Guest Post

Last week was a momentous one for gay and lesbian issues. On Sunday Vice President Biden said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he is “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men [are] marrying men, women marrying women,” and he thinks they “are entitled to … all the civil rights” of heterosexual couples. On Tuesday the electorate in North Carolina voted overwhelmingly for a constitutional amendment that proscribes same-sex marriage and civil unions, despite the fact that the state already has a law against it. Most momentous of all, President Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts on Wednesday “that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

New today from the Century: Evangelicals and birth control, post-Mother's Day murmurings, more.

As I kid, I was scared of monsters. Specifically, the Star Trek Salt-Vampire and Hans Christian Anderson’s Death, sitting on the Emperor’s chest. (I slept on my side for years after reading “The Nightingale.” Death couldn’t get you, I reasoned, if you declined him a seat.) But I was never afraid of the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are, the best-known book by Maurice Sendak, who died on Tuesday.

Sandra Steingraber, ecologist, activist and author, was in Joliet, Illinois, Wednesday to present a lecture on our era of “extreme energy extraction.” (See the Century interview with Steingraber.) According to Steingraber, we’re acting more and more foolishly as we hold on more and more tightly to our dependence on fossil fuels.

New today from the Century: The Protestant-Catholic impasse, goodbye to Maurice Sendak, more.

New today from the Century: The price of prisons, Obama's right answer to the wrong question, more.

It is difficult to know what to say in response to Mona Eltahawy’s explosive article on the experience of women in Middle Eastern countries. She writes about a level of institutionalized brutality that demands that readers pay attention. At the same time, she doesn’t say anything new, nothing that wasn’t already made too vividly clear during the Arab Spring.

New today from the Century: Aussie Christians, the "we" of women's rights, more.

North Carolina voters go to the polls today, and the race that will make all the headlines doesn’t have a candidate. On the ballot is a constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman as the only legal domestic union recognized by the state. I’m against the amendment--a popular view here in Greensboro. The city council passed a resolution opposing it. Light blue “Vote Against” yard signs dot the neighborhood around our church. Across the state, opinions are more varied.

New today from the Century: Talking about same-sex marriage, French vs. U.S. babies, more.

New today from the Century: A Virginia Woolf pilgrimage, John Stackhouse reviews David Martin, more.

New today from the Century: ACP awards for the Century, the worldwide church is not a community, more.

On Sunday night I went to hear Dan Savage speak about the It Gets Better Project. The last time I saw him was 2003, if memory serves, in front of a crowd of perhaps a hundred. At one point Savage took a break from promoting his new book Skipping Toward Gomorrah to refer his audience to the now-famous New Republic cover story "The Liberal Case for War" (against Iraq). It was a good talk, funny and engaging, and it made a striking contrast with his Sunday appearance.

New today from the Century: Walter Brueggemann on Kathleen O'Connor, Jason Byassee on Downton Abbey, more.

New today from the Century: John Buchanan on investing in Palestinians, poem by Brian Doyle, more.

New today from the Century: Wealth redistribution and public budgets, parenting and the concept of "good enough," more.

The General Conference of the United Methodist Church convened in Tampa last week. I’m not one of the 988 delegates who have descended on Florida to do the work of our church, nor of the 4,000 hosts, bishops, pages, translators and myriad lobbyists there to help. My participation is limited to following the proceedings from 1,000 miles away. Still, my emotions have been all over the place. And judging from Twitter and Facebook, this roller coaster of highs and lows is almost universal among those who are there. The stakes feel high this year, higher than usual.

New today from the Century: Incarceration and racism, structure and power in the UMC, more.

New today (and yesterday) from the Century: Investment vs. divestment, Guy Clark tribute, are Democrats anti-Mormon?

New today from the Century: Tom Long on small acts of courage, the Feast of St. Mark, more.