Ohio joins movement to take back Christianity

[revised 4:30 pm]

By Diane Silver

Moderate and progressive clergy in Ohio are the latest to join a growing national movement of people of faith who are standing up to the religious right.

The new organization is called We Believe Ohio, and it has drawn 300 religious leaders.

Rev. Timothy Ahrens, senior minister at The First Congregational Church in Columbus, told Reuters:

"At our opening meeting, pastor after pastor said they have members ... who won't even tell people they are Christian any more, because Christian is such a dirty word."

The group's goal is to get voters to the polls and to "convince mainstream voters that Christians care about more than banning gay marriage and abortion and restoring school prayer."

We Believe Ohio is just the latest group of clergy and lay people to be formed. In Kansas, Mainstream Voices of Faith was launched this year with a similar mission.

So far the news media have downplayed the birth of these groups. Take a close look at the Reuters story for a complete display of the arguments about how this new movment is and will always be toothless.

However, I believe the mainstream media is missing the story. It's true that no new political organization can have the impact of a longterm group. Organizing takes time and the religious right's twenty-some year lead is substantial.

I remember the birth pains of the religious right, though. I was a member of the Statehouse press corps in Kansas for some of that period. I vividly remember how reporters and the moderate Republican leadership laughed at the social conservatives. They were nutcases, we thought. They'd never have any power.

Today, they control the state GOP and much of state government, not to mention the White House, all of Congress and an increasing proportion of the judiciary.

My advice to the pundits and the reporters: Don't judge too soon.

The true test of any new movement is not what happens today, but what will happen tomorrow, at the November election and in the next five, 10 and 20 years.

The simple fact that these kinds of groups are popping up all over the country, often in the most religious areas of the nation, is more than just noteworthy.

Living out here in Kansas, I sense that many people -- particularly people of faith -- are mad as h*ll at the religious right, and they're not going to take it anymore.

That kind of emotion can fuel miracles.

Hat tip to Red State Rabble for pointing me toward the story.

More o f my blogging on Mainstream Voices of Faith can be found here and here.

Another reason to oppose the Haynes nomination

By Nancy Jane Moore

It turns out that William J. Haynes, the pro-torture Defense Department general counsel who Bush wants to put on the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, is a protege of David S. Addington.

And David Addington, according to The New Yorker, is "[t]he legal mind behind the White House's war on terror."

Jane Mayer's comprehensive report (a brilliant piece of reporting that everyone needs to read) in the magazine's July 3 issue concludes that Addington, who is Dick Cheney's chief of staff and has served as his top legal adviser for years, is the lawyer behind the Bush Administration's "New Paradigm." According the Mayer, this doctrine provides that:

The President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it.

Even a Republican who worked in the Reagan Justice Department thinks Addington goes too far. As quoted by Mayer, Bruce Fein says Addington and other White House lawyers

staked out powers that are a universe beyond any other Administration. This President has made claims that are really quite alarming. He's said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President's reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. His war powers allow him to declare anyone an illegal combatant. All the world's a battlefield -- according to his view he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It's got the sense of Louis XIV: "I am the State."

And this is the reaction of a Republican who voted for Bush! Twice!

Virtually no legal scholars share Addington's opinion on executive power, Mayer says. Actually, I don't think you need to be a legal scholar to reject his ideas; all you need to have done was to pay attention in high school civics when they talked about the three branches of government and the concept of checks and balances. Or in history class, when they mentioned that George Washington declined to become king.

But Addington's opinion prevailed in the White House, which is a little short on great legal minds. Or even people who paid attention in civics or history class, apparently.

And Haynes, Mayer says, was his protege. Addington helped him get the Defense Department general counsel job. From Mayer's article, it looks like they are two peas in a pod when it comes to executive power and ignoring those in the know, like military lawyers.

In Haynes we have a potential judge who is pro-torture and wants to eviscerate the Constitution by putting all the power in the White House. He has done great damage in his current job -- just ask the military lawyers who've been testifying on Capitol Hill this week. Giving him a lifetime role as a judge would do even more harm to the country.

But Addington is probably the bigger problem. He's given Cheney and his crew a bogus legal rationale for executive power that they've tried to cram down our throats. Right now the only thing protecting us -- not just the detainees at Guantanamo, but all of us -- from a dictatorship is the 5-3 Supreme Court opinion in Hamden v. Rumsfeld.

Democracy is hard to protect. Sometimes we salvage it by the skin of our teeth. We're teetering on that edge right now.

Retired military officers oppose torture lawyer's appointment to court

[updated]

Even military officers now appear to be arguing against confirming Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes for a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The American Constitution Society blog provides background and links.

Haynes signed off on using "harsh interrogation" (aka torture) on prisoners.

Look here to see In This Moment's discussion on why this makes Haynes a lousy candidate for the federal court.

Meanwhile, the Washington Times brings word that the nomination might be in serious trouble. Hat tip to Think Progress.

Presbyterian pastor: Gay rights opponents "use the Christian religion as a camouflage for bullying."

The Rev. Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, Tex., has a terrific column on Alernet this morning. He describes the religious right as bullies and "vicious predators" who hide their hatred behind a veneer Christianity.

Rigby writes:

I want to suggest that the day has come when Christians must declare that gay bashing is an attack on the gospel and that real Christians do not participate in any form of discrimination....

I believe the time has come to say that genuine followers of Jesus Christ do not participate in discrimination against gay and lesbian persons...

Gay bashing is not just an opinion, it is an assault.

Headlines: Gay marriage, divorce, Ken Lay, Kansas, evolution, boys, torture and more

Featured Posts

*Latest divorce data undermines claim that gay marriage hurts families by Diane Silver

*The Houston elite turns out to remember the great Christian and convicted criminal Ken Lay by Nancy Jane Moore


Other Recent Posts

Diane Silver

*The Kansas Evolution Election: Candidate Rally set for this Sunday in Johnson County

*The Kansas Evolution Election: Advance voting begins today for the primary

*The rule of law prevails: Protections of Geneva Conventions extended to Guantanamo Bay

*Furious evangelical leader accuses religious right of idolatry & other tales of religious progressives


Nancy Jane Moore

*Don't let the lawyer who wrote memos approving torture become a federal judge

*Women are excelling in college. This is a crisis?

The Houston elite turns out to remember the great Christian and convicted criminal Ken Lay

By Nancy Jane Moore

They memorialized Ken Lay of Enron in Houston on Wednesday. The social "A" list was there: George Bush the senior and former Secretary of State James Baker were the best known, but other politicians and corporate types turned out.

Interesting that so many prominent types were there. Perhaps it was just human decency -- showing respect to the dead and those left behind -- but I tend to think that it has more to do with the fact that Lay, even though convicted, was still considered part of the power structure.

Those who spoke from the pulpit all seemed to think he'd been mistreated. According to the Houston Chronicle, one pastor who spoke even said Lay had been "lynched."

And everybody talked about what a great Christian he was. Every news report I've read mentions that.

Funny, but I always thought you needed to follow the Ten Commandments to be a good Christian -- or at least to repent when you broke them. As I recall from Sunday school, one of those commandments is "Thou shalt not steal."

I'm sure people are convincing themselves that Lay wasn't a crook because it's difficult to figure out how Enron stole so much money from people -- fancy accounting tricks aren't as obvious as the work of a pickpocket. And after all, he was such a nice guy and gave money to the church.

But as Woody Guthrie observed in "Pretty Boy Floyd":

Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

Ken Lay used computers and accounting wizards, not a fountain pen, but the principle remains the same.

If Lay was really a believing Christian, I expect it's getting pretty toasty where he is now.

Latest divorce data undermines claim that gay marriage hurts families

By Diane Silver

Hat tip to Bruce Wilson at Talk To Action for pointing out that Massachusetts -- the only state with legalized same-sex marriage -- is also the state with the lowest heterosexual divorce rate in the nation.

Even more interesting is the data showing that many states hostile to same-sex marriage have high, or even the highest, divorce rates for heterosexuals. Wilson writes:

The preliminary data from 2004 and the first 11 months of 2005 -- from the 17 US states which have provided data on divorce for 2004 and 2005 and whose voters also passed state constitutional amendents prohibiting same sex marriage -- presents a striking picture : the group of US states arguably most hostile to divorce, those which have passed both state laws and also state constitutional amendments prohibiting same sex marriage, lag dramatically in terms of divorce rate improvement when compared to same sex marriage friendly states.
...
Among those US states that are most opposed to same sex marriage which have also provided divorce data for the time period -- ( alaska ? ) AR, KS, KY, MI, MS, MO, NE, NV, ND, OH, OK, OR, UT, TX -- the average divorce rate ( unadjusted for population changes ) for 2004 and the first 11 months of 2005 increased 1.75%. This group contains 4 of the 5 states with the highest divorce rate increases in the US during 2004 and the first 11 months of 2005.
...
If leaders of the religious right are correct that there is a connection between same sex marriage and the health of the institution of marriage, then they will certainly want to become advocates of marriage equality. The continued lead of Massachusetts as the lowest divorce rate leader in the US would indicate that same sex marriage helps to preserve rather than destroy traditional heterosexual marriages.

Wilson's article has charts, data and the usual gay-bashing quotes from the religious right. My favorite piece is the bit from the Daily Show putting an opponent of gay marriage in the hot seat.

If I were truly snarky, I'd argue that the best way to save the institution of marriage is to legalize it for same-sex couples, but I won't go there.

More seriously, I wonder if the hysteria over same-sex marriage doesn't come, in part, from people who are foundering in their own marriages and desperate for a solution. This must be particularly difficult when folks are told all their lives that there can only be one model for a family.

A wife may be trapped in a loveless marriage or an abusive relationship. Perhaps the father-rules-all model of a family is destroying her, and she feels like the only way to be an obedient wife is to ignore her own needs. Perhaps a husband is facing the normal psychological conflicts that occur in any relationship, but his church says there is only one solution and, so far, that solution hasn't worked.

If good people feel their own lives are crumbling, or if they are surrounded by the debris of their friend's marriages, then they may search for scapegoats out of desperation. Lesbians and gays are easy targets. Stereotypes and misinformation about our lives continue to overwhelm reality.

The sad truth is that until heterosexuals stop focusing on lesbians and gays and start looking at their own relationships, they will never solve the problems within their own families.

The more energy heterosexuals put into attacking their neighbors, the more they will neglect their own problems, and the more their own families will suffer. It is a self-fulfilling, downward spiral for the heterosexual family.

If you are a gay-marriage opponent and reading this post, may I give you some advice?

The only way to solve your problems is to deal with them directly.

Working to destroy me won't help you.

Don't let the lawyer who wrote memos approving torture become a federal judge

By Nancy Jane Moore

The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently debating the nomination of William J. Haynes II to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Haynes was general counsel to the Defense Department and signed off on the legality of some forms of "harsh interrogation" -- i.e., torture.

Clearly this man should not be made a federal appeals court judge. The Democrats are making noises about opposing him -- Senator Edward Kennedy has made strong statements and even Minority Leader Harry Reid is criticizing Haynes.

Given the way the Democrats have caved in when they should have filibustered on judicial nominees, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for them. Fortunately, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is a lawyer in the Air Force reserves, is also raising objections to the nominee, according to a report in today's Washington Post.

We've already got one pro-torture judge on the federal appeals bench -- Judge Jay S. Bybee, now on the Ninth Circuit, was the Justice Department lawyer who signed off on the infamous torture memo that came up during Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's confirmation hearings. John Dean -- a man who knows quite a lot about misconduct in the executive branch of government -- summarizes that memo in an article on Findlaw:

The memo defines torture so narrowly that only activities resulting in "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" qualify.

Bybee should never have been confirmed, but unfortunately the memo didn't surface until after he was approved.

It's absurd that the Senate is even debating whether or not someone who approved torture is qualified to serve as a judge. Of course he isn't. Yes, I know that lawyers are supposed to do what their clients request -- I'm a lawyer -- but lawyers are also officers of the court and supposed to uphold the Constitution. That duty trumps all others. Any lawyer who can find approval for torture under our legal system is tearing the Constitution to shreds.

For the sake of the soul of our country we can't put any more pro-torture Bush appointees on the federal bench.

The Kansas Evolution Election: Candidate Rally set for this Sunday in Johnson County

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' running mate, Republican - turned - Democrat Mark Parkinson, is one of several candidates appearing Sunday at the MAIN*PAC Rally in Prairie Village.

Also attending will be Kansas School Board candidates Janet Waugh, Harry McDonald and Kent Runyan. A representative from Sally Cauble's campaign will also attend. Also expected are candidates up for election to the House. Details:

• 3-5 pm (Parkinson will attend from 3-4 pm)
• at Harmon Park (77th & Delmar) (Between 75th & 79th, behind the Prairie Village City Hall)
• Hot Dogs, drinks, cookies, ice cream will be provided
  
• Candidates will mingle
  
• Happening Rain or Shine
• Candidates will be introduced, but all except Parkinson will not make speeches
• Candidates and their workers will hand out literature and answer questions

The Kansas Evolution Election: Advance voting begins today for the primary

Heads up, folks: Advance voting begins today by mail and in-person at County Election Offices for the Aug. 1 primary. The primary is the first chance Kansas voters have to defeat the anti-evolution, right-wing majority on the state Board of Education.

Because of the strong Republican majority in Kansas and because the right wing candidates are all Republicans, the primary may also represent the best chance of defeating them.

Voter Registration closes on July 17th for the Kansas primary.

The deadline for getting advance ballots in is Aug. 1.

The anti-evolution radicals on the state Board are:
District 3 - Incumbent John Bacon
District 5 - Incumbent Connie Morris
District 7 - Incumbent Ken Willard
District 9 - Incumbent Iris Van Meter decided not to run again. In her place is her son-in-law, Brad Patzer, who is expected to carry on her agenda.

Moderate Republican Janet Waugh of District 1 in Kansas City is also up for election. She has opposed the efforts of the radical majority.

The rule of law prevails: Protections of Geneva Conventions to be extended to Guantanamo Bay

By Diane Silver

It may have taken a Supreme Court ruling to force George W. Bush to follow the rule of law, but the White House has finally given in. I am heartened to learn that the Pentagon today says that the Geneva Conventions will now apply to detainees in the war on terror, including those at Guantanamo Bay. Torture and inhumane treatment will no longer be condoned.

It turns my stomach, though, to realize that it is news -- big news -- for my country to announce that it is finally following a treaty we signed. Worse is the fact that any American administration has to be forced into turning its back on torture.

Bush and company claim they are not mistreating prisoners, but a multitude of reports say otherwise. Check out this article from Sunday's Washington Post, for example, about how doctors are both "passive and active partners" in the abuse of detainees.

The Washington Post reports:

Since 2001, the administration has argued that the Geneva Conventions would be respected as a matter of policy but that they did not apply by law. The Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, rejected that view.

The Geneva Conventions are a series of treaties and protocols, formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, setting standards for humane treatment of combatants and
civilians during time of war. The United States, Afghanistan and Iraq are among the signatories.

The relevant provisions of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits violence to prisoners, cruel treatment, torture and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

It also provides for sentences only as "pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

The kangaroo court military tribunals set up by Bush and company did not meet this guideline.

Furious evangelical leader accuses religious right of idolatry & other tales of religious progressives

By Diane Silver

The Rev. Tony Campolo has an interesting take on the religious right. While many progressives and secular folk attack theocrats for their political policies, Campolo skewers them where it has to really hurt -- in their theology. CBS News quotes Campolo about how he and and other evangelicals feel about the religious right.

"We are furious that the religious right has made Jesus into a Republican. That's idolatry," Campolo said. "To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus' image is what's wrong with politics."

Campolo's comment is part of a CBS story on the emerging political voice of the religious left. As a fiercely spiritual person, I'm excited about the emergence of a politically progressive religious movement. I agree with much of what I hear.

Take a look at what Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches tells CBS News.

"Jesus called us to love our neighbor, love our enemy, care for the poor, care for the outcast, and that's really the moral core of where we think the nation ought to go." Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches

..."Jesus never said one word about homosexuality, never said one word about civil marriage or abortion," Edgar said.

He calls this movement the "center" -- and it's seeking the same political muscle as the conservative Christians, a group with a strong power base in the huge Evangelical churches of the South.

As I said I am excited about the new leftist movement among religious folk, but I am also a tad concerned. As a lesbian and a feminist, I keep getting the uneasy feeling that a few of the good people I want to make into my allies don't always have my best interests at heart.

Today Talk To Action takes Sojourners editor and author Jim Wallis to task for his stand on abortion. I'll have to do a little more digging to see where folks like Campolo and Wallis stand on the issue of fair laws for lesbian and gay Americans. I worry that many would gladly fight alongside me if we were marching for the environment or against poverty, but turn their back on me when I want their help in working for equality for my family.

However, as uneasy as I may feel, I still think an energized religious left, particularly an energized Christian left, can only help this country. We may not stand together on all issues, but we can at least work together on some.

For more on Tony Campolo, go here.

Information about Jim Wallis, can be found here.

One of the best ways to get involved and to learn about the movement is to check out the Network of Spiritual Progressives here.

Women are excelling in college. This is a crisis?

By Nancy Jane Moore

The New York Times reports that women are excelling in college. Not only are more women than men going to college, more women than men are finishing their degrees and graduating with honors.

Cause for celebration, right? Wrong: The Times considers it a crisis. "[M]en now make up only 42 percent of the nation's college students," the story says.

Only 42 percent? Funny, anytime you read that women make up 42 percent of some field or activity, it's trumpeted as a great advance. But if men drop back to that percentage, it's a problem.

The second article in the series (which The Times calls "The New Gender Divide") brings up a more disturbing trend: Small colleges -- especially ones that were formerly all women -- are starting football programs to attract male students. According to the article, establishing a football program -- even one without scholarships -- attracts more students than setting up a new field of study.

That probably doesn't surprise Mariah Burton Nelson, author of The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football, which was reissued in an updated version in 2005. Football -- a sport in which "girl" is used to insult players who perform badly -- reinforces male dominance in our culture, Nelson says.

After all, it's not as if men aren't still running things: Fortune reported this year that women make up 2.1 percent of CEOs in the Fortune 1000. There are 14 women in the Senate (out of 100 senators), the most we've ever had. We've actually got 70 female representatives in the House -- out of 435 members.

At the U.S. Naval Academy, women now make up 22.4 percent of the class of 2010, and that's viewed as progress, according to a report in Sunday's Washington Post. Of course, the article goes on to point out that 59 percent of female students report sexual harassment problems and 93 percent have complained of sexist behavior.

And The Times manages to just barely mention that women still aren't making much of a dint in engineering programs -- 20 percent of engineering students are female, according to the National Academy of Engineering, and only 9 percent of engineers are women.

Women aren't even ending up in tenure track professor jobs in proportion to their graduation rates, according to the National Science Foundation. Legal publications frequently report on the dearth of women in partner jobs in law firms, such as this report on law.com. By the way, women make up at least 50 percent of law students these days.

In its eagerness to worry about whether women are taking over the world, The Times buried a much more disturbing issue: the effect of class and race on academic performance. To quote from The Times article:

When it comes to earning bachelor's degrees, the gender gap is smaller than the gap between whites and blacks or Hispanics, federal data shows.

All of this has helped set off intense debate over whether these trends show a worrisome achievement gap between men and women or whether the concern should instead be directed toward the educational difficulties of poor boys, black, white or Hispanic.

"Over all, the differences between blacks and whites, rich and poor, dwarf the differences between men and women within any particular group," says Jacqueline King, a researcher for the American Council on Education's Center for Policy Analysis and the author of the forthcoming report.

But scaring men by saying "the women are coming" is much easier than tackling the thorny problems of class and race in a society that is supposed to be classless and that presumably solved racial discrimination in the 1960s.

If you combine the headline with the last paragraph of The Times story -- as bumperactive.com likes to do -- you get a more accurate picture of gender issues in the US:

At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust:
"I think men do better out in the world because they care more about the power, the status, the C.E.O. job," Mr. Kohn said. "And maybe society holds men a little higher."

I tell you what: I'm going to start worrying about whether men are being left behind when there are 8 female justices on the Supreme Court and a billion people tune in to watch the Women's World Cup.