Tattoo Jesus * Sikh Challenger * Yarmulke Pass : Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup

A tattooed Jesus, emblazoned with our sins. A Sikh challenger for Paul Ryan. And why it may be perfectly respectful to pass on the yarmulke in a sacred Jewish space.

Man dressed as Jesus protests anti-gay protesters at the 2013 Los Angeles AIDS Walk. Photo courtesy of Brody Brown via Instagram.

We begin with men who, for different reasons, dress up as Jesus.

A man in a Jesus costume showed up with a bouquet of red balloons to protest anti-gay protesters at this year’s AIDS Walk Los Angeles.

 


Man dressed as Jesus protests anti-gay protesters at the 2013 Los Angeles AIDS Walk. Photo courtesy of Brody Brown via Instagram.

Man dressed as Jesus protests anti-gay protesters at the 2013 Los Angeles AIDS Walk. Photo courtesy of Brody Brown via Instagram.

 

Next, Tattoo Jesus, on Jesustattoo.org billboards, is offending and delighting Texans. A Christian group depicts a heavily tattooed Savior, whose tats says things like “Addicted” and “Jealous” to show how Jesus bears our sins. Just to be clear, Jesustattoo.org apparently wants you to get Jesus, not a tattoo.

The latest register of deeds to welcome marriage-minded gay couples works in Buncombe County, N.C. (That’s Asheville, y’all.) This after NC AG Roy Cooper announced his personal support for gay marriage.

But Cooper says he’ll support the state’s ban. Other “no gay marriage or neutral-gay-marriage states where a county official has taken a similar step since the Supreme Court’s partial strike down of DOMA: New Mexico and Pennsylvania.

The new No. 2 at the Vatican missed the changing-of-the-guard ceremony at which he was to take over for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, relieved of his duties after seven tumultuous years. Archbishop Pietro Parolin needed emergency surgery, supposedly minor, but he will need a few weeks to recover.

Nitzan Horowitz could be the next mayor of Tel Aviv, and the first openly gay mayor in the Middle East.

Saying that the law doesn’t adequately punish those who take the lives of the unborn, “personhood” activists in Colorado have succeeded in putting a question on next year’s state ballot that would add crimes against “unborn human beings” to the criminal code.

The son of the president of the Wisconsin Sikh Temple who died in the 2012 mass shooting there plans to challenge U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in 2014. Amar Kaleka will run as a Democrat.


Wishing you a blessed Eid al-Adha. Can we make it more blessed . . . ???

Muslim students in school districts with relatively high proportions of Muslims are petitioning for the Eid holidays to be days off for everyone, our own Omar Sacirbey writes.

Saudi security is out in force to make sure hajj pilgrims leave their political debates at home, but given what’s going on in Egypt, Syria, etc., the pilgrims are still managing to talk about chaos and violence in their home countries.

Moscow police tighten security to prevent Eid-related riots.

A court in Muslim-majority Malaysia ruled Monday that only Muslims may use the Arabic word “Allah” to describe God, overturning a lower court’s 2009 decision that allowed others to use the word. Um, can you write it, or did I just get in trouble in Malaysia?

In the wake of the Westgate mall bloodbath, Ken Chitwood writes that Kenya once enjoyed relative peace between Muslims and Christians.

Jeffrey Weiss explains why it wasn’t disrespectful of the prime minister of Greece to say “no thanks” to wearing a kippah at Israel’s official Holocaust memorial.


The researchers who released the massive, mostly praised Pew report on American Jews this month respond to critic J.J. Goldberg, who said their doomsday predictions were wrong.

Here are your daily doses of culture. (Sit up a little straighter, please.)

Colm Toibin’s “Testament of Mary” has been shortlisted for the Booker prize, and probably burned in some quarters.

Our man in London, Brian Pellot, introduces us to the Mixed Up Chorus, whose songsters are Christian, Jewish, Agnostic, You Name It. Among other tunes in their repertoire, “Galaxy Song,” from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.

You didn’t think I would leave you without “Galaxy Song,” did you? For this and many other reasons, subscribe to the free, spamless Religion News Roundup, delivered to your inbox weekdays.

– Lauren Markoe

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