In this Issue:

Breaking News: Jo Hudson to be on Larry King tonight
Mind the Gap: The Increasing Economic Divide
Why We Fight: The War on Public Health
Religious Leaders Urge U.S. to Ban Torture

Breaking News:
Jo Hudson to be on Larry King Live Tonight
Rev. Dr. Jo Hudson, H4PJ Board Member, will discuss “God and Gays”

Dallas, Texas – June 15, 2006 – Rev. Dr. Jo Hudson, Rector and Senior Pastor of Cathedral of Hope and Hope for Peace & Justice Board Member, is scheduled to appear tonight, June 15, 2006, on Larry King Live to discuss “God and Gays.” The show airs at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on CNN.

After seeing a USA Today article entitled “God and gays: Churchgoers stand divided” (Tuesday, June 13, 2006) featuring Rev. Dr. Hudson, a producer from Larry King Live called to ask if Rev. Hudson was available to appear on the show to discuss some of the issues raised in the article. “I am excited about this opportunity to represent our community and to articulate the values we represent,” Rev. Dr. Hudson said. “There is room for all people in the family of God, including lesbians and gays.” Other guests scheduled to appear include Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson and fundamentalist pastor Rev. John MacArthur.

Mind the Gap: The Increasing Economic Divide
by Rev. Michael S. Piazza

The phrase “Mind the Gap” has long been a part of the corporate psyche of the residents of London. Some years ago, however, I was at lunch with a rather wealthy woman in Dallas, and our waiter had the phrase “Mind the Gap” on his t-shirt. This woman, who has traveled all over the world, repeatedly thought the shirt referred to the gap in the waiter’s teeth. It was then that I realized that she had never heard the phrase because she had never ridden the Tube, or any other form of mass transit for that matter. This became, for me, a powerful symbol of the growing social and cultural gap in our country fueled by the diminishing middle class.

The gap between the poor and the rich is such that the two no longer speak a common language or share a common reality. Their expectations about government services, taxation and political representation no longer even have shared hopes. Increasingly, the dreams of the social classes are so different that they are becoming mutually exclusive.

In the forward to the book Inequality Matters, Bill Moyers writes, most eloquently:

Some things are worth getting mad about ... The House of Representatives, now a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate, political, and religious right, has approved new tax credits for children. NOT for poor children, but for families earning as much as $309,000 a year—the very families that have already been showered with tax cuts. The editorial page of the Washington Post calls this “bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad fiscal policy. You’d think they’d be embarrassed,” the Post says. “But they’re not.”

Moyers goes on to talk about Washington politicians’ total lack of shame despite the fact that more children are growing up in poverty in America than in any other industrialized nation, or that millions of workers are making less money in terms of real dollars than 20 years ago. He writes:

Astonishing as it seems, scarcely anyone in official Washington seems to be troubled by a gap between rich and poor that is greater than it has been in half a century—and greater than that of any other Western nation today. Equality and inequality are words that have been all but expunged from the political vocabulary.

I grew up in a lower-middle class household in the South. For the first 10 years of my life, my family often qualified for government assistance, but we were too proud to ask for help. We were taught implicitly and explicitly that, if we wanted to move up the economic ladder, the key was hard work and a good education. It turned out to be a successful formula for me. Today, however, that formula no longer works for many people. “New York Times” columnist Bob Herbert, writing in the June, 6, 2005 edition, says:

Put the myth of the American Dream aside. The bottom line is that it's becoming increasingly difficult for working Americans to move up in class. The rich are freezing nearly everybody else in place, and sprinting off with the nation's bounty.

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Why We Fight: The War on Public Health
from 50 Simple Things You can do to Fight the Right
© 2006 Earth Works Press

It’s disturbing that people who consider themselves “pro-life” onsistently side with forces that are willing to endanger people’s health to make a few dollars…or that they choose ideological purity over genuine concern for people’s well-being. There are literally hundreds of examples of right-wing disregard for public heath. Here are a few.

Poison Pen

More than 10,000 children ingest rat poison every year. That’s why, in 1998, Clinton’s EPA required rat poison manufacturers to 1) add a bittering agent to discourage kids from eating it and 2) a dye to make it obvious if a child already had.

But in 2001, right after Bush took office, the EPA reversed the requirement at the industry’s request. Their justifications: It “would make the poison less attractive to rats and could damage household property.” Fortunately, in 2005, a judge overruled them, saying they had acted without a “scintilla of evidence.”

Condom-Nation

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), part of the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, is supposed to base policy decisions on “protecting the health and safety of all Americans.” Since condoms are 98-100% effective in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (including HIV), the CDC website recommended that sexually active people use them.

But in 2002, at the urging of the Christian Right, the CDC web fact sheet on condoms was changed so it has no information on condoms at all. It read: “The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain from sexual intercourse, or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship.” A CDC official commented, “This is really…endangering people’s lives.” (It has since been changed back).

Plying Their Trade

Formaldehyde is a chemical used in plywood manufacturing. It’s also a known toxin and pollutant, subject to EPA regulations. “In addition to causing nausea and eye, throat, and skin irritation,” reports the Natural Resources Defense Council, “exposure to the chemical can cause leukemia in humans.”

In 2004, EPA officials with previous ties to the timber and chemical industries helped plywood manufacturers get the “safe” level of formaldehyde increased…by 10,000 times. It save the industry $66 million, and put workers in plywood factories at risk. “The formaldehyde fix was in at the EPA,” said John Walker, director of the NRDC’s Clean Air Program. “The Bush administration pushed aside scientifically supported health concerns to weaken safeguards that will protect the plywood industry’s profits.

Hope for Peace & Justice needs your support to continue to provide a progressive, religious response to the Religious Right. Donations, at any amount, are greatly appreciated. Click here to Donate to H4PJ.

Religious Leaders Urge U.S. to Ban Torture
By Alan Cooperman
Originally Published by the Washington Post

Twenty-seven religious leaders, including megachurch pastor Rick Warren, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, have signed a statement urging the United States to "abolish torture now -- without exceptions."

The statement, being published in newspaper advertisements starting today, is the opening salvo of a new organization called the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which has formed in response to allegations of human rights abuse at U.S. detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Titled "Torture is a Moral Issue," the statement says that torture "violates the basic dignity of the human person" and "contradicts our nation's most cherished values." "Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed?" it asks.

The signers come from a broad range of denominations and include notable religious conservatives, such as the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; and the Rev. William J. Byron, former president of Catholic University.

By suggesting that recent abuse of prisoners may not be just an aberration but a reflection of U.S. policy, the statement contains an implicit challenge to the Bush administration, according to some signers.

"I'm not persuaded that this issue has been put to bed yet by the Bush administration," said David P. Gushee, a philosophy professor at Union University in Tennessee who wrote an influential article against torture this year in Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine. "I'm worried that we still don't truly know what is going on in all our detention centers around the world."

Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said the administration has "the utmost respect for all these religious leaders." But, she said, "I'll simply repeat what the president has said many times, which is that this government does not torture, and we adhere to the international conventions against torture. That is our policy, and it will remain our policy."

On its Web site, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture urges Congress and the president to "remove all ambiguities" by prohibiting secret U.S. prisons around the world, ending the rendition of suspects to countries that use torture, granting the Red Cross access to all detainees and not exempting any arm of the government from human rights standards.

McCarrick said last night that he had signed on to "the general principle" that torture is unacceptable but had not seen the new organization's specific proposals. Gushee said he is "not sure that everyone who signed the statement would concur with that platform," though he said he, personally, does.

H4PJ has long called on Congress to investigate U.S. torture practices. Join the thousands of H4PJ supporters and send an email to Congress today! Demand a full Investigation into US Torture Policy Rendition Flights to Syria, other Practices Exposed

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