Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
The city of Springfield (Massachusetts) held it’s annual menorah-lighting ceremony to mark the first day of Hanukkah this past Tuesday. Among the 150 attendees was Springfield City Councilor Bud Williams. While Williams is a Baptist, he decided to offer his own reflections on the Jewish holiday: Jesus is the reason for the season. Now, you might think this was bizarrely out of place at a celebration for the Jewish Festival of Lights. And you’d be right. Read more
Two decades ago, the Church of England allowed women into the priesthood. In November, the Church officially said that women could hold leadership positions. And now, in the year 2014, almost five hundred years after gaining independence from the Vatican, it has named its first female bishop. Reverend Libby Lane (below), a former deacon, priest, and Dean of Women in Ministry in Chester, will become the new Bishop of Stockport. Read more
Suppose you encountered a circumstance where your right to bodily autonomy, to control your own reproductive choices, was disregarded. Your first thought probably wouldn’t be “now how can I deprive someone else of similar rights?” Then again, you’re not Missouri Republican state representative Rick Brattin. Brattin, a “devoted Christian” legislator with a history of promoting Intelligent Design and anti-abortion legislation, claims that he needed his wife’s permission to get a recent vasectomy. While Missouri Planned Parenthood notes that this is not a legal requirement in Missouri, some clinics (not Planned Parenthood) do make this procedure’s availability contingent on a wife’s permission. This, too, is an appalling disregard for a person’s autonomy and right to make his own reproductive choices. But Brattin used that experience to make a point about why his state needed to come down even harder against such decisions: Here I was getting a normal procedure that has nothing to do with another human being’s life, and I needed to get a signed form… But on ending a life, you don’t. I think that’s pretty twisted. To that end, he wrote a bill that would impose such a requirement on women: that if they want an abortion, they must first get the permission of the man with whom they got pregnant. Read more
Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich (below) championed a mentoring program for his state that would allocate $10 million to districts and private schools. Because he’s a man committed to bettering the educational opportunities of economically disadvantaged students. Which is why, now that the measure succeeded and was signed into law, he’s tacked on a heretofore undisclosed requirement that all mentoring programs must partner with a “faith-based” non-profit or church. Read more