north carolina

Lest anyone believed that North Carolina’s fake “repeal” of the odious, transphobic HB2 signaled a turn toward tolerance inside the State Capitol in Raleigh, three Republican lawmakers intend to set…

At a time when so much of American politics seems incited by fear and hatred, it is inspiring to read the words of Rev. William Barber, asking Americans to act in accord with what Lincoln called “the…

From the very beginning of Rev. William Barber’s ministry in the state of North Carolina that we now know as Moral Mondays, he has challenged his fellow North Carolinians to remember their heritage…

On a warm day in July 2013, I found myself on the wrong end of a canceled flight out of RDU Airport. I used the opportunity to travel into downtown Raleigh to observe one of the early Moral Monday…

Chances are you have heard something about the Rev. William Barber II. He is the giant of a man (in more senses than one) who launched the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina in 2013—a movement…

Same-sex marriage is now legal in North Carolina. It was, of course, bound to be so eventually. Even Thom Tillis, Speaker of the House of Representatives in North Carolina and current GOP nominee for…

The debate over the “Defense of Religion Act” in North Carolina played out with the predictability of a sitcom. I offer this modest proposal, then, to remind both sides that if this is a war, then they have fought to a stalemate, and it is time for some new tactics, by which I mean: the history of religion in America demonstrates that the winner of the culture war will be the side that does the opposite of everything they are doing now.

Last night on MSNBC I discussed this with Martin Bashir.

A bump in the rocky road to marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

The discussion surrounding NC’s Amendment 1 has taken the shape of a simplistic ideological battle over homosexuality and religion. “It’s as if some Christians feel like they have permission to discriminate or hate,” Jay Bakker told me. “And they get so obsessed with it that they ignore the fact that it would harm children, it would harm women, it would harm people in domestic partnerships. It’s like they’ve just become blind to that because they’ve built up such resentment towards gays and lesbians. And that’s really, really frightening to me.”