Religion

Find God, get out of jail, slaughter again

Gene Lyons — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:03:00 PST

Another week, another grotesque mass shooting: In Washington state this time, leaving four police officers dead, four families destroyed and nine children's lives shattered. As it's politically unfashionable to wonder whether Americans shouldn't do more to keep semi-automatic handguns away from crazy people, attention soon focused on why mass murderer Maurice Clemmons wasn't locked away, where he belonged.

Christianity's role in the financial crash

Andrew Leonard — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:34:00 PST

"Did Christianity Cause the Crash?" is the kind of leading headline question ever-popular with bloggers desperate for readers to click through. (Yes, I plead guilty.) Whether the answer that pops in your head is yes or no, you're impelled to read the story, if only to disagree viscerally or happily find your worst prejudices confirmed.

Bigotry wins in Switzerland

Juan Cole — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:31:00 PST

Switzerland on Sunday voted by 58 percent in favor of banning minarets.

Swiss vote to ban new minarets

ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:01:00 PST

Swiss voters approved a move to ban the construction of minarets in a Sunday vote on a right-wing initiative that labeled the mosque towers as symbols of militant Islam, projections by a widely respected polling institute showed.

Praying for Obama's death

Lilly Fowler — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:24:00 PST

Pastor Wiley Drake preaches on most Sundays in a church tucked in between California’s big amusement parks, a place some people refer to as "Wiley World."

Anti-gay, religious-motivated crimes up

DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:20:00 PST

Reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to new FBI data released Monday.

Muslim countries seek blasphemy ban

FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:01:00 PST

Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery -- essentially, a ban on blasphemy.

I'm an atheist surrounded by Catholics

Cary Tennis — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:20:00 PST

Dear Cary,

Racism, religious discrimination at Washington Times?

Alex Koppelman — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:35:00 PST

The Washington Times has been having a rough few weeks. There was a big shake-up at the conservative paper recently, with new top executives coming in and the executive editor getting kicked out, with the staff not informed of his departure for days afterwards. Tuesday was yet another bad day for the Times and its beleaguered staffers.

The Democrats' new "Family" values

Jeff Sharlet — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:11:00 PST

American women will pay the price for the Democratic dithering that allowed Saturday's passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, a worm virus inserted into the House healthcare reform bill with surgical precision. But the Democratic Party will suffer collateral damage.

Don't persecute the climate change believers

Andrew Leonard — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:05:00 PST

Manna from heaven for the climate skeptic brigade: A British judge has ruled that a man can sue his employer for unlawfully termination based on his "green views" on the grounds that environmental beliefs deserve the same legal protection as religious or philosophical beliefs.

Sixty lashes for ... what, exactly?

Judy Berman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:27:00 PDT

As far as I'm concerned, there is only one surprising element of this weekend's story about a female Saudi journalist who was sentenced to 60 lashes. It isn't that the country's Wahhabi clerics decided to pursue legal action against not only Mazen Abdul-Awad, a Saudi man who aired his dirty sexual laundry on a program for Lebanese TV (he, by the way, has already been sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes for his indiscretion), but also LBC, the station that aired the show. And in one of the world's most misogynist nations, it isn't hard to believe that a court tried and convicted 22-year-old Rozanna al-Yami in connection with the scandal, "on grounds that the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. she worked for did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom." (Never mind that, as the Associated Press reports, "The charges included involvement in preparing the program and advertising it on the Internet. Ms. Yami said she had worked as a coordinator for the program but had not worked on the episode in question.") Despite the many layers of injustice involved in al-Yami's conviction and sentence, it wasn't even a shock to learn that she wouldn't fight her punishment. "I was not aware (that LBC was unlicensed), but in the end this is the verdict and I accept it," Reuters quotes al-Yami as saying. "I don't want to appeal."

Lying daughter or honor killer dad?

Judy Berman — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:16:00 PDT

Earlier this week, a judge ruled that a runaway teenager in Florida must return to her home state of Ohio. Decisions like this must come down all the time, but the case of 17-year-old Rifqa Bary has become controversial enough to pit religious groups against one another. You see, Bary comes from a Muslim family but left home, traveled across the country and moved in with the family of a minister. Later, she claimed in an affadavit that her father, Mohamed Bary, had threatened to kill her if she converted to Christianity. "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!" she says Mohamed told her. "I will kill you!" Rifqa was then moved into foster care in her new state.

Another child dies of unanswered prayers

Kate Harding — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:10:00 PDT

Every time I read another story about a child dying for lack of medical attention -- not because of insurance or malpractice but because of his parent's religious beliefs -- I wonder if there's even anything left to say on the matter. It's outrageous. It should not keep happening. And yet, it does. That's pretty much it.

Christian cheerleading controversy: Bring it on!

Mary Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:01:00 PDT

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me in Christ Jesus." It may lack the wallop of “De-fense De-fense! Push 'em back! Take 'em down!” but it’s a classic nevertheless. And for nearly a decade, in the small Georgia town of Fort Ogletorpe, the cheerleaders of the Warriors football team have opened their games with that and similar sentiments -- holding banners of Bible verse for players to burst through at the start of their games. 2,4, 6, 8! “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed!”

Britain's next top Christian model

Judy Berman — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:29:00 PDT

Finally, there's a modeling agency espousing the hope that "beauty will not be defined by outer appearance alone." The only catch? Models of Life is also an explicitly Christian company whose current U.K. talent search is strangely reminiscent of a proselytizing tour.

Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world

Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Daniel Steinvorth — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:15:00 PDT

Bearded men kidnapped him in the center of Baghdad, threw him into a dark hole, chained him up, urinated on him, and beat him with an iron pipe. But the worst moment for Hisham, 40, came on the fourth day of his ordeal, when the kidnappers called his family. He was terrified they would tell his mother that he was gay and that this was the reason they had kidnapped him. If they did, he would never be able to see his family again. The shame would be unbearable for them.

"Value Voters Summit" clashes with Jewish values

Mike Madden — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:43:00 PDT

During the presidential campaign last year, there was much gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair and rending of garments over whether a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama would be able to pull a decent share of the Jewish vote. That concern turned out to be totally misplaced; Obama took 78 percent of Jews' ballots, more support than John Kerry had gotten four years earlier.

The hijab goes to aerobics class

Judy Berman — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:11:00 PDT

By now, we all know the burqini and the over-the-top controversy it continues to attract. But what happens when devout Muslim women want to exercise outside the pool? Of course, most workout wear is unacceptable in mixed company. But not all women who wear the hijab have access to women-only gyms. So what's an observant girl to do? A New York Times Thursday Styles feature investigates.

Candidate's radical-right thesis tests changes in Virginia

Gabriel Winant — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:15:00 PDT

Virginia has probably seen faster political change in the past couple of decades than any other state. Both senators from the one-time bastion of Solid South conservatism are now Democrats, along with six of its 11 representatives the House. And the Old Dominion is currently in the middle of deciding whether it will elect its third Democratic governor in a row. This must be a difficult adjustment for Republicans like gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell, who came up in a Virginia that was more Jerry Falwell than Mark Warner.