The MAE Organization for the Homeless and AHOPE (Americans Helping Others ProspEr) held their first annual “banquet luncheon event” Saturday in Cathedral Square. For two hours the groups served delicious Middle Eastern style meal and more traditional pasta to the homeless and hungry of Providence.

About four dozen people managed to serve about 300 meals in two hours. During that time it was not our difference that mattered, it was our shared humanity.

AHOPE is a volunteer based organization that was established to assist new refugees coming to Rhode Island with little to their name. Since its inception 6 months ago, A HOPE has been able to help over 30 families, over 150 people, resettle in RI. The MAE Organization is a spiritually based but not religious organization that seeks to serve the homeless population in Rhode Island.

For the effort in Cathedral Square these groups were assisted by the Islamic School of Rhode Island, Masjid al-Islam, the Universalist Unitarian Church, Rhode Island Belleza Latina, Rhode Island Miss Galaxy, and others.

The organizations hope to offer another meal like this sometime in the spring.

Catholics for Choice

Key findings include:

• Latinos, Catholic women and Catholic millennials show the largest support for Clinton over Trump.
• Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that the views of the Catholic hierarchy are not important to them when they are deciding who to vote for in the presidential election.
• Six in ten Catholic voters do not feel an obligation to vote the way the bishops recommend.
• Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that abortion can be a moral choice.
• Seventy-two percent believe that abortion should be available to pregnant women who have contracted the Zika virus.
• Seventy percent of Catholics do not think that companies should be allowed to use the owner’s religious beliefs as a reason to deny services to a customer or employee.

Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice said, “The Catholic vote is like a jump ball in basketball—every election it comes into play and both parties try to claim it as their own. As it represents 25 percent of the electorate, considerable effort goes into trying to determine which team will grab it. However, as this new poll shows what we’ve always known: Catholics are concerned with social justice and compassion and do not vote with the bishops, no matter how much the bishops try to project their own beliefs onto this section of the electorate.”

The poll was conducted before the vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, where the two squared off on religious liberty and abortion, but in a statement released after the debate Catholics for Choice said, “Catholics act according to their own conscience and they do not stand with the Catholic hierarchy on abortion, access to healthcare or the rise of religious refusals backed by the bishops, and similarly do not think they nor Catholic politicians have an obligation to vote according to the Bishops. In fact, Senator Tim Kaine said it was not the role of a public servant to mandate their faith through government, and on fundamental issues of morality, like abortion, we should let women make those decisions.”

Rhode Island is routinely said to be the most Catholic of the United States.

Seemingly in response to critics, like Rhode Island Senator Donna Nesselbush, who took issue with the recent firing of Michael Templeton, the Music Director at the Church of St. Mary in Providence due to his same-sex marriage, Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese has written a short defense of sorts. In his piece, Tobin disputes the idea that Pope Francis is somehow softening the church’s approach to non-heterosexuality.

Tobin doesn’t defend the church’s position of intolerance to homosexuality but instead seeks to demonstrate that Pope Francis can not be differentiated from the church’s anti-gay agenda.

“When Church leaders have to respond to situations involving persons living an openly ‘gay lifestyle’ these days, we’re often scolded and told that we should be ‘more like Pope Francis,’ presumably the ‘Who-am-I-to judge’ Pope Francis,” writes Tobin, before listing four examples of the Pope actively not “gently advancing” the cause of gay rights and gay marriage:

• “Perhaps those critics should also remember the Pope Francis who said that same-sex marriage is destructive of families and is the work of the devil.
• “And the Pope Francis who has now supported the Mexican Bishops’ campaign to oppose gay marriage in their country.
• “And the Pope Francis who rejected the nomination of the Ambassador from France because the Ambassador is openly gay.
• “And the Pope Francis whose administration immediately fired and disciplined a priest who was working in the Vatican upon learning that the priest was gay and involved in a relationship.

“It seems to me, then,” concludes Tobin, “that when we uphold the faith and teachings of the Church about homosexuality, we are indeed a lot like Pope Francis.”

Rhode Island State Senator Donna Nesselbush released a statement in response to the recent firing of Michael Templeton, the Music Director at the Church of St. Mary in Providence due to his same-sex marriage. Nesselbush was instrumental in getting marriage equality passed in the Senate.

“Sponsoring the marriage equality legislation in the Senate will always be my most cherished accomplishment in the Rhode Island Senate. I grew up staunchly Catholic, attending eight years of Catholic school at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. My father did not go to church every Sunday; he went every single day. Although Catholicism is in my bones and I will always be a Catholic at heart, I stopped going to church years ago after I realized I was gay. I never wanted to cause a problem, embarrass my family or the church and religion I love,” said Senator Nesselbush.

“The time, however, has come for me to speak out about the Catholic Church’s flawed view of gay marriage. The Church persists in placing ‘form over substance.’ I always say, we Christians should worry more about the quality of our love, rather than the gender of the person we love. I hear Pope Francis gently advancing this cause when he repeats the words of Jesus: ‘Who am I (the Pope) to judge,’ paraphrasing the well-known…’judge not lest we be judged.’ Interestingly, the parishioners at Saint Mary’s seem also to be upset, crying out for justice for their beloved music director, as I suspect most Catholics are. If the church stays true to the real teachings of Jesus, the answers are right there. Love is love, and love is all we need, not the Church’s rules and regulations that actually, ironically, belie Christianity,” added Senator Nesselbush.

In an excellent break-down of the story, Bob Shine of New Ways Ministry wrote, “The Diocese of Providence took over the administration of the parish from the Franciscan Friars two years ago. The administrative shift means the parish is now overseen more directly by Bishop Thomas Tobin, who has a very LGBT-negative record.”

This story will be updated if Tobin responds to a request for comment.

Who among us has never asked for help? Who among us is so self-sufficient that they have never relied on the kindness of strangers? And when we ask for help, or lean on our friends, family or even strangers for support, have we given up our dignity, or are we simply demonstrating our humanity? What, after all, is more human than relying on our greatest strength, each other?

“There is nothing dignified about standing on street corners, or venturing into the middle of the street, dressed in dirty, shabby clothes, in all sorts of weather, with a crude cardboard sign, begging passersby for help,” wrote Bishop Thomas Tobin in a letter to the Providence Journal last week, but he was wrong. Dignity, the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect, is, by Catholic principle, “inherent and inviolable.” Human dignity has been called the “cornerstone of all Catholic social teaching.”

Humanists affirm the dignity of every human being. A cornerstone Humanist document is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 1 states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” No distinction is made in the declaration based on class or property.

I’ll avoid the sexist term “brotherhood” (the Declaration was written in 1948 after all) and call it our “spirit of kinship.” This idea, that we are one large human family, reminds us to rely on each other when things go wrong in our lives. Our kinship is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and without it, our society and our lives fracture.

Through this fracturing, people end up on the street, homeless, hungry and alone with their demons. The truth of human dignity means that it should not be the responsibility of the downtrodden to ask for our help. Our own human dignity requires us to offer it.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also affirms the human right to expression, the human right to freely move within our cities and as a consequence, affirms our right to ask for assistance.

“The problems [associated with panhandling] have spread since Mayor Jorge Elorza, responding to the threat of action from the American Civil Liberties Union and others, directed that the police should no longer enforce ordinances dealing with panhandling and loitering,” said Tobin in his letter. “The ACLU, while presumably well-intentioned, has done no one a favor.”

In defending the human and constitutional rights of panhandlers, the ACLU respected human dignity in a way Bishop Tobin seems unprepared to do. The “favor” the ACLU did was to remind us that rather than sweeping people in need out of sight, it is far better to provide the things they need to live their lives comfortably.

Some religious leaders understand this, but many others don’t get it, even as they wonder why their moral authority is crumbling.

TD Bank

At issue is the Dakota Access Pipeline currently under construction from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota to Peoria, Illinois. DAPL is slated to cross Lakota Treaty Territory at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation where it would be laid underneath the Missouri River, the longest river on the continent.

Organizers contend that construction of the DAPL “would engender a renewed fracking-frenzy in the Bakken shale region, as well as endanger a source of fresh water for the Standing Rock Sioux and 8 million people living downstream. DAPL would also impact many sites that are sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and other indigenous nations.”

Thousands have gathered to stand against the pipeline in North Dakota, and President Obama has temporarily halted construction, but the fight will continue.

Democracy Now! has provided excellent, in depth coverage of the resistance for those who want to catch up on this important and developing story.

The protest outside TD Bank, organized by the FANG Collective, was entirely peaceful, with dozens of environmental and indigenous American activists bearing signs and leafleting passersby. The crowd grew to take over all four corners at Westminster and Dorrance.

Below is the full video of those who spoke at the event, followed by photos:

Coincidentally, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump came to Minneapolis MN on the same day I made my first visit to the city. This turned a day that I had planned to spend sightseeing into a day of traveling to three different anti-Trump events.

“Trump’s rhetoric is creating an unsafe environment for the Muslim community, for the Somali-American community, and we have seen an increase in Islamaphobia and anti-Muslim efforts across the state of Minnesota,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations- Minnesota (CAIR-MN), “We have seen, just a few weeks ago, an incident involving five young Muslim men who were shot… we believe that incident is a hate crime.”

Hussein believes that Trump’s extremist rhetoric is creating a hostile, unsafe environment for Muslim Americans and immigrants, and the effects are being felt by the most vulnerable.

Hussein introduced 13-year old Yusuf Dayur who has been experiencing bullying in his school because he is a Muslim. Hussein suggested that Dayur might one day be president. Though Dayur’s school is very proactive in providing Dayur time and space in which to pray, some of his fellow students do not trust him because he is a Muslim. Dayur bravely fought back tears as he described the difficulties he faces.

Jaylani Hussein’s full comments:

After the press conference I headed across town to the Minnesota State Republican Offices where Cosecha Minnesota was holding a “Wall Off Trump” event. Cosecha is “a nonviolent decentralized movement that is focused on activating our immigrant community and the public to guarantee permanent and humane protection for immigrants in this country.”

Estaphania and another woman explained that their protest, in which they painted a wall, like the one Trump is promising on the Texas-Mexico border, is meant to draw attention to Trump’s extremist rhetoric that threatens the health and safety of immigrant Americans.

My last stop was at the Minneapolis Convention Center, where people representing virtually everyone Trump has ever publicly maligned, including immigrants, black Americans, members of the LGBTQ community, women, Muslims, indigenous Americans and more, gathered together to denounce Trump ahead of his visit to a large donor rally.

This protest was organized by MIRAc, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, a group that, “fights for legalization for all, an end to immigration raids & deportations, an end to all anti-immigrant laws, and full equality in all areas of life.”

Trump did not make a public appearance in Minnesota, or even speak to the press. He spoke to donors only at the Convention Center. But his very presence in the city was enough to galvanize this group to come out to speak, sing, dance and chant their opposition to Trump being president.

According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, after this event, as Trump donors left the convention center, they were confronted by angry demonstrators. “The demonstrators who harassed donors were not present earlier on, when the protest was peaceful. Many in the later group hid their faces behind scarves,” writes reporter Patrick Condon, “Minneapolis police spokeswoman Sgt. Catherine Michal said there were no arrests and no reported injuries. There was, however, minor damage, including graffiti on the walls of the Convention Center, and officers had to escort Trump supporters in and out of the lobby because they were being harshly confronted, Michal said.”

Below are the rest of the pictures and video from the three events.

Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham, is coming to the south steps of the Rhode Island State House on August 31 at noon, to preach his message of anti-LGBTQ, anti-Islam, pro-theocracy intolerance. Graham is visiting Rhode Island as part of a 50-state tour.  “I’m going to every state in our country,” says Graham on his website, “to challenge Christians to live out their faith at home, in public and at the ballot box—and I will share the Gospel.”

Graham’s gospel includes the demonization of those who don’t subscribe to his narrow, biblical world view. Graham “and his pals,” writes Rob Boston, director of communications at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, “lost the marriage equality case at the U.S. Supreme Court, but they didn’t let that slow them down. Almost immediately, they started attacking the transgender community.”

Graham’s tour is timed to have maximum impact on the coming presidential election, even as he tries to pretend that his message somehow transcends politics. “I am running a campaign, but I am running a campaign for God,” says Graham on his 50-state tour website. His message isn’t one of unity and peace, it’s one built on the familiar right-wing tropes of hate and fear.

“The secularists, the progressives, many of these people, most of them are people that would be atheistic, and we have taken God out of our country,” said Graham during his Facebook live prayer event, scheduled before the start of the Republican National Convention, “We have taken Him out of our nation; we have taken Him out of our government. We have taken Him out of the education system, and our country is beginning to implode. We’re on the precipice of anarchy.”

Graham reserves his most vile verbal venom for members of the LGBTQ community. “I want the school boards of America in the hands of evangelical Christians within the next four to six years,” said Graham to Fox News’ Todd Starnes, “And it can happen and that will have a huge impact because so many school districts now are controlled by wicked, evil people, and the gays and lesbians, and I keep bringing their name up, but they are at the forefront of this attack against Christianity in America.”

Franklin went to Russia in 2015 to praise “President Vladimir Putin’s protection of ‘traditional Christianity,’ including the passage of the 2013 ‘gay propaganda’ law that effectively criminalizes pro-gay-rights speech and advocacy.”

While in Russia, Graham didn’t miss his chance to put down the country of his birth. “[T]he situation in the US regarding religion is in decline. Secularism, which is almost no different from communism, is an atheistic movement. Our country is becoming more and more secular, more atheist, taking God out of government, taking God out of schools. We are witnessing America losing many religious freedoms. In your country over the past 30 years, we have seen positive changes. But over this same period of time in the US, the changes have been negative.”

If you’re not convinced that Franklin Graham is a monster, consider that he called the “first national monument to the gay rights movement near the site of the Stonewall protests in New York City” an “Unbelievable… monument to sin,” adding, “It’s no surprise that the three officials who represent the area and support the monument are all openly gay.”

Consider that Graham told a capacity crowd in Alabama that the idea of separating church and state is “just a lie that the enemy uses to try to keep your mouth shut.”

Consider that he lead the effort to boycott Girl Scout cookies because of the group’s acceptance of lesbian, bisexual, queer and transgender youth, saying, he “won’t be buying any Girl Scout cookies this year.”

Then there’s Graham’s anti-Islam rants, a featured part of his public comments and sermons since 9/11. In the aftermath of the attacks, writes William Alberts in Counterpunch, Graham called Islam a “very wicked and evil religion.” In the same Counterpunch piece Alberts wrote:

Rev. Graham’s glorification of his brand of Christianity depends on him condemning Islam as a “violent form of faith,” which led him to do violence to Islam with this glaring lie: “‘Nowhere in its history gives proof of peace (italics added).’” He continued, “‘Islam itself has not changed at all in 1500 years . . . It is the same. It is a religion of war.’” He cited the Islamic State, the Taliban and Boko Haram, and concluded, “This is Islam. It has not been hijacked by radicals. This is the faith, this is the religion. It is what it is. It speaks for itself.”

In Rhode Island, the LGBTQ and Muslim communities have united against hate and violence, especially in the wake of the Orlando shootings. When a mosque was vandalized in North Kingstown, members of the LGBTQ community attended an interfaith vigil in support.

Franklin Graham is visiting a state that was founded on principles diametrically opposed to his brand of intolerance, fear and stupidity. I am confident he will not find fertile ground for his bigotry in the state founded by Roger Williams.

The Nuns arrived at St. Michael’s Church in South Providence to the music of the Extraordinary Rendition Band and St. Michael’s own drummers.

During the discussions the Nuns learned about the obscene child poverty rates in Rhode Island, the criminality and disconnect of many of our elected leaders and our state’s support for the fossil fuel industry and the environmental racism such support entails. The meeting filled the basement of St. Michael’s.

From Providence the Nuns headed to Hartford, Scranton and Newark before arriving in Philly on  July 26. You can follow their progress here.

“In one sense this incident is an isolated incident,” Rev. Don Anderson, the executive director of the Rhode Island Council of Churches who organized the vigil, told the crowd of well more than 100 people who came to be with the members of the Masjid al Hoda mosque Saturday.

“But we also need to understand that this happened in a context,” Anderson continued. “It took place in a context where there is irresponsible, hateful speech in our country. It is being applauded by many of our fellow citizens and it demands that we make a statement and stand up together.”

The isolated incident in question was an attack on the Muslim Community Center of Kingston, near the University of Rhode Island campus, Thursday night. A vandal broke windows in the mosque and spray painted “Muhammad prophet of butchers” on an outside wall. The context is Trump and other prominent Republicans who foment religious persecution by calling for new rules and regulations to monitor Muslims in America.

“When someone says that all Muslims should be banned from American shores, even temporarily, it hurts us all,” Anderson said. “When someone suggests that unconstitutional, anti-American suggestion that every American Muslim has to take a faith test, that is absolutely and positively wrong and we must stand together and acknowledge that and help people to understand that we don’t believe that. We do not believe that is the America that we want to live in. and we need to say that long and loud.”

Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has called for Muslims to be temporarily prevented from entering the United States. Gingrich, on Friday, said Muslim Americans should be subject to deportation based on a faith test. While Anderson didn’t name Trump or Gingrich specifically, other religious leaders did.

“The hatred and the animosity that is being spewed by … I can’t even describe them as leaders,” said a dismayed Iman Farid Ansari, a well-respected leader in the local Muslim community. “For Newt Gingrich to even suggest that there’s a test… What is it about freedom of religion that he doesn’t understand?”

Ansari put US Attorney Peter Neronha, who also spoke at the vigil, on the spot about Gingrich’s call for a religious test for Muslim Americans, an idea that was widely panned as both unconstitutional and un-American. “Our US Attorney is here,” Ansari said, motioning to Neronha, who was seated nearby. “Don’t you think it’s against the constitution? I think it is.” Neronha laughed along with the crowd, but didn’t otherwise offer a legal opinion.

Neronha’s office sometimes investigates vandalism against religious institutions. He said they are helping South Kingstown Police investigate the Kingston incident. About a similar hate crime against a Muslim school in West Warwick two years ago, Neronha said, “We’re still working on the incident at the Islamic school and there is promise in that investigation. I’m convinced we will bring that person to justice.”

Neither Neronha nor Congressman Jim Langevin followed the theme of putting some blame for local violence on national political figures. Of the three secular speakers at Saturday’s event, University of Rhode Island President David Dooley came closest to putting the local incident into a global perspective.

“It does seem, and in real ways it is true, that we face unprecedented times,” Dooley said. “The challenges, the diversity of those challenges, the magnitude of those challenges, is perhaps greater than it has ever been. But I think we can take some comfort, at least I hope we can, in the recognition that in many respects the hatred that we fight today has long been with us, and we have defeated it in the past.”

While the secular speakers shied away from being overtly political, the religious leaders did not. A Muslim, a Christian and a Jew each parsed the vandalism against the Kingston mosque as a symptom of the national dialogue.

“To think that a man running for president could promote and exacerbate policies of hatred, fear and suspicion is just simply unbelievable for all of us,” said Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman.

He implored people to follow the example of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who denounced Donald Trump earlier this week in spite of the tradition that justices remain apolitical.

“Don’t be shy,” Voss-Altman said. “Stand up, speak out. We will stand together to oppose hatred, and division, and fear. We do so today, we do so tomorrow, we do so on November 8 and then we continue to do so.”