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Sentimentality has a body count.

At the end of September the Chamber of Deputies narrowly voted 50-49 to adopt a controversial bill that would decriminalize first-trimester abortions. If approved by the senate and signed by the president as expected, Uruguay will become the second Latin American country to legalize abortion. (Cuba was the first.) Undoubtedly, this would be a significant step forward for those advocating for reproductive rights and access in the country, but pro-choice activists are hesitant to hail it a true victory.

Media excitement continues over the latest Pew poll showing continued growth in the religiously affiliated. But do such data really tell us what we need to know about the Four F’s of Contemporary American Spirituality: Family, Fido, Friends, and Food?

Airbrushing at the ACLJ.

Reasons to cheer—and possibly fear.

No laws restricting abortion?

Probably the first and last time I’ll write here about football players.

Parting Ways is Butler’s attempt to construct a Jewish narrative that coheres with her philosophical and political sensibilities as well as her allegiance to her Jewish heritage and lineage. As a Jew for whom religious practice and the Jewish textual tradition do not constitute her Jewish core, hers is a secular narrative of Jewishness outside the orbit of Zionism. Butler’s concern for Israel is that she believes its present construction is “Jewishly” indefensible (in the terms she develops in her book) and the muscularity with which Zionism is proffered squashes any alternative narrative of diasporic Jewish identity.

For those still in denominations like the United Methodists that are not accepting of LGBT people, go to your church and put a note in the offering plate that says you won’t give until things change. Every time we’ve tried that, the pastors have called people in immediately to talk to them and it opened up a dialogue in that church that was serious because they could see that that could spread among other people who are pro-gay. One thing you can do is withhold your money. Why are we supporting our own oppression?