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How to Prevent Ethnic Cleansing in Syria

By Haroon Moghul

…egion, we have wealthy monarchies, again sparsely populated, and with high numbers of foreign workers, from lower-end service and construction jobs to higher-end management and finance professionals. And then we have the region from the Sinai to Iran’s western border, including Israel and the Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and possibly even largely non-Arab Turkey; this region may well be the Arab world’s Balkans, and its rece…

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

By Frances Kissling

…w on contraceptive insurance, but also to assert without scrutiny that any number of health services violate its religious beliefs. In her interview with Kaiser Health News, Sr. Keehan acknowledged that the CHA still has “some very real concerns in the Church that even if you get rid of the coverage of contraceptives, [there may be] problems in the future.” Up to now, the administration has followed a strategy that is political, but respectful of…

Despising the Holidays: When Christians Led the ‘War on Christmas’

By Ed Simon

…nd new cups. That’s why they’re just plain red.” Feuerstein has encouraged customers to pretend that their names are “Merry Christmas” to seemingly force anti-Christian baristas to haplessly write a godly message on the apostate drink-ware. (This rather than a boycott, apparently.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti629wLy4vU The so-called “War on Christmas” has been a staple of right-wing culture warriors for generations now, seemingly so incensed…

NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

By Nicole Greenfield

…hing of a “toxic and counterfeit gay-affirming gospel” to being injured by the church as a child. “In some ways he’s right,” Bakker told me in response. “It’s called empathy.” He continued: “Every time someone accuses me of cheap grace, I go back and say no, it’s free grace. Grace is free. The reason I understand the Bible the way I do is probably because I interpret through the pain that I’ve been through. But it’s not me compromising. I know wha…

The ‘Common Sense’ Argument Against Marriage Equality

By Kate Blanchard

…r and their children.” (The infertile, asexual, post-menopausal, and child-free by choice need not apply.) Anderson echoes precisely what same-sex proponents have been saying all along with regard to children: that the desire to marry is in fact a desire to be more traditional. As Frank Bruni put it, gays and lesbians are no longer cultural rebels; “We’re aspirants to tradition, communicating shared values and asserting a fundamentally conservativ…

‘Landmark’ Speech From LDS Leader on LGBTQ Rights and Religious Freedom Was More Like a Sunnier Groundhog Day

By Aly Marino

…those who feel that religions are invoking their religious rights—like the free exercise of religion & freedom of speech—to deny or challenge their own core beliefs & their access to basic constitutional rights.” If we go ahead and assume he was talking about LGBTQ+ rights advocates, it sounds pretty good. Like I said, the rhetoric was less overtly hostile and marginally more inclusive than his usual fare—a low bar, to be sure—and parts of it coul…

The Mistaken Assumption Behind Employers’ “Right” to Not Cover Contraception

By Mary Barker

…When labor is alienated from production, the compensation it receives for services rendered are “given” by the owners of the enterprise, with the implication that it “belongs” to them (the owners), and they are thus free to dispense of what is theirs as they see fit. And if it belongs to them, then it is in some sense an extension of them, and thus whatever appears in the compensation packages of workers, such as birth control, affects them. Fra…

Burma’s Spirit Festival, and More in This Week’s Global LGBT Roundup

By Peter Montgomery

…o be stripped of almost every privilege, as has happened in France, and be freer to speak one’s mind? LGBT Human Rights and Democratic Values Exiled Russian journalist Masha Gessen published “Why Autocrats Fear LGBT Rights” in the New York Review of Books. She says viewing Trump’s sudden order banning transgender people form the military as a distraction is “not only a grievous insult to transgender people but a basic failure to understand the emo…

“I Had No Intention to Write Atheistically”: Darwin, God, and the 2500-Year History of the Debate

By Edward J. Larson

…ntury English social philosopher Herbert Spencer, already an evolutionist, freely worked Darwinian materialism into his progressivist philosophy of social development, which was dubbed Social Darwinism by its critics. Haeckel carried these ideas to the German-speaking world, with translated editions of his most popular books returning back to Britain to reinforce Social Darwinism in its homeland. As social theorists, Spencer, Haeckel, and Darwin b…

What’s Behind a Conservative Mormon’s Call For “Religious Freedom” Advocates to “Stand Down” on LGBT Rights

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ucial key to understanding Mero’s perception of LGBT rights and “religious freedom.” As a Mormon, Mero is predisposed to view religious freedom as a shield to defend the outsider, because that foundational principle has proved crucial to his church’s survival. To hear Mero tell it, modern religious freedom issues can be broken down into three concentric rings: the outermost ring is occupied by the institutional church, and concerns itself with wha…