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Dispatches from the Workplace: Postville: Ground Zero for the Intersection of Immigrant and Workers’ Rights

By Kim Bobo

…nation’s largest single workplace raid in history, detaining 389 workers. Most of the detained workers were Guatemalan immigrants who had come to the U.S. seeking work to feed their families and did not have legal papers authorizing them to work. Nonetheless, Agriprocessors, Inc. hired the workers, claiming the company did not know the workers were not authorized to work. Most of the immigrants and their families were members of St. Bridget’s Cat…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…zFeed’s Lester Feder notes that opponents, “led by Pakistan on behalf of almo*]}*st all members of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation,” added amendments urging respect for local “religious sensitivities” and opposing “coercive measures” to change national policies. The effort to create the independent expert was supported by hundreds of NGOs. Orthodox Church: Holy and Great Council affirms traditional teaching on family Nuntiare et Recreare, a R…

Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

By J. Lester Feder

…eping. They were dedicating a new Torah scroll, and some readers sounded almo*]}*st like mullahs chanting the Koran, while others sang with an extravagant Ashkenazi style that I had only seen used by Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. I was at Bethel on an assignment for The Washington Post, a cover story for the magazine about a new African American synagogue in DC started in 2008 by Mother Dailey’s grandson, Eli Aronoff. (Aronoff claims no Ashkenazi ance…

A Post-Christian America? Not Quite—Though Devoutly to be Wished

By Peter Laarman

…at’s what I mean by fighting the last war. I hope they’ll rethink it. Making nice with bad religion isn’t good for the Party—and it’s most definitely not good for the country….

An Extravagant Welcome For All: Believe Out Loud, a Faith-Based LGBT Campaign, Launches

By Peter Laarman

…ng uncomfortable or ambivalent feelings toward the LGBT community with the most basic tenet of Christian faith: that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. From there, we encourage people to take their own steps to start the conversation—and to learn more via the many Web-based resources we are providing.” Believe Out Loud has serious ambitions: it does not simply aim to lay the groundwork for healthier conversations and new perceptions within…

After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…the reckoning. Houses of worship ought to serve as amplifiers, but for the most part they aren’t helping. I’m a preacher and I can say with near certainty that 99% of the sermons preached yesterday morning didn’t get close to the level of truth-telling that’s needed. Nor will the compulsory “thoughts and prayers” pronouncements, nor the words spoken at memorial services over the next days and weeks. Of course as a pastor I’m aware that words of co…

Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire

By Paul Courtright

…can walk out with a million bucks or nothing. Jamal emerges as a kind of postmodern Everyman. We hurt for him, root for him, and recognize ourselves in him. There is also an important way in which the film may mark a move into a new kind of “global cinema.” Mumbai is a global city with some seventeen million residents—rich and poor. Like other so-called third world cities, it has the contrasts of wealth and poverty, aspiration and corruption, glit…

Catholic Leaders Offer Criticism, Support to Boxer Pacquiao After Anti-Gay Comments…

By Peter Montgomery

…port of equal rights for Indonesia’s LGBT communities at one of the city’s most treasured monuments, Tugu Yogyakarta. Still, writes Widianto, there is hope that the conversation will lead to people hearing from members of the LGBT community who are defending their rights. “Focusing on how unbecoming the first has been distracts us from one important point: that it exists,” Widianto writes. The anti-gay forces were given moral support by Muhammad A…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…uman Services (HHS) of the Texas Legislature heard more than 13 hours of testimony regarding SB1 (Senate Bill 1), a bill designed to “regulat[e]… abortion procedures, providers, and facilities.” These regulations, which include mandates that abortion providers have hospital admitting privileges and that abortion facilities meet the “standards… for ambulatory surgical centers,” could result in the shutdown of a majority of clinics that offer aborti…

The Fretting About Whether Democrats Are “Friendly” To Religion

By Sarah Posner

…erview with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and chair of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, appeared in the Houston Chronicle, a Catholic wrote a scathing letter to the editor about his statements about the bishops’ role in lobbying against abortion in health care reform. “I regard the church’s stand as extremely hypocritical and insensitive to women who risk their health bearing the burden o…