https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to title ix en https://religiondispatches.org/2025/04/11/womens-liberation-front-attempts-liberate-womens-sports-gender-equality This article first appeared in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue of our sibling publication, The Public Eye—a quarterly magazine for analysis and commentary on the US and Global Right. In June 2024, a group of anti-trans feminists crisscrossed the U.S. with… Fri, 11 Apr 2025 02:28:21 EDT Hannah Silver 0d6b2ad4-67ad-43f5-8df2-0936ba4d463e https://religiondispatches.org/2023/04/18/dragged-through-mud-little-church-backed-support-group-lgbtq-teens-suffered-bomb-threats “Twenty years ago I thought now would be better. And it’s not.” That’s how Tiffany Vasquez, a longtime resident of Roseville, California, feels after weeks of vicious right-wing attacks on the local LGBTQ community—attacks that are part of an increasingly… Tue, 18 Apr 2023 05:29:15 EDT Chrissy Stroop 1d99a2ef-0f38-442f-ba14-429adebdcf74 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/12/14/we-declare-you-restored-how-christian-forgiveness-deployed-enable-abuse-and-corruption Popular theology routinely enables powerful men to rehabilitate their public image after their misconduct goes public. This pattern applies especially to men known for their dedication to Jesus. The standard line holds that the man has repented of his sin… Wed, 14 Dec 2022 03:21:08 EST Greg Carey 648afa3f-04df-45fc-8980-11146ddc3486 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/04/08/most-forgotten-queer-folks-us-are-fighting-back-against-powerful-and-publicly-funded “How do we get people to view the CCCU as an extremist organization, the same way they view ADF?” It’s a great question that Paul Southwick, a gay attorney and the director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP), put… Fri, 08 Apr 2022 01:51:59 EDT Chrissy Stroop 9e8b48cf-43dc-4f8d-9267-ac9b9c4d7ea3 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/06/03/what-my-christian-high-school-taught-me-about-being-black-girl I’m looking at a photograph of myself at fourteen. I’m a freshman in high school. I’m wearing an oversized Mickey Mouse T-shirt and baggy jeans. Back then I chose comfort over style. I’m smiling widely, exposing the crooked teeth that… Thu, 03 Jun 2021 12:42:10 EDT Carlyn Ferrari 6e0e6c1e-13b8-4045-bd81-d24e426eafbe https://religiondispatches.org/2020/10/20/god-made-them-male-and-femaleand-eunuch-why-biblical-case-binary-gender-isnt-so-biblical The following is an excerpt from Republican Jesus: How the Right Has Rewritten the Gospels (The University of California Press, 2020). Read Peter Laarman’s review of the book here. One of the key biblical texts that Republican Christians have tethered… Tue, 20 Oct 2020 03:38:09 EDT Tony Keddie 2f3f9458-fb35-4b38-8020-d125f442b715 https://religiondispatches.org/2020/09/29/can-democrats-question-amy-coney-barretts-faith-yes-should-they-well Let’s cut right to the paper chase, as it were. Amy Coney Barrett’s faith is potentially problematic, and ought to be subject to the same kind of critique as any other belief, sacred or secular. Whether or not critics of… Tue, 29 Sep 2020 11:32:35 EDT Daniel Schultz c0dd77a4-0c26-4223-8230-de1956f06aba https://religiondispatches.org/2017/09/12/trumps-doj-wants-constitutional-protection-wedding-cakes-not-lgbt-people Nine months into Donald Trump’s presidency, it should surprise no one to learn that his administration is going out of its way to restrict civil rights, rather than expand them. Nevertheless, a brief the Department of Justice filed this month… Tue, 12 Sep 2017 05:56:54 EDT Sunnivie Brydum 42ca0ef5-46be-42a4-b749-88eb29f6e5cb https://religiondispatches.org/2017/05/31/federal-appeals-court-finds-wisconsin-schools-transphobic-policy-unconstitutional-days When he walks across the stage to receive his diploma on Saturday, 17-year-old Wisconsin high school senior Ashton Whitaker will do so knowing that his name will go down in history connected to a landmark ruling that affirms trans students’… Wed, 31 May 2017 07:30:26 EDT Sunnivie Brydum 4fa11a13-53f3-4258-adcf-4dd48721964c https://religiondispatches.org/2017/04/11/pair-courts-issue-revolutionary-rulings-lgbt-equality-one-scathing-one-beautiful While Chase Strangio, the ACLU attorney who serves as lead counsel on trans high school student Gavin Grimm’s case, is understandably disappointed with the latest development, he stressed that Grimm has already made an indelible mark on history. “We will… Tue, 11 Apr 2017 12:00:47 EDT Sunnivie Brydum d835b895-fa24-429d-8cb8-1f66e40d248a https://religiondispatches.org/2017/03/30/trump-out-erase-lgbt-americans-public-life Remember, back in the olden days of late January 2017, when Sean Spicer and a host of other administration cronies promised that Trump was a steadfast ally of LGBT Americans, and that there were no anti-LGBT executive orders imminent? I… Thu, 30 Mar 2017 12:14:05 EDT Sunnivie Brydum ba1f7653-c26a-482d-b68c-0116aab22881 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/02/28/flouting-scotus-religious-liberty-advocates-give-game-away Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern published an important scoop on Friday, revealing that the U.S. Supreme Court had formally reprimanded two right-wing, anti-LGBTQ groups for misgendering the teenage plaintiff in G.G. v. Glouchester County School Board, the landmark case regarding trans… Tue, 28 Feb 2017 11:37:08 EST Sunnivie Brydum 151ae16b-8d38-47ca-9789-d4dc73079a3c https://religiondispatches.org/2017/01/02/these-are-new-battlegrounds-lgbt-rights-under-trump As Inauguration Day nears, and as our new, orange-tinted reality sets in, it behooves all Americans who believe in fairness and equality to take stock of what we’re up against — because that’s how we’ll be able to resist it… Mon, 02 Jan 2017 09:00:42 EST Sunnivie Brydum a2800398-5707-47e9-b2bb-f657d1775839 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/11/18/dont-be-fooled-trumps-acceptance-marriage-equality-heres-what-expect “Religious freedom” is a tactic that has worked for powerful straight white men for centuries—why switch it up now? Fri, 18 Nov 2016 12:24:14 EST Sunnivie Brydum 0de22285-162b-4663-9561-e910b42654a3 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/10/18/inside-intervarsitys-purge-trauma-and-termination-premier-evangelical-student-org One of the nation’s largest campus ministries has demanded that its LGBT-affirming staff quit by November 11th. Tue, 18 Oct 2016 01:25:50 EDT Deborah Jian Lee 9d867148-8f85-4051-aaf0-4083e5a413d1 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/08/01/will-sb-1146-end-lgbt-discrimination-californias-religious-schools A new religious freedom battle has been brewing in California, but you probably haven’t heard of it yet. The Golden State’s Christian colleges and universities are up in arms over SB 1146, a Senate bill they argue would effectively end… Mon, 01 Aug 2016 02:24:44 EDT Stephanie Russell-Kraft d3155e4e-9206-40ea-a9ce-06d03f9dd91b https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/06/how-talk-nones-and-influence-people-rob-bells-transrational-experience Did I really need to learn How To Be Here, urgently, right now? The book’s publisher had sent me not one advance reading copy, but three. A sign from the universe? I decided to read the book to find out… Mon, 06 Jun 2016 06:01:06 EDT Brook Wilensky-Lanford eb973ac2-b38d-4ffe-b12f-be1104c28ce9 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/04/06/why-trumpvangelicals-dont-need-ted-cruz-conservative-christianitys-authoritarian-streak Donald Trump’s bizarre rise seems to be, as new research suggests, the result of an increasing American attraction to authoritarian leadership. I’d like to suggest that if “a desire for order and a fear of outsiders” predicts Trump support, the… Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:02:38 EDT Chrissy Stroop 09e0f63a-800a-44a7-ba47-53ec8e1cd99f https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/13/why-we-must-reclaim-religious-freedom-christian-conservatives An interview with journalist and activist Frederick Clarkson Wed, 13 Jan 2016 07:40:35 EST Bill Berkowitz 4bd0f436-5eff-494e-b27c-47ae8256bc43 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/08/what-fight-over-allah-says-about-future-evangelical-christianity When Professor Larycia Hawkins of Wheaton College publicly announced her solidarity with Muslims by wearing a hijab through the holiday season—and stated that Christians and Muslims worship the “same God”—the school put her on “paid administrative leave.” And now comes… Fri, 08 Jan 2016 05:56:26 EST Richard Flory a323d76f-d4e4-4a78-883e-dbb24c07cd5b https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/29/american-christianity-changing-fast-five-stories-watch-2016 While LGBT evangelicals cheered on the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage, evangelical institutions lobbied for the passage of “religious freedom” laws that would allow them to discriminate. When President Obama mouthed platitudes during the funeral of the slain Rev. Clementa… Tue, 29 Dec 2015 06:00:45 EST Richard Flory 73322b59-f0ea-4366-a0d4-bb23fa80a339 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/16/did-religious-universities-just-get-license-discriminate The news that more than two dozen religiously affiliated colleges and universities had received exemptions from the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX demonstrates how the “religious liberty” argument continues to morph and spread. The Column reports that 36 religiously-affiliated institutions… Wed, 16 Dec 2015 01:26:27 EST Patricia Miller ac74ae09-3420-45a3-a9a0-230a04212c8c https://religiondispatches.org/2014/07/25/irony-religious-liberty-argument The nine most terrifying words in the English language, are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. – Ronald Reagan There’s an irony embedded in the outraged responses of the “religious liberty” crowd to the executive order signed… Fri, 25 Jul 2014 04:22:33 EDT Eric C. Miller 50e1cc13-2552-4095-8313-4d89a4dfb1df https://religiondispatches.org/2010/10/29/religious-right-attacks-federal-bullying-intervention Dept of Ed efforts to prevent more teen suicides evoke the predictable and the truly bizarre. Fri, 29 Oct 2010 11:24:00 EDT Candace Chellew-Hodge 8d938391-5168-4fc8-9a6c-0a75679c5091 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/08/09/jesus-was-single How can a secular state justify its desire to discriminate between married persons and single persons? What compelling state interest is served by creating such social groups? I suspect that when this debate has made its way through the courts, a new issue will have emerged: that the state has no business in the marriage business, period. Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:03:31 EDT Louis A. Ruprecht 4891cd90-266b-4284-adb3-3b5553e70a33