SOURCE: AP/Ross D. Franklin

More than 50 anti-gun activists rally outside Sen. Jeff Flake's (R-AZ) office in Phoenix chanting "Shame on Flake" after he voted against universal background checks on gun purchasers in a recent bill on Friday, April 19, 2013.

It’s time to bring back public shaming. I’m not saying that we should throw people in the stocks and humiliate them in the public square, but we should force the senators who voted last week against sensible measures to reduce gun violence to answer for their vote.

It’s long past time to amplify how cowardly and antidemocratic their votes were—how irresponsible to their office, insulting to those killed and injured by gun violence, and craven to a cadre of gun-industry lobbyists, whose extreme opposition to common-sense gun laws contrasts with the 88 percent of gun owners in this country who support universal background checks.

The good news, however, is that the public shaming has begun. In a fierce and eloquent column in The New York Times the day after the Senate vote, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), one of the survivors of the January 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, wrote:

Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them. …

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

When the Senate voted last Wednesday, a group of gun-violence survivors was watching from the gallery. “Shame on you!” shouted two of the survivors right after a bipartisan amendment to expand background checks was defeated. The outburst came from Patricia Maisch, who had disarmed the shooter in the Tucson killing spree, and from Lori Haas, the mother of a young woman who had been wounded in the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007. Both women are now advocates for effective gun regulation, and their impassioned outcry reflected the frustration and anger of many Americans.

The next morning Joe Scarborough heaped more shame on the senators during his TV show “Morning Joe.” “This sort of extremism is going to be called out by the 90 percent,” Scarborough said, referring to the 90 percent of Americans who support universal background checks. “We’re the 90 percent, and we are going to win. This is just the first battle.”

Later in the day President Barack Obama criticized the senators who had voted against the gun measures for putting politics ahead of the needs of the American people. “All in all, this is a pretty shameful day in Washington,” President Obama said.

Yet despite the loss in the Senate, advocates are determined to press on. They know that their efforts are a marathon, not a sprint—that they need to maintain pressure on elected officials and keep the issue of gun violence front and center in the public eye.

The No More Names project is one way of doing that. The broad-based coalition is raising public awareness about gun violence through social media, information kits, education campaigns, and more. The coalition is also increasing public support for sensible legislation through a variety of efforts, including petition drives, citizen lobbying, and faith advocacy. In addition, the project sponsors public readings of the names of those killed by gun violence since the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut; in fact, a reading was held outside the Capitol before, during, and after the Senate vote last week. More readings with new names are being planned. In addition, groups such as Lifelines to Healing and Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence are mobilizing thousands of Americans across the country to keep applying the pressure.

Gun-industry lobbyists are hoping these efforts will fail. They are hoping that Americans will have a short attention span and will soon go back to “business as usual” so that these lobbyists can continue to strong-arm elected officials with threats of losing elections and promises of financial support if they vote against even modest measures to prevent gun violence.

But this time is different. “Enough is enough,” said the Very Rev. Gary Hall in a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral just days after the Sandy Hook shooting. “Everyone in this city seems to live in terror of the gun lobby. But I believe that the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby, especially when we stand together as people of all faiths across the religious landscape of America.”

Hall is reiterating an age-old truth: In the end, money power is no match for moral power and people power. At some point the gun lobby will lose. As we pull back the curtain on its undemocratic tricks and expose its undue influence, the public will rise up and vote out of office those lawmakers under its sway.

“Shame on you” was the refrain these past several days. It offered much-needed clarity to a debate that too often gets bogged down in technicalities and unnecessary obfuscation. In their efforts in the days ahead, advocates should turn that three-word refrain into a loud and sustained chorus.

Sally Steenland is Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Steenland, a best-selling author, former newspaper columnist, and teacher, explores the role of religion and values in the public sphere.

SOURCE: AP/John Raoux

Rev. Joel Hunter is pictured in the sanctuary of the Northland, a church in Longwood, Florida.

I recently listened to a fascinating conversation about obedience. It began with two provocative questions: Is it more important for a child to be creative or well-behaved? And is self-reliance or obedience more important in a child?

The questioner was Simon Greer, head of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and host of a new Internet video series, “Summits on Tenth,” which the foundation launched to “provoke and disrupt conventional thinking on pressing contemporary issues.” The first episode focused on “evangelicals building a just America” and featured Rev. Joel C. Hunter and Pastor Michael McBride.

In posing his questions, Greer noted that in a recent poll evangelicals were 14 percent more likely than other respondents to value obedience over self-reliance and good behavior over creativity in their children. Both Hunter and McBride are evangelicals. Hunter is white and in his sixties, while McBride is African American and a generation younger.

Greer asked both men why evangelicals place so much importance on obedience. Hunter answered with an example: Learning something new—such as ice skating—takes discipline. You have to practice many times over before you can develop the freedom to be creative.

It was a smart response—not “either-or” but “both-and.” First comes discipline, structure, and practice. That grounding is essential in developing the tools to be creative and the self-confidence and skills needed to be self-reliant. This is true for ice skating and just about any creative endeavor. If you want to be a novelist, for instance, you first need to master dialogue, setting, plot, character development, and more. You must do the necessary preliminary work before you can take off and soar.

Rev. Hunter resisted a forced choice. He praised self-confidence and good decision-making skills and also emphasized the importance of obedience. It is “a big deal” for evangelicals, he said, because there’s a connection between a child obeying her parents and learning to obey God.

Greer then turned to Pastor McBride and asked: “If you had to choose—creativity or obedience?”

McBride thought for a moment. Then he said, “In March of 1999 I was beat up by two white police officers because they felt I was not being ‘obedient’ enough. Now, I felt like I was being obedient. But the way they saw the world, and me in their world, created a fear and reaction to my actions that caused me harm.”

McBride said he has lived with that experience ever since, as do many people of color who have been victims of police violence. That attack affects how he responds to a question about obedience or creativity, and it makes him think of his four-year-old daughter, who is “super-creative, bold, and audacious.” McBride said he worries that when his little girl goes to school, her creativity and audacity might be seen as disruptive and a threat to the learning environment. The teacher might not see a curious bubbly child but instead a girl who is not “obedient” enough.

McBride leaned forward in his chair and said the question reminded him of conversations he had growing up when his father would instruct him how to act around certain types of people. Those carefully taught behaviors were very different from how he acted when he was with people who loved and cared for him and meant him no harm.

Greer responded, “So obedience might actually be a valuable survival strategy—not against creativity but essential or you don’t get a chance.”

McBride nodded in agreement. He then expanded beyond himself and his family to advise all of us to engage in conversations that go deeper than polling questions and to get out of our own parochial views. McBride urged us to understand the differences that surround us in this world and to get to know those whose realities are unlike our own. He pressed us to be allies of people who are under-represented in the political process and are objects, rather than co-creators, of policies that affect them. McBride argued that we need to make sure that all God’s children can engage and participate in the issues that affect them and can make their voices heard.

It was a memorable discussion. I was grateful for Rev. Hunter’s “both-and” response and was profoundly moved by Pastor McBride’s life story. Good conversations are like that: They prod deep places in our heart, evoke insight and self-understanding, and connect us with lives unlike our own.

Sally Steenland is Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Steenland, a best-selling author, former newspaper columnist, and teacher, explores the role of religion and values in the public sphere.

SOURCE: AP/Toby Talbot

Two elementary school students enjoy lunch at the Thatcher Brook Elementary School in Waterbury, Vermont. The U.S. Department of Agriculture often partners with local groups to make sure children from low-income families get enough to eat.

The overarching impact of Americans’ tax dollars on various government programs is impressive. During fiscal year 2012, for example, 46.6 million people in need received food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and 31.6 million children received no-cost school lunches from the National School Lunch Program. Between 2007 and 2011 the Federal Highway Administration built 21,664 bridges in cities and towns across America. More than 20,000 employees of the National Parks Service cared for our 401 national parks and 49 heritage areas, which serve and educate more than 275 million visitors every year.

These numbers show our government at work. They often do not, however, show how our tax dollars allow the government to partner with civic and faith-based groups to provide vital financial support and technical assistance. These groups work on a range of efforts to strengthen our communities and improve the lives of Americans across our nation.

As we work toward a more just, equal, and progressive society, we should take note of these partnerships in order to see the real impact of our tax dollars. Here are just a few of the stories that deserve mention on Tax Day:

• Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley operates a summer free-lunch program for children under the age of 18 in three southern Texas counties through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program. Last summer they provided 67,507 meals at 64 sites to mostly elementary school children.
• The nonprofit Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc., trained local people in low-income rural areas across Alaska to weatherize their homes with assistance from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act Supplemental Funding for Weatherization Assistance to Low-Income Persons. Weatherization can save families up to 50 percent on their energy bills while also creating local jobs. In 2011, 259 Alaskans were hired and trained locally for this program; they weatherized 488 homes, the majority of which were in rural areas.
• Just days after Hurricane Sandy last October, 7,400 National Guardsmen and women assisted first responders and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, by working at evacuation shelters, delivering essential supplies, participating in search-and-rescue efforts, helping to run shelters, and providing security for areas hit by the storm.
• The Welfare Reform Liaison Project, a faith-based organization that provides workforce preparation and training in Guildford County, North Carolina, served 275 displaced workers last year through a Community Services Block Grant. The project trained workers in digital imaging, enabling them to fill in-demand jobs in the area; in 2012 the project helped 95 people enter new jobs and six people gain better employment.
• The Southeastern Idaho Community Action Agency, with assistance from the federal Retired Senior Volunteer Program, or RSVP, trains and organizes retirees in Pocatello, Idaho, to serve their local communities as active volunteers at the town’s visitor center. The seniors also work as mentors and GED tutors to at-risk children. In 2011 nearly 500 volunteers donated more than 58,000 hours to school districts, police departments, local hospitals, and nonprofits in seven counties in southeastern Idaho.
• Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North and South Dakota received funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development’s Rural Utilities Service to repair and expand their sewage-treatment system based on the community’s own proposed plan. The new system will improve public health for more than 6,000 people living on the reservation.
• In Cody, Nebraska, high school students and community members received funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to help the 150-person village build its first grocery store, which will open this year. As part of an entrepreneurial education program with the school district, students are learning important business and management skills and practical job skills, such as stocking shelves and managing food orders, with support from local educators and businesspeople.
• The Internal Revenue Service’s, or IRS, outreach division runs the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, which works in partnership with community organizations—especially in lower-income areas—to help taxpayers file their taxes and to give them information about specific tax policies, such as the earned income tax credit, or EITC. In 2012 faith-based partners sponsored 900 free tax-preparation sites staffed with 8,500 volunteers. Taxpayers who were served at faith-based sites received approximately $50 million in EITC refunds.

This Tax Day, it is important to understand the various ways in which community and faith-based groups in our hometowns are working with federal and state agencies to implement projects for the common good. Our tax dollars are improving the lives of many Americans nationwide.

Emily Baxter is the Special Assistant for the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Eleni Towns is a Research Associate with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative. For more on this initiative, please see its project page.

SOURCE: AP/Carolyn Kaster

Gabriela Fore, 6, of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, holds a sign with her moms in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, March 27, 2013 as the court heard arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act.

The connection between marriage equality and cell phones is not immediately apparent, but Justice Samuel Alito made the link during a Supreme Court argument on California’s Proposition 8 last month.

As Justice Alito said to Solicitor General of the United States Donald Verrilli:

Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new. There isn’t a lot of data about its effect. And it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing, as the supporters of Proposition 8 apparently believe. But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?

From his line of questioning, Justice Alito clearly seemed worried about replacing a venerable institution with a “newfangled” one that could turn out to be bad for society. And he wasn’t the only one with concerns. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for many Catholic leaders when he insists that marriage between a man and a woman is God’s intention for humankind. The Mormon Church holds a similar view, as do thousands of evangelicals and Orthodox rabbis. Even some young conservatives, unlike most of their contemporaries, are standing up for their belief that “traditional marriage” is inherently natural and good.

But here’s the problem: The notion of traditional marriage that these conservatives are so vigorously defending is not historically accurate. Pundit Bill Kristol recently fell into this trap when he complained that supporters of marriage equality want to overthrow “thousands of years of history and what the great religions teach” about marriage.

In actuality, traditional marriage—as it existed centuries ago—is not worth defending.

Let’s start with concubines—also known as mistresses—who were owned by husbands in ancient cultures and are mentioned without disapproval throughout the Hebrew Bible. Then there’s the practice of polygamy, which was the norm in biblical times. Back then, tradition forced rape victims to marry their rapist. Tradition also called for victorious soldiers to make female war prisoners their wives and concubines.

In the Middle Ages, marriages were arranged for political and financial reasons, and girls could be forced to marry when they were as young as 12 years old. British Common Law held a man to be “lord and master” of his wife who was subject to “domestic chastisement.” Wife beating was legal and common in England until the late 1800s.

In colonial America, wife beating was illegal, but marriage equaled patriarchy. A wife had no legal rights or existence apart from her husband. Any money or property she inherited belonged to him. Their children were his as well. Wife abuse was not uncommon.

In 1864 a North Carolina court heard the case of a woman abused by her husband because she had called him names. The court ruled that:

A husband is responsible for the acts of his wife, and he is required to govern his household, and for that purpose the law permits him to use towards his wife such a degree of force as is necessary to control an unruly temper and make her behave herself; and unless some permanent injury be inflicted, or there be an excess of violence, or such a degree of cruelty as shows that it is inflicted to gratify his own bad passions, the law will not invade the domestic forum, or go behind the curtain.

It wasn’t until the 20th century—when women fought for and won the right to vote, to sign contracts on their own, to obtain financial credit, to have access to contraception, and more—that these earlier notions of traditional marriage began to crumble, and something resembling the institution we recognize today began to emerge.

But each of the advances for women’s equality was fought by forces that considered them an invasion of the sacred private realm of the home and an assault on the family. Even so, these advances became part of law and culture and are now the norm. In fact, they are embedded in the institution that conservatives are now so fiercely defending.

Marriage has always been dynamic. For the most part, its evolution has been positive. Marriage today is far more mutually supportive, egalitarian, and secure for children than it was centuries ago. Take heart, conservatives. The institution of marriage does change and adapt over the years, and that is what makes it endure.

Sally Steenland is Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Steenland, a best-selling author, former newspaper columnist, and teacher, explores the role of religion and values in the public sphere.

This interview is part of a podcast series on faith and reproductive justice, a project of CAP’s Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative. The project aims to strengthen the leadership and increase the visibility of faith-based advocates who work on women’s reproductive health and rights. You can learn more about this project here.

Sally Steenland: My name is Sally Steenland and I direct the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative here at the Center for American Progress. With me today is Rabbi Dennis Ross. He is a religious advocate and congregational rabbi, serving Congregation Beth Emeth in Albany, New York. Rabbi Ross is also the director of Concerned Clergy for Choice, a nationally recognized multifaith network of religious leaders supporting reproductive rights.

Rabbi Ross frequently appears in the media and has written for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Jewish Daily Forward, and other outlets. His most recent book is All Politics Is Religious: Speaking Faith to the Media, Policy Makers and Community. Rabbi Ross has taught at Hebrew Union College, Manhattanville College, Williams College, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he taught biomedical ethics.

Welcome, Rabbi Ross—we’re glad you’re with us today.

Rabbi Dennis Ross: Thank you so much for those generous words of introduction.

SS: Let’s start with your most recent book, All Politics Is Religious: Speaking Faith to the Media, Policy Makers and Community. In the book you say that faith helps us uphold a vision for a better world and we should talk about faith in the public square. At the same time, we should keep church and state separate. How do we do that?

DR: That’s a really big question. But everyone who lives in this country has a right—really, a responsibility—to make their beliefs known with policymakers and the community. We don’t lose that right just because we’re religious. And at the same time we can have separation of church and state.

SS: You’re saying that separation of church and state means you are allowed and even obligated, as you say, to bring your religious beliefs and argue them in the public square. I have had conservatives say to me, “There’s a real double standard here. Progressive faith leaders say it’s fine when people bring their faith into politics when it comes to protecting the environment or a woman’s right to choose. We really like that. But when conservatives lobby to protect unborn life or say they’re working for family values and it is a political agenda we don’t like, then we say, ‘Oh, you’re not allowed to do that.’” Is it a double standard or is there a difference?

DR: That’s a great question. It’s one that I get asked a lot and I say that when it comes to abortion rights, there is a big difference between what I am asking for versus what opponents of abortion are asking for. They’re asking for their religious restriction to be imposed on the whole country. They’re saying it is wrong in their faith and, therefore, no one else should be allowed to have it.

My argument is that when it comes to religious restrictions, we have to keep church and state separate. We need laws and policies that allow, in this case, a woman to make her own personal, private decision about her pregnancy. Whether to raise a child, whether to opt for adoption, whether to end her pregnancy—she should be protected as she makes that personal decision. And for many women it’s a religious or spiritual decision. She’s entitled to religious liberty, to privacy; her needs come first.

As opposed to abortion opponents who are calling for their beliefs to be enshrined or codified as law, I am calling for each one of us to have the personal, private religious freedom that we are entitled to in our lives. So that’s the first very big difference.

The second major difference is that many opponents of abortion simply point to their religious teaching and say, “It’s forbidden,” and assume that’s the final word. Whereas in my denomination and many other denominations, we make our feelings known—and this goes back to your first question—and at the same time we expect policymakers to take other factors into consideration. What is the public health need? What does science show? So there are two very big differences, for starters, between what I am saying and what people that disagree with me are saying.

SS: It sounds as if one thing you are saying is that in a pluralistic democracy, everyone has the right to argue their case. You can go on TV, you can preach, stand on a soapbox, take out ads in the newspaper—that’s free speech. But there is a difference when it comes to codifying your particular theology into law. Then it becomes a legal matter and you’re forcing everybody, whether or not their conscience tells them to do something else, to follow that law.

DR: That’s what I am saying. I work in New York state and when our state legislature ratified marriage equality, we were in the halls lobbying and so were the opponents. The opponents started shouting, “God says NO!” So what are we going to say? “We believe God says yes!” So it became a shouting match.

What you had here was a very clear religious disagreement. What they wanted the state to do was walk in and referee what was essentially a religious dispute and declare one religion the winner. Now the state didn’t do that. Instead what we have is a law that says those religions that don’t want marriage equality or see something wrong with it don’t have to have these ceremonies in their houses of worship. The law protects them. Their clergy don’t have to officiate if they don’t want to.

On the other hand, in my congregation and many other denominations, we say that a same-gender relationship has the potential to become holy, where it reaches for the moral high ground and strengthens our community. Our ceremonies are recognized in the eyes of the state. It’s a law that protects everyone’s religious freedom and safeguards everybody’s religious practice. The state isn’t playing favorites. People can do what they want to do in their own houses of worship and in their private lives. They can act on their conscience and live as they believe. So here you have a situation where the state did right and allows each one of us religious liberty.
SS: I am really glad you pointed that out because to hear some conservatives talk about religious liberty—and it’s an issue that has been in the headlines this past year—and you’d think that religious liberty was hanging by a thread in this country. You’ve just pointed out all of these exemptions—if you’re a house of worship and don’t believe in marrying same-sex couples, or interfaith couples, or intergenerational couples, you don’t have to. Your religious liberty is protected. 

But groups that are not houses of worship are complaining that because of marriage equality laws, or because of the contraceptive mandate in the health care law, their religious liberty is being violated. A religiously affiliated hospital, university, charity, and also for-profit companies where the owner happens to be religious, are saying they don’t want to provide contraception in health care plans for any of their employees. They could have thousands of employees of all different faiths.

DR: I am glad you brought up the birth control provision under the Affordable Care Act, because as folks may know, beginning last summer, insurance companies began covering birth control for women under the Affordable Care Act. And first you want to make clear: No one is getting free birth control. No one is giving out free birth control. The birth control coverage is getting paid for by the women who work and earn it—you know—it’s theirs!

The reality is the person who works and earns the insurance, like they earn their salary and their pension, also earns their insurance coverage for birth control. And again, the Department of Health and Human Services has bent over backward to try to accommodate those religious objections. And I believe they’ve reached a very fair and equitable solution. There are more than 300,000 to 350,000 churches, synagogues, mosques in this country who do not have to include birth control insurance coverage in their employer-sponsored health plan. These religious organizations already are exempt.

What the dust-up is now is hospitals with religious affiliation. They are not the arms of the church; they are nonprofit businesses that hire people from all walks of life and provide secular services to people from all walks of life. These religiously affiliated hospitals are not religious institutions like churches, synagogues, and the like. They hire people from across the religious spectrum, many of them from faiths like mine that recognize the moral good in access to birth control and believe that the needs of the insured woman carry a moral high ground over someone else’s objection. So if she decides she needs basic health care—which is what birth control is—she should be able to get it under her insurance plan without her boss barging in and saying, “Gee, it’s against my religion!”

You know, all we’re asking is for somebody in the human resources department to pass a few pieces of paper across their desk that have the words “birth control” written on it. That doesn’t have the same moral claim as a woman at a pharmacy counter saying, “Can I have my prescription refill?” She’s the one who’s going to need that and it’s none of her bosses’ business. I think the Health and Human Services Department made a wonderful accommodation. I think everybody ought to be satisfied with it and life should move on. I also think that here in New York state, we have a similar kind of policy in terms of insurance coverage for birth control; it’s been on the books for a decade. It works well, it has been tested in the highest court in our state, it stands. There’s a similar provision in California and I hope the Affordable Care Act stands as it does as it works its way through the courts.

SS: I really like what you said about women earning their health insurance, which is absolutely right. Another thing is that nobody is forcing women; this is an option for employees. As you know many women take birth control for medical reasons. Their doctor prescribes it because it reduces their risk of ovarian cancer or they have ovarian cysts. And then what do you do? It’s like bringing your boss a note. It’s horrible to even think of; it sounds very 19th century.

DR: It would roll back the clock in a bad way, by decades and decades.

SS: It sure would. I want to ask you about Concerned Clergy for Choice. Tell us about the group.

DR: I work in New York state where we have a very long history in advocacy for reproductive rights and reproductive advocacy for women and families. The very first birth control clinic in the United States opened up in 1916 in Brooklyn. I hit the Smith College archives and I found a letter from Rabbi Maxwell Silver from the synagogue in Flushing who invited the very first birth-control educators and advocates to speak from the pulpit of his congregation here in New York. That’s in 1921.

Then in 1970 the very first abortion clinic in the country opened in Manhattan, East 73rd Street. So the state has a very strong and wonderful history in advocacy for family-planning services for women and families.

And our work here at Concerned Clergy for Choice—we are a network of 1,000 clergy; we have ministers from Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Unitarian churches, and more. We have rabbis like myself; we have Muslim leaders, and Buddhists—we’re quite a diverse bunch. And right now we are working with advocates here in New York state to enact the Women’s Equality Agenda proposed by Gov. Cuomo. It’s a 10-point agenda that would strengthen protections against human trafficking, help ensure equal pay for women at work, strengthen protections against sexual harassment, and make sure that a woman’s health is protected through her pregnancy, which is a very important need here in New York state.

New York was one of the first states to legalize abortion in 1970. It was a wonderful law in its time but it has to be updated to protect the health of the woman. So that’s what we are working on right now. The governor is very strongly behind it and we are looking forward to seeing the legislation passed and enacted.

SS: Let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute. If somebody said to you, “You’re a man of God. How can you be in favor of a woman killing her baby? How can you be in favor of abortion?” So give me what you say to that.

DR: Well, first of all, it’s a good question and I am not taking a position on abortion. It’s really for the woman to make a decision. We don’t walk in her shoes, we don’t know what her life is like; she’s really the expert in herself. And it’s not for any legislative body or religious leader to barge into her life and tell her, “You have to carry your pregnancy to term.”

Secondly, to my faith and in many faiths, we understand that a pregnancy has a moral standing. However, it’s the woman’s moral standing that’s higher. It’s her decision making, it’s her life, her responsibility to determine her destiny and her future. And making sure that she is able to do that, we make sure she has access to birth control and teens have access to sex education. And we want to make sure that if she and her doctor decide that her pregnancy isn’t right for her, that she should be able to take the steps she needs to take to end it and be able to get safe and legal abortion.

SS: One thing I find often in talking to faith leaders is if you want to say “pro-choice,” it’s because the issue is not theoretical. Often when women are making this decision, they talk to their clergy, to their rabbi, their priest, or their minister. And so faith leaders like yourself hear stories and I think what changes theory into a more complex reality is hearing what some of those real stories are. I think it makes it a lot harder to judge.

DR: Absolutely. You know, to go back to your previous question and move into this one, my faith has a different teaching and many faiths have different teachings about the Bible, about the nature of God, about what happens after we die. And we also have different teachings about intimate life. One faith may have one teaching about abortion; mine has a different one. And you’re right that our teachings are informed by our experiences as pastors to women and families.

I was a number of years ago at a cemetery for a ceremony for an older woman and the son of the deceased pointed to a grave of a woman; she was in her earlier twenties. She died around 1935 or so, and he says, “Rabbi, this was my aunt. She died of a botched abortion.” That shouldn’t happen to a woman. Because her moral standing takes precedence. Her health, her decision making. She comes first in my faith.

SS: It sounds like as you look at this year, you are going to be working hard for the Women’s Equality Agenda to pass. Are there other priorities for you in the coming days? And related to that, some of this work is very challenging, and when you get up in the morning, what gives you energy, what gives hope so that you say, “OK, I am going to go to work today,” and not just turn over and put the covers over your head?

DR: As you know, one of the things that motivated me to write All Politics Is Religious is that we too often hear only one side of the religious spectrum when it comes to intimate life. So it’s really important that our communities hear from everybody and we find that many of our clergy aren’t sure what to say or they need support. And they want to work with others and show that their whole faith and their whole denomination has a certain approach to sex education for teens or access to birth control.

So, I think one of the most important things to me: empowering our clergy with the skills, with the knowledge, with how to use social media, how to talk to the press, how to decide whether or not to take an interview when you get a press call, how to understand all these things that we never really learned in seminary but we knew we need to know. I mean, when I was first ordained and I’d get a call from a reporter, I thought I had to answer that question on the spot. Nobody in the world does that. Even reporters don’t expect you to. So I had a lot to learn, and our clergy also.

We also have a wonderful day of advocacy, Clergy Day, on April 22 in Albany, New York, where religious leaders from across the state will be coming to the state capitol to call for the passing of the Women’s Equality Agenda. And again, this is a bill that keeps church and state separate; it protects religious liberty and it will protect the well-being of all the women and families in New York state.

What gets me out of bed in the morning … you know, I was a congregational rabbi for 25 years and I had written a couple of books; I was a licensed social worker as you mentioned. I taught bioethics. I always saw myself as a congregational rabbi and never imagined myself doing anything else. And I left my congregation in Massachusetts and a few people said, “You should look into this position with Family Planning Advocates and direct Concerned Clergy for Choice and working with Planned Parenthood.” And this was nine years ago.

When I interviewed for the job and was offered it and accepted, I had no idea what I would be doing. And it’s a whole new window of living out the social justice teaching that I was preaching about; seeing how religion plays out in making public policy. Especially here in New York state, there are religious lobbyists in the capitol each day of the week. They are speaking, sharing their beliefs, while trying to impose their beliefs about intimacy onto others who follow different faith teachings. They are advocating for public funding for religious education; they are talking about a host of things that people just don’t know about. And I think it is just getting the word out.

The other thing I found is that our policymakers really want to hear what their constituents think; they want to hear what their clergy think; they want to hear what their faith communities think. They hear much less from the public than you might expect. And most of what they hear is negative. People will call in to complain. One of the most important things I learned here is that when a policymaker does something you like, call up and say thanks. You see them on TV, they need to hear that, they count those calls.

I was giving a speech in Barney Frank’s district—former Congressman Frank’s district. And I said, “You know, you gotta call your congressman and tell them what you think!” And someone said, “Why should I call Barney Frank? He’s perfect on every issue!” It’s because if you count every issue, there may be two dozen, and when he hears from you, he will know which one to put first. You have one guy with a limited staff and he has to prioritize. You’re going to help him and everybody likes to hear a word of thanks. So all this is very important. After all my years as a congregational rabbi, I am now a religious advocate, and I work with a wonderful team here at Family Planning Advocates and I just love the work.

SS: Well, I want to give you a word of thanks because I really appreciate your including women’s reproductive health as a core issue. We know that these are tricky issues to talk about. A lot of people shy away from them or see them as sideline issues and not as important as economic or other issues, when we know they are closely connected. And as you said earlier, religion is a damaged brand among a lot of people because it is perceived as negative and even bigoted. When you’re out there in the public square and you’re connecting these issues, it’s important. You’re a person of faith and that’s really an important thing to do too. So huge thanks from all of us for this good work you are doing.

DR: Thank you.

SS: And thanks for talking with us today.

DR: Thanks for the invitation. I really enjoyed our time together.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sally Steenland is Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. For more on this initiative, please see its project page.