Portside

NYPD twits; Creationists' heads explode; Public school Bible curriculum; Goodbye Columbus; Buffalo Jills pay back the Bills; What Americans really think about inequality

Globalizing Homophobia reminds us that a tangled web of right-wing organizations are working hard to reverse LGBTQ civil rights at home and curtail gay activism abroad. These groups are well-funded and well-connected, and while same-sex marriage is the hook they use to ensnare followers, their actual agenda is far more insidious. The goal? To shove queer communities back into the closets of denial and self-hate.

Hoopsters honor Debs; Pacifica exec exed; Methodists measure up; St Pat's sans Guinness; Reclaiming digital privacy

“The issue ... is not religion versus non-religion, or religion versus science,” Tyson says. “The issue is ideas that are different versus dogma.”

If the Supreme Court is willing to embrace the almost oxymoronic notion that corporations can be people of faith, then there could be little end to business owners’ ability to immunize themselves from the law — so long as they cover their objections to those laws in a religious wrapper.

Reader Comments - Kshama Sawant's election; The Vietnam Antiwar Movement; AFL-CIO's new road; Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA; Religious Freedom, or Reproductive Freedom; Israel Boycott Movement Controversy; Chris Christie; Bill de Blasio; Announcements - Chicago (Jan. 18); New York (Jan. 21, 24 and 30); Bay Area (Jan. 22) Today in History

John and Bonnie Raines played an active role in the Media action that uncovered the FBI Cointelpro files. That they were willing to take this risk even with their responsibilities as parents of three young children is very moving, very inspiring. They were clearly about a much higher responsibility to their children, the responsibility of providing an example of someone who is willing to take reasonable risks for justice, peace and the common good.

Pope Francis, in his messages and appointments, seems to be steering the Roman Catholic Church into more moderate terrain, away from some of the conservative ideological interpretations of the recent period. Jim Williams reviews The Radical Jesus. "Who was Jesus anyway? What did his life and teaching mean? There are so many views - from the Religious Right to Rev. Cornell West. My view is that Jesus is whoever you want him to be. You can find the quotes to fit."

Military chaplains seem to be another cog in the apparatus of making war maximally effective. Christian chaplains seem to not pay much attention to the Ten Commandments either, especially the ones that say "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's oil". 99 years ago one of the most unusual aberrations in the bloody history of warfare - never allowed to be repeated again - occurred.