GENEVA: Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan live in fear of persecution and even execution or murder on false charges of blasphemy against Islam, the World Council of Churches (WCC) says. The Council, a global body linking Protestant and Orthodox churches in 11 …

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She also testified that her speech was intended to be instructive about the need to put bias aside. But that was hardly what she had said. Instead, she told the audience in 2001:

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The U.S. Senate should take as much time as needed for a thorough evaluation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's record and jurisprudence. That's the takeaway from the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of the Ricci v. DeStefano decision.

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Her personal story is compelling, but her jurisprudence is "racially and ethnocentrically" grounded. The reality is that Sotomayor has often spoken of the superiority of ethnicity (and gender) as determinants of what she deems to be sound judicial rulings.

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Some people are unhappy to hear President Obama suggest that attributes like gender, ethnicity, and "empathy" are critical in choosing a Supreme Court justice, and it's hard to blame them.

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"Meester Barack, I am shocked, SHOCKED to see identity politics going on in this Supreme Court nomination." "Your birthday card for Justice Thomas, Sir." "Ah, thank you."

Who's fooling whom? For many years before my lifetime, and I'm no spring chicken, there was a traditionally "Jewish" seat on the Supreme Court.

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Sen. (D-NY) CHARLES SCHUMER, quoted on the Mark Levin radio show -

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W.E.B. Du Bois was quick to endorse the appointment of Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. "As a Jew," Du Bois said, quoting Isaiah, Brandeis knows the experience of "being despised and rejected of men."

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The subject of Gus Van Sant's new movie is Harvey Milk, a 1970s liberal activist and the first major openly gay politician to be elected in the US.

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Confronting the tension over gay marriage between two loyal Dem constituencies, blacks and gays.

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Over the last few weeks, Stephen K. Amos has been asked on to chat shows to discuss the credit crunch, the sex scandal involving a formula one bigwig and prostitutes dressed as Nazis, and the current situation in Northern Ireland.

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"Just as I cannot support just any African American who decides to offer themselves up for public service, I will not toss my vote to someone just because we share the same chromosome mix.

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"It's not bigotry per se that hamstrings us in the struggle to achieve a just society. It's our inability to talk about and think our way through our preconceptions. We have to learn how to forgive each other, and more importantly ourselves, when we're stupid."

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It's a good question. As far as I can tell, the answer goes something like this: Nixon's government was like pagan Rome, while Reagan's was like the Christian Empire after Constantine.

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Traditionally, the phrase "identity politics" has referred to the Democratic coalition's caucuses, interest groups, and competitive claims of wrongs to be righted and rights to be granted.

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Another way this election has been different from any other since 1960 is that neither money nor the thing it mostly buys -- television advertising -- has made much difference. Obama has been a prodigious fundraiser, raising unheard of sums over the Internet.

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"It's because of the way I carry myself," he chipped in before my friend could answer. He went on to invoke some stereotypes about Asians, explaining that he didn't look fully Asian because he had a very emotive face and liked to gesture a lot.

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The '60s may have seen the dawn of identity politics, but it wasn't until recently that identity politics became so ... political.

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Racial identity is a tricky thing. For some of us, it's something we were born into, with relatives coaching us into an understanding of our race and how it may work against us in society.

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A courageous Muslim reformer speaks out-- ''Robert F. Kennedy observed, "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society.

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I see a Republican landslide coming. McCain in the upper 50s. In addition maybe the Ds will rethink their love for identity politics. It has not served them well.

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Voting on the basis of qualities like gender or race makes sense — sometimes.

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Black feminist politics is not simple identity politics. It is not about letting brothers handle the race stuff, or about letting white women dominate the gender stuff. The black woman's fight is on all fronts.

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The great polemicist Christopher Hitchens, on why he finds the Democratic front-runner unappealing:

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Very good re-examination of Weber's analysis of the role religion plays in America. It seems that nothing much has changed in the past century, triggered by a seemingly out-of-character outburst of religious fanaticism in Georgetown, Delaware.

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