Sarah Rasher is, among other things, a freelance writer based in Chicago. She also writes for Graphic Policy and The Rainbow Hub, as well as her personal blog, Sarah Explains the Finer Sports. You can follow her on Twitter at @pas_dechat.
We’re used to the Catholic Church covering up sex scandals. So when an archdiocese says it’s “considering” the release of affidavits about a former archbishop’s sexual behavior, you have to wonder what’s going on beneath the surface. John Nienstedt (below) resigned his position as Archbishop of Minneapolis and St. Paul last month, ten days after Ramsey County (which includes the city of St. Paul) filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese. The lawsuit stated that the archdiocese had failed to protect children from abusive priests. Read more
If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, you’re not supposed to participate in competitive sports. An issue of the Watchtower made that clear a decade ago: “… if measuring ourselves against others — their feats or advantages — stimulates feelings akin to envy or competitiveness, beware! These are negative emotions, incompatible with God’s thinking.” But that doesn’t seem to apply to Serena Williams. Read more
The United States Army has infringed on the rights of minority religious groups before, but this time, they risk being smitten by the hammer of Thor. For the past six years, Heathens (their word) in the Army have been fighting for official recognition of their religion, which modernizes traditional Norse, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon beliefs in gods like Odin and Freyja and an afterlife in the warrior’s paradise Valhalla. While the Air Force began recognizing Heathens last year, the other branches of the U.S. Military have not followed suit. In January, the Army briefly approved Heathen and Asatru (the Norse word for the religion), but reversed its position a few days later. The Army’s refusal to recognize Heathens puts its followers in a frustrating state of limbo: Read more
