The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act, the 2 trillion dollar bill passed last March, granted forgivable loans to “qualifying businesses and non- profits”. The Small Business Administration, which administered part of the Act, declared ( but tried to keep it quiet) that houses of worship and religious private schools qualified under the …
Late last week Tahir Naseem, an American citizen, was murdered while standing trial for blasphemy in a Pakistani court. Naseem was a former member of the persecuted Ahmadi minority, and was lured to Pakistan in 2018 to be detained on charges of blasphemy. Coupled with the continued detention of Nigerian humanist Mubarak Bala since April …
Continue reading ‘“Blasphemy, a way to control the people, and their thought’ »
”In two blows to church-state separation, Justices Breyer and Kagan joined the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in granting even more preferential treatment to religious bodies. In one case, the court gave the green light to religious employers to apply the “ministerial exemption” to pretty much any employee; a teacher is a coach is …
(This post is a bit longer than usual, but the injustice is so troublesome that I wanted to reproduce it; one won’t find it easily in the American media): Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) decries the Israeli government’s intended annexation of significant parts of the occupied West Bank (to start this coming Wednesday), for the …
The leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church have formally warned adherents against taking up yoga. The practice, they say, is “completely incompatible” with the Christian faith. In a statement last week, the church’s Holy Synod (the Patriarch and the most senior bishops) cautioned that yoga is not “a kind of physical exercise”, but rather a …
