Prop 8: Please Don't Divorce My LGBT Friends!

Talk about a tug at the heartstrings!  Try to watch this without tearing up!

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce

You can make a difference!  Please add your name and share widely!

Obama's Faith-Based Initiative Tells Us About More Than Just Policy

This morning I was lucky enough to watch President Barack Obama (still fun to say) speak at the National Prayer Breakfast. Keeping aside the fact that there is a National Prayer Breakfast, which strikes me as very odd, I must say I found many of his words needing to be followed by a strong, Amen!

I was touched to hear the President speak disappointedly of the ways faith is often used as an excuse for intolerance. I was ecstatic to hear the President speak of the need for separation of church and state. I was excited to hear humanists (a group I commonly identify with) mentioned as a prominent group of organized Americans. Oh and I was so elated to hear the President speak of the skeptical views of his mother, as I deeply honor my inner skeptic.

To me, this marked an important and exciting day for the religious, spiritual, humanists, and secularists of our country, both in terms of policy and hope for a more tolerant and accepting humanity.

As the President said, "Mission of love and service is at the heart of all humanity."

May it be so.

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Did You Hear My Friend Frank Schaeffer on NPR

Did you all hear my friend Frank Schaeffer on Fresh Air with Terry Gross yesterday?  It was a fabulous 30-minute interview.  Here's the link so you can listen and some info on it...

"Pro-Life and In Favor of Keeping Abortion Legal"

Frank has a truly interesting and unique story of growing up as part of the evangelical royalty that for anyone interested in religion and politics in America this story is simply fascinating to hear.  Frank was an integral part of creating the Religious Right in this country (though he has distanced himself greatly from that movement now).  Frank also shares the way the Christian stories of his family and culture impacted the way he viewed the world and related to other people, a perspective that so many can relate to.

Frank has had a dramatic though slow shift away from the evangelical movement, he now writes for the Huffington Post, he voted for Barack Obama, he also attended our local Obama rally with me in Grand Haven and was the star of the show! (that is where this picture was taken) 

Frank gave an absolutely inspiring talk at C3 when he was here, and you can purchase the DVD "Frank Schaeffer: Confessions of a Fundamentalist" here. You can also watch a clip from that talk on that page.

Be sure to check out Frank's book, Crazy For God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (Or Almost All) of it Back.