Search for "Spirit Air 1 800-299-7264 Customer Service Phone Number"

“Joseph Smith Himself Viewed Women as Priesthood Holders”

By Joanna Brooks

…rdination; women are not. In seeking ordination, we seek a greater role in service to our faith. Our movement is an act of faith in the Mormon Church—our leaders, our community—that the institution can be more inclusive. Tell me about the website. We launched Ordainwomen.org because we wanted to foster a more open, personal conversation about ordination and create a safe space where Mormon women can share why they are in favor of it. And the react…

What’s Eating Mitt Romney?

By Joanna Brooks

…adership to a mainstream American political setting. From the time they are 12 years old—if not younger—Mormon men are acculturated into and prepared for a lifetime of service in the Church’s administrative and pastoral ranks. They are invested with a sense of reverence for hierarchy and taught that overt ambition is unseemly, eloquence untrustworthy, and open criticism of Church leadership unacceptable. Did a religiously-informed sense of duty pr…

Why I Joined Over a Thousand Faith Leaders in Masterpiece Case Brief

By Marie Alford-Harkey

…his case is driven more by political concerns than religious ones. It’s a fair question, and there’s a clear answer: no. I, like nearly 1,300 of my colleagues, am opposed to any attempt to use religious beliefs to justify discrimination for deeply theological reasons. It is my faith that compels me to actively seek justice for all people. That means advocating for civil rights and equal treatment for all. As a Christian, a pastor, and the leader o…

100 Religious Leaders to Obama: No Religious Exemption in ENDA Executive Order

By Sarah Posner

…les faced by those at the margins is precisely the opposite of what public service can and should do, and is precisely the opposite of the values we stand for as people of faith. As I reported last week, a group of 14 faith leaders — led by former Obama staffer turned religious consultant Michael Wear, and signed by several large faith-based government contractors — called on Obama to include a religious exemption. BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner reporte…

Not His House: Archbishop Oversteps, Opposes Repeal of DADT

By Eugene McMullan

…rchbishop has religious authority over the Catholic chaplains in the armed services, their primary allegiance is to the military and the president. So long as they actually serve in the military, they answer to the president, not the prelate. Canon law and catechism are irrelevant to the debate about lifting DADT. They are no more relevant here than they have been to other policy issues such as women in combat; bans on drugs, sexual harassment,…

Catholic Bishops Fund Anti-Choice ‘Clinics’ Set to Receive Trump Title X Funding

By Patricia Miller

…ing stripped from four Planned Parenthood affiliates that provide abortion services, will go to seven Obria-affiliated clinics in Southern California. Three of the clinics, those owned directly by Obria, don’t provide any contraceptives, according to USA Today. The Obria website doesn’t list contraception or family planning counseling as a service provided at its clinics. The only publicly available information about contraceptives provided under…

The Quietly Crumbling Wall of Separation

By Robert Marus

…t Clause. While the federal courts widely applied the Lemon test during the 1970s and early 1980s, it began to lose favor after the religious right’s leading legal strategists decided to make removing the test goal No. 1 of their strategy to chip away at the wall of church-state separation. While some judges and some decisions still use it, many legal scholars have speculated that it is dying a slow death; some conservative justices (most notably…

“Taliban Dan’s” Teacher: Inside Bill Gothard’s Authoritarian Subculture

By Sarah Posner

…, taught that girls should never run, and demanded that girls style their hair wavy—not straight or curly—because “wavy hair is attractive and becoming—it causes you to focus on the woman’s face instead of her body.” Gothard’s approved wavy hairstyle is meant, she said, “to attract men to your bright eyes, which will attract them to God, instead of your body.” Eliza elaborated on how she was required to live under her father’s authority, even in a…

Should Christians Confess to Plants? A Cranky Meditation

By Greg Carey

…the presence of fellow believers and of God. It appears the Union worship service was part of a course on activism and liturgy rather than a regular chapel service. Perhaps worshipers were informed of the liturgy in advance. Were I asked to confess to plants without knowing it in advance, I would have been justified in feeling imposed upon. I’d also be aware others likely feel greater reservations than I. The classic liturgies have limitations, b…

Abortion and the Stories Clergy Tell

By Dennis S. Ross

…Central Conference of American Rabbis, endorsed access to birth control in 1929 and cooperation with Planned Parenthood in 1947. As the decades passed, we, and clergy from other religious groups, demanded access to reproductive health care, including abortion. We weren’t dismissive of the woman’s pregnancy. Rather, we affirmed that the moral high ground is in a woman’s decision whether or not to become pregnant and whether or not to carry her pre…