Sally Steenland2013-06-19T20:08:01-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=sally-steenlandCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Sally SteenlandGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Religious Right Wasn't Created to Battle Abortiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30085962013-04-24T13:18:02-04:002013-04-24T13:35:28-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/Roe v. Wade. The timing of these cases -- and the fact that both issues have spurred fierce and decisive culture wars -- has prompted some legal experts and pundits to worry that a Court decision to legalize marriage for same-sex couples will trigger a public backlash for decades to come.
This is supposedly what happened with abortion following Roe. According to the pundits and experts, the 1973 decision to legalize abortion outraged millions of Americans and mobilized them into a powerful movement to defend the rights of the unborn. They created the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America. The Court's decision in Roe triggered the birth of the religious right -- or so the argument goes.
But this tale turns out to be a myth. Religious conservatives mobilized not because of outrage over legalized abortion but because they were furious over threats from the Internal Revenue Service, or the IRS, to revoke the tax-exempt status of a Christian college for practicing racial discrimination.
Randall Balmer tells the true version of this story in his book, "Thy Kingdom Come." Balmer starts out by debunking the myth that conservative Christians spoke out against abortion in response to the ruling, as noted above. In fact, the Baptist Press applauded the Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, saying that, "Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision." What's more, two years before the Court's decision, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution calling on fellow Southern Baptists to work to make abortion legal under certain conditions -- namely, "rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."
According to Balmer, Paul Weyrich, a conservative political activist and strategist, had tried for years to mobilize evangelicals into a conservative movement over school prayer, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment and abortion -- all to no avail. But when government agencies started challenging the segregationist practices of the private Christian schools that evangelicals had built and their children were attending, evangelicals snapped to attention.
Especially jarring to many in this group was the fact that their schools took no government money, leading them to believe they had the right to act according to their beliefs and make independent decisions. But the IRS, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and other federal agencies were "intruding" anyway. In 1971 the Supreme Court had ruled that institutions practicing segregation -- whether or not they got public financial suppor t- -were not charitable institutions and therefore were not tax exempt. The result: Evangelicals owed the government lots of money in back taxes. And equally bad: In their mind, this ruling meant the federal government could barge into their schools and tell them what to do.
When the IRS threatened in 1975 to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because it didn't allow interracial dating among its students, evangelicals were furious -- and Weyrich saw his opening. According to Balmer, Weyrich contacted James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Jerry Falwell of Moral Majority, and other religious leaders to form a new movement.
The group held a meeting in Washington, D.C., in the late 1970s. An attendee named Ed Dobson, an associate of Falwell, told Balmer, "The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion. I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something."
So how, then, did abortion get added to the agenda?
Balmer writes about a conference call among leaders to discuss strategies regarding Bob Jones University. Someone on the call pointed out their potential to be a broader political force if they added other issues to their agenda. Callers came up with a number of ideas, and then finally one caller said, "How about abortion?" No one voiced an objection, and abortion got added to the religious right's agenda.
Over the years abortion has moved from the bottom to the top of the list. Evangelicals joined forces with pro-life Catholics and became a powerful voting bloc. They claimed the moral high ground, held politicians accountable, and stigmatized their opponents. Though it didn't start out that way, opposing abortion became a top priority for the religious right.
As the Supreme Court hears cases on marriage equality this week, it's important to remember the myth of how the religious right first mobilized. Beyond that, it's important to realize that the freedom to marry is a basic human right -- not one that should be decided on a state-by-state basis or limited by fears of a mythical backlash from the past.]]>Changing Notions of Traditional Marriagetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30522982013-04-11T11:15:25-04:002013-06-11T05:12:02-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
As Justice Alito said to Solicitor General of the United States Donald Verrilli:
Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new. There isn't a lot of data about its effect. And it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing, as the supporters of Proposition 8 apparently believe. But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?
From his line of questioning, Justice Alito clearly seemed worried about replacing a venerable institution with a "newfangled" one that could turn out to be bad for society. And he wasn't the only one with concerns. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for many Catholic leaders when he insists that marriage between a man and a woman is God's intention for humankind. The Mormon Church holds a similar view, as do thousands of evangelicals and Orthodox rabbis. Even some young conservatives, unlike most of their contemporaries, are standing up for their belief that "traditional marriage" is inherently natural and good.
But here's the problem: The notion of traditional marriage that these conservatives are so vigorously defending is not historically accurate. Pundit Bill Kristol recently fell into this trap when he complained that supporters of marriage equality want to overthrow "thousands of years of history and what the great religions teach" about marriage.
In actuality, traditional marriage -- as it existed centuries ago -- is not worth defending.
Let's start with concubines, also known as mistresses, who were owned by husbands in ancient cultures and are mentioned without disapproval throughout the Hebrew Bible. Then there's the practice of polygamy, which was the norm in biblical times. Back then, tradition forced rape victims to marry their rapist. Tradition also called for victorious soldiers to make female war prisoners their wives and concubines.
In the Middle Ages, marriages were arranged for political and financial reasons, and girls could be forced to marry when they were as young as 12 years old. British Common Law held a man to be "lord and master" of his wife who was subject to "domestic chastisement." Wife beating was legal and common in England until the late 1800s.
In colonial America, wife beating was illegal, but marriage equaled patriarchy. A wife had no legal rights or existence apart from her husband. Any money or property she inherited belonged to him. Their children were his as well. Wife abuse was not uncommon.
In 1864 a North Carolina court heard the case of a woman abused by her husband because she had called him names. The court ruled that:
A husband is responsible for the acts of his wife, and he is required to govern his household, and for that purpose the law permits him to use towards his wife such a degree of force as is necessary to control an unruly temper and make her behave herself; and unless some permanent injury be inflicted, or there be an excess of violence, or such a degree of cruelty as shows that it is inflicted to gratify his own bad passions, the law will not invade the domestic forum, or go behind the curtain.
It wasn't until the 20th century, when women fought for and won the right to vote, to sign contracts on their own, to obtain financial credit, to have access to contraception and more, that these earlier notions of traditional marriage began to crumble, and something resembling the institution we recognize today began to emerge.
But each of the advances for women's equality was fought by forces that considered them an invasion of the sacred private realm of the home and an assault on the family. Even so, these advances became part of law and culture and are now the norm. In fact, they are embedded in the institution that conservatives are now so fiercely defending.
Marriage has always been dynamic. For the most part, its evolution has been positive. Marriage today is far more mutually supportive, egalitarian and secure for children than it was centuries ago. Take heart, conservatives. The institution of marriage does change and adapt over the years, and that is what makes it endure.]]>The Dark Side of 'Bright Young Things'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30085602013-04-03T14:50:46-04:002013-06-03T05:12:01-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
It's not news that children are being sexualized at younger and younger ages or that marketers see the youth population as ripe to exploit. Recently, Victoria's Secret's PINK brand came under fire for allegedly targeting teen girls in its ad campaign for "Bright Young Things" -- an underwear line whose bikini panties say things such as "call me" on the front and "wild" on the back.
The media ran with the story of girl exploitation, and nearly 40,000 people signed a petition against Victoria's Secret. The feminist blog Jezebel did some investigative digging and found that the source of the outrage was an article on The Black Sphere, an extremely conservative website. The author was Amy Gerwing, a pro-life, anti-government advocate. In her piece, "Victoria's Secret is coming for your Middle Schooler," Gerwing linked the sexy underwear campaign to a host of problems facing girls, including anorexia, sex trafficking, bodily mutilation and sexual promiscuity.
Slate's Amanda Marcotte hit back, scoffing at the protest. Her post, "Victoria's Secret Sells Sex to High School Girls. So What?" called adults delusional for denying the sexuality of teenage girls and underscored the obvious fact that girls can be smart and ambitious and also inclined to wear sexy underwear.
Point well taken.
But missing in the debate -- at least I didn't catch it -- was any broadening of the conversation beyond conservative scolding and liberal retort. Where were the challenges to marketers' inappropriate targeting of young girls that affirmed healthy female sexuality? Where were the questions about possible links between marketplace values that celebrate unrestrained self-interest -- and which measure human worth by the bottom line -- and the weakening of civic values that historically have put limits on commercial profit, especially when it comes to children?
Progressives have something to contribute to that larger conversation. Unfortunately, they often stay silent when the controversy has to do with sexual matters, especially when conservatives have already made their voices heard. There are good reasons to be wary of speaking out: Progressives don't want to give ammunition to right-wing calls for "moral decency" that simultaneously condemn healthy sexuality for girls and women. They don't want to sound like prudes. And they don't want to step on free speech.
Even so, progressive women and men need to add their voices to the conversation. First of all, these are issues that concern them. Conservatives don't have a monopoly on worrying about raising their kids in an overly commercial and sexualized culture. And many progressives, similar to many conservatives, worry about how to shield their young children from degrading messages. Reasonable people on both sides of the aisle want to instill in their children a sense of self-worth that isn't measured by possessions or what society deems sexy.
Beyond personal concerns, however, progressives need to enter the conversation for another reason: They can often link flashpoint controversies to broader policies of deregulation that, along with the worship of an unfettered free market, give free rein to the corporate exploitation of children. Progressives can point to an uncomfortable truth for conservatives: Despite their rhetoric of valuing and protecting children, their deregulatory policies consider kids fair game. When it comes to junk food advertising, for instance, conservatives seem more worried about a "nanny state" than about helping reduce the sharply rising rates of childhood obesity and diabetes. When it comes to mobile apps that allow companies to collect kids' personal data and send it to third parties without parental knowledge, conservatives are more likely to take the side of business and stick up for unregulated commerce than for the safety of children. These discrepancies need to be given attention.
It's never easy raising kids, and in some ways, it seems to be harder than ever these days. That's why it is important for progressives to speak to the many challenges facing families and to assert without hesitation the fact that children have the right to grow up -- and that their parents have the right to raise them -- without commercial assault.]]>Girls Needs to Glance Away From the Mirrortag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29173492013-03-23T13:59:53-04:002013-05-23T05:12:01-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/Girls -- the HBO series that has triggered devotion, discomfort, and criticism in its two seasons on the air -- I'm a faithful viewer, brimming with likes and hates about the show's friendships, jobs, sex, clothes, parents, and apartments.
Besides all that, there's another aspect of Girls that feels worth noting -- its uniform worldview. Although the secular universe of Girls is vastly different from the strict Calvinist one that I was raised in, the show feels familiar to me. Both the worlds of Girls and the one of my religious childhood are insular and tribal. Both have moral codes that seem to the inhabitants to be universally true while in actuality they are culturally specific.
In Girls, the highest good is self-expression. The greatest wrong is to judge someone else. Combine the two and you get a moral code that encourages experimentation, adventure, edginess, and transgression -- no matter how demeaning or risky these things might be.
I don't think I've ever seen the main characters on Girls question or debate these values. Nor have I seen minor characters pose contrary views in any significant way. Seeing that kind of interplay would be a breath of fresh air -- as would seeing characters who are more racially and economically diverse.
Lena Dunham, the creator of Girls, got a lot of criticism during the first season of her show for having an all-white cast. After all, her characters are 20-somethings -- the most diverse generation in history -- living in New York City. You'd have to wear blinders not to see the vibrant differences around you. To her credit, Dunham responded honestly to the criticism last year, saying she took it seriously and that she never meant for the show to feel exclusionary.
To be sure, it's not Dunham's obligation -- or the obligation of any artist, for that matter -- to replicate the Census Bureau in her characters or mimic news headlines in her plots. But it is strange and disappointing that she has so limited her imagination. Including characters who aren't like her doesn't require storylines about race theory, economic inequality, or working-class history. What it does require is curiosity -- the urge to go outside familiar boundaries and capture the conflicts, hopes, and dreams of more than one strain of young people in New York City. Doing that increases the odds that a viewer will say "ah-hah" in recognition.
The term "diversity" too often carries the smell of political correctness, as if it's somehow opposed to creativity, while in fact, it can spur the creative urge by being one more tool in the kit. That's one reason why universities, businesses, and the military actively seek out diversity in their ranks. They want a creative and competitive edge, and a good way to accomplish that is to mix it up. The United States has one of the most diverse populations in the world, which gives us a leg up in the global economy. We've learned better than most other countries how to work and live side by side.
But it's not just economics and politics where diversity thrives. Biodiversity is a hallmark of a healthy ecosystem. Even when it comes to matters of finance and investments, diversity is seen as a healthy thing. And it's essential to a well-balanced financial portfolio.
The Calvinist world I grew up in was a monochromatic place filled with pale Dutch immigrants who spouted a uniform code of conduct and belief. As a child, I thought that it was the world. But it was actually just a small community in New Jersey, only 12 miles from New York City. I hopped on a bus as soon as I could and explored that amazing city block by block. That's where Lena Dunham lives. I hope next season she gets out a little more.]]>Contraception Mandate Strengthens Religious Liberty and Women's Healthtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27184842013-03-20T16:54:55-04:002013-05-20T05:12:02-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
In fact, the battle is about both. The administration's announcement that religiously affiliated institutions are permitted to opt out of the contraception requirement strengthens religious liberty while safeguarding women's health.
It's important to keep both of these issues front and center when discussing the battle; it's also important to be accurate. Here are a few facts.
The announcement came after the Obama administration spent more than a year weighing the various concerns of religious groups, health experts, women's advocates and others regarding the contraception requirement in the health care law. President Barack Obama's recommendation went the extra mile in protecting religious liberty: He proposed an accommodation ensuring that religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations will not have to "contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds."
President Obama's previous accommodation, announced in February 2012, would have accomplished the same thing. But the new mechanism -- a separate insurance plan for contraception issued directly by insurance companies to employees, thereby completely eliminating the employer from the equation -- leaves no room for doubt. At the same time, the president guaranteed that employees will still be able to receive contraception coverage with no co-pay, hopefully without complications.
The fact that the Administration's accommodation didn't satisfy all of its opponents should be no surprise, however, given their extreme demands. Exempting houses of worship and religious institutions from the requirement last year was not enough. Nor was allowing religiously affiliated nonprofits to opt out of the requirement. Opponents are dedicated to killing the contraception coverage requirement altogether.
One way they can accomplish this is by insisting on overly broad conscience exemptions, arguing that businesses and for-profit corporations should not be subject to the requirement. According to opponents, if the owners of Taco Bell morally object to contraception, they shouldn't have to include it in their health plans, despite the fact that their employees rely on affordable contraception for their health and well-being.
Over the past year opponents have filed more than 40 lawsuits against the administration on behalf of religiously affiliated institutions that object to the contraception requirement. They also supported the Senate's Blunt Amendment, which would have let employers refuse to provide coverage for a wide range of health services if those services violated the employers' moral beliefs. If the Blunt Amendment had become law, for example, an employer would have been able to deny coverage for common services such as vaccinations and STD testing if he or she found them morally objectionable.
Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based for-profit company, is one of 12 for-profit businesses that have sued the administration over the contraceptive-coverage regulation. Hobby Lobby's owners are evangelical Christians who object to the requirement on religious grounds. With 500 stores and 13,000 workers, Hobby Lobby is a major employer. The exemption it is seeking is so broad that, if allowed, it would deny basic health services to thousands of employees and set a dangerous precedent that would affect millions of Americans.
Not only that, if such a broad religious exemption were granted to businesses, it could be applied in areas other than health care. Hotels and restaurants, for example, could potentially turn away same-sex couples if the owners believed homosexuality was morally objectionable. Redefining religious liberty in such a subjective way leads to a slippery slope that can only end in a chaotic heap, with businesses selectively choosing which laws they want to obey and misusing religion as an excuse to discriminate against those with whom they disagree.
But back to the announcement by President Obama: The good news is that support for the announcement came from a wide range of religious and women's groups, which recognized the fact that the accommodation protects both religious liberty and women's health. Miracles rarely occur in politics. But you could almost glimpse one in the statements of support issued by Planned Parenthood and the super-conservative Catholic League.
Never before have these groups agreed on anything similar to this -- and perhaps they never will again. It's worth noting this moment of harmony and clarity as we work to keep a clear light on these important issues, and as some seek to muddy the waters once again.]]>Citizenship Is Crucial to Immigration Reformtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27184792013-03-20T16:52:53-04:002013-05-20T05:12:02-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
Albright's story may be decades old but it is highly relevant to the immigration debate going on today -- and in particular, to the question of whether to grant citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Aspects of the debate may seem technical -- particularly those that have to do with different types of legal status -- but they reflect a crucial issue regarding the fate of 11 million human beings, as well as the kind of country that we are.
A key part of the debate revolves around "legal status" vs. "citizenship." The two terms may seem similar but their difference is vast. Providing legal status without a chance to earn citizenship would mean creating a permanent underclass of people who live in our communities, work and pay taxes while being denied certain basic rights. If you're not a citizen, you can't vote. If you're not a citizen, you're not eligible for an array of federal programs, even though you contribute to them. If you're not a citizen, you're barred from a range of jobs, including those in the military.
Besides being unfair, denying millions of people the right to citizenship is socially and politically disruptive. It is important for each of us to have skin in the game -- to know that our investment in this country brings real rewards.
That is what providing a path to earned citizenship does. It offers hope to go along with having skin in the game. Here's how the process would work. Undocumented immigrants would be required to undergo a series of tasks, including paying back taxes, learning English, passing background checks and getting in line behind those who have legally applied for permanent residency. As undocumented immigrants do their part, Congress needs to clear the backlog and fix the process so immigrants aren't forced to wait decades before they can become full American citizens.
The practical benefits of citizenship are clear. We will have stronger and more vibrant communities, increased family security and expanded political engagement. The economic benefits are also clear. According to a study done by the University of Southern California, naturalized citizens earn 8 percent to 11 percent more money after they become citizens. If even half of our eligible immigrants became citizens, it would add between $21 billion and $45 billion to our economy over the next five years.
In addition to these tangible benefits, there are moral and philosophical benefits of citizenship -- namely, the affirmation of our core values as a nation. The current immigration debate raises the question of whether the words on the Statue of Liberty welcoming the poor and tired are still true, or whether we have closed our doors and forgotten the promise of opportunity and equality that marks our national character.
It might help to take a glance back in history and examine a time when we inflicted second-class status on immigrants -- with bad results. In the mid-1800s Chinese workers were recruited to the United States to build the Transcontinental Railroad. Their work was hard and dangerous. At one point Chinese workers made up 80 percent of the workers building the railroad, earning lower wages than their Irish counterparts and enduring racial prejudice. California Gov. Leland Stanford (R) called them "the dregs of Asia" in his 1862 inaugural address, and a common belief at the time was that Chinese immigrant workers were racially inferior.
As the Chinese American community grew, so did the backlash against them, with many groups and politicians resenting the increased number of "foreigners." Chinese immigrants were accused of lowering wages and stealing jobs from white Americans -- sound familiar? -- and Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, denying citizenship to Chinese immigrants and forbidding them from bringing their families to the United States or from re-entering the country if they left. Harsh amendments were added to the law in later years, broadening exclusions to include all Asians and blocking Chinese Americans born in the United States from returning home if they left the country. These discriminatory laws threw thousands of immigrants into legal limbo, destroyed families, and enshrined racial prejudice into law. Finally, in 1952 the exclusion laws were repealed.
America wronged Chinese immigrant workers whose back-breaking labor helped to make our nation an industrial powerhouse and a world leader. Today, as we face new global challenges and new opportunities, we should learn from past mistakes and pay attention to what we did right. It is never right to arbitrarily exclude an entire class of people who are living, working and raising their children here from fully belonging to the country they love. It is always right to offer what Madeleine Albright and so many of our ancestors were offered: the opportunity to become an American citizen, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails.]]>Welcoming Diversity Can Increase Your Clouttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25849022013-02-10T17:15:44-05:002013-04-12T05:12:01-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
It is not, however, only individuals who come to learn this lesson -- groups do, as well. We can see this happening now in the United States, a nation founded, developed, and ruled primarily by white Protestants for more than 200 years. White Protestants were the dominant majority for most of our history, setting norms in such a pervasive way that their influence was simply called "life."
But that is rapidly changing. By the year 2042, white people will be a minority in the United States and they are already a minority of the babies being born. And Protestants slipped into minority status in 2012 as religious diversity grew and religious affiliation dwindled.
The effects of these demographic shifts were seen in the November election. President Barack Obama won in part because of the rapid growth of Latino voters, who chose him over Republican candidate Mitt Romney by 71 percent. He also won 62 percent of nonreligious voters, 69 percent of Jewish voters, and 73 percent of Asian American voters.
Not everyone was happy with the results. "It's not a traditional America anymore," Bill O'Reilly mourned on Fox News as the election results came in. Ironically, O'Reilly neglected to mention the fact that Irish Catholics -- such as himself -- were once considered a threat to "traditional America." In the mid-1800s, so-called nativists objected to Catholic immigrants becoming citizens, and there were riots in cities such as St. Louis when Catholics tried to vote. Other minority groups have faced similar hostility in the past, including Jewish Americans and Asian Americans. Even today many Muslim Americans are targets of bigotry because they're falsely seen as unpatriotic and as "other."
It's a repetitive pattern: Once outsiders become insiders, many of them want to slam the door on others who are eager to come in. In a swiftly changing nation, how can we keep the door open? How do we recognize the truth--that today's changing demographics merely reflect America's continuing journey as a vibrant immigrant nation that absorbs new ideas and identities, mixes them into a creative stew, and churns out innovation, opportunity, and promise?
One place to look for guidance is in how groups have dealt with these changes in the past--in particular, to a dwindling group that used to run the country: white ecumenical Protestants. At the height of their influence--in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s--a number of Protestant intellectual leaders spent less time plotting how to maintain their denominational power and more time focusing on self-examination. They asked themselves hard questions about the sin of racism, colonialism, imperialism, American exceptionalism--and didn't shrink from the answers. Despite the temptation to cling to their dominant status, these leaders--mostly Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and Episcopalians--worked hard to publicly examine their own shortcomings.
American historian David Hollinger describes this remarkable process in his article, "After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Ecumenical Protestantism and the Modern American Encounter with Diversity." Hollinger offers new insights about this once-mighty group, as well as a counternarrative to the conventional wisdom that the shrinking number of ecumenical Protestants means they've lost their footprint of influence in American life today.
As Hollinger shows--and this should be encouraging to those who feel threatened or marginalized by "newcomers" today--is that honest self-questioning and engagement with a changing world can actually extend the influence of your group. In the case of ecumenical Protestants whose institutional decline is usually equated with failure, Hollinger claims almost the opposite: Their inward efforts for self-renewal and outward efforts for justice relied on liberal values that in turn seeped into America and took root. Pluralism, freedom, individualism, and democracy all grew within the Protestant tradition and are an important part of our public culture today.
That said, it is important to acknowledge other less positive consequences of the Protestant leaders' self-critique and engagement with a diverse world. For one thing, as leaders emphasized global justice issues, they left behind their followers in the pews who cared less about such far-away matters and more about local congregational concerns, biblical teachings, and the spiritual nurturing that fed their soul.
Beyond that, these leaders were increasingly under attack from powerful evangelical and religious-right organizations that promoted a Christian America, biblical literalism, and the dangers of engaging the outside world. To top it off, secular civil rights and justice groups--moving more rapidly on issues they were jointly committed to--became the dominant players in the fight for social justice.
Protestant leaders have left us a complicated legacy, but it is one that offers useful tips and lessons for us today. First, those on the frontlines of social change need to stay connected with everyday people. This means, for example, that progressives who promote the benefits of a diverse nation need to make a strong case for their cause and build a broad coalition that includes white working-class Americans, along with communities of color.
Second, the loss of institutional dominance doesn't mean the end of influence. Groups should look beyond their shrinking numbers to join forces with diverse allies who share common concerns. As they participate in multi-issue alliances, their institutional identity may have to become more diffuse, but their collective clout can grow.
And third, achieving an accurate understanding of how the world works--and who its people are--is the only way to survive. When self-centeredness bumps into the real world, sooner or later the real world wins.
The truth is that we are all minorities who are connected to each other--tied in a "single garment of destiny," as Martin Luther King Jr. said. Ecumenical Protestant leaders recognized this truth more than 50 years ago. It is our task to act upon it today.]]>The President and the Poettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25351862013-01-23T17:54:25-05:002013-03-25T05:12:01-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
Blanco read his poem after the president gave his inaugural speech. Although Blanco had written it before he'd heard the speech, his poem was an uncannily close -- and beautiful -- reflection of the president's themes.
In the poem's first lines, Blanco paralleled President Obama's emphasis on "We, the people" -- the notion that we are all connected, even as each of us is unique. "One sun rose over us today," Blanco began. "My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life."
As if in call-and-response, President Obama said, "America's possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. ... we are made for this moment, and we will seize it -- so long as we seize it together."
Another echo of the speech in Blanco's poem was the belief that our nation's strength comes from the hard work and dreams of ordinary people. "Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper -- bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives -- to teach geometry, or ring up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem," Blanco read.
Later in the poem, he read, "Hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane so my brother and I could have books and shoes."
Again, the speech and the poem reflected each other. "America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work," President Obama said. "When the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship ... when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own."
Inaugural speeches can be lofty things, untethered to the realities of the day. Poems can be impenetrably dense, disconnected from plain speech.
This inaugural speech and poem were neither. Instead, they spoke clearly about who we are as a nation -- and who we can be. They reminded us of our proud history and challenged us to a common purpose: bequeathing the sacred legacy of America to future generations.
After reciting the opening words of the Declaration of Independence, the president said,
Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by his people here on Earth.
Our adherence to those founding words -- and our work to transform them from promise into reality -- is what makes the United States exceptional. The fact that President Obama's inauguration took place on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday holiday is especially meaningful, given that Dr. King worked courageously and tirelessly to confront America with its sin of racism -- and to make our country expand its founding promise of justice and equality to include everyone.
In his speech, President Obama advanced the journey toward justice and equality one more step by including gay Americans in the Declaration's truths. He said, "For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." Richard Blanco, who is gay, said after the ceremony that he appreciated the president connecting gay rights to civil rights and women's rights.
President Obama ended his speech by collapsing the distance between himself and the rest of us. He told us that the oath he had just taken was not so different from the oath a soldier takes in signing up for duty, that an immigrant takes in becoming a new citizen, or the pledge of allegiance we all make to our country and flag.
We are many -- and we are one.
Blanco's poem ended on a similar theme, gathering us all up for tomorrow and the days to come:
We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always -- home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country -- all of us --
facing the stars
hope --a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it -- together.]]>Roe and Religion: A Surprising Historytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24879412013-01-17T13:33:20-05:002013-03-19T05:12:01-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/Roe v. Wade decision, clergy were among the staunchest supporters of women seeking an abortion. Twenty-one ministers and rabbis created the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, an underground network that counseled women and led them to compassionate, competent doctors who provided abortion care. Although the network had only a handful of clergy at first, it grew to about 1,400 clergy operating on the East Coast during the 1960s to serve women from across the nation.
Rev. Howard Moody -- who was born in Texas, lived in New York, and died in 2012 at age 91 -- created the network and considered it one of his most important ministries. Women "came from all over the country," he told an interviewer in 2001. "They came by plane and train, and bus, and car." Women were desperate and needed help. "It was the most humiliating, frightening prospect for women that you can imagine," Moody said. He'd seen women die from botched illegal abortions and was stirred by compassion to help them.
A few years after the Roe decision, a number of religious organizations voiced support for the decision, even as they acknowledged the moral complexity of abortion and honored the sanctity of life. Their views were articulated in an ecumenical study document on abortion published in 1978 and discussed in a recent article on AlterNet.
In the study document, American Baptist Churches said that, "Abortion should be a matter of personal decision." The American Lutheran Church agreed, recognizing the "freedom and responsibility of individuals to make their own choices in light of the best information available to them and their understanding of God's will for their lives."
The Church of the Brethren voiced support in the document for women who, "after prayer and counseling, believe abortion is the least destructive alternative available to them." The Brethren took this position so that women could "make their decision openly, honestly, without the suffering imposed by an uncompromising community."
What is even more surprising than the nuanced views of these faith communities, however, is the early support for Roe from the Southern Baptist Convention. Although they are currently among the fiercest opponents of abortion, Southern Baptists supported the 1973 ruling. From their early days, Southern Baptists have been fervent believers in religious liberty and saw Roe v. Wade in this light. If the government could tell a woman what to do with her body, they reasoned, it could also tell Baptists what they could -- or couldn't -- do with their religion.
How things have changed. In the early 1980s, the Republican Party wooed and won the support of millions of religious conservatives, and those nuanced theological truths got buried under a political campaign that claimed God-driven opposition to abortion. Conservatives even altered texts of the Bible to fit their rigid antiabortion stance.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade next Tuesday, however, we must challenge that unbending opposition. We need to remember another way of thinking -- one that supports women's reproductive health and rights through a lens of morality and faith. We also need to remember that when abortion opponents claim a monopoly on God's truth, their certainty is less than 40 years old.
Looking back on history isn't enough. We must also focus on what to do in the present and what our vision is for the future. Groups such as the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Catholics for Choice, Faith Aloud, the Religious Institute and others are helping to point the way. Each is busy doing a piece of what is needed. These groups are:
Arming clergy and faith leaders with compelling messages that are true to their own religious teachings and traditions
Educating congregations to connect their religious beliefs and conscience with the moral complexities of life and to claim the sacredness of human sexuality
Linking reproductive rights to broader social and economic justice issues such as health care, education, employment and housing -- all of which affect a woman's capacity to be a parent and to raise a child with dignity
Challenging the harsh -- and often inaccurate -- rhetoric of religious conservatives that stigmatizes women and dishonors their capacity to make moral decisions
Urging public officials to support women and families in real and meaningful ways rather than setting up roadblocks that harm their health and limit their lives
Laying out the true meaning of religious liberty so that this core American value is not used as a smokescreen to limit women's access to contraception and family planning
The 1978 ecumenical study document articulated the inherent value of the fetus and the importance of reducing the need for abortion. It also held up values of humility, freedom, justice, balance, compassion and responsibility.
As we envision a future of health and reproductive justice for all women, those values are more important than ever. We can add to them the words of a just-released affirmation on faith and reproductive justice from CAP's Faith and Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute. It is a credo of belief in the dignity of all God's people and a pledge to act -- individually and collectively -- so that all women can flourish and fulfill their God-given potential as individuals and as parents.]]>Faith Communities Step Up Against Gun Violencetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24400322013-01-14T13:08:30-05:002013-03-16T05:12:02-04:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
"Enough is enough," Hall said. "We have tolerated school shootings, mall shootings, theater shootings, sniper shootings, workplace shootings, temple and church shootings, urban neighborhood shootings, for far too long. The massacre of these 28 people in Connecticut is, for me at least, the last straw."
Hall went on, "The best way for us to mourn the Sandy Hook shooting is to mobilize the faith community for gun control ... we know both from faith and experience that the cross is mightier than the gun. The gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby."
Four days after his sermon, Rev. Hall joined a press conference of interfaith leaders, who called for the religious community to act collectively to end gun violence and to demand swift action from political leaders to pass common-sense gun laws. In the days since, pressure has continued to mount, and more faith-based groups are calling for action.
A coalition called Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, which came together after the shooting of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) two years ago, has drafted a public letter to President Barack Obama and Congress with the following three legislative demands: require a criminal background check for every gun sold in this country, ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and make gun trafficking a federal crime. Coalition members are holding a press conference on Jan. 15 to release the letter and to urge action.
PICO, a national faith-based organizing group, is also calling for a ban on assault weapons and background checks on gun sales. "Praying is not enough," said Rev. Michael McBride, head of PICO's Lifelines to Healing campaign. "We must turn our prayers, grief, and outrage into action ... the majority of Americans support these sensible proposals."
Over the past weekend congregations across the country participated in a Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath, where they heard sermons, prayed and pledged action. New voices are joining those who have been working on this issue for years. Heeding God's Call is active in Pennsylvania, while houses of worship in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities such as New York and Boston have long been involved in antigang and gun violence efforts.
For too long, the work of many of these groups attracted little public notice. Hopefully, however, that will now change. A broad-based movement is coming together that includes African American and Latino churches, white evangelicals, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Catholic, and other faith communities. They will not be easily dismissed.
Indeed, their clout will be essential in the coming days in order to transform moral outrage into common-sense legislation. According to news reports, the White House is considering a broad range of comprehensive measures to reduce gun violence. These include uniform background checks on gun buyers, a national database to track the sale and movement of guns, stronger mental health checks and more.
Officials at the National Rifle Association, after laying low for a week in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, have come out more defiant than ever. The NRA's Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for armed guards in every school and blamed the Sandy Hook shooting on violent entertainment and lax mental health policies. Notably, LaPierre did not say one word about the role of his organization's lobbyists in gun violence.
It is clear that NRA officials are hoping public attention will soon wane and drift to another issue, as it has in the past, and that the pressure to act will die down. They are callously hoping that our collective moral outrage will be sapped by arcane policy fights and by a mass of legislative details too complex for sound bites. They want to outwait and outwit the rest of us.
But this time is different. People of faith are joining millions of Americans of all political stripes to demand common-sense gun policies. As Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington (D.C.), said at the interfaith press conference, "We get to a moment where we can't take it anymore. We've got to rededicate ourselves to who we are."
It's time to pull back the curtain on the gun lobby, to shame them and their political allies for sacrificing thousands of American lives each year to an extremist ideology that lacks the support of most Americans.
Since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, more than 500 people have been killed by guns in America. Every day the number rises. It is long past time to echo what Rev. Hall said in his sermon at the National Cathedral: "Enough is enough."]]>Resolve to End Homelessness in 2013tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.23969342013-01-03T11:23:32-05:002013-03-05T05:12:01-05:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
But New Year's resolutions don't come cheap. According to market research corporation Marketdata Enterprises, Americans spent $62 billion in 2011 on "health club memberships, weight-loss programs, exercise tapes, diet sodas and the like," despite the fact that many of these products don't work. And even though Americans spend close to $19 billion a year on gym memberships alone, four out of five of those memberships are not used regularly.
It's clear that we've got a fairly large gap between resolutions and reality. Certainly, losing weight and getting fit are admirable goals, but there are cheaper ways to do it -- and there are better ways to spend our money.
So here's an idea, one that avoids false promises and fulfills another top New Year's resolution: to help others. Let's take some of those dollars that we pay out on fake science and so-called miracle weight-loss products and spend them on a worthwhile alternative. Let's tackle a big problem -- say, homelessness in America.
To many, homelessness is an impossible problem -- too unwieldy and expensive. But ending homelessness has a price tag, just like those gizmos purporting to shed pounds and gym memberships. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness. That's less than half of what we spend each year on weight loss and self-improvement.
Seriously, ending homelessness is not an impossible task.
One of the first steps in solving any problem is to actually believe it can be solved. The second step is to break it down into manageable tasks. Third, get started. Fourth, keep at it.
The good news is that the number of people living on America's streets has dropped by 17 percent since 2007. The number of homeless veterans has dropped by 17 percent since 2009 as well.
These decreases are partly because of the outstanding work of service providers who know that not all homeless people are the same. Some are severely disabled and need long-term housing and good medical care, but many of those who become homeless lost their job in the Great Recession of 2007-2009 or got sick and fell behind on rent or house payments. What they need is help getting back on their feet.
Local service agencies provide them with rapid "rehousing" so they don't end up on the street, help with security deposits and a few months' rent, and job assistance if needed. Such targeted aid is usually enough to bring folks back to a place where they're self-sufficient and can take care of themselves.
Much of the progress that's been made in communities is due to federal funding -- including $1.5 billion in stimulus money for homeless prevention and rapid rehousing programs. That effort, along with funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Veterans Administration, rebuts the myth that government programs do little if any good because they encourage dependency and a victim mentality in recipients. In truth, these are our fellow citizens who pay taxes and work hard but have hit a rough patch and need a temporary hand to get back on their feet.
Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, suggests ways that all of us can help. "Pay your taxes and don't complain," he said in an interview. The money is going to programs that work.
"Volunteer," he added. "Make a donation. Talk to the influential people in your community to see if you've got a coordinated approach to homelessness. Find out if the numbers are going down. And don't stop asking questions until you get good answers."
Remember, Berg says, we are the richest country in the world. Nobody should have to live on the street. Not only is it morally wrong but it ends up costing us more in the long run.
Speaking of costs, I'd like to add that the $20 billion price tag for ending homelessness comes to less than half of what we spend each year on our pets.
To me it's a no-brainer. Happy New Year.]]>Forgive Us Our Debtstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22938682012-12-27T16:10:28-05:002013-02-26T05:12:01-05:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
That link -- between money and morals -- isn't limited to the pages of ancient sacred texts, however. You can spot it in today's news thanks to a creative new project called the Rolling Jubilee, part of the Strike Debt campaign, which are both offshoots of the Occupy Wall Street movement and are tackling a huge problem. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about 30 million Americans are being hounded by debt collection agencies.
The idea behind the Rolling Jubilee, the so-called bailout of people by people, is simple. Financial institutions often sell hard-to-collect debt to third parties at a discount. The third parties (usually debt-collection agencies) buy up the aggregated debt and then go after those who now owe them money. Since the collectors bought the debt at a bargain -- usually pennies on the dollar -- they're guaranteed a significant profit if they keep hounding debtors until they pay.
Here's what the Rolling Jubilee does. It buys up debt at a discount but does not chase down the debtors. Instead, it forgives the debt and sets the debtors free.
The Rolling Jubilee got off the ground in early November and was officially launched on Nov. 15 with The People's Bailout, a variety show and telethon in New York City that was live-streamed and featured "music, comedy, magic, education, and the unexpected."
In just over a month the Rolling Jubilee has raised almost half a million dollars, which has been used to erase more than $9 million of debt. Contributors get a bargain and those heavily in debt get a break. According to Jubilee officials, a $10 donation wipes out $200 of debt, while a $100 donation wipes out $2,000 of debt. The project is buying medical debt first since nearly 1 million Americans have been financially ruined by a calamitous illness.
According to the American Journal of Medicine, medical costs triggered more than 60 percent of bankruptcies in 2009, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners. So much for the stereotype of bankrupt bums who max out their credit cards on reckless consumer spending.
The truth is that wages for the middle class have been stagnant for more than 30 years, while living expenses have sharply increased. According to a report by the Center for American Progress, between 1970 and 2009, health care costs jumped by 50 percent, college costs by 80 percent and housing costs by 97 percent, net of overall inflation.
Susan Wilcox, director of campus ministry at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn and a member of Occupy Catholics, said in a recent interview that the notion that debt is merely an individual responsibility is not true. "Debt is a social contract," Wilcox said. "You don't enter it alone -- it's relational and communal. One in seven Americans is in debt. How is it that we all happened to mismanage our money at the same time?"
Wilcox goes on, "Our society has cultivated these individualistic notions. People who lose their home think it's happening only to them. They feel shame and a sense of moral failure. But it's about unjust systems." Wilcox says the ancients would be laughing at us for not understanding the collective nature of debt.
Back in ancient times, the Hebrew practice of Jubilee was meant to ease inequities that had grown over time, restore fairness and rebuild a level playing field. There was a clear understanding that debt and borrowing led to serious inequalities that needed to be rectified in order for people to have the basics to sustain life. Based on this same philosophy the land too was given a rest. In the largely agricultural societies of ancient times it was ecologically prudent to let the land lie fallow for a period before replanting. The Jubilee was meant not just for people, but for God's creation as well.
In addition to the Rolling Jubilee effort, the Strike Debt campaign created the "Debt Resistors' Operations Manual." The manual serves as an educational and tactical guide that helps people negotiate their personal debt, as well as understand the larger system that pits individuals against global corporations.
Soon the Rolling Jubilee will send letters to the people whose debt the program has erased in hopes that some will come forward and tell their stories and put a human face on national statistics. The project's organizers hope to transform awareness about medical debt into political pressure, and are working with allies in the health care community to plan direct actions that will coincide with the announcement of debt buys. They hope to expand the project in the coming months, and they are busy researching other debt markets and possibilities.
According to Susan Wilcox, the Rolling Jubilee got a lot of press coverage right from the start. "We hit a spot that everyone could relate to and showed something different," she said. "We touched the intersection between hopelessness and life."]]>Searching for Answers After the Sandy Hook Tragedytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23308132012-12-20T11:49:11-05:002013-02-19T05:12:01-05:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
It feels wrong to speak of children in the past tense. Their lives are just unfolding, with so many years ahead. But the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last Friday stopped short the lives of 20 young children, erasing their future, breaking the natural order of birth and death -- and breaking the hearts of their families and community.
President Barack Obama brushed away tears as he spoke the day of the shooting. In his struggle for composure, he joined the rest of us, stunned and sorrowed by the news. Houses of worship opened their doors and became sanctuaries for those who needed a quiet place to reflect and pray, to grieve and find comfort. Whether you lived in Connecticut or California, had children or not, the horrific event pulled you out of your small gripes and daily tasks to confront unspeakable tragedy and unanswerable questions.
News commentators speculated about the motives of the shooter and causes of the crime. Autism, bad parenting, guns, divorce -- on and on they went, filling airtime in the long spaces between releases of new information. But they had no answers.
Amid their words, we heard agonizing details. When the parents of the victims got the news as they gathered in a nearby fire station, their wailing could be heard outside.
Twelve hours after the shooting, the dead children were still inside the school, lying where they'd fallen because the building was a crime scene, and the investigation wasn't finished.
Then there were the pictures of the surviving children holding hands and closing their eyes, as they'd been told, so they wouldn't see the carnage while police led them through the school to the outside.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, one of my college professors, lost a son suddenly several years ago and wrote about his death in a book, "Lament for a Son."
"There's a hole in the world now," Wolterstorff writes. "In the place where he was, there's now just nothing. ... the world is emptier. My son is gone. Only a hole remains, a void, a gap, never to be filled."
As a man of faith, Wolterstorff struggles to reconcile God with suffering. In the end he has no easy answers but believes God is with him in his despair. "We're in it together," he says. "Every act of evil extracts a tear from God, every plunge into anguish extracts a sob from God."
And he addresses the basic question: What can you say to someone who is suffering?
His answer: "What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort me, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench."
These words hold especially true today. Let us be close to the suffering families in Connecticut. Let us sit beside them on their mourning bench and hold them tight in our hearts.]]>Growing Embrace of Marriage Equalitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22455732012-12-13T16:17:37-05:002013-02-12T05:12:01-05:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
On Election Day 2012 voters in three states -- Maryland, Maine and Washington -- went far beyond civil unions and supported marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. Voters in Minnesota rejected a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. These victories mark a dramatic shift in public support for gay and lesbian equality -- all in a little more than a decade since Vermont passed its civil unions bill.
What changed?
Let's start with the voters. One reason marriage equality is becoming a winning issue is because young people support it. As they turn 18 and start voting, their views are shifting the political conversation and election landscape. As young people become a larger part of the electorate, support for marriage equality is likely to become the norm. But it's not just the youth vote that's driving change. A recent report, "The Big Shift," by the think tank Third Way, finds that three-quarters of the change in attitude over the past seven years came from Americans of all ages, including older voters.
The culture has also shifted. As more gay and transgender Americans have come out to their families, friends and co-workers, they have rebutted stereotypes and rigid notions of what it means to be gay. Hollywood -- never a leader in cultural trends but eager to be a close follower -- has noted this growing acceptance and begun adding openly gay characters to programming. According to a recent report by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, 4.4 percent of recurring characters on TV shows this season are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender -- a record high. And an October poll by The Hollywood Reporter found that voters increasingly support marriage equality, with 27 percent saying that "gay TV" shows such as "Glee" and "Modern Family" influenced their views.
The laws have changed too. Four years after Vermont legalized civil unions, the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Although public opinion was trending toward support of civil unions, the Massachusetts ruling seemed to many a step too far. This fear seemed to come true when conservative lawmakers introduced 11 state bans on same-sex marriage that year -- and won them all.
Even so, one state after another followed Massachusetts, legalizing marriage equality through their legislatures or courts. By 2011 same-sex marriage was legal in six states and Washington, D.C. Not until Nov. 6, however, were supporters of marriage equality able to win through the ballot box. Thirty-two ballot initiatives had previously been rejected by voters, and that failure became a conservative talking point. But when the people spoke this November, they said yes.
It's important to note that many of the people who voted "yes" on marriage equality are religious. Whether straight or gay, they are doing what opponents say is impossible: reconciling their faith with marriage equality and discarding theological beliefs that teach that homosexuality is sinful and unnatural.
Progress within religious institutions and faith communities has moved at an uneven pace. Some of the biggest changes have come about because gay and transgender people refused to abandon their religion. Instead they steadfastly claimed their faith and added new dimensions to old texts and beliefs. Groups such as Dignity USA in the Catholic Church, Integrity USA in the Episcopal Church, Keshet in the Jewish community, More Light Presbyterians, Al-Fatiha Foundation in the Muslim community, and many others have prodded their institutions to a broader understanding of God's love and God's creation of human beings who are gay and straight.
More houses of worship are displaying rainbow banners to welcome all people, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. Just as importantly, faith leaders are increasingly speaking out in support of gay and transgender equality as a core moral issue -- and they are pushing back against opponents who have used religion as a weapon to demonize gay people and deny them justice and equality.
When it comes to marriage, many religious leaders are making the clear distinction between marriage as a civil matter and marriage as a religious ceremony. Marriage equality laws pertain to civil marriage. Written into these laws are strong First Amendment protections so that clergy and religious leaders who object to performing wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples are not required to do so.
In a new book, "God Believes in Love," Bishop Gene Robinson -- the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church -- addresses religious and cultural concerns about same-sex marriage and makes a strong biblical case for it. He tackles the seven passages in the Bible that are always used to condemn homosexuality, offering fresh interpretations that take into account the culture of the time and the context of the writer. Beyond that, Robinson argues that God is still speaking, revealing new truths and understanding today. He offers as examples the use of Scripture in the past to justify slavery and to subjugate women: Belief is not static, and religious institutions now know they were wrong on these two issues.
The interplay among culture, laws and religion is not easy to untangle. Changed hearts and minds prompt new laws. At the same time new laws shift the norm, changing hearts and minds. We can see this interplay with marriage equality. After same-sex marriage was legalized, the sky did not fall. The earth did not spin off its axis. Nor was heterosexual marriage destroyed. Instead more people who love one another got married, and something that had seemed strange or fearful began to seem normal. As the cultural and political embrace of marriage equality continues to grow, look for more state victories in coming years.]]>Are We Nearing a Tipping Point on Climate Change?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22178832012-11-30T11:12:04-05:002013-01-30T05:12:01-05:00Sally Steenlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-steenland/
Some version of that second scenario is happening to us right now. I'm not saying we're on the brink of perishing, but on a range of issues -- from climate change to gun violence to women's reproductive health -- incremental changes have lulled us into complacency, relaxing our sense of danger and weakening our response reflexes.
Pundits call the state we're in the "new normal." What they mean is that we get used to things as they are. And if we don't exactly get comfortable with the status quo, we feel like David in a battle against Goliath.
Case in point: climate change. For several years now, increased pollution from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been fueling extreme weather across the globe. Droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards and heat waves: Our planet's weather report is starting to sound like the biblical plagues.
Last month was the 331st month in a row where temperatures rose above the 20th century average. Just this year, the United States suffered "two record heat waves, a record drought, [and] an above-average fire season."
Then, just before Halloween this year, Hurricane Sandy roared up the East Coast and battered parts of the Midwest. With its ferocious winds and hammering rains, Sandy knocked out power, flooded homes and businesses, triggered fires, tore down trees and devastated neighborhoods. More than 100 people died. Sandy is estimated to cost around $50 billion in damages Just one week after Sandy hit, another storm ravaged the East Coast -- only this time it was a blizzard that inflicted even more damage on the communities ravaged by the hurricane and further hampered efforts to restore power and rebuild homes and businesses.
Concerns about climate change and global warming used to be a bipartisan affair. Republican Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) previously supported a tax on greenhouse gases -- known as cap and trade -- as did many Democratic lawmakers. Even 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took global warming seriously and supported cap-and-trade policies when he was governor of Massachusetts.
So what happened?
For one thing, the Tea Party turned up the political heat against those who took global warming seriously and supported policies to slow its effects. According to a Yale University survey, a majority of Tea Party members (53 percent) claim they don't believe global warming is occurring, and 51 percent say they aren't worried about it.
What's more, right-wing forces have coordinated their efforts to deny the reality of climate change, dispute scientific findings, pit environmentalists against God, and oppose common-sense regulations. In addition, until very recently the mainstream media had all but stopped mentioning climate change as a possible connection to the reoccurring instances of recording-breaking extreme weather.
Media silence, combined with fierce climate-change denial and political polarization, has had an effect: More Americans now connect words such as "hoax" to global warming than they did 10 years ago. And although a majority of Americans say they believe climate change is real and should be addressed, there is no strong consensus on how to tackle the problem.
Post-Sandy, however, things are starting to change. Political leaders such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are urging federal action to help mitigate the effects of global warming. In fact, Mayor Bloomberg said the main reason he endorsed President Barack Obama for re-election was because of his concern about climate change.
In addition, media outlets are starting to connect the dots. In the wake of the superstorm, a dramatic picture of a dark and flooded lower Manhattan appeared on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek, with the huge headline, "IT'S GLOBAL WARMING, STUPID." NBC anchor Chuck Todd said, "Let's not bury our head in the sand. It's called climate change, folks." CNN and other news outlets are linking climate change to killer storms, while science reporters and talk-show hosts are finding their voices, too.
Other hopeful signs include the defeat of several Tea Party congressional candidates in this year's election, along with a new carbon auction in California that will put a price on pollution and provide funding for investments in clean energy.
These changes could be evidence of a tipping point -- the moment when a number of factors came together to change public opinion. The groundwork is there: solid science, local concern and activism, moral leadership and a dramatic event.
In terms of moral leadership, faith communities have long seen global warming as one of the most urgent spiritual issues of our time. From Catholics and Jews to Muslims, evangelicals, and others, faith communities have been working to change individual behavior and to advocate for sensible policies to address climate change.
The Evangelical Environmental Network, for instance, ran television ads in swing states during the election campaign defending the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to reduce carbon pollution. Interfaith Moral Action on Climate graded elected officials on their stewardship record and is urging responsible climate leadership. And the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action worked to make the environment a key voting issue among its followers through social media and direct organizing.
Faith groups are also joining forces with labor organizations, businesses, elected officials and environmental, civil rights, educational and other groups in the National Climate Summit. It could very well be that the Summit's call for elected officials to devise a climate plan within their first 100 days in office will now gain traction in Congress. The heat is finally being turned up on the issue of climate change.
Let's go back to our hapless frog. A burst of heat, if not too late, can snap it awake and propel it out of the boiling pot. Blistered, yes -- but still alive.]]>