policies we support with language that can engage more conservative voters. Don’t we really believe that a major policy shift to the left would make…

Right Wing Suspicion of Experts is Martin Luther’s Fault

By Jonathan Malesic

…al intelligence services—is currently distrusted by those on the political right. They have ridden that distrust to power on every level of government. In response, Democrats have emerged as the party of deference to experts: to scientists on climate change, to teachers on education, to the CIA on cybersecurity. (In theological matters, however, as Kristof shows, free thought still reigns.) On balance, this is the right course to take; it exhibits…

LGBT’s, Opponents Prep for Vatican Synod; UN Rights Council Adopts LGBT Resolution; Brazil’s Evangelicals Eye Presidency; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…iscrimination enshrined in Kenya’s Constitution.” Monica Tabengwa, an LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, also said the discriminatory refusal to grant legal status to an organization “violates Kenya’s international obligations.” Kenyans law criminalizes “carnal knowledge against the order of nature.” France: Anti-Gay National Front Wins Seats in Senate This week the far-right Front Nationale, led by Marine Le Pen, picked up its first tw…

Amid Reality-TV Gimmicks and Xenophobic Rhetoric, Trump’s SOTU Appeals to Evangelicals

By Chrissy Stroop

…ation’s “defense of religious liberty, [which] includes the Constitutional right to pray in public schools.” While this right has never in fact been contested, it’s a longstanding evangelical tactic to disingenuously conflate the constitutional ban on school-sponsored prayer with the generic “prayer in schools,” which makes for a more effective rallying cry to agitate the faithful. From here, Trump launched into a bizarrely manic description of wh…

Grassley Staff Memo on Televangelists Makes Clear Religious Right Opposition to Government Oversight

By Sarah Posner

…resent all “churches and religious organizations.” These are all religious right organizations who have an antipathy toward government and government regulation, particularly of religious organizations. As the staff report notes, one of the concerns of these groups was the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — in that context, they want to be free from civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people, because, they insist, religious…

Donald Trump Scares LGBT People Worldwide and More, in This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Olena Schevchenko told BuzzFeed. “We expect the backlash in all spheres of rights – LGBT rights, minority rights, women’s rights, migrant rights.” At the Daily Beast, Jay Michaelson reports on places where life has already been getting worse for LGBT people, including Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria: But a primary reason is the export of U.S.-based homophobia. Evangelicals have risen from 5 percent of the Brazilian population in 1970 to nearly 25 p…

How Intelligent Design Advocates Helped Shape the Christian Right’s Texas Curriculum Standards

By Lauri Lebo

…d most fascinating about the piece is the explanation behind the religious right’s recent interest in the Declaration of Independence. Christian activists like David Barton (who served as a curriculum advisor to the TBOE) have been campaigning to shift the focus from the Constitution in civics class to the Declaration of Independence. (In another arena, today’s Mount Vernon Statement, released by conservative and religious right figures, maintains…