Global Right

Caution, religion!

From a modest building in a central neighborhood in Goiânia, the capital of the Brazilian state of Goiás, Filipe Coelho is launching the American Center for Law and Justice’s (ACLJ) Brazilian branch, following the example of the Christian Right organization’s offices in Eastern Europe and Africa.

Yesterday, the New York Times’ released an eight-minute “Op-Doc” titled “Gospel of Intolerance,” from Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, exposing “how money donated by American evangelicals helps to finance a violent antigay movement in Uganda.”

Yesterday, I and about 40 others crammed into the Springfield, MA, office of Arise for Social Justice, fresh from the first oral hearing of the lawsuit brought by Ugandan gay rights activists against Scott Lively–the notorious holocaust revisionist who, as PRA broke in 2009, traveled to Uganda to promote the virulent homophobia that lead to the “kill the gays” bill.

PRA’s statement on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda.

It’s simpler to assume that religion and feminism are at odds; that religion is simply the provenance of those who use tools like pro-life politics to fight feminist agendas. It’s much more complicated to think of religion as both resource and adversary in the political struggles that feminists face.

On Friday, Andy Kroll at Mother Jones reported that Jay Sekulow and Jordan Sekulow, the father-son team leading the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) — high-profile social conservatives and advisers and supporters of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, are working to overcome the candidate’s enthusiasm gap within the right-wing evangelical community.

What does it mean for the possibility of a military strike on Iran that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has consulted Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef whose remarks in the past have caused a great deal of embarrassment for Israel?

Much of the Pussy Riot trial has focused on the shifting role of the Church from the Soviet era, but what’s less well known is the Church’s efforts to mute dissenters outside of Russia.

In short: for “hooliganism.”