The Atlantic: What Putin Is Up To

President Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer for 15 years leading up to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the director of domestic intelligence in the late 1990s during his meteoric rise to power. He regularly throws a gala at the Kremlin on December 20 to extol the “sacred mission” of the state security services, recall their past heroes, and highlight their latest exploits. For the last 22 years, Chekist’s Day has been an official holiday in Russia.[...]

 Putin saw Clinton as a serial regime-changer, eager to foment yet another “color revolution” in Russia like those in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, three former Soviet republics. He made no secret of this conviction. On December 5, 2011, Clinton publicly questioned the openness of parliament elections in Russia. In response, Putin accused Clinton of “set[ting] the tone for certain actors inside [Russia]. She gave the signal,” he said at televised crisis meeting with his subordinates. “They heard this signal and, with the support of the U.S. State Department, started actively doing their work,” he said. He was referring to the tens of thousands of Russian citizens who protested peacefully against his sudden announcement in September of that year that he would return to the presidency after serving as prime minister for four years. [...]

The Russians make no secret of their intent, nor did Putin just sit back and watch these benefits to Russia accumulate. He continued to prod, provoke, and jeer. Two weeks ago, his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put Putin’s goal in stark, smug terms: The world is on the brink of a “post-West” order, he said. The unmistakable implication is that the locus of global power will move eastward, reinforcing the Kremlin’s ability to design and enforce an order that suits its national and nationalistic interests.[...]

While Congress ramps up its scrutiny, the most important dynamic may turn out to be the one between members of his high command. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, need no convincing of Putin’s motivations and future intentions. With the support of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, perhaps they can convince their boss. So far, they seem to have made some headway: Trump has stopped calling the Atlantic alliance “obsolete,” and reiterated his support for NATO during his speech to a joint session of congress on Tuesday.

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The Guardian: Civil war in the Vatican as conservatives battle Francis for the soul of Catholicism

While hugely popular across the globe with Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Francis has struggled against fierce opposition from the Vatican establishment to haul the Roman Catholic church into the 21st century, fought to reform its government, tried to persuade cardinals to revise their thinking on the divorced and remarried, and been openly opposed by rebel prelates.

Last week marked the start of Lent, one of the most important periods of the church’s calendar, a time when Catholics fast, give alms and reflect on humanity’s sinfulness in the run-up to their commemoration of the crucifixion and of Easter. It is usually marked by quiet prayerfulness, and on Sunday the pope, along with members of the Roman Curia, will leave Rome to begin a five-day retreat. He will leave a Vatican beset by tension, turmoil and rebellion. There are even rumours that growing numbers of Vatican hands think he should quit. [...]

The opposition Pope Francis is facing puts the church into uncharted territory. Massimo Faggioli, a leading theologian and Vatican-watcher, said: “The Vatican status quo is behind this. It is a cultural and political opposition that was already visible a few weeks after Pope Francis’s election. They are against changing the style and position of the church from a western one to a global religion.” [...]

According to Tina Beattie, a British feminist theologian who organised “fringe” events in Rome before the 2015 synod to get women’s voices heard, Pope Francis has a “blind spot about women” and hasn’t listened enough to them, but she admires him for attempting to have some dialogue.

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BuzzFeed: The Man Who Turned Gay Rights Into “A Weapon” In A War Against Muslims

For months they had endured an increasingly strident debate about immigration ahead of elections on March 15, and they were tired of being caught in the crossfire. The race has been dominated by Geert Wilders, the bleached-blonde leader of the Party for Freedom who polls show could win the largest bloc of votes in parliament. His candidacy is being watched as the next test of the nationalist wave that drove Britain out of the EU and put Donald Trump in the White House.

But the race is also uniquely focused on gay rights, because Wilders has framed his crusade against Islam in part as a defense of national values in the country proud to have adopted the world’s first marriage equality law and has remained a leader on LGBT rights in the years since. And several more moderate politicians have echoed the message that Muslim immigrants threaten gay people.[...]

Wilders’ professed support of gay rights once put him out of step with other nationalist politicians in the West, who generally have also been social conservatives. But today Wilders seems like he was just ahead of his time, with politicians from Donald Trump to France’s Marine Le Pen following his lead and saying they are defending LGBT rights by opposing Muslim immigration. [...]

Immigrants are constantly being subjected to a “pink test,” said Dino Suhonic, founder of the queer Muslim organization Maruf and organizer of the evening’s gathering. Politicians are “using gay rights, as almost a [trait of] national identity,” Suhonic said, but only when debating the place of “asylum-seekers and the immigrants.” It’s an attitude Suhonic calls “homonationalism.” [...]

Ineke cited a 2009 study commissioned by the Department of Justice that found that 86% of people accused of violence against LGBT people in the Netherlands were of Dutch background and 14% of immigrant background, roughly equal to their representation in the population as a whole. Another analysis by researchers at the University of Amsterdam of anti-LGBT violence just within their city did find that people of Moroccan descent were overrepresented among suspected perpetrators, but also found that people from Turkish backgrounds were underrepresented and less likely to commit these crimes than people of Dutch descent. Religion was not the issue, the researchers concluded, but rather a “street culture” specific to Moroccan young men that “enforces hyper-masculine behavior.”

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The Daily Beast: Is There a Christian Double Standard on Religious Violence?

Those words epitomize an important, but controversial question: is someone who acts violently in the name of a faith truly a member of that faith? According to recently highlighted data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)—which focuses primarily on Christian responses to that yes/no question—potential answers may result in a “double standard.” Christians are more likely to say that other Christians acting violently are not true Christians, while failing to provide the same latitude for Muslims.[...]

According to PRRI, 50 percent of Americans in general say that violence in the name of Islam does not represent Islam—75 percent say the same of Christianity. The numbers shift, however, the more specific the demographic gets, creating the alleged “double standard.” White mainline Protestants (77 percent) and Catholics (79 percent) reject the idea that true Christians act violently, with 41 percent and 58 percent respectively being willing to say the same of Muslims.

White evangelicals stand out the most, having what PRRI calls the “larger double-standard”—87 percent disown Christians who commit violent acts, with only 44 percent willing to say the same about Muslims. [...]

“Unless a person is being intentionally deceitful, someone who claims to be acting on the basis of religious fervor should be treated as an adherent to that religion. I do not get to judge whether or not a person is ‘really’ of their faith. As a Christian I can only try to persuade other Christians as to why certain behaviors are incompatible with the Christian faith.”

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Salon: Japan’s long history of blurred sexualities and gender-bending

Boutiques are filled with cosmetics and beauty products intended for both males and females, and it’s often difficult to discern the gender of passersby. Since a gendered appearance (“feminine” or “masculine”) often (but not always) denotes the sex of a person, Japan’s recent “genderless” fashion styles might confuse some visitors – was that person who just walked by a woman or a man?

Although the gender-bending look appeals equally to young Japanese women and men, the media have tended to focus on the young men who wear makeup, color and coif their hair and model androgynous outfits. In interviews, these genderless males insist that they are neither trying to pass as women nor are they (necessarily) gay.

In premodern Japan, aristocrats often pursued male and female lovers; their sexual trysts were the stuff of classical literature. To them, the biological sex of their pursuits was often less important than the objective: transcendent beauty. And while many samurai and shoguns had a primary wife for the purposes of procreation and political alliances, they enjoyed numerous liaisons with younger male lovers.

Only after the formation of a modern army in the late-19th century were the sort of same-sex acts central to the samurai ethos discouraged. For a decade, from 1872 to 1882, sodomy among men was even criminalized. However, since then, there have been no laws in Japan banning homosexual relations.

It’s important to note that, until very recently, sexual acts in Japan were not linked to sexual identity. In other words, men who had sex with men and women who had sex with women did not consider themselves gay or lesbian. Sexual orientation was neither political nor politicized in Japan until recently, when a gay identity emerged in the context of HIV/AIDS activism in the 1990s. Today, there are annual gay pride parades in major cities like Tokyo and Osaka.

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Salon: Here’s the key to Trump’s outrageous lies: He sells them with conviction

Part of the problem, as psychologist Bill von Hippel explained in a phone interview, is that Trump supporters “feel that what he’s saying he genuinely believes.” This sense that Trump believes in himself may matter more than the actual facts.

Von Hippel, who teaches at the University of Queensland in Australia, is part of a research team that just published the paper “Self-deception facilitates interpersonal persuasion” in the Journal of Economic Psychology. His study, which involved 306 subjects, suggests that those who excel at deceiving others often deceive themselves first. The best liars, it turns out, are people who can successfully lie to themselves. [...]

Now, there’s no way to know for sure whether Trump — or Sean Spicer or Stephen Miller — really has talked himself into believing his own lies, or whether he’s just a really good actor. In a sense, it hardly matters. The real issue here is that people tend to rate a politician’s honesty less by the factual accuracy of what the politician says, and more by whether they believe that the politician himself believes what he is saying. [...]

The fact that Trump says things that are generally seen as socially unacceptable also reinforces his supporters’ belief that he is honest, von Hippel added. If he expresses vile beliefs that most people shy away from, that suggests to his followers that he must believe deeply in what he’s saying. Why else would he say it?

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Salon: Money, democracy and religion: Why some countries disapprove of homosexuality

In Europe and here in the Americas, only a minority of people believe that homosexuality is never justified. The percentage increases in places like Russia, India and China. In Africa, the Middle East and parts of Southeast Asia, attitudes become even more conservative. [...]

Within countries, a similar set of demographic characteristics tend to influence how people feel about homosexuality. For example, women tend to be more liberal than men. Older people tend to be more conservative than younger ones. Muslims are more likely to disapprove of homosexuality than Catholics, Jews and mainline Protestants.[...]

 How does the amount of money a country has shape attitudes? In very poor countries, people are likely to be more concerned about basic survival. Parents may worry about how to obtain clean water and food for their children. Residents may feel that if they stick together and work closely with friends, family and community members, they will lead a more predictable and stable life. In this way, social scientists have found that a group mentality may develop, encouraging people to think in similar ways and discouraging individual differences. [...]

Eighty percent of the countries I examined are becoming more liberal. However, we can’t assume that these changes will always be linear or simple. While we’ve seen a general trend toward more liberal views regarding homosexuality, there are likely to be hiccups along the way that affect how these different socioeconomic and cultural influences take shape nationally and across the world.

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Associated Press: With economy up, crime down, why are the Dutch discontent?

"It's not the economy, stupid," Professor Gerrit Voerman of the University of Groningen said, tweaking the campaign message Bill Clinton used in his successful 1992 march to the White House. Instead, Voerman said, "It's about identity." [...] 

 In the Netherlands, pollsters predict that Prime Minister Mark Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy will lose about 15 of the 40 seats it holds in the 150-seat House of Representatives. Wilders' party, which currently has 12 lawmakers in the chamber, is on track to become one of the biggest, if not the biggest, parliamentary faction, despite a recent decline in polls.

However, Wilders' hard-line anti-Islam, anti-immigration platform and rhetoric has driven away potential coalition partners among mainstream parties, meaning that he is unlikely to be able to form a government even if he wins the popular vote in this country whose elections all but guarantee coalitions.

Wilders' one-page election manifesto leads off with two "us-against-them" themes. The Party for Freedom pledges to "de-Islamize" the Netherlands by shutting all mosques, banning the Quran and halting all immigration from majority Muslim nations. It also commits to remove the Netherlands from the European Union, which it helped found 60 years ago.

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Deutsche Welle: Merkel's conservatives under pressure to allow gay marriage

Marriage equality is legal in 22 countries, including Argentina, South Africa and the United States. Germany is not one of them. But now members of the junior governing Social Democratic Party (SPD) are pushing to change that. They are calling on their coalition partners, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU), to go along with a change of law that would grant same-sex couples the right to get married and not just obtain civil unions. [...]

In Germany, same-sex couples can enter into civil unions, or "registered life partnerships" per the verbatim translation. The law for this was passed in 2001 and grants some, but not all, of the rights that partners enjoy in sanctioned marriages. Civil unions enjoy the same tax benefits that heterosexual marriages receive and allow partners to adopt each others' children. But civil unions do not allow couples to adopt children together as heterosexuals can.[...]

Supporting marriage equality may indeed prove a smart move from an election standpoint, considering that 83 percent of Germans believe that it should be legalized. That's the result of a representative poll conducted by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency in January 2017.

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