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Boy Scouts Lift National Ban on Gay Scout Leaders
Last night the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) voted to ends its national ban on gay scout leaders and employees. While this vote represents an important step forward for the BSA, the resolution also allows chartered organizations to select their leaders based on their religious beliefs, therefore allowing individual troops to continue to ban gay scout leaders. In 2013, Rabbi David Saperstein, then-Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, wrote a letter calling on the BSA to end their ban on gay scouts and gay scout leaders and called for the BSA to establish a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation. The BSA eventually lifted their ban on gay scouts, and last month, Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the RAC, wrote a letter calling on the BSA to lift their ban on gay scout leaders and affirm that transgender boys can serve as both scouts and leaders. Although the ban on gay scout leaders has now been lifted, the BSA has remained silent on transgender inclusion.
Lifting the “Global Gag Rule” Once and For All
Earlier this month, the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced an effort to repeal the “global gag rule,” which blocks all U.S. foreign aid to international family planning agencies that provide abortions or even mention abortion as an option for clients seeking health care. Formally known as the Mexico City Policy, the global gag rule has vast, harmful effects on women around the world who rely on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for these services.
Mitzvah Fatigue and the Power of Interfaith Climate Action
This past weekend, I attended the Religions for Peace USA Earth-Faith-Peace Teach In with a group of my fellow young faith leaders engaged in climate justice work. The group included participants from a wide array of religious traditions, from Franciscans to Zoroastrians, who flew in to the Teach-In from as far as Bombay and Brazil, as nearby as Boston and Washington, D.C. Together, our group explored sites of environmental degradation and pollution, learned about cap and trade and carbon tax models for mitigating climate change and shared environmental education and advocacy best practices from our communities.
For Texas, Reproductive Justice is a Numbers Game
By Megan Sims
If I drive east from the house I grew up in for five minutes, I will go by an abortion clinic. If I drive west from the house I grew up in for five hours, I will be in Lubbock, a moderately sized city, home to Texas Tech University and the economic hub of the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the country. One-fifth of the city’s population lives in poverty.
Happy 50th Birthday Medicare and Medicaid!
Fifty years ago, on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act Amendments, which established Medicare and Medicaid and dramatically changed the landscape of health insurance in America. Before the programs went into effect, approximately half of all seniors lacked insurance and many other people, especially people with disabilities, families with children, pregnant women and low-income Americans were unable to afford the medical services they needed. Today, Medicare and Medicaid provide health insurance to about one in three Americans—that’s more than 100 million people!
Reform Movement Horrified by West Bank Terror Attack
Our hearts are heavy today after learning of a vicious act of terrorism in the West Bank, in which Israelis are suspected of setting the home of a Palestinian family on fire. Tragically, the fire claimed the life of a toddler and badly injured others. Rabbi Jonah Pesner offered thoughts on the tragedy:
Plight of Rohingya Muslims Continues
The persecution and plight of the Rohingya Muslims is nothing new. In fact, the United Nations has identified them as “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.” The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority living in northern Rakhine State in western Burma. For decades, they have faced severe persecution and violence at the hands of the government.
This Jewish-American Life: Notes on the Fourth of July
This past Shabbat, I was excited to attend services at my home congregation with our Machon Kaplan program participants. During the sermon remarks, Rabbi Danny Zemel (who I’m lucky to call my dad) reflected on a piece of Temple Micah’s mission statement as part of a discussion about events this past week in Charleston, SC and the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality: “[at Temple Micah] we attempt to answer the question of what it means to live a fully American and a fully Jewish life.” Growing up within a congregation and a home that strives to do this, is, in part, what led me to embrace my work at the RAC. Professionally, I can aspire to help create an American Judaism that is meaningful and relevant in the year 2015
What if D.C. had Taxation with Representation?
This weekend, Americans across the country will celebrate Independence Day. We celebrate the day in 1776 when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring their freedom from Great Britain. One of the primary complaints of the American colonists was that they were subject to “taxation without representation;” the colonists had to pay taxes imposed on them by the British government, but had no representation in government to advocate for the colonies. If this phrase is familiar to you outside of American history class, it is because it is the featured slogan on all licenses plates in the District of Columbia.
The nearly 659,000 people who live in the capital, Washington, D.C., do not have representation in Congress, but pay taxes (and are subject to all other federal laws). There is no one representing the District in the Senate, and the House of Representatives has one D.C. member non-voting delegate (Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton).
Reflecting on Interfaith Issues in Israel
By Joey Rosen
On the plane back from my Year-In-Israel as part of my first year of rabbinical school at HUC-JIR, I had the privilege of sitting next to a man who had participated in a Christian mission trip in Israel. It was a pleasure sharing with him my journey that led me to rabbinical school, a conversation he might have never had before. I also got to enjoy a different perspective on seeing Israel for the first time, as I had no previous knowledge of how a Christian mission trip to Israel works. But before he said ‘God Bless’ and dozed off for the nine hour flight, he made a comment to me about how the Christians of America were cheering for us in our war against the Muslims, who are polluting the land with violence and treachery.