Religion Dispatches
…ansour was named head of the Department of Social Services in the State of Michigan through which office funds for abortions were channeled. Detroit’s Cardinal Edmund Szoka ordered her to leave her post, but she resisted with support from her Mercy community. She argued that even though she was personally opposed to abortion she was bound by her job description to do the work the people of Michigan hired her to do. Bevilaqua, an expert in canon la…
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…nited States. Webb’s efforts failed, but he was followed by thousands of immigrants from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and South Asia and by African Americans, who converted to varying forms of Islam, some of which, such as the Nation of Islam, were distinctly a product of African American experiences. They built American mosques and Muslim institutions in such diverse places as Brooklyn, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Ross, North Dak…
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…the consultant, who is also a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, stated in no uncertain terms that Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, should be shown no mercy. His offense? Seems that the governor has been shacking up—not with underage boys, mind you, but with his longtime partner, Sandra Lee. And as if that weren’t bad enough, Cuomo also supports same-sex marriage and believes that abortion is a private matter that shouldn…
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…ish. In November of 1975, the Women’s Ordination Conference took place in Detroit, Michigan; the eponymous organization arose from that spirited event. WOC sponsored another meeting in 1978 in Baltimore where women were very specific about the kind of renewed priestly ministry they would accept: one without clericalism, without mandatory celibacy, without hierarchy, but with the inclusion of all and a focus on social justice. WOC became the go-to…
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…shopping season. In the midst of it all, the Thanksgiving dinner and the family homecoming theme remained. So, today, some Americans bemoan the loss of religious influence and want to use Thanksgiving as an occasion to call the nation back to its Puritan roots. Others argue that the day is about family reunions, gratitude, and bringing the nation together in understanding and tolerance, whatever their religion or lack thereof. This argument is par…
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…age in New York City, Todd’s Sway Lounge (yes, that was its name) on Seven Mile in Detroit. These places represented the ultimate in safety: everyone was having a good time and there was no judgment, no hate, everyone just bumping and pumping to the sound of Sylvester on refrigerator-sized speakers. I mean no disrespect to anyone else’s idea of “church” to say that the gay dance club was a kind of church for me and for thousands, millions, like me…
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…has sounded from Rome for decades that it’s still hard to hear, much less imitate. Judgment of gay people—and here again, I’ll even limit this to gay, celibate priests—has been categorical and negative ever since ‘homosexual’ made its way into the Vatican lexicon fifty years ago. A 1961 instruction titled “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders” barred anyone from ordination “afflicted with evi…
Read More…lling the Court that it’s okay for every friggin’ town board and zoning commission in the United States to yammer for my presence as they wheel and deal and commit every imaginable malfeasance. Such a disappointment, that Barack. With his terrific background in constitutional law, I thought I would not have my Name used in vain quite so often. But now he seems to be running with the pious crowd, and you know I just can’t stand false piety. What wa…
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…other in these settings, or see beyond their status as Jews and Muslims is misleading and defeats the purpose of such gatherings. They are coming together as Jews and as Muslims, willingly placing themselves in the very referent position I have unwittingly been put into by others in my career. On Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, his team of comic reporters frequently appears onscreen with titles like “Senior Black Correspondent” or “Senior Woman Co…
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…s something close to the universal sign of “no-homo.” In this context, one might feel the need now and then to remind oneself and the world that one “can’t be with that sweet stuff,” as Culliver put it. Both the NFL and gospel music, then, might be said to have long relied on flamboyantly fraught caricatures of gender and sexuality, and both football and gospel are as often assumed to be keepers of traditional values surrounding masculinity and pi…
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