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Melissa Harris-Perry: LGBT Advocates Need Public Progressive Faith

By Peter Montgomery

…d a room with Stokely Carmichael. By the time her mother and father met in Seattle in the early 1970s, each had become a parent and had been divorced. After they had Melissa, they moved their blended family and children—white, black, and mixed-race—to Virginia in the immediate aftermath of the civil rights movement. “In that context you had to be Unitarian Universalist,” she said to knowing laughter. Raised among secular, humanist UUs, Harris-Per…

How Protesting Black Bodies are Imagined as a Threat to National Pride

By Joseph Winters

Last night, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman declined to take questions during a press conference, opting instead to give a plainspoken but powerful speech on the police killings of black men and the damage it does to black communities, especially the youth with whom he volunteers. He said: When you tell a kid, “When you’re dealing with police, just put your hands up and comply with everything,” and there’s still a chance of them getti…

Yeshiva is Likely to Win Its Battle Against LGBTQ Group — But Do Jewish Orgs Really Want to Empower a Militant Christian Movement?

By Orit Avishai

…laimed a right to pray on the football field and is currently representing Seattle Pacific University which is being investigated by Washington State for discriminations against faculty and staff for violations based on sexual orientation. These, and other cases, turned on an expansive vision of religious liberty that also includes a variety of individual and community rights to practice their religion, irrespective of competing rights. It goes wi…

Pope Francis vs. the Bishops: An “Overblown” Narrative?

By Patricia Miller

…he National Catholic Reporter, “since the 2011 USCCB elections, a stunning number of very talented people have left the USCCB” and many of their replacements have little experience with social justice policy but “a string of associations with different conservative outfits”: Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but one wonders if Pope Francis could be hired to work at the USCCB today. He has no background in religious liberty litigation. He did…

Time’s Up For Politely Anti-LGBTQ Christianity: The Truth About “We Want to Be Known By What We’re For, Not What We’re Against”

By George Mekhail

…tation from local Church leaders to participate in a demonstration against Seattle’s Pride parade that year. In other words, while he was very much against the LGBTQ community, he simply didn’t want to be known for that. In retrospect, this was a profound moment of clarity for me, eventually leaving evangelicalism and co-founding an organization called Church Clarity. 13 years ago, when Mars Hill was in its early years and growing exponentially, i…

Top Ten Religion & Science Stories of 2009

By Lauri Lebo

…age prompted creationist and pro-intelligent design organizations like the Seattle-based Discovery Institute to claim victory “for science education,” but science educators say it actually opens the door to junk science. 2. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Religion (In The Scientific Community)? One of the most heated debates to take place this year didn’t get much attention from the mainstream media, but boiled over on the science blogs. (And crea…

Gay Mormons Tie the Knot

By Johnny Townsend

…, the friend I’d gone to the party with said, “Ask the host for that guy’s number. He was really into you.” That was the first inkling I had that Gary was even gay. A week later we had our first date. In discussing our histories, we learned some intriguing facts. We’d both been pre-med students. We’d both earned English degrees. We had both been teachers. We’d both been bank tellers. Oh, and we were both ex-Mormon, having both served missions in R…

Global LGBT Recap: Nigeria Jails Gays, Russian Orthodox Spox Calls for Criminalization Referendum

By Peter Montgomery

…sion talking about the LGBT people being less than human. For example, the number two person in the state broadcasting company – actually now he’s the number one person – hosted a show devoted to the question of whether it was enough to protect our children to ban homosexual propaganda or whether more needed to be done. He argued that more needed to be done. He said and we need to outlaw blood and sperm donations by them. And if they die in car ac…

Hajj Journal: Door Number 89: The Door with No Name

By Amina Wadud

…d inside the mosque one day, I came across Bab raqm tis’wa thamanin, “door number 89,” literally. The door with no name. Facing the mosque at door number one, bab maalik ’abd-al-’Aziz, this door is off to the left. Looking at the mosque floor plan, this is where the building structure of the mosque is deepest. This is “the women’s section.” I noticed as I was walking through the first floor toward door number one, the kings’ door, on my way out af…

An Open Letter to Black Clergy on the Disdain for Protest

By Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

…y or by a wannabe Martin Luther King. While the President sermonized about cheap grace, a daughter of the church climbed a flagpole and took down the American swastika. Like Mary and Elizabeth, Bree Newsome proclaimed that our salvation—wrapped in swaddling clothes—is here in our hands. As an ordained clergyperson nurtured in the bosom of the black church, I am all too familiar with the way in which we tend to spiritualize the material suffering o…