Author: Katha Pollitt
Katha Pollitt’s award-winning column “Subject to Debate,” in which she writes about the media, foreign policy, human rights, and other topics, appears in The Nation bimonthly. Her books include collections of her essays and poetry. She is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute.
Sexism and Religion: Can the Knot Be Untied?
Can currently existing religion be disentangled from the misogyny of its texts, its traditions, and its practices?
Flocking to Faith
In the old days, politicians would slip preachers some hundreds under the table, and preachers would deliver the flock on election day. It was borderline illegal, but at least it left the Constitution alone. The same could not be said of the Bush administration’s faith-based initiative, a political bribe to the religious Right that put …
Onward Secular Soldiers
An amazing thing has been happening here in God’s own country: for the first time in living memory, religious skepticism is hot. In the past two years, a whole slew of atheistic polemicists—Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens—have been on or near the best-seller list, speaking to packed houses, debating the faithful with …