Tracking the Roots of the Kool-Aid Pickle Craze

This Huffington Post article says that Kool-Aid pickles are a "Southern tradition."  But I had never heard of them until I read this article by John T. Edge in the New York Times back in May 2007.  Edge says that dill pickles soaked in Kool Aid are of recent provenance, and first began to be concocted in the Delta region of the South, largely in the heavily African-American population of that region.

Anthea Butler Blasts Racist Lies of White Faith-Based Conservatives

Anthea Butler speaks truth to (very corrupt) power, and tells "ahistorical white conservatives, white supremacists, and Quiverfull advocates" to knock off their maundering, totally insincere act of concern for black and brown babies, which is really hysteria disguised as concern.  It's hysteria about the fact that people of color are outpacing white people in producing babies, disguised as concern for the fate of African-American children.

Truth Wins Out Maintains Michelle Bachmann's Husband Practices "Ex-Gay" Therapy

And, speaking of the powerful role that religion continues to play in the public sphere in the U.S., particularly vis-a-vis human rights issues for LGBT human beings, Truth Wins Out has just released an important report showing that there's solid evidence that Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann's husband Marcus Bachmann practices "ex-gay" conversion therapy.  Marcus Bachmann maintains a psychotherapeutic clinic in Minnesota, which receives significant funding both from the federal government and the state.  

John Mattras on Questions to Ask U.S. Catholic Bishops about Their Defense of Marriage

John Mattras at Huffington Post,* recounting his journey as a gay Catholic from self-denial to self-acceptance, and the questions he'd like to put to the head of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference Archbishop Timothy Dolan now, as a gay man celebrating his God-given sexual orientation:

Father Corapi's New Video Appearance: American Catholicism Looks in the Mirror

Want to get a feel for where the American Catholic right (and, therefore, a sizable group of American Catholics) really is right now?  In its heart and soul?  Or, to be a bit franker and perhaps crude, in its gut--the place where it reacts and internalizes what matters most for it.

A Pilgrimage Within a Pilgrimage: Visting a Family Burial Site, Praying for Redemption to Extend to the Past

I mentioned last week that Steve and I took a trip to Houston over the fourth of July weekend to visit my uncle there (and Steve had some work-related business in Houston, as well).   While we were in Houston, I had a chance to take a tiny pilgrimage outside the city on Sunday afternoon, and it has been on my mind since then to blog briefly about this.  Warning: boring family history stuff to follow, which I'll try to summarize as crisply as possible.   

Robert McClory on Danger of Turning Metaphor Into Law

I've long contended that one of the most pernicious confusions that religious believers with a fundamentalist bent introduce into public discourse about religious issues is this: they take what is metaphorical, and they try to freeze the metaphor.  To absolutize it.  To make the analogical into a litmus test of absolute truth rather than a metaphor pointing in imperfect, halting human language to what transcends language.