Catholicism is usually seen as being at the forefront of the anti-choice movement that would take moral freedom away from the pregnant person and consign it to male-dominated churches, legislatures, and courts. But a 15th century saint reveals that it was not always so.
In the 1990s, Barr attacked the very concept of secular government and in one speech said advocates of secularism “are clearly fanatics.” Barr’s advocacy of “God’s law” is especially alarming.
While TST is not the first Satanic organization to obtain this status, it is the first group that clearly intends to deploy this status in legal challenges. TST’s demands for equal treatment under the law are going to be much harder to dismiss from here on out.
In 2010 the district court correctly decided that the National Day of Prayer violated the First Amendment: “Its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function.” On appeal, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not disagree—it couldn’t—but it tossed the case.
In right-wing circles, theories about cultural Marxism in the era of Trumpism come entangled with other anti-Semitic theories, often arguing that George Soros and a shadowy “globalist” cabal are working to dissolve national borders and sovereignty into a totalitarian-communist “New World Order.”
When Trump claims that women and their doctors are wrapping, rocking, and then cruelly executing babies, he is engaging in a complex narrative rhetoric designed to both titillate and mobilize those in power against those whom they hate.
While the focus of the sentencing memo is on Butina’s connections to organizations like the NRA, the memo also cites her connection to the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that’s been hosted by The Family since 1953.
If we do rebuild it, will we keep the supersessionist imagery that was fundamental to medieval Christianity—and to anti-Semitism as well? At the very least, artists, architects, historians, theologians, and—yes—politicians ought to grapple with, rather than unthinkingly follow, the instincts of one deeply unpopular president.
In the run up to Easter and the National Day of Prayer, chaplains and guest chaplains around the nation have sowed religious division and discord as they delivered prayers at state legislatures, and now, federal courts are giving them their stamp of approval.
