Just before the Religious Freedom Restoration Act controversy exploded in Indiana earlier this year, a compromise was playing out 1,500 miles away.
In Utah, as the Salt Lake Tribune noted, same-sex marriage had been banned both through state law and constitutional amendment. Attempts to pass lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender anti-discrimination measures had failed six times.
But in March, lawmakers brought together representatives from the Mormon and LGBT communities and passed landmark legislation.
Utah law now lists sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in housing and employment — but, without buy-in from the religious community, it does not include “public accommodations,” a broad legal term used to describe everything from bus services to restaurants and other private businesses.
1. 9 Ways We Can Make Social Justice Movements Less Elitist and More Accessible
"After a few weeks of feeling confused and invisible, I decided that I just wasn't smart enough to be an activist."
2. WATCH: Obama Condemns 'Routine' of Mass Shootings, Says U.S. Has Become Numb
"As I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough."
3. French Catholics Take in Refugee Family Seeking a 'Normal Life'
"The local effort is part of a national Catholic network that connects homeless asylum seekers with families willing to take them in."
At one point in the new film The Walk, high-wire walker Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is asked, after successfully walking a tightrope strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center, why he chose to perform such a dangerous, death-defying act. His answer: “There is no ‘why.’ I just look for a place to hang my wire, and when I find it, I put it there.”
There are a couple of ways you could take this statement. One is a thrilling feeling of limitless possibility. The other is a little more disconcerting: that there was no deeper meaning; Petit simply did it because, well, why not?
In the rollercoaster ride that has been media coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S., yet another twist has emerged: Pope Francis met with a same-sex couple, according to CNN.
After departing to widespread adulation, Pope Francis’ reputation in the U.S. shifted dramatically after it became known that His Holiness had secretly met with Kim Davis. The Vatican then stated that the meeting did not signal support for Kim Davis’ case.
But Oct. 2, the rollercoaster took another loop. Pope Francis’ longtime friend, who is openly gay, met him in Washington and brought along his partner of 19 years.
As one human family, it’s time to raise our moral voices.
As Pope Francis has illustrated, true faith is not a disengagement from the challenges of the world but an embrace of those very challenges.
The truth is there is no gospel that is not social; no gospel that relieves us of our call to love our neighbors as ourselves; no gospel that lives outside God’s admonition to serve the least of these. Pope Francis has made this clear, and for that we thank him.
In the history of the United States, a moral critique has always been at the center of any challenge to the structural sins of society—slavery, the denial of women’s rights, the denial of labor rights, the denial of equal protection under the law, the denial of voting rights, and the promulgation of unchecked militarism. We have never overcome any of these evils without a moral critique that challenged their grip on the heart and imagination of our society.
California Gov. Jerry Brown has until midnight Oct. 7 to sign or veto a controversial bill that would legalize physician-assisted dying in the nation’s most populous state.
Both supporters of the bill, who say it fosters “death with dignity,” and opponents, who call it legalized suicide, urge calls to the governor’s office and prayers to the Almighty while they wait out the clock.
And both sides expect this decision is a tough call for Brown.
Barrett Duke didn’t grow up with pets and never gave the welfare of animals any serious thought. Then he met Rusty — the golden retriever who stole his heart.
Duke discovered what most animal lovers know: that Rusty was more than just a random assortment of cells wrapped in fur. He had a personality and intelligence and a will that was all his own. When he lost Rusty to cancer, it was like losing a family member.
“Rusty was such an incredible animal, it changed my perspective on God’s creation,” Duke told me.
The Vatican is downplaying Pope Francis’ controversial meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, saying their encounter “should not be considered a form of support of her position.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, also said in a statement issued Oct. 2 that Davis was one of “several dozen” people Francis met at the Vatican Embassy in Washington on Sept. 24 as he prepared to leave for New York, the second-leg of his U.S. trip.
“Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the pope’s characteristic kindness and availability,” the statement said. It added that the “only real audience granted by the pope” at the embassy that day “was with one of his former students and his family.”
Bruised and battered in body and spirit, many victims of domestic violence are looking to faith communities for guidance. We must do more to make sure our congregations are safe spaces for survivors of abuse. And that starts with naming the sin of domestic violence in our churches and examining how our own sacred texts have been misinterpreted to condone such abuse.
This October—as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month—we’re featuring a new online series called Troubling Texts: Domestic Violence in the Bible. With thought-provoking commentary from experts, pastors, and emerging scholars, we'll take a hard look at how scripture has been used to justify domestic violence.
The first thing the new Pope Francis said to the world in St. Peter’s Square when he accepted the papacy was “I am a sinner.” In a final mass of one million people in Philadelphia, the last words Francis spoke to the American people were, “Please pray for me; don’t forget!”
From the moment Francis arrived to the last event he led in the U.S., I saw something I never had before. For the first time in my life, I saw the gospel proclaimed at the highest levels of the nation—from the White House, to the Congress, to the United Nations, to Madison Square Garden, to Independence Hall, and to Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Simplicity, humility, compassion, grace, service, love, justice, peace, care for the poor, and creation itself were all lifted up in the places where such things are seldom valued or even named.