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In 2012 Bishops Join Fight to Repackage Discrimination as ‘Religious Freedom’

By Sarah Posner

…and run roughshod over the independent judiciary,” said Rob Boston, Senior Policy Counsel for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “The United States enjoys the highest degree of religious liberty of any nation in the world. Gingrich and his allies talk about threats to religious freedom, but what they really want is the right to use government to shove conservative/fundamentalist/ultra-orthodox social views down everyone else’…

RDPulpit: Israel in Gaza: Right but not Smart

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

…o demand an immediate cease-fire. That cease-fire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by the United States. Its terms must include the following: A. Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs, or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that attempts to break this cease-fire from territory controlled by Hamas; B. Israel stops all bombing,…

Obama’s Jewish Problem

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

…t war to mobilize for disarmament. Jewish neocons, fearful that a disarmed United States would be unable to play a central role in protecting Israel, took the leadership in warning against a “Vietnam syndrome.” Security for the United States and Israel, they argued, comes from military strength, and those who seek peace, disarmament, and reconciliation with antagonists are naive, utopian, dangerous, and de facto anti-American or anti-Israel. Spiri…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…riends. I have a daughter who is 21, and she really has no interest in the United Methodist Church at this point. That’s a sad loss. So many people who might otherwise be attracted to the United Methodist Church—with its care for the larger world and commitment to social justice—are put off by the stance on these issues. Those who are LGBT, or who have family members or people important to them who are LGBT (and that includes about everybody), now…

Unreleased Religious Freedom Manifesto Isn’t the Culture War Compromise It Hopes to Be

By Frederick Clarkson

…r religion, the Supreme Court, in the 1983 case of Bob Jones University v. United States, rightly refused to grant an exemption to anti-discrimination laws based on religion.” With its claim that the “commitment” of the United States regarding “religious freedom and conscience is at its heart, covenantal,” the Charter appears to be trying to press the Framers into a religious vision they did not share. The term “covenant” has several meanings, but…

The United Methodist Church to LGBTQ People: You’re ‘Sacred,’ But Not Welcome

By Pamela R. Lightsey

…ere efforts to show themselves to the world as “one body,” denominations can only make this claim in the spiritual sense. With the looming impasse on LGBTQ full inclusion into the life and ministry of the denomination, it may very well be that the United Methodist Church has reached the end of being “united.” If this is the case, shame on us, for we will repeat our own history of segregation, bigotry and schism and will put the final nail in the c…

Rev. Smith Goes to Washington

By Frederick Clarkson

…n the language of church and the languages of campaign politics and public policy? Yes, I tend to speak in theological terms and have had to shift gears to talk the language of public policy. Sometimes the two can intersect comfortably but I’m mindful that George W. Bush, as an example, often quoted from hymns or Scripture readings that conservative evangelicals would have recognized, and that in doing so he spoke a kind of coded language that hel…

Media Fail to Acknowledge That 2024 Hopeful Ron DeSantis is as Catholic as Biden

By Chrissy Stroop

…of Catholic Bishops, currently treat one in seven hospital patients in the United States, and their share of control over hospital systems in the United States only continues to grow. In terms of practical matters, being transgender means there are restrictions on where I can live and what health insurance companies I’m able to use in order to ensure that my care takes place within a secular system of clinics and hospitals, where I don’t risk bein…

The Islamists vs. The Markets: Egypt’s Election Analyzed

By Haroon Moghul

…e, authoritarianism, and economic stagnation. No country in the world, the United States included, can now pursue domestic policy independent of international financial markets. How much more so the Arab world—considering how much poorer and less developed it is? And in that case, what difference does it make what government you have? Left or right, the market seems always to win. This is actually where I would locate the greater threat to Arab de…

Changing the Jewish State and the State of Jews: J Street and the Future of Israel

By Mark LeVine

…in Washington and the spearhead of the “Israel lobby” more broadly in the United States. With extremely close ties to leading politicians and policymakers and the fearsome ability to elect or defeat candidates based on their positions on Israel, AIPAC has for decades been able to help shape US foreign policy in the Middle East, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, to insure both that it agrees with (or at least does not chal…