Society & Culture

“Does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) categorically bar successful plaintiffs from receiving a monetary award? In one of the first cases heard in the new U.S. Supreme Court term, justices heard oral arguments on that question.” - BJC

“In the latest election survey, Nashville-based LifeWay Research found 98 percent of Protestant pastors in the U.S. say they plan to vote in the presidential election. When they cast their ballot, 53 percent of pastors likely to vote say they plan to do so for Donald Trump.” - BPNews

Berkeley and Rexroth “draw on the work of Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories (paid link), who contrast ‘social justice,’ the concern for justice in society, with capital-letter ‘Social Justice,’ which is a particular ideological theory that they describe as ‘applied post-modernism.’” - Veith

In response to new COVID outbreak clusters, the state “has decided to limit capacity of houses of worship within the clusters to ten people, and to entirely ban mass gatherings in the cluster areas.

“For the one tribe, failing to vote for Biden, especially since I live in Florida, is seen as me helping ensure four more years of Donald Trump. The other? Well, in their minds, refusing to vote for Trump demonstrates my lack of commitment to important social issues, specifically religious liberty and abortion.” - J. Ellis

“What that says is there’s no longer any middle ground. The contrasts are too stark. We can side with a working mother, someone’s daughter and neighbor, who is willing to risk her life for her community and her partner. Or we can side with those who laugh at her being shot and choking on her own blood, her only sin being the badge she wears.” - TAC

“Like most social encyclicals, Fratelli Tutti addresses a hodgepodge of topics. These range from detailed analysis of contemporary populism to explorations of the meaning of kindness, reciprocity and gratuitousness…. [it] insists on the need for Christians and others to be open to learning from others.

“Netflix has been indicted in the state of Texas for the distribution of lewd material after global outrage over French film, ‘Cuties.’” - MCD

“Thomas wrote that the 5-4 majority in a 2015 case had ‘read a right to same-sex marriage’ into the Constitution, ‘even though that right is found nowhere in the text.’ And he said that the decision ‘enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots.’” - C.Leaders/AP

“Any society thus dominated by its lust will do whatever it takes to satisfy it….Our political and religious landscape is littered with leaders who exemplify this kind of thinking and action—so densely so that there’s no need to name any examples. And we have chosen to follow them. We have elected them, or we have joined their churches.