Dan Gilgoff and other religion reporters examine why social issues will continue to shape the narrative of the 2012 election:
"Everyone knows the 2012 presidential race is about jobs and the economy. As likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney said a couple weeks ago: “It’s still about the economy, and we’re not stupid.” But have you noticed how the culture wars keep intruding into this it’s-all-about-the-economy election?"
Learn more here
For The Atlantic, scholar Michael Fullilove on China's poor human rights record and why it matters:
"China's mixed human rights record is not just bad for its citizens. It is a strategic weakness that complicates its foreign relations and diminishes its soft power. The state's harsh treatment of individuals and minorities regularly disrupts its bilateral relationships. Evidence of internal repression disillusions China's friends and increases the wariness of its neighbors. The human rights issue is a pebble in China's shoe, and the country may never hit its full stride unless it is removed."
Read the full article here
We just passed through Death Valley (insert 23rd Psalm joke here) and we’re about 100 miles from the edge of the world, also known as Los Angeles.
As my mind wandered while scanning the dunes and scrub brush, I started thinking back to the stories about my dad when he left home. As soon as he was old enough, he headed west with his mind full of images of the California orange groves. Coming from a small town outside of St. Louis, California might as well have been a world away, but he was resolved to get there, despite no plans for when he got there.
The whole point was just to get there. That, and to get away from his life in the Midwest. California still represented an escape from the mundane, a mecca of second chances, an eden of new beginnings…
“Talk to me about your mother.”
Such ominous words.
But talk to you about her, I will. And it's not gonna be pretty.
You see, my mother isn't perfect. Her love may be perfect, but she's not and like everyone else on the planet she has hurt the ones she loves the most in the very act of trying to love them.
It's Mother's Day this Sunday and we'll honor our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, spouses, grandmothers and, and, and...We'll honor women and men who have mothered us. And we should.
It's not easy work and Lord knows that Freud has helped us pathologize motherhood. In turn we have idolized motherhood and mothers. Neither approach works. Not really. So I would like to propose a via media for Mother's Day.
Every Sunday as I'm driving to the church I serve I call my mother to check in. She lives by herself and I worry. I'm her son. I can't help myself.
When the Supreme Court ruled that a Christian student group could only be recognized at a small public law school if it accepted non-Christians and gays as potential leaders, some lawyers and campus advocates grew nervous.
While the 5-4 decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez was primarily aimed at public colleges and universities, some conservatives say the decision has upended university religious life, with both public and private schools reconsidering nondiscrimination rules.
Now, nearly two years after the decision involving the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, the case is causing strife across U.S. college campuses.
"Only when enough adults practice and teach children love and respect at home, in schools, religious congregations, and in our political and civic life will racial, gender, and religious intolerance and hate crimes subside in America and the world." - Marian Wright Edelman from Lanterns
Lord God, we pray for the air and the atmosphere around us. We confess that we have not protected it as we ought. Protect your creation from our acid rain, our smog, and our pollution. Give us the determination to clean this air so that all of us -- whether creatures, birds, or people -- may breathe deeply and know that the air we breathe is indeed good. Amen.
"If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be." - Deuteronomy 15:7-8
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S INTERVIEW WITH ABC NEWS ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, MOTHER'S DAY, ET AL
ROBIN ROBERTS: Mr. President. Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you about-- various issues. And it's been quite a week and it's only Wednesday. (LAUGH)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's typical of my week.
ROBIN ROBERTS: I'm sure it is. One of the hot button issues because of things that have been said by members of your administration, same-sex marriage. In fact, your press secretary yesterday said he would leave it to you to discuss your personal views on that. So Mr. President, are you still opposed to same-sex marriage?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well — you know, I have to tell you, as I've said, I've — I've been going through an evolution on this issue. I've always been adamant that — gay and lesbian-- Americans should be treated fairly and equally. And that's why in addition to everything we've done in this administration, rolling back Don't Ask, Don't Tell — so that — you know, outstanding Americans can serve our country. Whether it's no longer defending the Defense Against Marriage Act, which — tried to federalize — what is historically been state law.
I've stood on the side of broader equality for — the L.G.B.T. community. And I had hesitated on gay marriage — in part, because I thought civil unions would be sufficient. That that was something that would give people hospital visitation rights and — other — elements that we take for granted. And — I was sensitive to the fact that — for a lot of people, you know, the — the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs, and so f-orth.
After nearly four years in the Oval Office, President Obama is incorrectly thought to be Muslim by one in six American voters, and only one quarter of voters can correctly identify him as a Protestant, according to a new poll.
Voters do better identifying Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, according to a poll released Thursday (May 10) by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service. A slim majority of voters -- 51 percent -- knows the presumed Republican presidential nominee is Mormon.
“Wow. He said it 100 times that he’s not a Muslim,” said Zainab Al-Suwaij, executive director of the American Islamic Congress, expressing surprise over the persistent number of American voters (16 percent) who make the mistake.
Is there something insidious behind the belief, a concerted attack to link the president with a religion that's considered alien -- or worse -- by some Americans?