Mary Hunt Asks, Should Barbie Get Her Feet Washed at Church?

Should Barbie get her feet washed at church? theologian Mary Hunt asks in a sharp new essay at Religion Dispatches noting the interesting coincidence of the Vatican's announcement that women can have their feet washed on Holy Thursday coming down the same week that Mattel announced three new sizes for Barbie and a number of other variations in its old model. And then Mary Hunt says:

Reader Writes: Catholic Master Narratives about Abortion "Don't Cover Much Ground Outside the Western Middle-Class Bubble That Can Afford to Treat Human Sexuality Like a Cupcake Addiction"

In response to my posting earlier today about the Zika virus and the lack of any response — yet — to the serious moral question it poses for the absolutist "pro-life" stance of some folks today, cranefly writes:

United Methodists Discuss Anglican Communion's Sanctioning of Episcopal Church USA for Support of Same-Sex Marriage: Implications for UMC Future?

Robert Schotter writes, 

WHO Declares Zika Situation Global Medical Emergency: Pro-Lifers? Any Response?

A footnote to what I posted yesterday (pointing you to an article by Emma Saloranta) about the cruel irony of leaders of predominantly Catholic nations encouraging women not to become pregnant as the Zika virus becomes rampant in those nations — when neither abortion nor contraception is an easily available option for many women in these nations:

The Interesting Story of Megan Phelps-Roper's Conversion by Twitter: When Online Interaction Cracks the Shell of Cultic Anti-Gay Religious Belief

Watch this on The Scene.

Who knew? If you're a religious fanatic raised in a tight, repressive, closed-off, bitterly angry religious environment, in a religious community which believes that it and it alone has all the answers to all the serious questions that may be asked by any serious person, the internet might turn your life upside down. 

In the News: ACLU and Colleges Discriminating Against LGBT Students; Anti-LGBT Bills in State Legislatures; Pakistan Censors Gay Times Photo; Anglican Leaders Out of Touch; Dancing Priests and Nuns in Italy

Here's an omnium gatherum of stuff — related in my strange head, but perhaps it won't appear that way to you — that has caught my magpie's sharp eye in recent news: 

Emma Saloranta on Cruel Irony of Latin American Leaders' Advice That Women Not Get Pregnant As Zika Virus Spreads

Emma Saloranta commenting on the cruel irony of the instructions issued by leaders of Latin American countries in which the Zika virus is now spreading rapidly, not to get pregnant while the virus is spreading: