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Image via RNS/Reuters/David Ryder
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to break its losing streak in lower courts and revive President Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from six predominantly Muslim nations.
The request came on June 1 in three separate petitions to courts in Richmond, Va., and San Francisco that blocked the president’s executive order barring most immigrants from countries deemed at risk for terrorism, as well as international refugees.
Image via RNS/Jerome Socolovsky
A federal appeals court in Richmond has delivered yet another blow to President Trump’s effort to institute a travel ban targeting six majority-Muslim countries, making a final Supreme Court showdown more likely.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled 10-3 on May 25 to uphold a lower court’s decision that barred the Trump administration from implementing its second attempt at the travel ban.
Image via RNS/Emily McFarlan Miller
It was her desire to hear the stories of real people — “not just faceless refugees or immigrants” — that brought the Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton to a refugee resettlement agency that provides a range of services to refugees in the Chicago area.
“Especially now, when there’s this fear that’s been stirred up, and anti-refugee sentiment, it’s really critical to say, ‘No, these people are our grandparents, our aunts and uncles,” said the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination.
Image via Reuters
A U.S. federal judge in Virginia ruled on March 24 that President Donald Trump's travel ban was justified, increasing the likelihood the measure will go before the Supreme Court, as the decision took an opposing view to courts in Maryland and Hawaii that have halted the order.
U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga rejected arguments by Muslim plaintiffs, who claimed Trump's March 6 executive order temporarily banning the entry of all refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries was discriminatory.
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Judge Watson’s ruling came from a lawsuit filed by Hawaii, according to the Guardian. In the case, the state of Hawaii claimed that the ban hurt Hawaii’s tourism industry and negatively affected businesses and universities’ ability to recruit talented individuals from the banned countries. They continued to point out that the ban hurts families bringing up the example of Ismail Elshikh — an imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii — whose Syrian mother-in-law’s visa is still on hold and might not denied with the new restrictions of the ban.
And that is the point of Believer — to use Aslan’s hip-deep immersion in some obscure corner of the faith world to show that people of different religious persuasions — even the ones generally considered marginal, dangerous, or just plain “out there” — have more in common than they know.
Image via RNS/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
The United States Congress is about as Christian today as it was in the early 1960s, according to a new analysis by Pew Research Center.
Nearly 91 percent of members of the 115th Congress convening on Jan. 3 describe themselves as Christian, compared to 95 percent of Congress members serving from 1961 to 1962, according to congressional data compiled by CQ Roll Call and analyzed by Pew.
Man holds a gay pride flag after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
After keeping quiet while Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and others approved gay marriage, Mormon leaders are once again speaking up — but with a new, post-Proposition 8 tone and emphasis.
This time, it’s in Hawaii, which is poised to debate proposed legislation making same-sex marriage legal.
In a letter dated Sept. 15 and read to congregations across the state, Hawaii Mormon leaders urged members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to “study this legislation prayerfully and then as private citizens contact your elected representatives in the Hawaii Legislature to express your views about the legislation.”
U.S. Representative-elect Tulsi Gabbard will become the first Hindu in Congress.
Congress will become a shade more religiously diverse this January, after Tuesday’s election of the first Hindu representative and first Buddhist senator.
Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, will become the first Hindu-American congresswoman, after defeating her Republican rival on Tuesday.
Photo via Getty Images.
The "Hawaiian Option" in the contraception kerfuffle. Catholic bishops say the whole measure must be "scrapped." The National Catholic Reporter's columnist John Allen talks tough. A helpful infographic illustrates how the rest of the world sees American Chrisitians. Not a fan of the Virgin of Guadalupe? Maybe she'll grow on you. The cutest dang retelling of Jonah and the whale you'll ever see. Santorum's Hannukah faux pas and more ... inside the blog.
Protest sign from an Occupy march in New York City on Oct. 30. Image via Wylio.
Police surround Occupy protest in Oakland Monday morning. Hackers threaten to "remove" Vancouver from the Internet if Occupy demonstrators are moved. Violent fringe is a challenge to Occupy movement. Are sexual assaults being under-reported at Occupy encampments? Popular Hawaiian musician occupies Obama event with a song. Occupy protesters set up camp outside a second UK cathedral. Are Occupiers the new Progressives? And much more news from the Occupy Movement worldwide inside.
Coconut vessels. Images via Wylio.
It's a clear sign something's wrong when talks on "free trade" turn an island paradise into an armed camp.
Hawaii is on lockdown this week while the U.S. tries to hammer out a regional trade agreement that's being called "NAFTA for the Pacific." While some mean this as a compliment, Hawaii's faith and labor leaders are lifting their voices against an agreement they believe will put profits for banks and corporations above workers' rights, indigenous culture, and local communities. Those leaders are drawing on the Pacific region's indigenous "Coconut Theology" to provide an alternative vision of the common good.
"Coconut Theology came out of our contextual understanding of the Gospel in the Pacific," said Rev. Piula Alailima, pastor of Wesley Methodist Church in Honolulu and a core leader in the community organizing group Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE). "When we break the body of the coconut and partake of the juice, it's a symbol of the body and blood of Christ, of sacrifice, of community and the common good."
Welcome to the month of June. Did you know that May is considered Asian Pacific Heritage Month? Don't worry, most folks don't know or care either.
