A threading together of snippets from last week's news and news commentary (and I'll leave it to you to decide where the threads run and what's being pieced together with these snippets):
William James Jennings, "Christianity's Greatest Counterfeit":
This counterfeit Christian community worships power, desires control, and imagines the world revolving around self-sufficient men (and a few women).
I call it "Mad Man Religion." Mad Man Religion looks just like Christianity. It connects religious practices to free market practices like you would connect pieces from a Lego set. And it offers to young people, especially young white men, an image to live toward – that of a powerful winner who controls his own destiny and those around him, enabled to succeed by the very hand of God. Christianity in America has never been able to expose this counterfeit in all its glory, until now.
Rebecca Traister, "A Woman Should Run for President Against Hilary Clinton. Or Many Women":
But we haven’t come far enough. Instead, we’re in a tricky, potentially explosive stage: bursting with ideas about how to normalize the concept of women in power, but still constrained by a system that politically, economically, and culturally remains dominated by white men.
David Badash, "'No Wrong Time for Justice': Edie Windsor Talks about DOMA on One-Year Anniversary":
There is no wrong time for justice.
Fred Clark, "Heterosexual Marriage Still Unthreatened in All 50 States":
The number of states in which legal equality for same-sex couples threatens the marriages of opposite-sex couples is still zero.
Pete Williams and Tracy Connor, "Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Utah's Same-Sex Marriage Ban":
For the first time, a federal appeals court has struck down a state's ban on same-sex marriage. . . .
"We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and enjoy the full protection of a state's marital laws. A state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union," the court said.
Sarah Posner, "Religious Freedom Not Harmed by Tenth Circuit Decision in Utah Marriage Case":
Like many of the district court opinions, the Tenth Circuit today rejected arguments that marriage equality infringes on the religious freedom of its opponents.
Dahlia Lithwick (and Rachel Maddow), "Birth Control Case Could Spawn Obamacare Challenges":
I thought I was protected by basic civil rights law, but if my boss is a Jehovah's Witness or my boss is a Scientologist or my boss believes in Sharia law, is he or she going to be able to impose those religious views in ways that don't just violate my sense of who I am in this country, but violate other legal mandates and protections I thought I had?
Max Brantley, "Judicial Intimidation in Arkansas":
It would be a sad continuation of Arkansas's poor record on human rights if the Arkansas Supreme Court became the first in the modern era to find that the U.S. Constitution doesn't give equal protection to gay people.
The photo of a group of women quilting together is by Marion Martin at the Folklife in Louisiana website.