Healthcare Bill Would Remove Gay Tax Inequity

So, the House has passed the long-awaited healthcare reform bill, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi is basking in congratulations. Good for her, and good for the country. It may even be good for partnered Lesbians and Gay men.
The New York Times points out today that the House bill contains a provision to remove a little-known injustice [...]

Obama Defends Special Rights for Heteros

Cartoon: the Southern Voice
Episcopal Café notes that Barack Obama’s Justice Department is upholding the so-called Defense of Marriage Act:
President Obama’s administration filed a legal brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in a court case seeking to overturn it. In effect the administration has come out defending the constitutionality of measures that give a [...]

CNN & FOX: The Death Machine

This is in response to Frank Rich’s column, “Who Is to Blame in the Next Attack?” in the Sunday New York Times.
For my money Frank Rich is the best commentator in America, but today he didn’t go deep enough. He describes the ailment, but doesn’t diagnose it or prescribe any treatment.
So I, naturally, [...]

Materialism Goes Bankrupt

Bargain hunters at Saks Fifth Avenue (Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times)
Like everyone else I’m concerned about the recession—or worldwide depression, which I think is more likely, even if it’s not as bad as the Great one.
But unlike others, I haven’t changed my spending habits much. It’s never cost that much to sustain [...]

Inauguration Poem

The windows of heaven,
looking over the earth,
are almost always closed,
that the saints and beloveds may live
in joy and endless bliss
without regard to our woe.
God has decreed this, for
he is ever tender in his mercies
—the same God is ever tender in hers.
But upon a momentous occasion
of worldwide grace and immanence,
decreed by the same God,
those windows are [...]

Gene, Barack & Springsteen at the Lincoln

Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. (AP photo)
Friends know that I’ve been very down on the upcoming inauguration, after I worked my keister off to elect Barack Obama. I did not want Jerry Falwell Lite giving the invocation in the person of Rick Warren.
When howls were raised at his selection, Obama blew them [...]

Obama & Warren: Way Too Cute

I’ve found myself since Friday posting a lot of comments on newspapers’ websites concerning the incoming President’s selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural.
I’ve used phrases like “megachurch huckster,” so you know where I’m coming from. I’ve also posted my displeasure on Obama’s “transition” website, change.gov.
This is not just an [...]

The Green Church

Solar panel at St. Anselm’s, Lafayette, California is just one of the Episcopal Church’s responses to global warming and the energy crisis. We are quietly refitting our buildings all over the country, from cathedrals and seminaries to high schools and church camps. Now it’s time to be less quiet about it.
The Episcopal Church needs to [...]

Analyzing the Indiana Primary by County

episcopalians-for-obama
Sign I taped to my car window; it’s a PDF, so feel free to download it and print it out.

As a Hoosier I find it fascinating to look at the Indiana results county by county, knowing this state much better than the talking heads on TV. I suppose they were reasonably well-prepared, but the best [...]