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How Clergy Helped a Same-Sex Marriage Law Pass By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN July 15, 2011 Early in the week that ended with New York enacting same-sex marriage, the Rev. Anna Taylor Sweringen stood in a hallway just outside the State Senate chambers. She wore her clerical collar and held a sign saying, “Equality now.” Around her gathered ministers and rabbis of similar sentiment, all in Albany to lobby and pray for the right of gay couples to wed. As Ms. Taylor Sweringen looked down the corridor, she saw the mirror image of mobilized clergy members, all irreconcilably opposed. One held...

Welp, it's that time again. Time for the "United Muslim-Christian Forum" a.k.a. the "Muslims of America" from Islamberg to go all Interfaith/Co-Exist/Universalist/Pluralist on us in Binghamton, NY. This time, they'll be repeating last year's Interfaith-arific gathering which was described as the "1st Annual celebration of the birth of Jesus, Son of Mary." From their press release:In this upcoming joyful holiday season, where love and reverence for Jesus, born of the chaste Mary, is widely celebrated by Christians the world over, the United Muslim-Christian Forum (UMCF) is embarking on its 2nd annual event as a time for Muslims to acquaint those...

President Obama has switched tactics in pushing health care reform -- he's now urging faith leaders to support health care reform as a moral and ethical duty. The religious left has, of course, fallen in behind him. Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a leftist Christian advocacy group, visited Lou Dobbs Tonight on Monday. He said of health care: "...right now, we have a system that is fundamentally broken. So many people are hurting, they're left out, left behind, even if they have insurance, they can't afford good health. The system, the broken has to be fixed. How to best...

As soon as Israeli air strikes began striking Hamas-controlled Gaza, many American church leaders started calling for an immediate ceasefire based solely on human suffering rather than the political realities of the situation. Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s ongoing effort to end indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on surrounding Israeli towns and villages, is necessary, morally justified, and legitimate, despite the calamitous cacophony from the loquacious Christian left.

A new study suggests that young, white Christian voters have warmed toward big government while cooling toward social litmus tests. "Younger Americans, including younger Americans of faith, are not the culture war generation," said Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, which did the survey. "Young Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals are bridging the divides that entrenched the older generation." The study also suggests that while Sen. John McCain maintains the loyalty of weekly church attendees, Sen. Barack Obama has captured those who attend once or twice a month -- a group that split between President Bush and Sen. John...

DENVER - Democrats have made it a priority to lure more evangelical and Catholic voters from the Republican camp into their own, but the likelihood of success is becoming more problematic given pronouncements by two Catholic archbishops and a decision by the editor of an evangelical Christian magazine. Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Denver, said Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden should avoid taking Communion because of his support for abortion rights. In 2004, the Archbishop of Boston, Sean O'Malley stood by a statement he had made the previous year that pro-choice Catholics are in a state...

CNN) -- Democrats have usually conceded the evangelical vote during presidential elections, but Sen. Barack Obama is trying to change that by mobilizing what some call the "Christian left." As part of his outreach to evangelical voters, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Tuesday will tour the Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, and give an address on how he plans to build what he calls a "real" partnership between faith-based organizations and the White House if he becomes president. Obama's outreach to evangelical voters has also included private summits with pastors, an effort to reach out to young evangelicals and...

An interesting contest seems to be heating up as the world paves a road to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The American religious Left has felt compelled to issue a series of documents slanted toward the Arab and Palestinian points of view, urging the powers that be to muscle Israel to accede to demands that will place Israelis in a virtually untenable position regarding their future security. Signatories to these documents propose that they speak for the majority of evangelical Christians and, therefore, are in a position to pontificate on the direction the United States and other Western...

Fresh from the success of his latest agitprop promoting socialized medicine, "Sicko" filmmaker Michael Moore is considering whether he will use his next movie to teach us all a thing or two about the mind and will of God. That's right, call him the Rev. Michael Moore. Specifically, he intends to share his biblical wisdom regarding the issue of homosexuality and what he sees as irrational hatred of it. "I think it's a very ripe subject for someone like me to make a movie about," he told the homosexual magazine the Advocate. "Simply because we are not there yet and...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro and 13 other Catholic members of Congress released a letter Tuesday calling on Catholic bishops to help end the war in Iraq. "As Catholic members of Congress, we stand in unison with the Catholic Church in opposition to the war in Iraq," the Democratic 3rd District congresswoman said in a statement. "Yet to attain the ideal of peace, we must not only speak the words, we must take action." As a result, she and her colleagues sent a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, or USCCB, urging it to "mobilize Catholic opinion...

I've been thinking about Barack Obama's speech on religion in Hartford on Saturday and also the recent forum where the three leading Democrats discussed their own theologies -- Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, Hillary Clinton is a strict Methodist and John Edwards was raised as a Southern Baptist but joined the Methodist Church while in college. This is the first time in recent memory that Democratic candidates on the campaign trail have been so candid about their religious affiliations and beliefs; religion and the sanctity of belief are subjects that have been "hijacked" -- to borrow Obama's...

Barack Obama and I share the same church. And since our joint church is celebrating its 50th birthday in Hartford, Connecticut from June 22nd-26th, he's coming to party. While I will be unable to attend the party, I am still looking forward to seeing whether Obama will dare to have the courage of Daniel in the lion's den and, as liberals love to say, "speak truth to power." Something tells me I shouldn't hold my breath. We are in different physical churches, of course. The Illinois Senator and Democratic presidential candidate belongs to Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has drawn guffaws from the pro-life community for comments saying that embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of days-old human embryos, is a "gift from God." Her remarks came after the House approved a bill to force Americans to fund it. "Science is a gift of God to all of us, and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure... And that is embryonic stem cell research," Pelosi said.Her comments produced an immediate reaction from pro-life groups, including Tony Perkins the head...

In an earlier column, I discussed why the religious left is wrong on budgets, morality, and priorities (available here). Here, in Part II, I want to focus on what happened Monday night between the three Democrat frontrunners and the sponsor of the event, Jim Wallis of Sojourners.

The top three Democratic presidential candidates participated in a forum Monday on the connection between their religious faith and political positions. The unusual gathering, broadcast live by CNN, was co-hosted by Sojourners, a Christian social justice network. The Rev. Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, and an organizer of the forum, has been telling Democrats not to cede religion to Republicans. He has spoken at several Democratic Party retreats, teaching Democrats how to speak about faith. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois mentioned faith in a generic way, baptizing their liberal politics...

Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all got personal last night during a forum focused on something much less commonly mentioned on the campaign trail: their religious faith. During a wide-ranging discussion, each Democrat took the stage to discuss their views on religion, values and poverty. But the three front-runners for their party's 2008 nomination also fielded questions much more personal in nature about their sins and prayer habits. Mrs. Clinton, a senator from New York, told the audience of 1,300 that her faith helped her survive her husband's infidelity when he was in the...

On May 29, 2007, Christian Newswire ran a release entitled Return Civility to Christian Discourse, about a religious group in South Caroline that had this wonderful new idea to stop saying bad things about people and religious groups. The release cited, for example, the Anglican Communion as being “on the verge of rupture,” but in keeping with the idea of not offending, they did not mention that the rupture is over the acceptance of gay marriage and gay religious leaders who had outed themselves in that denomination. What a kind way to deal with this controversial issue! ...... Now, some...

The Rev. Mark Alan Lewis and the Rev. K. Dennis Winslow, Episcopal priests, were joined in civil union on Tuesday. The Rev. Tim S. Hall, also an Episcopal priest, officiated at the couple’s home in Union City, N.J., assisted by his wife, the Rev. Jacqueline Schmidt. Mr. Lewis (above, left), 47, is the vicar at the Episcopal Church of our Saviour in Secaucus, N.J. Mr. Winslow, 57, is the rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in New York. [snip] The couple met 15 years ago this week, shortly after Mr. Lewis moved to New Jersey. Mr. Lewis didn’t find the...

One thing we can generally predict about human behavior is that when people are unhappy, they go on the hunt for someone to blame. Taking a lot of heat for today's discontents is the so-called "religious right." Just consider books, some hot sellers, of recent years: Jim Wallis' "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It"; "How the Republicans Stole Religion: Why the Religious Right is Wrong About Faith & Politics and What We Can Do to Make It Right" by Bill Press; and, more recently, Victor Gold's "Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How...

The nation’s leading Christian conservative is dead. On CNN’s “Crossfire” and other shows, I debated Jerry Falwell many times. I’m still trying to recover from that fact that he once called me “his favorite liberal.” But I will say: He was a true gentleman, always tough, and always fair. Jerry Falwell was a true believer. It’s too bad his brand of Christianity was so narrow and so negative. As a Christian myself, listening to Falwell, I often wondered if he and I had read the same Scripture. Certainly the Gospel of Jerry Falwell was not the Gospel of Jesus Christ....

This time it may be the Democrats who are getting religion. Former Sen. John Edwards invoked "My Lord" when asked about moral influences on his life in the first Democratic presidential debate. At a campaign event on the day of the Virginia Tech massacre, he offered a prayer and — in a pointed break from Democratic candidates' usual wariness of offending religious minorities — closed with the words "in Christ's name." Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. comfortably works in references to his faith at public appearances. Even before his presidential candidacy, he gave a well-received speech arguing for a greater role...

May preaches green gospel The Green party leader comes to tears during a London sermon on the climate change threat. By Jonathan Sher, Sun Media London Free Press Mon, April 30, 2007 Preaching in London about the threat of climate change, Green party Leader Elizabeth May brought herself to tears yesterday, not for children who will inherit the Earth, but for the God she believes created it. It wasn't the first time May has mixed politics and faith -- she says she speaks often at churches. But her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears as she delivered...

Catholics for a Free Choice distribute bogus holy cards, blasphemous comic books in Mexico that use Blessed Virgin in pro-abortion campaign Falsifying the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pro-abortion group that mendaciously calls itself “Catholics for a Free Choice” has for the last four years been distributing holy cards in Mexico bearing the following caption in Spanish: “The love of God and of Mary of Guadalupe is larger. For the lives of women, legal and safe abortion.” On the back of the card, the following text is printed: “Dear Mary of Guadalupe, we thank you because your love...

INDIANAPOLIS -- At least two billboard signs that seek to get people to re-examine homosexuality by using biblical references have been vandalized in Indianapolis. The campaign, coordinated by the Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, of Indianapolis, carries a message some consider shocking, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported. In order to deface the billboards, vandals had to be daring, using extension ladders. There have been no arrests, but the debate rages. The billboard proclaims that Jesus affirmed a gay couple. "Lie, lie, lie," is scrawled in red paint above the original message on a sign on 10th Street. Twenty-two billboards were placed strategically...

HomeU.S.BusinessWorldEntertainmentSportsTechPoliticsElectionsScienceHealthMost Popular Secondary Navigation Local News Education Religion Politics Crimes and Trials Search: All News Yahoo! News Only News Photos Video/Audio Advanced -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Religious group attacks religion in U.S. healthcare By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Tue Apr 24, 6:11 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of religious leaders took on the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Bush administration on Tuesday with a plea to take religion out of health care in the United States. ADVERTISEMENT They said last week's Supreme Court decision outlawing a certain type of abortion demonstrated that religious belief was interfering...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says Jesus would be appalled at how the United States has ignored the plight of the suffering, and that he believes children should have private time to pray at school.Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, said Jesus would be most upset with the selfishness of Americans and the country's willingness to go to war "when it's not necessary." "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs," Edwards told...

Under the name Essjay, the contributor edited thousands of Wikipedia articles and was once one of the few people with the authority to deal with vandalism and to arbitrate disputes between authors. To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in canon law, according to his user profile. But in fact, Essjay is a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in Kentucky and lives outside Louisville.

NEW YORK, Feb. 22 /Catholic Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on the retirement party for Frances Kissling, head of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), scheduled for March 2, two days after she resigns: "In 1993, and again in 2000, U.S. Catholic bishops, represented by the bishops' conference, denounced CFFC as a fraud. And well they should have. Funded almost exclusively by fat-cat bigots like those at the Ford Foundation (they gave CFFC $2 million in 2005, which was more than it gave to all but five of 141 organizations it allotted grants to in its...

It's too bad the brash-mouthed babes of John Edwards's campaign blog resorted to gutter-speak to make their points. Their points were lost in the netherworld of right- and left-wing truculence and in the jousting, jabbing, and parrying so prominent in today's nonstop news cycle. It's too bad because the points they meant to make were worth considering. Last month, Edwards's campaign hired two women, described by salon.com as "outspoken, potty-mouthed feminist bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan" to blog for the campaign website. They were hired to lure lefty Democrats into the Edwards camp. As is so often the case...

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., bow their heads during the invocation at the National Prayer Breakfast."

The head of the nation's largest teacher union hailed a summit meeting for clergy and educators initiated by the Baptist Center for Ethics an historic first step toward building bridges between public schools and people of faith...."Many of you in your pulpits, sometimes your greatest detractors may be your board of trustees or your deacons," Weaver addressed ministers. "What we are saying is if in fact we can help you, select some of us to be on your deacon board or trustee board. We will solicit you, perhaps, to run for school board. We will solicit you to help with...

For the Christian left to claim connection to true Christianity is to deny its leftist tendencies, and for them to claim connection to the aims of the political left is to deny its Christianity. They seem to share more anger for fellow Christians than they do toward evil. And this reality, while unexplainable, is nevertheless present and growing in influence. This week I entertained one of the main spokesmen for the movement, Dr. Tony Campolo. I asked him directly why his new book, "Letters to a Young Evangelical," seemed to have such great disdain for the Christian right. He responded,...

Former Vice President Al Gore scours the countryside looking for support for a possible presidential run and attempts to emulate bible-thumping preachers while preaching a message of the need for "big government" to save the planet. Meanwhile, Gore hobnobs with the Hollywood elite many of whom wouldn't know a Bible from a Cecil B. DeMille script for the movie "Samson and Delilah." Senator Hillary Clinton, who's husband used a Bible as a prop during his impeachment days, hires a consultant in order to find a way to "get over on evangelicals" without changing her positions on killing unborn children and...

Ministers: No Bush library at SMU By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer 27 minutes ago A group of Methodist ministers from across the nation launched an online petition drive Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush's presidential library. The petition, on a newly created Web site, http://www.protectsmu.org, says that "as United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate." "Methodists have a long history of social conscience, so questions about the conduct of this president are very concerning," said one of the...

WASHINGTON - Saying they share a moral purpose, a group of evangelicals and scientists said Wednesday they will work together to convince the nation's leaders that global warming is real. The Rev. Rich Cizik, public policy director for the National Association of Evangelicals, and Nobel-laureate Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, were among 28 signers of a statement that demands urgent changes in values, lifestyles and public policies to avert disastrous changes in climate. "God will judge us for destroying the Creation. Therefore, we as evangelicals have a responsibility to...

Nancy Pelosi hasn’t been Speaker of the House for two weeks yet and there is already proposed legislation which would be the most significant encroachment ever into the affairs and ability of churches and other organizations to communicate. Under the guise of lobbying reform, Speaker Pelosi and others have proposed legislation greatly expanding the scope of lobbying regulation which would impact churches, pastors, religious denominations, public interest organizations, civic organizations and other nonprofit groups. Even private individuals who voluntarily pay for media to distribute important messages to the general public on political matters would be impacted. So draconian is the...

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have proposed the establishment of a broadly inclusive alternative Baptist movement to counter what they called a negative image of Baptists and to address poverty, the environment and global conflicts. Carter and Clinton kicked off their plans with a news conference Jan. 9 at the Carter Center in Atlanta, flanked by leaders of moderate Baptist groups including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a breakaway group of an unverified number of churches that objected to the election of conservative leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention. Carter and Clinton announced a “Celebration of a New Baptist...

 Printer Friendly Version   A Catholic Speaker in the House January 5, 2007 In the run-up to last November's mid-term elections, San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi frequently countered the charge that she was the embodiment of radical, West Coast liberalism by reminding the interlocutor that she was a "Catholic grandmother." With her Party's victory locked up, the pro-abortion, pro-gay "rights" and pro-embryonic stem-cell research politico is now Madame Speaker. Pelosi made it clear that as House Speaker, one of her top priorities in the first 100 hours of Democrat Control would be the introduction of a bill that would...

It's never been easy to make ends meet while putting out a progressive Christian publication. But in an ironic twist, a re-energized religious left may be making a tough task even harder. That's one key observation from watchers of liberal Christianity who are trying to explain why progressive magazines and journals have been dying just as the broader movement seems to be gaining fresh traction. At least five progressive periodicals--including four with a 30-plus-year publishing history--have either disbanded or undergone a radical makeover in the last three years. Though each circumstance has been unique, observers suggest this publishing niche has...

It’s an old, old situation linked to Christian faith and politics. People on the right side of the church aisle are accused of taking the Bible very literally when it comes to sex and salvation. People on the left side of the church aisle prefer to take the Bible literally on issues of social justice and the poor. The reality, of course, is that Christianity has long offered rock-ribbed teachings on both sides of this equation. Sex outside of marriage? Sin. Ignoring the needs of the poor and the weak? Sin. The real debates, of course, are about how best...

Opening shot So the Democratic Party is reaching out to evangelical Christians, which at first glance seems absurd. What does the party of Darwin, abortion, special rights for gays and sin triumphant have to offer those who live their lives as the good Lord intended? Seems absurd, that is, until you start to tote up what conservative Christianity has really gotten for its loyal support of the Republican Party over the years. Abortion remains constrained but unbanned. Gays enjoy greater acceptance as actual human beings year by year. The twin shams, creationism and intelligent design, are slapped down at every...

Hillary Clinton has hired an "evangelical consultant” to help woo Christian conservatives in her likely 2008 presidential campaign. The move comes after a similar political operative successfully aided Democratic candidates in several states in the midterm elections. More than one-quarter of the nation’s voters identify themselves as evangelical — a voter bloc that has long been courted by Republicans. Clinton’s new hire is Burns Strider, an evangelical Christian who directs religious outreach for House Democrats and is the lead staffer for the Democrats’ Faith Working Group, headed by incoming Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina. Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi...

After spending 30 years in the wilderness the "Christian left" is making its voice heard. From Washington, D.C., to Dallas, large conferences have been held in an attempt to politically mobilize these "progressive" Christians. Much can be said about this burgeoning movement, and much will be said in the coming months. For now, let's start with this: as fellow believers, we should not be afraid to engage the evangelical left's ideas in a spirit of love. It would be a mistake, as we begin this dialogue, to view these men and women as "political enemies" rather than fellow members of...

Conservatism seems to be getting more popular in America. In the moral realm that encourages me. In the political realm, I have mixed feelings. While it was still unpopular conservatism offered many necessary correctives to the liberal status quo. I'm not sure, though, how it will stand up under greater power and popularity. Conservative politics as usual may prove not much better than liberal politics as usual. When liberalism was popular it became arrogant and presumptuous and sunk to its lowest levels. I fear the same could happen to conservatism. And I fear it not only in society , but...

Leaders of the Christian left in Europe and the US are backing calls by the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem for the EU and the US to resume aid to Hamas. On April 11, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches [WCC] , Dr. Samuel Kobia, wrote to the chairman of the Council of the European Union, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, asking the EU to exercise "respect for the democratic mandate given" to Hamas and to allow "time for the new government to find its feet and demonstrate its intentions." The WCC warned of "of...

'Speeches come and go, but policies continue' by Jim Wallis The president's State of the Union address sounded like it was cut and pasted from so many old speeches. There was nothing new last night. Easily agreed-to rhetoric about freedom, growth, opportunity, and civility hides the facts: 1. George Bush's foreign policy, and the way he fights his war on terrorism, is making our families less safe and secure, not more. His war in Iraq was based on false pretenses and has utterly failed. Yet, the president doesn't seem to have the capacity for self-examination, or the moral sense to...

THE media likes nothing more than bringing you news of a juicy family tiff. And when it can be presented as a falling out between a good guy, whose views happily coincide with those of the media, and a bad guy whose views don't, it's all too irresistible. Take last week. When Baptist minister Tim Costello fronted the National Press Club to talk about terrorism, immediately some in the media sniffed a family blue. A few days earlier Tim's brother, Treasurer Peter Costello, said that Australia "will never observe sharia law ... we will always be a democracy" and so...

National Council of Churches(NCC): Celebrate July 4th by Slamming the War, Calling for Withdrawal, Caving to the Jihadists From the NCC website: The Governing Board of the National Council of Churches USA invites you to join them in this call to pursue peace and justice in Iraq. A Call to Speak Out. July 4, 2005 This year our nation is at war as we observe the 4th of July, a day that honors those founders who spoke out for independence from tyranny. Today in Iraq a cruel dictator has been deposed, yet the suffering of the Iraqi people continues. Mandated...

Professors oppose Bush `theology' - By Marshall Allen , Staff Writer PASADENA -- A group of Fuller Theological Seminary professors, saying they are responding to a "grave moral crisis' in America, are signing a statement opposing President Bush's alleged convergence of God, church and nation and what they call his "theology of war.' Glen Stassen, Fuller's Louis B. Smedes professor of Christian ethics, said Bush's religious rhetoric confuses the cause of Christianity with that of a nation at war. For instance, in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address the president labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea the "axis of...