My favorite story of today: A 9-year-old boy who stumbled upon the Westboro Baptist folks while on the campus of Washburn University in Topeka. Appalled at their sentiments (“God hates [homosexuals]”), Josef Miles went back to the car and made his own sign. “Josef was determined to make his own statement so we went to the car and with pencil and his sketch pad, he made up his own little sign that reads ‘GOD HATES NO ONE.’ Those people are scary but he stood strong, was respectful and stood by his convictions. He will be a good man, I have no doubt.” My thoughts exactly.
Steve Thorngate at The Christian Century rounds up some thoughtful commentary on same sex marriage.
In other news on highly contentious matters, Republicans are re-thinking their promise to reform the health care system in their own way if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act. Nashville Congressman and self-proclaimed “centrist” Jim Cooper wrote on the Atlantic earlier this week that returning to the status quo is not an option: “Failure to produce more workable alternatives to the ACA is probably one of the worst policy voids in American history. Like Sherlock Holmes’ dog that did not bark, this dearth of alternatives is an important clue, at least to our modern political gridlock (if not our permanent decline)… Remember, our old operating system is crashing. Without a feasible alternative, anyone who stands in the way of making the ACA work — and fast — bears an existential responsibility.”
Meanwhile, the bishops are focusing on maybe suing the Obama administration over the HHS mandate. And Georgetown University received an earful from the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese over its decision to invite Kathleen Sebelius to speak at commencement. And Franciscan University would rather not offer health insurance than have to provide contraception coverage in its plan. So they dropped it.
It’s season finale, er, season. And the always insightful Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio, finds a lesson in loving your neighbor in Desperate Housewives: “Living that way carries the hazard of hurt precisely because it asks that we be willing to share the most desperate, shameful parts of our lives in order to be truly loved and to love truly in return.”
And the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X continue their conversations about the breakaway group’s possible future communion with Rome.
