Yesterday, I published a commentary at Women’s eNews titled: U.S. Religions Quietly Launch a Sexual Revolution. Its about how the Religious Institute, a progressive religious think tank has issued a 46 page manifesto about breaking the silence in religious communities about a host of sexuality issues; and although many mainstream religious institutions have a long way to go, many have also come a long way.

Unsurprisingly, the manifesto was immediately denounced by Religious Right leader Dr. Albert Mohler, the fundamentalist president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Over at Daily Kos, I wrote an essay reflecting on two essays

from Dispatchers from the Religious Left in light of recent political developments.

“One of the premises of this site is that we need not just more, but better Democrats as candidates and office holders. As we look beyond the current policy battles and 2010 elections, we also need to consider how it is we do what we do. To the extent that many of us are frustrated by the way things are, we need to also consider whether if we continue to do things the same way, can we really expect different (and better) outcomes?”

This is a revised and updated version of “Dreaming of Better Dems.”

We are entering a critical political time that is not for the fainthearted. It is easy to second guess what other people do, but it much more difficult to change our own premises about politics, especially if we are professionally invested in the status quo — even the status quo of doing social change. It is time to invite ourselves to rethink our approach to political organizing.

The essays were by Jean Hardisty and Deepak Bhargava, and by Marshall Ganz.  Both involve how to think about organizing for social justice. The first one makes the useful distinction between broad organizing towards a goal, and mobilization towards a specific project, like passing legislation or getting out the vote for a canidate.

I think that the concept of organizing has drifted considerably in political life and is in need of reinvention. If that is so, these essays are an excellent place to start.

I have a new article up at Religion Dispatches.  The editors summarized it this way:  

 The principle of the Hyde Amendment, which restricted federal funds from paying for abortion, is now seen as an acceptable, “abortion-neutral” position for the pro-choice party. How did the most significant anti-abortion legislation in history become a moderate compromise?

Gloria Feldt responded at Not Under The Bus: 

I’m appalled that the president, Congress, pro-choice organizations, and as a result the media are calling the current Hyde amendment restrictions on abortion coverage an acceptable compromise.

Governor Deval Patrick was against them before he was for them. Same goes for much of the Democratic Party establishment.

But last year, a proposal for three resort casinos was defeated by a 2-1 margin in the legislature, thanks in part to an anti-casino Speaker of the House. This year there is a new Speaker and the conventional wisdom has it that casinos are all but a done deal. But as is too often the case, the CW may be an oxymoron.

Massachusetts has a long history of beating back the casino industry. And this year may be no different. Opponents in MA and around the country now refer to it as “predatory gambling” because the entire business is designed to find and hook prospective gambling addicts, which are the core of the business. Everything else, an expert I quoted in an article last year, “is bells and whistles.” Both organized gaming and its opponents, have changed.

Continued at Daily Kos…

Through the grey tinted glass at the end of the hospital hallway, I could see the last of the peak fall color. Bright yellow, red and orange leaves in the distance. Probably maple. There is nothing like Fall in New England.

I was recovering from treatment for “massive pulmonary embolisms,” (blood clots in the blood vessels affecting my lungs) at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Bay State is a major regional teaching hospital.)  I had had a procedure (via a catheter up through a vein in my leg) to remove some of them, dissolve others, and to install a filter in my vena cava to collect any others that might turn up before they could kill, or leave me permanently impaired.  A retired doc said, snapping his fingers, I could’ve “gone, like that.”

I was fortunate.

That was more than a month ago.

After a week in the hospital, I was discharged, only to be readmitted the next day with fresh symptoms, notably a rapid heartbeat. It took another week in the hospital, but I am pleased (and relieved) to report that I am rebounding, recovering well at home, and getting back to work.

Again, I am fortunate — and not only to be on the road back to health.

I was able during my first hospital stay, to gain access to a bootleg computer long enough to send an email to my love who was worried and far away, and to check out Meteor Blades’ diary at Daily Kos about my hospitalization. I had heard about it while in the intensive care unit, thanks to my good friend Jonathan Hutson. It was a warm surprise in the middle of a strange and harrowing adventure.

I was and am profoundly grateful for the prayers, good thoughts and wishes, and kind offers to help in some way — not to mention the simple act of recommending this diary such that it stayed on the rec list for a day. I certainly did not expect any of this.  I was and am, honored. Thanks too, to kossacks, street prophets, and others for the cards, calls, emails, flowers, visits — and a cake! And a special thanks to Rain from Street Prophets who specializes in making get well quilts, and made a beautiful one as a “big, comfy get-well card” from the community. The quilt features messages from friends (on the white squares). It was very nice to know from Rain’s comments on Meteor Blades’ diary  that that she was making one. It was even better to hear from Rain that it is done and on its way.

Any of us can feel scared and alone, even when we are not really alone. It meant more than I can say that so many helped to make sure that did not happen. I have seen this community come through for many people in remarkable ways over the years, and I am grateful for your having been there for me through this. Thank you. Thank you all so very much.

I hope I don’t bore anyone with the medical details, but I just wanted to update my condition, and offfer a few vignettes from my recent adventures.

                                       —————

I felt pretty good when I was first discharged from the hospital. But it didn’t last long. Shortly after arriving for my follow-up appointment, I was packed in an ambulance, sent strait to the overflowing emergency room at Bay State, a major urban hospital where although no one said so, it was obvious I was a high priority in the triage. (They were afraid that another clot had cut loose from my leg and was, damn the filter, looking for a way to wreak havoc.)

Even with that, what still amazes me most about this episode, was when my two EMTs rushed me through the ER doors on a gurney — we immediately found ourselves in a line of other gurneys, each with two EMTs, waiting to talk to someone.  I asked my EMTs if this was unusual. They said it wasn’t.

                                                 —————

I had never had a major medical problem in my 56 years, and so everything about my hospital experience was new, and often strange.  What’s more, I knew little about clots, and so I tried to learn as much as I could, even as I was being treated and recovering.

It was more than a little humbling not to know what people were talking about, even as — especially as — they were talking about me.

First there was the medical short hand thrown around. I had, for example, DVTs (deep vein thrombosis) PEs (pulmonary embolisms) and afib (atrial fibrillation).  I would be asked if I had ever taken various medications. I hadn’t even heard of most of them, (but no, I had not taken them either.) At one point, a nurse asked me if I understood about clotting. I didn’t, and so she launched into a remarkably clear and concise 15 minute lecture on the circulatory system. (I wish I had a video.)

My case confounded the medical team and the specialists because I had, as far as they could tell, none of the risk factors for clots. And so I became a subject of Grand Rounds. Every morning, three white coated doctors and two or three medical students would stop by and discuss my case, among themselves, and with me. (Did I have any questions?) I liked my doctors and am grateful for my care and treatment, but it was very odd being a subject as well as a participant, in the intimate study of me.

But of course, being more than a little curious about my situation, and visited by a parade of doctors and nurses over two weeks, I managed to get up to speed enough to meaningfully participate (and even successfully challenge some aspects of my treatment.)

I was in a teaching hospital, and I was learning.

                                            —————

Since my release, I have learned more.

One  comprehensive discussion of pulmonary embolisms, based on a survey of the medical and clinical literature found some amazing things.

The average annual incidence of venous thromboembolism [blood clots in the veins] in the United States is 1 per 1000, with about 250,000 incident cases occurring annually. The challenge in understanding the real disease is that autopsy studies show that an additional equal number of patients are diagnosed with pulmonary embolism at autopsy, as were initially diagnosed by clinicians. This is led to estimates of between 650,000 to 900,000 fatal and nonfatal VTE events occurring in the US annually. The incidence of venous thromboembolism has not changed significantly over the last 25 years.”

Only 4-5% of these cases are “massive pulmonary embolisms” like mine, but depending on the study — the death rate runs between 30% and 60%, and the majority of these deaths occur in the first 1-2 hours of care.

I was and am, very fortunate.
                             
I have been home for more than two weeks now, much recovered. And getting back to work. Unfortunately, I am at least month behind, and as a freelancer, that is not good. Anyone who has any writing, editing, or speaking they need done, please write me. I’m available.

Ah, the ups and downs of blogging on my own site.  

I’m baaaack! 

Yesterday I published an article at Religion Dispatches, about the role of religious groups in battling predatory gambling in MA, and around the country.  In it, Laura Everett of the Massachusetts Council of Churches has a message for Governor Deval Patrick who doesn’t seem to get it that casinos are not free money.

“I think it’s cowardly,” said Laura Everett. ”We are going to sacrifice our citizens. We know that there are people in Massachusetts who will become addicted. What Patrick is saying is ‘you are expendable.’”

This is important because the Governor says he wants to go another round. He also does not seem to remember that his casino proposal was beaten by better than 2-1 in the legislature last year. 

How much punishment can one pol stand?

There is already an abbreviation for a term fast making its way into our political lexicon: RIC (great for headlines) is, of course, short for religious industrial complex. Blogger Dan at Faith in Public Life, a member agency of the RIC and roundly criticized lately for it, embraced the term today in response to the blogospheric discussion that has broken out about the RIC. However, in the manner of industrial PR writers everywhere, he responded to exactly none of the points raised, declared that “the discussion seems to have run its course,” and thanked everyone for their participation.

Blogger Scott Isebrand, meanwhile, shows that far from being over, the discussion has just begun:

The RIC, he writes, is

“cultivating the public personae of a new generation of religious leaders,” a public personae of a “values voter” who is “no longer shackled to a ‘narrow agenda’ of abortion and gay marriage, and [is] voting on a ‘broader agenda,’ including poverty, the environment, and global HIV/AIDS.” The constellation is also claiming that Democrats need New Evangelicals in order to win elections.

But the New “moderate” Evangelicals are ultimately…conservative. They still oppose reproductive choice. They still oppose full civil rights for gay Americans. Consider, alongside Joel Hunter, two other leaders of the “broader agenda,” New Evangelical, conservative Christianity. Rick Warren of Seattle’s Saddleback church denies the simple scientific fact of evolution, and Jim Wallis of Sojourners, as Schultz points out, has actively combated the idea of an organized religious left.

The only thing new about New Evangelicalism is how it’s a conservative Christian movement that’s made inroads into the Democratic Party.

Religion scholar Mark Silk, writing in response to Sarah Posner’s article at Religion Dispatches,  mischaracterizes Dispatches from the Religious Left:

A new book, Dispatches from the Religious Left, rounds up a bunch of outside-the-Beltway lefties to make the case for themselves. I don’t have a problem with their case, and I understand their annoyance, but that doesn’t seem to me sufficient grounds for scorning those toiling in the spiritual vineyards of Democratic Party politics.

The mischaracterization is that I rounded-up a bunch of Outside the Beltway lefties.  (Not that there would be anything wrong with that.)  As a matter of fact, contributors Carlton Veazey and Barry Lynn operate inside the beltway, and stay true to their values and fight the good fight.  

That said, unlike many other contemporary books on religion and politics, Dispatches is neither by nor about Democratic Party consultants and other Beltway Insiders kissing-up to moderate and conservative evangelicals and calling that the foundation of a new religious left.  There is more to progressive religion and politics than this.  And part of the role of this book, is to show how that is so. 

That’s the title of an important article by Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches.  The article critiques the activities of various Beltway Insiders and contrasts their approach with that of several contributors to Dispatches from the Religious Left. 

The religious left is still struggling to find an organizing and base-building model, while the center-right continues to dominate the conversation and capture the attention of politicians. A new book, Dispatches from the Religious Left, edited by the journalist Frederick Clarkson, attempts to start the conversation—though by its own admission it’s merely a start, not a blueprint.

Part of that start, of course, is debunking the notion that the centrist evangelicals represent a religious left