a review of religion and media
Abby Ohlheiser: In the collective gasp that followed the shooting in Tucson on Saturday, the story of the ongoing voting on a referendum for southern independence in Sudan was all but lost. We’re still catching up at The Revealer secret headquarters ourselves. Consensus in the coverage seems to be that the southern third of Sudan, which is mostly Christian and Animist, will vote for secession from the northern part of the country, which has a Muslim majority. Continue Reading →
By Jeff Sharlet
The reverence with which so many upper-middle class Americans read The Economist has always puzzled me. There’s much to admire about the magazine, but it generally performs the same function as Newsweek, boiling down events into centrist conventional wisdom, facts be damned. A report in the July 3, 2010 issue, “The religious right in east Africa: Slain by the spirit,” is a case in point. I’ve been reporting on the religious right anti-gay movement in Uganda from here in the U.S. and from Kampala for nine months now, so I’m in a good position to see The Economist’s strange moves; I wonder what I’d make of the article that follows it, on Somaliland’s elections, if I were as informed on that story. But one needn’t have expertise to debunk The Economist’s report; a Google search would do it, especially if you landed, as you likely would, on the well-documented blogs of gay activist Jim Burroway or evangelical scholar Warren Throckmorton.
The biggest error is The Economist’s declaration that the bill no longer calls for the death penalty. That’s propaganda put out by the bill’s defenders. In fact, as I learned by asking the bill’s author, Ugandan Member of Parliament David Bahati, it does. (I’ll be publishing those interviews in my forthcoming book, C Street.) Bahati acknowledges that the death penalty may drop out of the final version; but it hasn’t yet, and it’s dangerous for The Economist to say as much. Continue Reading →
Mary Valle: I thought that the easiest thing in the world might be eating pudding or sleeping or watching TV, but I was wrong. “The easiest thing in the world is to wait (to have sex) until you get married, and marry a virgin,” according to gynecologist and Catholic sister Dr. Hanna Klaus, who is preaching abstinence to African teenagers on the US government’s dollar, reports Krista Kapralos at Religion News Service. Now she worries because she feels her approach isn’t liked by the Obama administration, and that she won’t be eligible for the same grants. The great shadow falling over the fragile consensus of “abstinence education and condom distribution” — is abortion. Hillary Clinton’s recent comment that “reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion,” seems to have spooked conservatives, who may pull their support for global health programs, which may lead to AIDS rampaging once again through Africa. How about a new “smorgasbord” approach where everything is funded and clients may choose which services or points-of-view they’re interested in? That’s the American way, right? Consumer choice? Continue Reading →
“Swazi females drop chastity tassels,” reported CNN on August 22, describing a warm-up event to a ritual dance of 50,000 virgins who perform bare-breasted for Swaziland’s King Mswati, who will Continue Reading →
Agreed: The Bush administration’s response to AIDS in Africa is a failure. Disputed: The reasons why. An argument with the mainstream press narrative. By Bob Smietana In a joint report Continue Reading →
Anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) activists meeting in Nairobi called for comprehensive legislation banning the practice, which removes part of all of a young girl’s genitalia, using, in part, this rationale: “‘It Continue Reading →
The Solid Rock Cruisers, a Christian car club based in Auburn, Washington, will hold their annual “Believe in the Son” car show this Saturday. “‘It’s as if (Christian stores) have been playing Continue Reading →
The Solid Rock Cruisers, a Christian car club based in Auburn, Washington, will hold their annual “Believe in the Son” car show this Saturday. “‘It’s as if (Christian stores) have been playing Continue Reading →