Faith & the Common Good June 27, 2011

Faith & the Common Good highlights news where religion plays a part of forming social trends and public policy.

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Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces

By Michael Barbaro
New York Times  June 27, 2011

In the 35th-floor conference room of a Manhattan high-rise, two of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's most trusted advisers held a secret meeting a few weeks ago with a group of super-rich Republican donors.

Over tuna and turkey sandwiches, the advisers explained that New York's Democratic governor was determined to legalize same-sex marriage and would deliver every possible Senate vote from his own party.

Would the donors win over the deciding Senate Republicans? It sounded improbable: top Republican moneymen helping a Democratic rival with one of his biggest legislative goals.

But the donors in the room -- the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb -- had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views.

Within days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board. Each of them cut six-figure checks to the lobbying campaign that eventually totaled more than $1 million.

Steve Cohen, the No. 2 in Mr. Cuomo's office and a participant in the meeting, began to see a path to victory, telling a colleague, "This might actually happen."

The story of how same-sex marriage became legal in New York is about shifting public sentiment and individual lawmakers moved by emotional appeals from gay couples who wish to be wed.

But, behind the scenes, it was really about a Republican Party reckoning with a profoundly changing power dynamic, where Wall Street donors and gay-rights advocates demonstrated more might and muscle than a Roman Catholic hierarchy and an ineffective opposition.

And it was about a Democratic governor, himself a Catholic, who used the force of his personality and relentlessly strategic mind to persuade conflicted lawmakers to take a historic leap.

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A Change Has Come: A Clergy's Response to the New York Vote for Gay Marriage

By Rev. Dr. Jacqueline J. Lewis
Huffington Post, Opinion, June 27, 2011

As an African American clergywoman, I also see gay rights as a civil rights issue. This summer, I will marry my congregants, Alex and Jeremy, just as I have other gay couples in the past. I look forward to the date our new law goes into effect, when these weddings will not only be seen in the eyes of God and the couples' family but will also be legal in our state.

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Beyond New York, Gay Marriage Faces Hurdles

By Nicholas Confessore
New York Times June 27, 2011

After a string of defeats in recent years from California to Maine, the movement to legalize same-sex marriage is hoping its unexpected victory in New York will revive efforts to legalize gay weddings around the nation.

But the movement's success [in New York] could prove difficult to replicate. Twenty-nine states have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, while 12 others have laws against it. And many of those states where support for same-sex marriage is high have already acted on the issue.

Officials at several gay-rights organizations said they would seek to move quickly in Maryland, where legislation to legalize same-sex marriage was shelved in February by Democratic leaders concerned that it lacked the support to pass.

Advocates also said they hoped to resuscitate a marriage bill that died in the Rhode Island legislature this year.

Gay-rights groups are likely to seek ballot initiatives next year to overturn bans on same-sex marriage in Maine, where the Legislature approved a same-sex marriage law in 2009 that voters almost immediately turned back, and in Oregon.

Advocates hope, in the longer term, to win the legalization of same-sex marriage in Delaware and New Jersey, two states where Democrats control the legislatures, as well as in Pennsylvania.

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Can cause of social justice tame our culture wars?

By Tom Krattenmaker
USA Today, Opinion June 27, 2011

"The poor will NOT always be with us!"

Thus proclaims a freshly launched Christian campaign to end extreme poverty in this generation. Scott Todd's "58:" project declares that eradicating poverty is not only possible but probable, if the people of the church put their backs into it.

Such audacious optimism is one of the most infectious, exciting qualities of the new evangelicals movement of which Todd is part, and it surged like electricity through his and other presentations at this spring's Q conference, the signature annual gathering of next-generation Christian leaders.

Sure, in some of the quieter, more reflective moments of the three-day event in Portland you could hear acknowledgment of the heavy burden carried by this movement of new-century Jesus followers. These are, after all, the people who accept responsibility to right seemingly every global wrong you can name while restoring the credibility of publicly expressed Christianity in the process. But the workload is exhausting only when they lose connection with their ultimate power source, says Gabe Lyons, the host of Q and an unofficial spokesperson for the movement. These action-takers draw their energy and strength not solely from their fair-trade coffee, entrepreneurial wits, and technological savvy, Lyons says, "but from the cross -- from knowing we are living in the way that Jesus demands."

As the generational tides nudge this demographic closer to the front and center of American evangelicalism, it's time for a refiguring of the equations by the many non-evangelicals nursing grudges about those pushy Jesus nuts -- especially the progressive secularists who share these new evangelicals' social justice commitments.

Divided by religious belief, these groups are easily stereotyped as culture war enemies. They needn't be. If anything, they're common-good allies simply in need of an introduction.

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Interfaith service at Washington National Cathedral promotes religious tolerance

By Isaac Arnsdorf
Washington Post June 27, 2011

As worshipers entered Washington National Cathedral for Sunday morning's service, some crossed themselves and some took photographs, some wore ties while others wore shorts and a few even wore yarmulkes.

In the center aisle, in place of the baptismal fountain, candle-lit stands bore three books: a Bible, a Torah and a Koran. When a visitor asked a nearby usher what to do, the usher replied: "This is a totally different service than what we usually do. There's no wrong answer."

Instead of Communion, the service featured readings from each of the three Abrahamic faiths, part of a project to promote religious tolerance through similar interfaith services at about 70 churches nationwide. The effort aimed to counteract negative stereotypes and hostile rhetoric targeting American Muslims in the past year, notably the controversy about plans for an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York and the burning of a Koran by the Rev. Terry Jones in March in Florida.

"What we have done together in this great cathedral this morning, along with others in similar services in houses of worship across our nation, can alter the image and substance of our nation, as well as our religion," said the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, one of the organizations that sponsored the project. "Today's beautifully written liturgy, informed by Islam, Judaism and Christianity, declares unambiguously . . . we are not scripture burners, rather, scripture readers."

A local rabbi and imam joined Gaddy and the cathedral's Episcopal clergy on the dais to share their messages of mutual understanding and respect.

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Report Says Islamophobia on the Rise

By Omar Sacirbey
Religion News Service June 27, 2011

A new report asserts that anti-Muslim prejudice has worsened in recent years, but argues the trend could be reversed with greater community outreach.

The report, "Same Hate, New Target: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States," was released June 23 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the University of California Berkeley's Center for Race and Gender.

While the report said there are no comprehensive figures to quantify the problem, anti-Muslim discrimination is broken into several categories, including hate crimes, workplace issues, schools, public accommodation, mosque vandalism and religious "profiling."

"When we say there are campaigns against Islam and Muslims, a lot of people dismiss it as conspiracy theories," said Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky and a CAIR board member.

"But this proves that there are concerted campaigns against Islam and Muslims."

Kamran Memon, a civil rights attorney in Chicago who represents Muslims in discrimination cases, said Islamophobia is not "a PR problem that can be solved with good marketing."

-- News excepts courtesy of Faith in Public Life