Major regional bishops ("Primates") of the Anglican Communion have lobbed a bomb in the American culture wars over gay marriage: the Episcopal Church USA has been censured for blessing marriages between men or between women. For the next three years, Episcopalians will not be appointed to internal committees in the Communion, nor allowed to vote on policy.
When a majority of card-carrying Catholics refuse to surrender their own conscience—whether that's the 60% of Catholics who support gay marriage or the 98% of sexually-active Catholic women who use birth control—secular progressives need to realize that Christian fundamentalism is vigorously opposed from within Christianity.
Secular and religious humanists welcome diversity as a source of flexible strength, economic innovation, and cultural vitality. We have dramatically different reasons for advocating inclusivity, but that's okay. Our conceptual differences must not blind us to the bottom line that we share: we do not condemn the dissimilar as a disaster waiting to happen.
With Kevin McCarthy's departure from the race for House Majority Leader, we face the very real possibility that moderate House Republicans may elect a Majority Leader—and then govern—in collaboration with moderate Democrats. That would be historic, pundits say. But from a longer historical perspective, it's not "historic" at all.
Compassion and critical thinking are values we share with morally-sensitive secular humanists and with good people in every religious tradition globally. These values are equally central to the very best of Catholic tradition, not a threat to its survival.
We need a name for ourselves. We need a label for the common ground shared by reasonable people if we are going to confront fundamentalism effectively. And I have a nominee, reclaimed from the fourteenth century: humanist. Humanist, like the parallel term scientist, refers primarily to a method of scholarly inquiry: first, the rigorous, transparent analyses of texts; second, an nuanced sensitivity to cultural history. These skills characterize any serious work in "the humanities," from which the first generation of humanists took their name.
There's another, richer ethical reason to practice safe sex: conceiving a child is a morally serious act. Even potentially conceiving a child is morally serious act. Hardliners in the Catholic hierarchy don't see that, although reasonable priests and bishops always have.
(This essay is also available on Huff Post )
I have tasted the salt on another man's bread. The professor made much of the image, which was Dante's lament for his exile from Florence. I pictured a medieval Italian, salt shaker in one hand, a slice of bread in another. What? My small flicker of confusion was enough to lodge the line in my memory. There it waited until something in my own life evoked it.
