Tag: Law

  • When we hate cheating…and following the rules

    When we hate cheating…and following the rules

    Imagine if Mitt Romney got caught stuffing ballot boxes in 2012. Well, not actually Mitt, but staff. Volunteers, actually. You’d be pissed, right? That’s serious, land his ass in jail stuff. Now imagine that election law only says that it is against the law to stuff ballot boxes. It doesn’t say what it means or…

  • What should marriage be?

    What should marriage be?

    A “Should’ve Asked Question” While the Supreme Court mulls about trying to figure out what to do with the Frequently asked question: What do we do with “gay marriage”? we are actually left with more pertinent questions. Digging into the politics and legal cases for and against “marriage equality” send us into a spiral of…

  • Why Religious Freedom Acts are Code for Open Discrimination

    Why Religious Freedom Acts are Code for Open Discrimination

    In the last few years, we’ve seen a flurry of new bills coming out of state houses addressing religious liberty. They reveal an earnest desire to protect religious freedom. In practice, however, they serve to disenfranchise and actually restrict the religious liberty of vast numbers of people. These bills, popping up in at least 20 states, including…

  • No More Racists

    No More Racists

    We struggle with truly understanding racism. Many of us think that racism is what begins inside our hearts. That racism is the necessary outward expression of an internal feeling of bias or racial animus. That one hates another so much that they intentionally push them down and oppress them. We often think that racism is only…

  • Hobby Lobby decision restricts religious liberty

    Today’s decision does not expand religious liberty, but restricts it. In a Darwinian example of the rights of the powerful expanded on the backs of the weak, the Hobby Lobby decision is a boon, not to Christians, but to corporations and a particular kind of pro-corporate Christian. The Decision Despite the media coverage of the…

  • Redefining Marriage

    a Homily for Proper 22B Text: Mark 10:2-16 Jesus condemns more than divorce Our story begins once again with the Pharisees asking Jesus a tricky question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Before we go any further, hear the question itself: not the one we wish were asked. not Is it right/moral/ethical…

  • Throw Your Process Off a Bridge

    It has become clear that we are in an age in which process and system are colliding. Our institutions aren’t failing because they are institutions (and our government isn’t failing simply because it is government).  They fail because the process is obstructing the system. What I mean by process and system are simply the difference…