O’Reilly and Dugard’s interpretation of the gospels in Killing Jesus was motivated by the same politics of resentment that Trump inherited from the Tea Party—a politics of fiscal, ethnic/racial, and religious conservatism.
While TST is not the first Satanic organization to obtain this status, it is the first group that clearly intends to deploy this status in legal challenges. TST’s demands for equal treatment under the law are going to be much harder to dismiss from here on out.
In right-wing circles, theories about cultural Marxism in the era of Trumpism come entangled with other anti-Semitic theories, often arguing that George Soros and a shadowy “globalist” cabal are working to dissolve national borders and sovereignty into a totalitarian-communist “New World Order.”
While the focus of the sentencing memo is on Butina’s connections to organizations like the NRA, the memo also cites her connection to the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that’s been hosted by The Family since 1953.
In the run up to Easter and the National Day of Prayer, chaplains and guest chaplains around the nation have sowed religious division and discord as they delivered prayers at state legislatures, and now, federal courts are giving them their stamp of approval.
While activists cite the policy change and the opportunity for more discussion and visibility on campus, it isn’t clear how faculty would feel safe openly exploring queer theology while contractually required to oppose same-sex relationships on theological grounds.
The past couple of weeks have shown the country that, even though the Supreme Court has said prayers are constitutional, government bodies should stop organizing them. They are divisive, intimidating, coercive—and certainly unbecoming in bodies that represent our increasingly pluralistic communities.