Today, national faith leaders and organizations are celebrating the White House’s announcement of a common-sense, common-ground solution to religious liberty concerns around contraception coverage that protects women’s access to important preventive health care. The regulation expands religious exemptions within the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that contraceptive services be covered without copayment in health insurance plans, while guaranteeing that employees of religious institutions can obtain family planning and other preventive health services directly from their insurance providers. Below is a statement from Catholic and Protestant leaders celebrating the decision as “major victory for religious liberty and women’s health.”
Today the Obama administration announced an important regulation that will protect the conscience rights of religious organizations and ensure that all women have access to contraception without a co-payment. We applaud the White House for listening carefully to the concerns raised by religious leaders on an issue that has provoked heated and often misinformed debate. This ruling is a major victory for religious liberty and women’s health. President Obama has demonstrated that these core values do not have to be in conflict.
Specifically, this new regulation guarantees that no religiously affiliated institution will have to pay for services that violate its moral beliefs or even refer employees for this coverage. Instead, if a woman’s employer is an objecting university, hospital or other religious institution, her insurer will be required to offer her coverage at no cost. This is a sensible, common-ground solution.
In recent days, sound bites and divisive rhetoric have too often pitted the faith community against sound science and public health.The previous regulations caused an unnecessary conflict between the administration, the Catholic Church and other religious institutions. We are encouraged that the Obama administration has developed a substantive solution that addresses the concerns of the many constituencies involved. We look forward to bringing the same level of passion displayed in this debate to other pressing moral issues that face our nation.
Sister Simone Campbell
Executive Director
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Institute Leadership Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Douglas W. Kmiec
United States Amb. (ret)
Chair, Constitutional and Human Rights Law, Pepperdine University
Terrence W. Tilley
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology Chair, Theology Department
Fordham University
Nicholas P. Cafardi
Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law
Duquesne University School of Law
Vincent J. Miller
Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture
University of Dayton
Kristin Heyer
Associate Professor, Religious Studies
Santa Clara University
Gerald J. Beyer
Associate Professor of Theology
Saint Joseph’s University
Stephen Schneck
Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies
Catholic University of America
Francis Schüssler Fiorenza
Stillman Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies Harvard Divinity School
Cambridge, MA
John Inglis
Chair and Professor of Philosophy
Cross-appointed to Religious Studies
University of Dayton
Bradford E. Hinze
Professor of Theology
Fordham University
Bronx, NY
David DeCosse
Director of Campus Ethics Programs
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Santa Clara UniversitY
Todd Whitmore
Associate Professor of Theology
University of Notre Dame
Sr. Paulette Skiba
Professor of Religious Studies
Clarke University
Michael E. Lee
Associate Professor of Theology
Fordham University
Tobias Winright
Associate Professor of Theological Ethics
Saint Louis University
Richard R. Gaillardetz
McCarthy Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology
Boston College
Christopher Pramuk
Assistant Professor of Theology
Xavier University
Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
Professor of Theology
Chicago Theological Seminary
The Rev. Canon Peg Chemberlin
Immediate Past President
National Council of Churches
Lisa Sharon Harper
Director of Mobilizing
Sojourners
Rev. Anne Howard
Executive Director
The Beatitudes Society
Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo
United Church of Christ
Justice and Witness Ministries
Rev. Richard Cizik
President
New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good
Dr. David Gushee
Board Chair and Co-Founder
New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good
Rev. Alexander Sharp
Executive Director
Protestants for the Common Good
Dr. Sharon E. Watkins
General Minister and President
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada
Rev. Dr. Ken Brooker Langston
Director
Disciples Justice Action Network (DJAN)
Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner
President
Skinner Leadership Institute
Linda Bales Todd
Director of Women’s Advocacy
General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church
Jim Winkler
General Secretary
General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church
*Organizations listed for identification purposes only
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In December, we blogged about Clergy for Tolerance, the new group of interfaith leaders in Tennessee pushing back on anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation in their state.
The clergy coalition has seen major growth lately. According to Kathy Chambers, co-organizer of CFT, at the most recent meeting “almost half the attendees were new to Clergy for Tolerance, which shows this issue is gaining traction within the Middle Tennessee faith communities.”
She also explained that the 180th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee had adopted a resolution vowing to stand with immigrants and advocate for their protection. Most of the authors of the resolution attended the event.
Also at the meeting, members screened a new documentary produced by EthicsDaily.com on faith and immigration called “Gospel Without Borders.” The documentary highlights stories from five states dealing with the issue of immigration and its intersection with faith.
Following the film, a panel including Lutheran bishop Julian Gordy discussed the challenge facing the religious community in Southeastern states:
Tennessee has not passed any restrictive immigration legislation yet, Gordy said, but such has been proposed, and it will be proposed again this year. Alabama and Georgia (states in the ELCA’s Southeastern Synod) have passed laws that Gordy called “very mean-spirited.”
“In those states, almost all religious communities have come together, at least officially, to oppose what the state has done,” said Gordy. “Now granted, most of the people who proposed and passed those laws were also members of the congregations of those churches that came together to oppose it.”
Watch a teaser of the film below:
Learn more about the documentary at EthicsDaily.com and watch more trailers on their Vimeo channel.
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Hamil R. Harris at the Washington Post talks with African-American clergy who are embracing the 99% movement as an important ally in the fight for economic justice.
Some critics say the focus of the Occupy movement, which by design does not have leaders, is unclear. But [Occpuy the Dream co-founder Rev. Jamal Harrison] Bryant, who observed the movement from a distance before deciding he wanted to be part of it, was adamant that Occupy the Dream has a defined agenda.
“Number one, we are asking for more Pell grants so that our young people might be able to compete and go to colleges and universities,” he said. “Number two, we are asking for an immediate freezing on foreclosures.” The group is also seeking billions of dollars “from Wall Street for economic development and for job training.”
Beginning in February, Bryant plans to launch a campaign to urge people to bank only at minority-owned financial institutions.
Bryant, 40, a former national youth director for the NAACP, said his involvement in Occupy the Dream feels like he’s “coming home” to his civil rights roots.
“I think the Occupy Wall Street movement has held the legacy of Dr. King and has brought the church back into accountability,” Bryant said. “Dr. King would be here today. He wouldn’t be at a breakfast; he wouldn’t be at a mall. He would be here with us.”
Read the whole thing here.
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We’ve continued to highlight the creative ways that the Occupy movement has addressed corporate abuses that harm struggling families. This week we saw a huge success in Georgia, where Occupy Atlanta and other grassroots groups took an important stand against predatory banks and helped save a historic black church from foreclosure.
Higher Ground Empowerment Center is one of the oldest churches in Atlanta, located in the same neighborhood where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was raised—so when news that BB&T Bank planned to foreclose on the Center came in the weeks leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the community took immediate action.
Rebuild the Dream, an online organization working for labor rights and economic justice, launched a petition calling on BB&T to reverse their decision to foreclose on the church. The petition collected more than 65,000 signatures and inspired members of Occupy Atlanta, who have used the Center as a meeting place, to lend their voices to the cause. As Rebuild the Dream’s website points out, Occupy Atlanta’s local community action “brought valuable attention to this situation and the bank is showing that they’re paying attention.”
In an amazing victory for Rebuild the Dream and Occupy Atlanta, BB&T agreed to renegotiate the terms of Higher Ground Empowerment Center’s loan, thereby saving the 108-year-old church from impending foreclosure. We’re glad to see local actors working together for the common good, and it’s encouraging to see these positive steps toward an engaged community and a more just economy.
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While much of the political world is focusing on how the religious conservative vote will break in tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses, some faith leaders in Iowa are standing up to remind people that their traditions reject the “you’re on your own” economic values espoused by many candidates on the campaign trail.
In an op-ed in the Quad-City Times, Kent Ferris, Director of Social Action and Director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Davenport, and Rev. David Sickelka, Senior Pastor at Urbandale United Church of Christ, explain:
While presidential candidates sprinkle their speeches with vague references to values, they devote far more energy to a political gospel filled with soaring praise for the “free market” and thunderous denunciations of “big government.” This rarely speaks to the life experiences of most Iowans.
Wall Street greed and corporate abuses reveal the need to temper the market’s destructive excesses by building a more humane, moral economy that treats workers with dignity.
Our political dialogue and economic policies ignore those who Jesus described as “the least, the last and the lost.” Compassionate conservatism has been replaced with a “you’re on your own” libertarianism that mocks Judeo-Christian values of solidarity and the common good that have always inspired our nation to be more than a collection of individuals.
Charity provided by churches and other non-governmental organizations is essential, but as Christians we know charity alone cannot provide opportunity and security for all people. Charity must also work together with the pursuit of justice.
Perhaps in this season of hope and compassion, religious leaders and those who seek the presidency can help rekindle faith in the deeply American proposition that we are all in this together.
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