Candace Chellew-Hodge on Fatal Flaws of "Religious Liberty" Exemptions in Rhode Island Civil Union Legislation

Candace Chellew-Hodge at Religion Dispatches on the fatal flaws hidden in the "religious liberty" exemptions afforded to faith-based groups by Rhode Island's recent civil unions legislation: as she notes, the legislation gives religious groups the right to discriminate against a partner of a gay spouse in health-care or hospital treatment: 

Cooking to Save the Planet: Creole and Anglo Southern Eggplant Casseroles

A week ago, I told you about the New Orleans Creole tradition of stuffing some of the summer vegetables produced in such abundance in the hot climate of the American South--notably, yellow crookneck summer squash and eggplants.  Today, I'd like to share yet another Creole recipe for stuffed eggplant, though this dish is cooked as a casserole and not stuffed into the eggplant shell.  And I want to compare that Creole treatment of eggplant with a parallel recipe from the Anglo part of the South, which also has a tradition of using both summer squash and eggplant in casserole dishes, but which gives an entirely different culinary signature to its treatment of these dishes.

Michael Lind and Julie Ingersoll on Triple Fundamentalisms Now Dominating the American Right

As the workday ends (in my part of the world), I don't want to miss the opportunity to make mention of a recent essay of Michael Lind at Salon, whose thesis Julie Ingersoll summarizes today at Religion Dispatches.*  It's about the three fundamentalisms now dominating the thinking of the American right.  Lind notes, as I did when I summarized Ross Douthat's response to marriage equality in New York recently, that American conservatism has long since lost sight of its traditional roots and is now controlled by a set of rigid lock-step ideological positions entirely antithetical to traditional conservatism.  In particular, American conservatism has abandoned its Burkean roots, and is driven by a miscellany of reflex fundamentalist responses to contemporary culture that align biblical fundamentalism with constitutional  and market fundamentalism.

NCR Editorial Addresses Marrriage Equality Legislation in NY: Bishops' Loss of Moral Credibility

National Catholic Reporter has just published a noteworthy editorial about the recent marriage equality legislation in New York.  The editorial is worthy of attention for a number of reasons.  

Corapi Again: The Rest of the Story, as His Religious Community Issues Damning Statement

Well, now we know.  The rest of the story.  Or at least more of the story than we've known thus far, since all we've really known about what was happening to Father John Corapi was from his own fulsome and exceptionally self-serving news releases about the situation.  And from the slimy retired bishop of Corpus Christi, René Gracida, who assured us that Corapi was the victim of a witch hunt by some members of the hierarchy, and would return to the priesthood after being vindicated.

Savage Responds to Douthat, Minnesota Tries to Make NOM Disclose Donors

Dan Savage's response to Ross Douthat's silly attempt to breathe new life into the gays-made-me-do-it argument about same-sex marriage undermining "real" marriages (re: which I blogged yesterday): 

Support for Marriage Equality as Litmus Test for Receiving Communion: In the Land of an Eye for an Eye, All Will Be Blind

One more tidbit as this day ends (and if I seem discombobulated, I am--by a day's vexatious travel home yesterday, which has left me tireder than usual): remember how I mentioned, a few days back, that both gay folks and those expressing solidarity with gay folks have been barred from communion by some Catholic bishops in recent years, while the 90%+ of married heterosexual Catholics using artificial contraception are never barred from communion?