Search for "cheap airline tickets to fl from va phone number 1-800-299-7264"

3 Reasons Catholic Bishops Are Holding Their Tongues on GOP Health Care Debacle

By Patricia Miller

…not to … preventing birth.” But, as New York Times reports, under Trump a number of anti-contraception activists have been given prominent roles in the administration. They are moving not just to finalize a rule that would allow any entity to opt-out of the contraceptive mandate for any reason, which has long been on the bishops’ wish list, but have a history of attacking contraception in general. Katy Talento, who is now a White House domestic p…

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

…emoir that he had managed to “break up” a “gay lobby” that was trying to influence Vatican decisions. Seventh Day Adventist Church: activist says history on race offers hope on LGBT people At Spectrum, Juan Perla writes in depth about activism and evolution within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, drawing analogies to Civil Rights era-efforts to challenge support for racial discrimination: …the Adventist civil rights movement delivers a prophetic…

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

By J. Lester Feder

…oup in her living room. It quickly grew, its ranks swelling with the large numbers of African Americans then pouring into Philadelphia from the South. In 1951, the group formally declared itself the Bethel Holy Commandment Church. As the name makes obvious, they were not yet a synagogue. Dailey’s daughter, Debra Bowen, became leader of Bethel after her mother’s death in 2001, and she is the official keeper of her legend. Bowen confessed in a rare…

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

By Peter Laarman

…h is also expected to attract the attention and involvement of significant numbers of Roman Catholics and younger evangelicals. Part of the idea is to remind individual Christians who totally embrace LGBT equality that there are millions more like them—a genuine “cloud of witnesses,” to use the biblical expression. [Full disclosure: I was significantly involved for over two years in the early development of this project; my agency was paid for its…

Exclusive: Christian Right Bill Mill, Project Blitz, Hasn’t Gone Away, It’s Just Gotten More Secretive

By Frederick Clarkson

…ons (on heterosexual marriage, birth gender, and adoption) as seeking to advance “biblical values,” which is still the case. But, he said “they caution policymakers not to frame legislation in biblical terms,” because “courts have frequently found such justifications ‘unreasonable’ or ‘irrational’ and not based on ‘reason’ or ‘science.’” Although CPCF’s new Project Blitz playbook, same as the old playbooks, advises legislators to engage in politic…

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

By Peter Laarman

…I admit it’s only a theory, that the Obamans continue to overreact to 2004, when Bush and the Republicans retained governing power by vacuuming up the votes of religious conservatives. Since then the Democratic establishment has been trying to cozy up in various ways to white Evangelicals in particular, while distancing itself from feminism and LGBT advocacy. That’s what I mean by fighting the last war. I hope they’ll rethink it. Making nice with…

Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire

By Paul Courtright

…iar Bollywood genre. The musical score crackles with energy. There are any number of reasons why Slumdog has emerged as one of this year’s favorites among American audiences. Perhaps the Oscar nominations reflect India’s rise as a global economic power, as well as a cinematic one. And, while the story is set in India, there is something familiar to American audiences about the kid who finds his way to success and love through struggle in an indiff…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…ogized. Shine says Pacquiao is “a convert to Catholicism from a more conservative Evangelical Christian background.” Shine writes, “Fr. Jerome Secillano, head of the Public Affairs Office for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said the Leviticus quote posted on Instagram is undeniably in Scripture, and it was ‘unfair’ to criticize Pacquiao for quoting it.” Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said the boxer’s comments were shocking bec…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…ont of E2.010 and waited. The committee meeting began. Procedures were briefly outlined, and we were informed that over 1600 individuals had registered to testify. That number was quickly growing, even with testimony set to end at midnight. It was gonna be a long day, and over a thousand Texans would not get to voice their opinion. After the main elements of the bill were highlighted by its author, the games commenced. Democratic lawmakers deploye…

The Fretting About Whether Democrats Are “Friendly” To Religion

By Sarah Posner

…o. A big part of religious lobbying is smoke and mirrors; this pastor is influential because he has a big megachurch; the bishops are influential because they preside over 19,000 parishes across the country. But we don’t have a plethora of good measurements of whether the people who go to those churches care about or pay attention to leaderships’ political positions, and if they do, whether they agree with them or even like the idea of religious l…