Religion Dispatches
…classic evil ‘them’ of US history. Of course, US history itself is hardly free of this phenomenon. Hard-hat construction workers attacked peace demonstrators during the Vietnam War era, and then a decade later became “Reagan Democrats,” supporting the very policies that have kept their real wages nearly stagnant for so many years now. Today, less than a third of voters identify as Republicans or conservatives, yet nearly half say they will vote f…
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…heir own Globe and Mail essay, however, the land that settlers imagined as free wilderness was neither free nor empty. And, they write, the deadly effects of the myths of settler masculinity persist today, as the trial of Colten Boushie’s killer showed. Even if Mennonites thought they had found a pacifist’s paradise in the prairies, their deeds to the land came at the price of violence to Indigenous peoples who still understood the land as their o…
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…xactly what the Establishment Clause prohibits. The Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies emphasized the Free Exercise Clause and their own “religious freedom,” but they ignore, most certainly not by accident, the principle upon which Judge Stearns’ decision rests: “[t]o insist that the government respect the separation of church and state is not to discriminate against religion; indeed, it promotes a respect for religion by refusing to single ou…
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…sing from the use of this Service by anyone else. I’m not sure how much money the Information Age Prayer service has made or how many people would be stupid enough to pay for something they can hit their knees every day and do for free (heck, I do my best praying in the car – all for free!), but it seems to be a mark of today’s pay to play society. There’s no free lunch, not even with God, apparently. As a final sop, the IAP Web owners promise, th…
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…in full swing, hard-right strategists William Lind and Paul Weyrich at the Free Congress Foundation had a vision for the future of the American right. They argued that American conservatives, having successfully mainstreamed a free-market consensus, should pivot to the terrain of social issues, and adopt a “cultural conservatism” centered on family, education, crime, and morality, in order to shape public discourse. Needing a new enemy to rally th…
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…ese performers sang Olympic pop promos and protesters waved signs reading “Free Tibet” and “Free Speech Now.” One man shouted, “Protect the First Amendment! This isn’t Communist China!” Police and park rangers tried convincing the protesters to leave the plaza and join the pro-Tibet contingent out in the street, but the protesters would not budge. Along the waterfront, the local chapter of Students for a Free Tibet drew huge crowds with their Chin…
Read More…r, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen that have very different notions of free speech and the separation between church and state. It was thoughtless for the library to check the box marked “occult” when planning their Internet filtering policy, but what’s even more disturbing here is that something as central to a democratic society as which sites can be accessed in a public library have been outsourced to a foreign corporation. How many America…
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…ng sits cross-legged as the activists hold high a banner reading “Eviction-Free San Francisco.” “For me,” I had explained, “this image represents a distinction that Martin Luther King, Jr. made during the height of the civil rights movement: that between the negative peace of complacency within an unjust system, and the positive peace that arises from non-violent resistance to the status quo.” Readily acknowledging that I was “picking on Meng,” I…
Read More…s make against LGBT equality is that civil rights for LGBT people infringe on the religious freedom of Christians who believe homosexuality is sin. Therefore they insist the government shouldn’t give them, in Santorum’s words, “special privileges.” Conservatives frame this as a free exercise, or religious freedom issue, and, like Bachmann, skirt the church-state separation issue. Because these conservatives believe that the government should endor…
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…o words emblazoned on your chest. It’s time. You’re gonna make a break for freedom. You will not be a slave anymore.” But she isn’t feeling free: she’s trapped in a deep depression. Midway through the season, Rabbi Raquel has an epic breakdown in the days leading up to Passover. She’s preparing for a seder and conversing with Sarah, the eldest Pfefferman sibling. Sarah has been having some contact highs with Judaism throughout season, while Raquel…
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