Terry Firma, though born and Journalism-school-educated in Europe, has lived in the U.S. for the past 20-odd years. Stateside, his feature articles have been published in the New York Times, Reason, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Wired. Terry was the founder and Main Mischief Maker of Moral Compass, a now-dormant site that pokes fun at the delusional claim by people of faith that a belief in God equips them with superior moral standards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of two Manhattan-based magazines until he decided to give up commercial publishing for professional photography... with a lot of blogging on the side. These days, he lives in an old seaside farmhouse in Maine with his wife, three kids, and two big dogs.
In the Chitral Valley in Northern Pakistan, a decades-long influx of Sunni Muslims has gradually changed the dynamic between followers of Islam and the indigenous Kalash, … a polytheistic people who claim descent from Alexander the Great and who have maintained separate cultural traditions to the predominantly Muslim country. In a 50-minute video released earlier this month, the Pakistani Taliban are vowing action against the Kalash — for having the wrong religion. The filmed statement … opens with a scenic view of the mountainous valley that is popular among domestic tourists and famed for its annual polo festival. The narrator warns the Kalash, who are thought to number only 3,500, to convert to Islam or face death. Read more
Pro-equality campaigners notched their belts late last week when Invoking Abraham Lincoln and the nation’s historic struggle against racial discrimination, a federal judge declared … that Virginia’s laws that limit marriage to a man and a woman violated the due process and equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. … The ruling, which overturned a constitutional amendment adopted by Virginia voters in 2006 as well as previous laws, also said that Virginia must respect same-sex marriages that were carried out legally in other states. If the Court of Appeals upholds Thursday’s decision, the repercussions in the South, where opposition to same-sex marriage has been strongest, could be wide. Restrictive state amendments would most likely be voided in other states of the Fourth Circuit, including North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia. (Maryland, the fifth circuit member, approved same-sex marriage in 2012.) Read more
Looking at this photo and reading the caption (both courtesy of the Guardian), produces contrasting emotions. Good for these believers, and more power to them, if they snatch some dignity or some sense of social cohesion or even meaning from the destruction (though I can’t quite fathom what the Almighty’s message might be). Read more
Rubén Diaz Sr. is a Democratic Senator in New York State who is also the pastor of the Christian Community Neighborhood Church in the Bronx. Unusually enough for someone with his party affiliation and a constituency of New Yorkers, Diaz is known for this: In liberal New York City, he is 100% pro-life, one of very few — if not the only — Democrat State Senator to hold to the biblical position. … Pastor Diaz has fought hard for traditional, natural marriage, the only Democrat to stand for one man-one woman marriage in bitterly fought legislative battles year after year. A blogger at the Christian Post calls him “the most courageous pastor in America.” Read more
