Politics

By Celine Castronuovo The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced changes to its Islamic personal laws, now allowing unmarried couples to cohabitate, loosening alcohol restrictions and imposing harsher punishments for “honor killings.” The Associated Press and Reuters reported on the changes Saturday, with the UAE state-run news agency WAM saying that the updates are intended to improve the country’s economic …

By Daniel Politi Evangelical leader and huge Donald Trump supporter Kenneth Copeland had a hearty laugh over Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. But the word laugh doesn’t quite capture what he does during a prayer service. “The media said what?” Copeland said before bursting out laughing in the video posted by Right Wing Watch. …

By the Times Editorial Board A Catholic social services agency urged the Supreme Court this week to rule that the agency can participate in the city of Philadelphia’s foster care program while refusing to work with same-sex couples. The court should reject the agency’s appeal and make it clear that religious freedom may not be used as …

By Kathryn Post Taylor Valci was 7 the first time she spoke in tongues. The daughter of a Pentecostal pastor in California’s Bay Area, she grew up watching “Veggie Tales” and attending Missionettes, the Assemblies of God version of Girl Scouts. “For me, personally, God was absolutely the most important thing in the world,” Valci …

By Andrew L. Seidel Stop the counting! Keep counting! These contradictory demands lie at the heart of Trump’s legal strategy to steal the 2020 election. You can see it in the opposing chant of Trump supporters in The Recount’s remarkable side-by-side video of small MAGA mobs in Arizona and Michigan; rats piped to their nearest polling …

By Yonat Shimron Polling predictions frustrated and mystified voters on election night, as they did four years ago, when now-President Donald Trump far exceeded the prognosticators’ expectations. One area where this year’s polls were mostly in line with expectations, however, is religion. Exit polls conducted with voters by Edison Research for the National Election Pool and by AP …

By Casey Quinlan Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, is warning voters that a Biden administration could result in the “targeting” of businesses through a “gay lesbian agenda.” Graham also baselessly asserted that Christian businesses and ministries would be put behind bars if Biden won the White House. In an interview released on …

By Joe Sommerlad Donald Trump looks increasingly likely to lose the US presidential election to challenger Joe Biden, with the Democrat just six Electoral College votes shy of the 270 he needs to claim victory and four states still to declare their results. The president moved quickly on Wednesday morning to cry “fraud”, baselessly alleging election interference …

By Nina Totenberg The U.S. Supreme Court may be poised to side with Catholic Social Services in a battle that pits religious freedom against anti-discrimination laws in Philadelphia. At issue is a Catholic charity’s refusal to screen same-sex couples as foster care parents. While new Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not indicate which way she …

By Jack Jenkins Democrats agonizing over Joe Biden’s dramatic underperformance in Florida, a state that many wrongly projected would end up in the former vice president’s column, have begun looking at why Hispanic voters, a majority of the population of Miami-Dade County, went soft on Biden in the Sunshine State and elsewhere. One answer, said the Rev. …

By Jack Jenkins After more than a year of campaigning, the 2020 election is finally upon us, pitting Democrat Joe Biden against President Donald Trump. It has been an unusually faith-focused campaign season, with both candidates repeatedly appealing to religion and religious voters over the past few months — albeit often in very different ways. But as the …

By Kelsey Vlamis Maria Felix was on a mission trip, working alongside other Christians, when she first heard Donald Trump’s name. It was 2015, and she said the group of teens was joking about him, baffled at the idea that he was casting himself as a Christian in his campaign for the US presidency. Five …