Members of the United States Senate have released their proposed health care plan, all 142 pages of the “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017” developed in secrecy, with a score from the Congressional Budget Office expected early next week. Meanwhile, we know it will reduce Medicaid significantly more than the House bill while cutting taxes for the nation’s wealthiest. A plan that endangers the vulnerable while benefitting the powerful goes against our most fundamental beliefs as people of faith. As experts analyze the bill’s potential impact, calls to Senators Tillis…
New Budget with Old Agenda Falls Short
By now the strategy is familiar – the strategy used by the N.C. General Assembly’s Republican chiefs to try to make a fundamentally flawed state budget appear, well, not that bad. Or at least tolerable. Or better than it could have been and perhaps even worth supporting. Here’s how it works: The Senate proposes a budget that, it almost should go without saying, carries on the Republican campaign to cut taxes. Economic growth allows for some slight spending increases, but on the whole spending is held tightly in check. Meanwhile,…
Gerrymander Remedy: Redraw, Now
The Republicans who took control of North Carolina’s General Assembly with the elections of 2010 were, it could be said, licking their chops. They knew that when they came to Raleigh in 2011, a big prize awaited. All they had to do was seize it. And seize it they did. Because of the timing of the most recent, once-a-decade U.S. census, conducted the previous year, 2011 would be the year in which congressional and legislative voting districts were adjusted to account for population changes. The districts are supposed to be…
UPDATE — High Court to NC: Draw Those Districts Fairly
UPDATE In separate, party-line votes on June 8, the state House and Senate rejected Gov. Cooper’s attempt to convene a special session for the purpose of redrawing legislative voting districts. Leaders of the Republican majority argued that Cooper’s proclamation failed to meet standards set forth in the state constitution by which special legislative sessions can be called by the governor. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ What a relief and cause for celebration it would be if North Carolina’s legislative chiefs collectively slapped their brows and exclaimed, “Oh, now we get it! We’re not allowed…
Sanctuary as a Sacred Act
Photo courtesy of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Under President Trump’s recent executive orders, many people’s lives have changed, especially the lives of those who have come to North Carolina from other countries or who have family members who do not have proper documentation. People are afraid to leave their homes to go to work, church, or the doctor. Children are afraid that their parents won’t be there when they get home. Victims of crimes are afraid to call the police. Our neighbors are living in a state of constant…
Rolling Waters
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I headed north for my sister’s graduation. Being only a few hours away from Niagara Falls at that point, we decided to make a weekend out of it since it would be a new experience for both of us. It is quite easy to see what makes the falls such an attractive place for tourists and nature enthusiasts alike. As cliché as it might sound, the pictures we had seen our entire lives really did not do it justice. As I sat…
Now what? Staying Engaged and Grow the Interfaith Climate Movement
We were already living in a time of profound consequence. President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement means that while the needs of our endangered climate are increasing, the response to global warming is diminishing at the national level. Our actions now, as climate conscious people of faith, matter more than ever. There are a few things you can do right now to help maximize our collective impact as North Carolina’s statewide multi-faith network committed to addressing climate change as a moral issue: Engage your interfaith climate conscious…
The Plank in Your Eye
As followers of the Prince of Peace, Christians are not always particularly peaceful people, which is what makes North Carolina’s return to the national stage as a foothold for intolerance both unsurprising and deeply troubling. The ease with which a Christian group would condemn another religion denies our own legacy as well as the work we still need to do. For any Christian who needs help seeing past the plank in their own eye, some of our faithful friends have put together an excellent starting place. In addition, a piece…
Justice on Gerrymandering
Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court affirms what many in North Carolina knew – the state’s congressional districts were deliberately drawn in 2011 to mute the voices of minority voters. By upholding last year’s lower court ruling, the justices reinforced the value of every vote. For the Council and others, this has been and remains a key tenet of justice and equity — allowing every voter, regardless of circumstance, to equally impact the democratic process. This very welcome decision ratifies that.
The People’s Climate March — Called to Respond
Multi-faith pilgrims on a moral high road unified to honor God’s creation at the Peoples Climate March last month on the National Mall. The event, which came as a crescendo in a week of climate action, drew 200,000 people from every state, with broad support from more than 400 sister marches in the U.S. and around the world. Interfaith Power & Light was represented by more than 40 state affiliate groups. NCIPL led North Carolinians as part of the “Keepers of Faith” contingent. We expressed our deep concern from our…
When the Good Samaritan is Your Neighbor
If you’re part of the Christian tradition then you have probably heard the story of the good Samaritan more times than you can count. A man is traveling along a road when he is beaten, robbed, and left for dead in a ditch. A couple of people who would have been held in pretty high regard as model citizens by the society of that time come across him and go out of their way to avoid helping him. Then a man, a lowly Samaritan, despised by much of society, happens…
SB 145 Debate Not in Accordance with Matthew 25
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee of the North Carolina General Assembly discussed SB 145, an anti-immigrant bill that would expand the 287g program, thereby allowing local law enforcement to act as ICE officials and forcing NC university system institutions to disclose a student’s immigration status if required by a state or federal agency. It would also revoke the exception that allows law enforcement officers to accept a community ID such as the FaithAction ID and withhold state funding from cities or counties that adopt a so-called “sanctuary” policy or ordinance regarding undocumented immigrants in any…
No More of This
In the final hours of the first day of the Triduum, these intense three days when Christians rehearse the events between Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil, the juxtaposition of bombs in Afghanistan and swords in Gethsemane boggles the mind. In Gethsemane when they came out with swords and clubs to arrest Jesus and someone with him took out a sword and “struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear,” Jesus declared, “‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him” (Luke…
Standing on Our Heads
Sermon preached by the Rev. Jennifer Copeland on April 1, 2017 at First United Methodist Church, Mocksville for the Western North Carolina Conference United Methodist Women’s Legislative Day. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the…
Swallow Hard: H.B. 2’s Less-than-Ideal ‘Repeal’
Call it a head-on collision between politics and principle. Is anyone surprised that politics prevailed? Yet here’s the twist that perhaps makes the outcome somewhat understandable, if no less regrettable. Those of us committed to stamping out discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity wanted North Carolina’s infamous House Bill 2 to be repealed lock, stock and barrel. The General Assembly’s compromise, signed into law March 30 by Gov. Roy Cooper, achieves repeal in a technical sense, but keeps the door open for discrimination to continue. The…