Blasphemy laws punish Muslims, too

If asked to prepare a list of mainstream foreign correspondents who “get religion,” Pamela Constable of the Washington Post would be in my top handful of names. Simple stated, she does not look at conflicts that are packed with religious language, symbolism and actions and then automatically assume that this is the result of “tribalism” and/or vague “sectarian” forces in the culture. In the past, I have also pointed GetReligion readers toward her evocative memoir — “Fragments of Grace: My Search for Meaning in the Strife of South Asia.”


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St. Augustine's Spankological Protocol

One of my favorite teachers in high school — all the kids loved him — was Mr. Richard Bonacquista. He was our Colorado History teacher — no one could make Colorado history more entertaining — and our baseball coach. In any case, one of the things he showed us from early first teaching days — over in mining country in the southwest part of the state — was a wooden paddle.


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Unholy mess in the Holy Land

On the day I arrived in Israel, where I was on an Act for Israel media fellowship, terrorists killed five members of the Fogel family. The day after I left, Hamas fired rockets from Gaza into Ashkelon. Israel responded with air strikes in Gaza. More rockets from Gaza … and then a bomb. The Jerusalem bomb was serious, injuring dozens of Israeli commuters and killing one woman. It was detonated extremely close to where I was staying in Jerusalem, just a two-minute walk or so from my hotel.


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Geraldine Ferraro's Catholic side

Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential candidate on a major party presidential ticket, died today, and we’re scanning the obituaries for evidence of her faith. For instance, if you read Politico, you wouldn’t know that she was Catholic or struggled with religious leaders over her pro-choice stance.


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