Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Berean Baptist Pastor’s Remarks Latest Flash Point in Heated Same-Sex Marriage Debate
posted on May 4, 2012Gregory Phillips of the Fayatteville Observer reports that Brennen (North Carolina) Baptist Church’s Sean Harris recently gave a sermon in which the pastor called on parents to punish their sons who display “effeminate behavior,” even authorizing them “to punch boys with limp wrists.” According to Phillips, Harris’ remarks, for which he has since apologized, have sparked the latest controversy in the heated debate in North Carolina over whether to amend the state’s constitution to define heterosexual marriage “the only legally recognized domestic union in the state.”
Read at The Fayatteville Observer
The Israel Lobby’s GOP Past
posted on May 4, 2012Though “Jewish voters are a reliable Democratic bloc,” Tablet’s Lee Smith takes us back into recent history: when Republicans, not Democrats, led America’s support for Israel. In his review of Sonja Schoepf Wentling and Rafael Medoff’s new book, Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the “Jewish Vote” and Bipartisan Support for Israel, Smith finds, “Republicans’ reasons for [supporting Israel]…haven’t changed much over the last 60-plus years. Some were moved by pity or guilt over the West’s failure to prevent the Holocaust; others, perhaps a majority, embraced Zionism because of their Christian faith; and yet others … believed ‘that a Jewish state would serve a pro-American bulwark against Soviet penetration in the Middle East.’”
Pat Robertson: America ‘Belongs to Jesus’
posted on May 4, 2012The Raw Story’s David Edwards reports that for Pat Robertson, one day of national prayer isn’t enough. As part of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s (CBN) annual “Week of Prayer” on Wednesday, Robertson told a group of followers that “America started as a Christian nation, it didn’t start as a heathen nation, it belongs to Jesus Christ … it’s his country.” Robertson also stated that he believes CBN has been ordained by God “to reaffirm His [original] claim over this land.”
Why the Right Can’t Win the Gay Marriage Fight
posted on May 3, 2012In the April issue of The American Conservative, Editor Daniel McCarthy argues the increasing acceptance of gay marriage signals the end of the 2000-year era when the Church determined the meaning of marriage and family (with monogamous heterosexuality as the organizing unit of family life). He notes the widespread acceptance of homosexuality marks a profound, and, most likely, irreversible change in Western Culture. “Same-sex marriage will not lead to civilizational collapse,” McCarthy writes. It has “shocked conservatives,” he concludes, “[b]ut this innovation has moved so far so quickly only because it is not at all out of step with the institutions and ideas of our time.”
Read at The American Conservative
Muslim Americans and Republicans: Enemies, Allies or Friends?
posted on May 3, 2012Omar Sacirbey asks a tough question at Common Ground News Service: what happened to the once strong political coalition between Muslim Americans and Republicans, a relationship now “beset with stereotypes and a lack of trust and communication?” The answer, he writes is more than 9/11. And while mutual suspicion and stereotypes, dominate (Republicans as “hopelessly Islamophobic” and Muslims as some kind of “Fifth Column”), Scaribey suggests that bridges (perhaps Libertarian bridges) are being built between these two communities.
Read at Common Ground News Service
Gingrich: Campaign Was a “Truly Wild Ride”
posted on May 3, 2012Newt Gingrich suspended his campaign Wednesday. Katrina Trinko gives a re-cap of his speech. “Suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship,” Gingrich said. He added his year on the campaign trail had been a “truly wild ride.”
No Revolution Without Religion
posted on May 3, 2012Nathan Schneider, Killing the Buddha’s senior editor, writes that if the Occupy Movement is to survive, it will need an organizing ideology, namely “faith.” “By ‘faith,’ writes Schneider, “I mean religion—the more organized the better.” The Occupy Movement’s demographics, mostly white, urbane, perhaps even post-religion, means that it is “not entirely surprising that [Occupy is] often blind to the fact that there is no force more potentially revolutionary in U.S. history or in the country today than religion.”
Koovagam Festival 2012: India’s Largest Hindu Celebration Of The Transgender Community
posted on May 3, 2012This week in the Indian village of Koovagem, thousands of hijras, men who identify as women, along with eunuchs and cross-dressers (both men and women), gather for the countries largest annual celebration for transgender people. Transgender Indians have a powerful advocate: the Hindu deity Aravan. During the two-day festival, the Koovagem participants are ceremonially married to Aravan, and participate in beauty pageants and singing concerts.
Study Shows Mormonism is Fastest-Growing Faith in Half of U.S. States
posted on May 3, 2012Kevin Eckstrom, RNS editor (and R & P board member), reports that Mitt Romney’s Church is gaining members at the same time the world’s most famous Mormon is trying to win more votes. The 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study reports that Mormons, along with Muslims, are replacing Catholics and mainline Protestants in both demographic and geographical influence across the country. Eckstrom writes that this new statistical data, compiled every 10 years and based mostly on congregational self-reporting, found that “Romney’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 2 million new adherents and new congregations in 295 counties where they didn’t exist a decade ago.”
Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill
posted on May 3, 2012Religion Dispatches associate editor, Sarah Morice-Brubaker, explains what we can learn from the now defeated “personhood” bill in Oklahoma. Despite wide support in the state’s legislature, endorsements by the state’s governor Mary Fallin and Oklahoma’s Catholic Bishop, Paul Coakley, Morice-Brubaker offers two main reason why the bill’s deadline expired without it crossing the governor’s desk: “1) Deep disagreement, between the personhood movement and more mainstream pro-life Oklahoma voters and legislators, on the advisability of amendments to the bill; and 2) The development of ill will between the personhood lobby and the Republican representatives.”