…n part by denouncing her as a bigot and a racist who wanted “to reduce the number of children [born] to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.” The Pro-Life Action League made a similar criticism this week against the Guttmacher Institute, claiming that the Institute’s call for publicly-funded birth control “takes aim at the poor by recommending more government spending on programs to reduce t…
…le from its ranks and fights against their rights, ignores the diminishing number of priests and the effects of this shortage on Church communities, and calls on Catholics to form the “perfect society” resembling the ecclesiology of Opus Dei. It is no surprise that Pope Benedict comes from a country—Germany—where the percentage of Church members attending Sunday mass is one of the lowest in the world. Strict adherence to orthodoxy will not be popu…
…ry of brutal union suppression by employers who figured out that it’s much cheaper to take the penalties currently handed out for labor law violations (which are extremely weak and rarely delivered) than to allow workers to unionize without interference in free and fair representation elections. By the Numbers The cold, hard facts are these: Polls consistently report that 60 million Americans would join a union tomorrow if they could, which clearl…
…ew thousand words over their original word limit, but I still had to cut a number of compelling stories of people who have struggled with body shame because of internalized cultural/religious norms and narratives about weight, disability, chronic pain or illness. I also had to omit some of my analyses of examples of the culture of physical improvement. For instance, in the chapter on aging, I nixed a rather lengthy critique I’d developed of Deepak…
…mption”); Redemption is the name of a heavy metal band, and the title of a number of record albums including one by the metal group Vomitory, and the hip hop duo GRITS; “Redemption” was the title of a two-part episode on television’s “Stargate SG-1,” and also of a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” two-parter. “Redemption Song” was one of many of Bob Marley’s extraordinary musical contributions, and if you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption, rent…
…venue in 2007. Americans United points out on its website that there are a number of other important religious right organizations to be aware of, including Gary Bauer’s American Values, Rick Scarborough’s Vision America, and Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition. An expanded version of the Church & State story is available here. ++++++++++ New Coalition takes on Christian Zionism Before the end of the year, the Los Angeles Times reported in…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…atest in a series of liberal or secular media reading the reduction in the number of evangelicals who will pull the “R” lever (and the addition of poverty, the environment and war to the greatest hits of abortion and gays) as perhaps auguring the “end” of a damaging force in the American political system. Those who favor this narrative tend to see the religious right as having been “born” of Roe v. Wade, feeling its adolescent oats during the Cart…
…ing their children to do the same, they could win the culture wars through numbers alone. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? My main concern about these convictions is not so much the plans for Christian dominion that Quiverfull authors and homeschooling ministries discuss, but rather that in the service of these ideas, many women are subjecting themselves to an often punishing lifestyle. Quiverfull is not just about the…
…ditional readings of the Torah, it even goes back to God himself. Indeed a number of biblical books go beyond merely denouncing or delegitimizing Israel’s “right to exist.” At the time of the original covenant, God threatens that, if Israel disobeys His teaching, the people of Israel will “flee in defeat before your enemies; you may make a unified stand against them but you will run away in every direction; and you will become a horror to all the…
…sippi Clarion Ledger reported earlier this year that the overall growth in number of interracial couples in Mississippi was behind the national average (less than 2.4 percentage points in Mississippi compared to 2.8 percentage points nationally). According to a report released by Pew Research Center in 2017, only 9% of Americans say that interracial marriage is “a bad thing,” while 17% of respondents to a 2018 YouGov poll said that interracial mar…
