The NYT has the first chapter of the book Unfriendly Fire. The chapter is about how gay Arabic specialists were dismissed from the military for violating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. National Security or Religious Right? We know who won that fight.
Related Posts
Tempting Faith
For those of you haven’t heard yet, a new book is coming out Monday called Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. Written by David Kuo, who was a well-placed person in the Office of Faith Based initiatives, it details how the Bush administration used faith to further a political agenda. Via Street Prophets, I found this interview hosted on Crooks and Liars. To me the most pertinent passage is: One official who rated grant applications told Kuo, “ when I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them…
Bold Faith Type – King receiving Threats
Faith in Public Life :: Bold Faith Type. The Hill is reporting that Peter King has received threatening phone calls as his controversial hearings on the “radicalization” of the American Muslim community approach. This is contemptible. Such actions have no place in our society. We also hope anti-Islam activists do not seize on these threats to broadly impugn Muslims.
Sotomayor Nomination
Frank Rice has a good piece on the Sotomayor nomination today, and how it the process highlights how difference is threatening to some people, even though difference is becoming more normative. See also Stewart and Colbert. Unfortunately, while Rich focuses on Latino/a aspects, I think he misses the larger issue of how we all fear difference. For example, this type of fear applies to Muslims, but also emanates from Muslims. Hopefully, the recent experiences with Pres. Obama and Sotomayor help highlight how we fear difference and how we can overcome it.