Catholic Groups Leading Mifepristone Ban Are Part of Century-Long Tradition Who See it as Patriotic Duty to Protect the Family
In 1995, following a spate of lethal violence against abortion providers across the United States,…
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Lila Rose and the Right Resurrect Malicious Child Predator Myth Putting LGBTQ People in Even Greater Danger
In January the far-right website Townhall began publishing a four-part series on a so-called “Suburban…
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What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail
While his name may not be familiar to most Americans, for 40 years, between 1873…
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Fake, Evil, Spiritual, Commodified; What’s the Truth About Popular Yoga?
What inspired you to write Selling Yoga? Near the beginning of my graduate school career, I…
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Coming Out Twice: Sexuality and Gender in Islam
As scholar Scott Kugle knows well, to be both Muslim and gay means the possibility of having to “come out twice”—with the likely chance of encountering either homophobia or Islamophobia (or both), depending on the context.
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No, I Don’t Owe My Yoga Mat to Vivekananda
A recent NYT op-ed insists that it was Vivekananda who introduced yoga into the American “national conversation.” But that claim is flat-out wrong. I’m not suggesting that we ignore Vivekananda’s proven significance in the history and development of modern yoga, but the story is much more complex than what Bardach implies. She seems to suggest, after all, that it’s as simple as: Vivekananda introduced yoga to the West, “great minds” loved him, yoga was eventually co-opted by New Age baby-boomers, and it all went downhill from there.
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Spiritualism and Sex Meet Evangelical Censorship, 19th-Century-Style
“It was what I found in the archives that inspired me to write the book—Craddock’s unpublished book manuscripts on everything from ancient sex worship to contemporary marriage reform. And then there was her journal of mystical experiences—a diary so baffling and intense in its combination of spiritualism and sexuality as to demand attention.”
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Queering Easter: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Redefine Sainthood
An order of queer nuns, founded in San Francisco thirty-one years ago, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is now a full-fledged pastoral and charitable organization, having given away more than a million dollars. They’ve also raised pioneers in LGBT and AIDS/HIV rights to sainthood, creating their own holy calendar.
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Christian Punk Meets American Pop; Evangelicals in the ’Burbs
How did Christianity become so commercial? Is religious punk rock an oxymoron? The author of a new book on suburban evangelicalism and Christian heavy metal shows how Christian youth culture has been commodified and sold to secular audiences.
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