Pacific Progressive

Faith in Values: Religious Liberty + Marriage Equality = Harmony, Not Dissension

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sally Steenland

Sometimes the way an issue is framed matters as much as the facts. Take the so-called battle between marriage equality and religious liberty. Many activists against marriage equality claim that the two are inherently opposed to each other. According to their argument, if one side wins, the other loses.

The problem with this oppositional framing is that it isn’t true. In reality, marriage equality and religious liberty can support and strengthen each other. And this is true even when people are conflicted about same-sex marriage. Even then, they still believe that gay and lesbian couples should be treated fairly under the law.

Last week Third Way and the Human Rights Campaign released a national poll that validates these views. According to the poll, a majority of Americans support marriage equality and religious liberty, rather than believing that one threatens the other.

The poll also shows that a majority of Americans support nondiscrimination laws regarding gay and lesbian people and are opposed to any new laws that would deny them services. As for religious exemptions, a majority of Americans believe they should be limited to houses of worship and clergy.

I have a t-shirt that says, “Taxes feed kids.” When I wear it around my Washington, D.C., neighborhood, it barely gets a glance. But just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, a few months ago, those three words not only got glances, they also elicited glar

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sarah P. Miller

The American fast-food industry fosters remarkable inequality: One fast-food CEO is paid around $11 million per year, while the average cook earns about $9 per hour for an annualsalary of $18,720—that is, if an employee can even secure full-time work. Employee hours are cut, sometimes without notice, so that employers can avoid paying workers during periods when sales are low. These hard-working employees are often forced to work off the clock or are paid via debit cards that charge a fee for transactions. In these instances, employers’ profits are shamelessly put far and above the rights of workers.

Profits are so important to these companies that employees are prevented from accessing basic human needs. Papa John’s millionaire Founder, Chairman, and CEO John Schnatter openly vowed to cut all workers’ hours to avoid having to provide insurance to full-time workers, as required under the Affordable Care Act. McDonald’s also demonstrated a total disregard for employees’ basic needs when it published a sample budget that ostensibly illustrated how workers can get by on their abysmally low wages. The original sample budgeted $20 per month for health care and $0 for heat bills. The budget also included wages from a second job, actually highlighting the fact that one low-wage salary is not enough to support a family.

Faith in Values: Of Strawberries and Stereotypes

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sally Steenland

I have a t-shirt that says, “Taxes feed kids.” When I wear it around my Washington, D.C., neighborhood, it barely gets a glance. But just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, a few months ago, those three words not only got glances, they also elicited glares and prompted a stranger to tell me that, in fact, taxes feed welfare programs that make people lazy.

“Poor people want a handout,” the man declared, quickly adding, “I work for my money.” We were in line at a Starbucks in the affluent suburb of Mountain Brook. I was waiting to order a tall latte and grab the Sunday paper, and he looked like he’d just finished a morning run on one of the beautiful trails winding through the community.

“Millions of poor people work,” I told him. “But their jobs don’t pay enough to get them out of poverty.”

“Welfare makes people lazy.” He repeated his point as if saying it a second time might make it stick in my head.

“But what if they don’t earn enough to feed their kids?” I paid for my latte and newspaper and waited for an answer.

“Charity. Churches,” he said. “That’s what helps people. Not the government.” The cashier swiped his plastic card and handed him his coffee. “Charity’s the answer,” he repeated as he went out the door in running shoes that probably cost more than the weekly budget for a family of four receiving government nutritional assistance.

I wanted to chase after him and unleash a barrage of statistics that would have proven him wrong.

Faith in Values: Where’s the Debate on Immigration Reform?

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sally Steenland

If ever there were a dream team lineup, it’s the large and dazzling array of those who support immigration reform.

On the business side, everyone from Microsoft and the American Farm Bureau to the Small Business Majority and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is onboard. As for labor—a sector not usually allied with business but allied in this case because of immigration reform’s benefits to American workers—supporters include the AFL-CIO; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME; the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU;United Auto Workers, or UAW; the United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW; theNational Education Association, or NEA; the American Federation of Teachers; and more.

The lineup of religious supporters is perhaps the longest, stretching from the National Association of Evangelicals to the American Jewish Committee, with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Southern Baptist Convention, United Sikhs, Presbyterians, Mennonites,Mormons, and many others in between.

A huge thumbs-up from the American public adds to this hefty lineup. Nearly 9 in 10 Americanssupport immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. More than 70 percent of Republican voters agree—provided that undocumented immigrants learn English, pay back taxes and a fine, and don’t cut to the front of the line when applying for citizenship.

Ensuring Health Coverage for All

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Eleni Towns

This issue brief contains corrections.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief  - Download the report:  PDF  Read it in your browser: Scribd

While several provisions of the Affordable Care Act have gone into effect, there is still one large hurdle to ensuring full implementation of the law in 2014: expanding Medicaid programs in all 50 states. Without this expansion, 11.5 million Americans whose incomes are too high to qualify for existing Medicaid coverage but too low to afford participation in the new health care exchanges set up by the law could go without insurance.

In June 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that Medicaid expansion was an optional provision of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, and that states could not be penalized for refusing to expand their programs. House Republicans, however, have harshly criticized all components of the ACA, including the Medicaid expansion. The House of Representatives has voted more than 30 times to repeal the legislation, and already 13 states have refused to expand their Medicaid programs, despite the fact that the costs to the states will be modest. In some cases, states will even experience a net gain.

Faith in Values: A Godsend to Reproductive Health Clinics

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sally Steenland

Two posters hang on my office wall. One says, “Jesus never shamed women.” The other says, “Pray to end sidewalk bullying.”

I got the posters from Faith Aloud, a counseling and advocacy group that connects faith with reproductive justice. It’s an important connection but one that is rarely seen in today’s political battles over women’s reproductive health, especially when the focus is abortion. Despite that invisibility on the public stage, religion is ever-present in the lives of most women who come to clinics for reproductive health care, including abortion.

More than 7 in 10 women who get an abortion in this country claim a religious affiliation such as Protestant or Catholic, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Furthermore, Catholic women have a higher abortion rate than Protestant women—22 for every 1,000 women, compared to 15 for every 1,000 women, respectively.

Faith Aloud works with health clinics across the country to provide spiritual counseling to women considering an abortion, as well as postabortion counseling for them and for their family and friends who come with them to the clinic. Through faith-specific videos, free confidential telephone counseling with clergy, events, and more, women receive compassionate and nonjudgmental care for their spirit and soul during a difficult time in their lives.

6 Ways Faith Communities Have Helped Prevent Gun Violence Since Newtown

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Eleni Towns 

Over eight months ago this week, 20 children and 6 adults were killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The tragedy devastated the community and our entire nation. It also brought national attention to the problem of gun violence—which plagues many communities on a daily basis—and galvanized millions of Americans to support common-sense regulations to help reduce this threat. Since that tragic day, 5,091 more people have died from gun violence in America, including 366 children and teenagers.

Although Congress has failed to pass any federal legislation in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, a number of states have taken steps to pass laws that make their communities safer. These laws include universal background checks, bans on assault weapons, restrictions on high-capacity magazines, and increased funding to confiscate illegally owned weapons.

Faith leaders have played a key role in these state efforts. These leaders see firsthand the effects of gun violence in their communities; they are at the forefront, dealing with the aftermath of this violence by providing support to families and by working in these communities to help reduce violence. Faith leaders are lifting up the voices of those in their communities affected by gun violence, calling for civil and peaceful dialogue and advocating for common-sense violence-prevention measures.

Thou Shall Not Kill: Faith Groups and Gun-Violence Prevention

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Jack Jenkins, with Eleni Towns

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.  Download the report: PDF  Read it in your browser: Scribd

Rev. Agabus Lartey, pastor of Family Life Fellowship Church in Boston, Massachusetts, left the lights on for his daughter Kristen before going to bed last August. But Kristen, a 22-year-old who had just graduated from college, never came home that night. Instead, she and three other young women were gunned down that evening while sitting in a car on a nearby street. Three of the four women died from their wounds, all victims of senseless—yet, for many Americans, frighteningly frequent—gun violence.

“I went into her room, and she wasn’t there,” Lartey told The Boston Globe. “I had an inkling, I started connecting the dots, and at that moment my doorbell rang, and there was a cop, and I knew that she had passed. … My birthday is the day that my daughter died.”

Stories such as Kristen’s are all too common in the United States, but they don’t have to be. Millions of Americans have been affected by gun violence in their communities, and millions more are calling for an end to the killing—and their voices are growing louder. In the wake of the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, last December, an overwhelming majority of Americans called for common-sense gun regulations that could help prevent future killings: Polls show that 91 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of gun owners, support universal background checks for gun purchases.

In Aftermath of "Jesus Loves Nukes" Scandal, Top Air Force Official Issues Religious Neutrality Policy

by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report

A top US Air Force official took significant steps  to ensure the Air Force is not seen as being pious by issuing policy guidelines to Air Force personnel that calls on "leaders at all levels" to take immediate steps to maintain "government neutrality regarding religion."

The memorandum was written by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz. It was issued a month after Truthout published an exclusive report revealing how, for two decades, the Air Force used numerous Bible passages and religious imagery to teach nuclear missile launch officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons, a decision that one senior Air Force officer told Truthout last month should have "instantly" resulted in the firing of the commanders who allowed it to take place.

The Air Force immediately suspended the mandatory Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training following the publication of Truthout's report.

Shortly thereafter, David Smith, a spokesman for Air Education and Training Command said all of the Air Force's training materials "that address morals, ethics, core values and related character development issues" would undergo a "comprehensive review," Air Force Times reported.

That decision was made after a Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) instructor, who read Truthout's report, sent the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a civil rights organization, copies of the leadership training materials, which also contained Christian-themed citations. The PowerPoint slides the unnamed instructor sent MRFF are used in all colleges and universities that have an ROTC program.

Demographics and Distributions of Muslim Populations Available

A new report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life maps the global Muslim population.  Today, Muslims represent about 23% of the world's population.  The study finds:

•  more than 60% of the world's Muslims live in Asia
•  about 20% live in the Middle East and North Africa
• about 20% of Muslims live in countries where they are not the majority religion

A an executive summary and complete report with interactive maps is available from the Pew Center.