That won’t stop Christians — It is often assumed that God has something to say about abortion, and the Bible ends up being cited by every side. After the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade, I was curious about the theology of terminated pregnancies. But as best I can tell, God sat out the debate. In the Bible, the subject never comes up. Christians would like the Bible to condemn abortion. But then, Christians like the idea of the Bible regulating all human sex…

Katharine Bushnell created Christian feminism—and the future? — She was the self-taught genius who caused a stir in the 1920s with a self-published book about the Bible. She died in 1946 all but forgotten. For an amazing resurrection story, there’s Jesus and Katherine Bushnell. In the decades after her death, she became a legend by arguing an amazing case. Christians said God hated women. Maybe He didn’t.

Let’s look at the economics of Christianity — If you go to buy a Bible, the seller is likely to be, not God, but a certain Australian billionaire. Rupert Murdoch pretty much owns the Christian sacred text. I was looking up the economics of ‘God’, a subject full of surprises. Murdoch owns 10 out of 20 of the top-selling Bibles, including #1 and #2. Another surprise? Christianity is a ‘secular’ business—and keeps quiet about it.

Was an “epic love story” staged to conceal queerness? — This Pride month, I’m thinking about that classic feature of LGBT life: the staged romance. Like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. It was a major media narrative for a half-century. Most any American from the 1940s to the 1990s knew that Hepburn and Tracy were in love, and wanted to marry — but couldn’t. He was Catholic, and couldn’t divorce his wife. That was the story.

Well, that’s the story — News from the world of science: a Google engineer had a chat with a sentient A.I. program named LaMDA about stuff like God, etc. etc. That’s the story, anyway, and it’s strange. Blake Lemoine reproduced the transcript of his dialogue with this artificial being right here on Medium. Meanwhile, Google says the program is not sentient, and placed Lemoine on leave for leaking an internal company document.

Let’s take it all in — In 1986, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in Ronald Reagan’s America, Tom Cruise’s homoerotic military fantasy was the #1 movie of the year. The famed reviewer Pauline Kael of The New Yorker dismissed it as “homoerotic commercial.” But the country loved Top Gun. I’m taking a look back at…all…that…gay. It’s “the gayest movie ever made.” That was Timothy Gunatilaka’s take back in 2003. Over the years there’s been a lot of commentary on the movie’s sexuality. That itself is…

A look at the Queen frontman’s faith — Does it seem odd to imagine the frontman of the rock band Queen as a Christian? He isn’t usually thought to be one. I’ve been reading up about his life. As Freddie Mercury was dying of AIDS in 1991, he’s said to have converted. “The whole family was extremely distressed by this news,” his aunt told biographer Lesley-Ann Jones. Fans seem to think he was Zoroastrian.

A TikTok star tells a strange tale — “Cult survivor” Elizabeth or ‘Liz’ Hunter is a star on TikTok and has been profiled in tabloids around the world. A video about her has some four million views. I watch “I Grew Up In a Cult Without Realizing,” thinking I’ll learn about a religious sect in Texas that wears 19th century-styled clothes, abuses children, does arranged marriages, and won’t let women go to college.

Let’s look at the “Drag the Kids to Pride” controversy — On June 4th, a gay bar in Dallas called Mr. Misster hosted an 11am event called “Drag the Kids to Pride.” It was called “family friendly” and had drag performances. That evening and now all today, right wing America is really, really angry. There are widespread calls for the Texas Legislature to close the bar, and for child attendees to be removed from their homes—with parents prosecuted.