There is a common misconception that all Christians are on one side in the culture wars being waged in this country. Of course, this obscures the fact that a majority of Americans – including those of faith – support protections both for LGBTQ+ rights and reproductive choice. This week on State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, we will discuss how religious leaders are pushing back against the distortion of scripture by a radical few as a license to discriminate.
Reproductive freedom is a matter of religious freedom, full stop. In the wake of the leaked Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a chorus of prominent faith voices are underscoring that vital principle. The Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, will join Rabbi Jack Moline, filling in for State of Belief host Rev. Welton Gaddy, to discuss her recent column in Religion Dispatches on this subject.
In a secular, pluralistic democracy, promoting one’s self as “A Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third, in that order,” is not a campaign pitch the founders would have celebrated. But it’s how former Vice President Mike Pence ran for the White House – and his focus hasn’t changed, even in the aftermath of the role the political religious right played in the January 6, 2021 attack on our government. Journalist Tom LoBianco, author of Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House, will sit down with Jack to examine how Pence’s pandering to the evangelical right is likely to drive his campaign for 2024.
The growing movement of faith voices recognizing the sacred worth of all people – including LGBTQI+ people – extends far beyond our own borders. Uganda has been a hotbed of bigotry and legalized discrimination for over a decade, encouraged and funded by US Christian conservatives. Mounting a faith-based response, Vincent Kyabayinze, director of East African Visual Artists – a group spearheading the #SayNoToReligiousHomophobia campaign – will join Jack to discuss these efforts.
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