Casey Schoeneberger, Faith in Public Life’s Media Relations Assistant, came to FPL from NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby’s Associate Program after studying economics at Saint Joseph’s University. She blogs about tax and budget issues on Bold Faith Type.
October 24, 2011, 11:00 am | By Casey Schoeneberger
Occupy Wall Street protesters are accomplishing the seemingly impossible. Not only are the protests changing the coverage of the jobs crisis in the media, but American’s are taking notice. A new United Technologies/National Journal Connection Poll reveals that “…59 percent of adults either completely agree or mostly agree with the protesters…” while only 31 percent of adults disagree.
The poll also reveals that when it comes to policy solutions, members of Congress looking to address the growing inequality and jobs crisis in America should look no further than the proposed 5 percent surtax on millionaires.
“…a whopping 68 percent of adults support the Democratic surtax to pay for the cost of their jobs plan. Only 27 percent opposed the tax, while 5 percent didn’t know.”
As the chart shows, this populist streak crosses party lines too:
“Remarkably, nearly one-third of Republicans–31 percent–completely or mostly agree with their aims. The sour economy has sparked some class resentments in unexpected places, it seems. Those stirrings are unlikely to come to fruition in this divided Congress, but there’s no indication they’re going away anytime soon.”
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October 21, 2011, 5:14 pm | By Casey Schoeneberger
Rev. Derrick Harkins, a Faith in Public Life board member, has been selected by the Democratic National Committee as their Director of Faith Outreach. Harkins is also Senior Pastor of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington D.C.
Harkin’s involvement with Faith in Public Life and his new role with the DNC is highlighted today in the Washington Post:
“Harkins is the first member of the faith outreach staff that the party has announced for the 2012 election. In 2008, the campaign made strides in attracting religious voters long considered GOP property, particularly white evangelicals. Recent polls show weakened support for Obama among such groups, and some experts on faith outreach say Harkins’ work with progressive and conservative evangelicals in particular could help
…
Harkins works with some of the country’s most visible Christian groups on both the right and the left. He sits on the board of the center-right National Association of Evangelicals, the country’s biggest evangelical organization, as well as of the progressive advocacy group Faith in Public Life.”
Read the whole piece here.
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October 20, 2011, 3:32 pm | By Casey Schoeneberger
Trumpeting tired, tea-party rhetoric at the GOP Presidential Debate this week, the candidates responded to a question about foreign aid by almost universally across the line declaring they would severely cut or even eliminate the foreign assistance budget to save money. (That such funds make up less than 1% of the federal budget went unmentioned).
Tapping into conservative suspicions about corruption and waste in foreign governments and international institutions, the candidates painted all aid with a broad brush to downplay the real harm such cuts to life-saving programs would cause. But this generalization disguises an important reality that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah spoke to Tuesday–that many of these funds go to faith-based organizations like World Relief and Catholic Relief Services that help carry out the agency’s mission. By threatening to demolish foreign assistance, GOP candidates are actually slashing the budgets of dozens of these faith-based organizations, severely limiting their ability to provide assistance to the world’s most vulnerable people.
These organizations generally enjoy broad support from across the political spectrum, including among religious conservatives. I’m guessing candidates would likely be less likely to boast about their plans to cut aid if they had to be honest about the actual people and programs such reductions would impact.
Unfortunately, Wednesday’s debate just gave us the same tired talking points and deficit peacocking we’ve seen before on this issue–all while people continue to suffer in places like famine-stricken Somalia. As other nations shrink their own foreign assistance budgets the need for real U.S. leadership on this issue is more important than ever. We can do better than this.
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October 17, 2011, 12:55 pm | By Casey Schoeneberger
Last weekend religious leaders lent their support to Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York with the help of a paper-mache golden calf. People of faith marched alongside the calf to Zuccotti Park on Sunday, calling attention to Wall Street’s continuing worship of false idols and enslavement to greed. Along with dozens of faith groups, Faith in Public Life helped organized the construction and delivery of the golden calf to New York.
This piece from the Wall Street Journal documents the continuing need for faith groups to lend spiritual support to Occupy Wall Street’s call for economic justice.
“Rev. Michael Ellick, the minister at Judson Memorial, a 300-member congregation, has spearheaded the gathering of different faith groups. He said religious groups have been calling him from across the city to ask how they can help, and he is holding another interfaith meeting on Friday.
“Churches and synagogues and mosques see this on the ground more than other agencies,” Ellick said, referring to the economic frustrations motivating the protests. “They are who people go to for a safety net when there’s no where else to go to.”
Bhikkhu Bodhi, chair of Buddhist Global Relief, said he was contacted Tuesday by an Episcopalian priest who asked that he join Friday’s organizational meeting. He plans to attend simply to learn more.
Religious groups can “lend the weight of spiritual support to the movement,” Bodhi said. “It will perhaps transform the tone of the movement from one of protest and objection, to one of peace and ethical conviction.”
Read the whole piece here.
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October 14, 2011, 5:25 pm | By Casey Schoeneberger
Echoing a CBS poll released last month, new polling from Gallup out this week finds that support for the death penalty fell to a 39 year low. While the majority of American’s (61%) continue to approve of the use of the death penalty, support is at its lowest point since 1972. Republicans maintained widespread support (73%) of the practice while approval among Democrats and people under 30 continues to falter.
The poll comes on the heels of the highly publicized execution of Troy Davis despite doubt about his guilt–the execution prompted widespread protest including a letter from over 300 Catholic theologians and scholars signed a petition calling for an end to capital punishment in general. In light of the theologians’ statement, consistent polling, and intense public outrage surrounding recent executions, the tide continues to turn in opposition to state-sanctioned executions.
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