Religion Dispatches
…ago to implement a series of voter-enacted restrictions on the raising of any new taxes or fees. Taken together, these restrictions created the ironclad supermajority requirements that now block the California legislature and all local elected bodies in this state from raising adequate revenue to support the education of kids who (surprise!) don’t look like “us” anymore. The effects of the revenue chokehold are plain to see: K-12 schools in Califo…
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…the politics of individual board members “play no role” in its decisions. News of the new venue came in a Jan. 15 email to members of Congress. Heitkamp and fellow board member former Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) provided members with new details on the event and location. (Hultgren is a longtime Family insider who has met with anti-LGBTQ+ leaders on trips paid for by The Family.) In their email, Heitkamp and Hultgren announced that the NPB Foundat…
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…from the show’s guests that reveal how their worldview has changed in this new era. Mahdia Lynn is a disabled bisexual transgender Shi’a Muslim woman. She is the Executive Director of Masjid al-Rabia, a women-centered LGBTQ affirming mosque, and is heavily involved in Chicago’s faith and justice communities, with a focus on police accountability, prison abolition, trans liberation and disability justice. This episode explores Mahdia’s life and wor…
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…ious material is immensely important to the world today. And the work of many academics is not always accessible to non-specialists and yet it is too important to be confined to the university. So I see myself as a “popularizer”—again that would be anathema to many academics! And yes, the Charter is a plea to look at the Big Story of humanity, see that we are one, that we need one another, and learn, as the Qur’an says, “To get to know one another…
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…nverted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” While some speakers, like the bereaved Dr. Levatino, seemed more credible than the opportunistic Johnson, that distinction misses the point of this new effort. The emotional validation their testimony provides to the movement faithful is more powerful than the dubious facts of their specific claims….
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…phenomenon one of six outcomes along a spectrum, ranging, according to the New York Times “from outright rejection to more nuanced reasonings” (declaring, in other words, whether or not a Catholic is permitted to devote themselves to it or whether it challenges or contradicts the Roman Catholic faith). Those promoting the validity of a rejected event could face penalties from the Church. Of course, this isn’t the first time the Church has pulled r…
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…ok up ACT UP, thinking it was long gone—a relic of another era. No. ACT UP New York continues. (In fact, there are two places to check this out: here and here.) Public service announcements live on as well. (Have you watched any television lately?) Paradoxically, die-ins live on, a form of protest characterizing ACT UP and other activist actions (think of Stop the Church) and now defined in large measure as anti-war protest; though it continues to…
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…e Movement: Be open to the Spirit moving us in new ways. Recently I was in New York City to receive an award from a philanthropist. After I’d received the award, this 90 year-old elder’s son invited me to walk to where his dad was seated as he has some difficulty walking these days. But he insisted upon getting up and grabbed my hand with great passion. “I’m so glad to be giving my money this year to a Movement that I know is making a difference,”…
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…cs. Catholic Church: LGBT-Affirming Catholics Respond to ‘Amoris Laetitia’ New Ways Ministry’s Bob Shine reviews some of the ongoing responses to Pope Francis’s recent apostolic exhortation, which we reported last week was not generating much joy among LGBT Catholics. Shine quotes Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro: “The apostolic exhortation is not just the last step of a long process. It is going to be another starting point.” Shine also cites Sr. Chris…
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…ited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family. RD’s Anthea Butler summarized the situation as a Vatican Game of Thrones. Liberty Counsel has continued to insist that Davis met priv…
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