Monthly Archives: July 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, President Trumps nominee for international religious freedom ambassador, describes religious freedom as the choice of what you do with your own soul.

If confirmed, the 60-year-old, two-term Republican governor, former U.S. senator and one-time presidential candidate would be the first politician confirmed as the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Previous ambassadors were religious or nonprofit leaders, and Brownback would follow a rabbi and a Protestant minister.

Religious Freedom is the first freedom, he said in a tweet responding to Trumps announcement. I am honored to serve such an important cause.

Here are five faith facts about this Methodist-turned-Catholic politician:

As senator, he supported the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which also created the ambassadorial post.

During his two terms as governor, his actions on international religious freedom would be minimal, said Rabbi David Saperstein, the most recent international religious freedom ambassador. But Brownbacks support of the State Department office while he was senator, and his efforts to end the South Sudan civil war, were noteworthy, Saperstein said.

Issues of religious freedom were very much at stake in his lead work on the Sudan Peace Act, he said, adding he thinks Brownback will be an effective ambassador-at large.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, at far right, and three bishops attend the religious freedom rally on Feb. 17, 2016, in Topeka, Kan. With Gov. Sam Brownback is, from left, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Bishop Edward J. Weisenburger of Salina, and Bishop Carl A. Kemme, of Wichita. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Joe Bollig/The Leaven.)

Brownback has been a bit of a Christian church hopper. He grew up a Methodist butconverted to Catholicism in 2002.Today he attends Topeka Bible Church, said Teresa Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the nondenominational evangelical church with an average weekly attendance of 1,400.

Sometimes, he rises early for Mass before joining his family at the church, calling the routine, according to author Jeff Sharlet, a great mixture of the feeding.

Sharlets book,The Family, about a secretive Christian group to which Brownback belonged, said the governor was baptized not in a church but in the Catholic Information Center, a Washington chapel run by Opus Dei.

In 2016, he joined a Rally for Religious Freedom alongside Catholic bishops, the lead pastor of Topeka Bible Church and Barronelle Stutzman, a Washington state florist who was sued after she cited her religious beliefs in refusing to create an arrangement for a gay wedding. I have never seen a bigger rally at this statehouse than this one, Brownback told the demonstrators, according to a Catholic diocese website. It is fantastic.

When then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now U.S. energy secretary, invited 49 other governors to attend The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis in Houston in 2011, Brownback was the only other governor who showed up in person. (One other sent a video.)

In 2012, he was criticized by church-state separationists for promoting a ReignDownUSA.com prayer event for which he said, Weve been favored like no nation in history and yet too often weve forgotten God.

The National Association of Evangelicals called Brownback a strong candidate. Faith and Freedom Coalition declared help is on the way after dozens of reports of Christian persecution abroad in the last month alone. Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore noted Brownbacks dealing with AIDS in Africa and advocating on behalf of persecuted religious minorities. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson called him a man of deep personal faith.

The 2016 bill allows religious organizations to establish religious belief as qualification for membership, he said at that time.

The ACLU, reacting to his nomination, said, In Gov. Brownbacks view, religious freedom has meant issuing a license to discriminate against others, especially against LGBT Kansans.

University of Vermont political science professor Peter Henne said a Brownback appointment could change emphasis on LGBTQ issues abroad: If there are countries repressing LGBTQ people for reasons they claim are related to religion, we might not push back on that as much as we would otherwise, he said.

Read more:

5 faith facts about Sam Brownback: Political champion of religious freedom - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

ATLANTA-- How do you define freedom? Gwinnett County teacher Alex Robson is completing a 48-state tour to ask everyday people how they define it.

Robson is asking people what freedom means to them, where they live and how they express freedom. He calls it the "Freedom Summer," and along the way he is collecting note cards - asking people to write how they define the term.

Traveling around his summer school teaching schedule, Robson made it a point to drive to each of the 48 states and 78 cities during the Freedom Summer tour so that he could reach as many people as possible.

Over the last 10 years of Robson's Freedom Cards project, Robson has interviewed celebrities, politicians, and everyday people to see how they define freedom.11Alive reached out to Robson about his Freedom Summer project.

His interview is below:

What is the most powerful story you've heard while collecting the Freedom Cards?

While I was in Kansas, I met a Gold Star Mother who is a mother who lost a child while serving in the military. She and I had quite a connection because I have the same name as her son, Alex. She made his favorite meal and we talked a lot about how for everyday people Alex was a soldier who died in battle and that it was an honorable way to die. To his parents, he wasn't a soldier. He was their son and he never came home. They didn't just sacrifice a soldier; they sacrificed their son. On their Freedom Card, they had a picture of their son and the words "this is the face of freedom."

How do you define freedom?

My definition of freedom is that you can have dreams and you can act on those dreams without people telling you not to. As a teacher, some of my students don't have the same opportunities that other students have. Many of them face obstacles, whether it is socioeconomic or have families that are not able to support them. I believe that being a teacher helps me spread freedom in America.

"All of these stories are connected and interwoven in a complex way," Robson says. "Even though we are inherently different, we are all connected that we get to share the same freedom."

To participate in the Freedom Cards project, send a 3x5 note card to: The Freedom Cards PO Box 606 Atlanta, Georgia 30301

See the original post here:

Defining Freedom: Metro Atlanta teacher completes 48-state tour to find true meaning - WXIA-TV

News & Observer

Freedom Park will be an inspirational addition to Raleigh if it ever gets built News & Observer In Raleigh, once its $5 million price tag has been raised, a design by the Durham office of Perkins+Will for the North Carolina Freedom Park will offer an optimistic take on slavery and the African-American experience here. Slated for a postage-stamp ...

Original post:

Freedom Park will be an inspirational addition to Raleigh if it ever gets built - News & Observer

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE / the national interest July 27, 2017 07/27/2017 10:59 pm By Jonathan Chait Share Photo: Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images

Shortly after 10 p.m., the Senate Republican leadership introduced the Health Care Freedom Act. As advertised, the bill would eliminate the individual mandate, a key underpinning of the exchanges that allow insurance to be made affordable to people too affluent for Medicaid who cant get it through work. But the changes would not end there. States could have more leeway to weaken consumer protections. Health-savings accounts, a tax shelter used by affluent people, would grow. Planned Parenthood would lose federal funding, as would the Centers for Disease Control, whose public health budget would be cut 14 percent.

More detailed analysis is difficult given the time constraints. That is, of course, the point. Since their unexpected election victory forced them to actually write and pass replacements for Obamacare, the Republican proposals have been a series of public-opinion disasters on a scale unseen in the annals of polling. The partys response to the publics disgust has been to conceal its intentions, and the Senate vote is the ultimate expression of that furtive impulse. Mitch McConnells sincere belief is that his plan can only pass if experts and authorities the Congressional Budget Office, insurance actuaries, think tanks cannot inform his members of its likely effects.

A handful of recalcitrant Republican senators called the preliminary outlines of this bill a disaster, and insisted they would vote for it only if the House promised not to pass it into law. Even this absurd condition was not met. House Speaker Paul Ryan released a statement indicating that he would like to go to conference and write a different bill, but pointedly refusing to rule out passing the Senate bill unaltered. Attempts to further clarify his position simply underscored Ryans outright refusal to commit himself to the simple and clear promise not to pass the law.

Republican aides say it is a coin flip whether the House will pass the Senate bill. There really is no cover for senators who vote for this, no room to insist they have been fooled if it passes into law unaltered. Their cooperation in the charade has been given willingly.

The public, on the other hand, has ample grounds for complaint. The Senate is engaged in a mockery of legislating. The Senate vote is a scandal, a crime against the public good.

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Sundays vote to elect a constituent assembly could further undermine the countrys democracy or unleash large-scale political violence.

The socialist nation is in free-fall. The Times Andes bureau chief lets us know whats going on, why, and what might come next.

The first major legislation passed during Trumps presidency will be a bill he opposed and now has no choice but to sign.

A hack forever tainted in Trumps eyes by his one moment of decency.

The nuclear deal was meant to reduce the risk of war. With the president backing away from it, get ready for fireworks.

Its too early to tell whether Democrats have a real shot at winning back the House next year, but a big jump in candidates running is a good sign.

Donald Trump likes having generals around, and he really likes John Kelly. But can a Marine run a White House whose boss loves chaos above all?

Trump tweeted that he is proud of Priebus and all they accomplished.

Please dont be too nice, Trump told police in Long Island.

If the climactic vote on the skinny repeal had gone the other way, the result would have probably been the same: GOP failure, with much time lost.

The U.S. believes the missile used to send a satellite to space could be a precursor to an ICBM.

Brian Kilmeade says the same dumb thing Paul Ryan said a few months ago.

Republicans came within one vote of passing a health-care bill that they wrote over lunch and admitted was a disaster. Thats a national crisis.

Kasich has never bent the knee to Trump. But viable primary challengers to sitting presidents come from the fever swamps, not the sensible center.

Moscow is taking away a vacation home where U.S. diplomats walk their dogs and have cookouts.

Consider the violence the president has done to the structures of American democracy in just the past seven days.

A proposed zoning change to the area near Grand Central is set to remake the neighborhood for decades. But at what cost?

Republicans couldnt come up with a workable health-care plan, so they kept kicking the can down the road. The road finally ended in the Senate today.

An eight-year crusade to destroy universal coverage has failed, and a social achievement endures.

Three Republicans Susan Collins, John McCain, and Lisa Murkowski voted against the bill.

Read the original:

The 'Health Care Freedom Act' Is a Scandal - New York Magazine

GREENSBORO The North Carolina Coaches Association over the weekend announced the East-West All-Star Game coaches for football as well as mens and womens basketball and mens and womens soccer in July 2018.

Freedoms Casey Rogers will serve as West head coach in boys basketball. He will be assisted by Brian Carver of Enka.

Rogers, 37, earned his second N.C. Basketball Coaches Association (NCBCA) District 10 coach of the year honor last season after guiding the Patriots to the NCHSAA 3A West Regionals for the third time in the last four years. Last year, Freedom won 28 games, tied for third-most in program history, despite graduating its top two scorers and starting three underclassmen for much of the year.

Rogers is also a four-time conference coach of the year and was both AP and NCBCA state coach of the year in 2013-14 when he led Freedom to its third state championship.

Rogers, who also enters his sixth year as FHS athletic director, has compiled a 232-79 record in 11 seasons, having led the Patriots to both conference regular-season and tournament titles in three of the last six years.

Other notable 2018 West coaches include Hickorys Barbara Helms (womens basketball, assistant) and Shelbys Lance Ware (football, assistant).

Continued here:

Freedom's Rogers will coach in 2018 East-West Game - Morganton News Herald