Beacon Broadside

recent posts

about

Category: Activism

  • Undocumented and Unafraid: The Dreamers’ Fight for Human Rights Continues

    By Eileen Truax | “Numbers are not looking well.” This was the welcome phrase that I got just a minute after I arrived to the Election Night Watch Party organized by a group of academics in Downtown Los Angeles. Electoral results were falling state by state, and the evidence started appearing before our eyes: Donald…

  • Post-Election 2016 Reading to Inspire Action, Find Meaning, and Learn from Our History

    The results of the 2016 presidential election have left many people in shock and disappointment. In a time where people are fearing that a new administration will work to reverse much of the progress made in the last eight years, we are left wondering what the future holds. How do we continue to fight against…

  • Reconstructing America Again

    By Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II Early Wednesday morning, after running a controversial campaign that was even endorsed by the KKK, Donald J. Trump thanked his supporters for victory and promised to be a president for all Americans. A shock to almost every pollster and political pundit, his victory has been heralded as an…

  • Whitelash and Blacklash

    By Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman DeWolf Deep, authentic relationships with people we’ve been raised to see as “other” are key to understanding and reversing the impacts of racism and other forms of intolerance and inequity, and the misuse of power, and privilege. For the two of us, there is solace in knowing that…

  • How Queerphobic Christianity Shoots Itself (and Everyone Else) in the Foot

    By Rev. Elizabeth M. Edman It should be a shock that those who enthusiastically claim the mantle of Christianity would reject peace as part of a knee-jerk hatred of LGBTQ people. The degree to which this is an affront to Christian mission cannot be overstated. Yet this is fully and completely the “fruit of the…

  • Recommended Reading for the 2016 Election Cycle

    Throughout this election cycle, we’ve seen the rise of the radical right reminiscent of the pull of ultraconservative organizations from the past; increasing calls to prevent new immigrants from entering our country; increased calls to improve gun control legislation; a resurging wave of religious intolerance against Muslim Americans; and nationwide protests imploring racial justice and…

  • The Animal Welfare Act Claims Rats and Mice Are Not Animals

    By Marc Bekoff I am always incredulous that the AWA does not consider rats of the genus Rattus and mice of the genus Mus to be animals. Other animals also are conveniently tossed out of the animal kingdom. When I tell people this they are shocked. We know from detailed scientific research that they have…

  • The Emotional Lives of Chimeras: Challenges to Anthrozoology

    By Marc Bekoff A number of people have asked me to weigh in on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recent announcement that they would like to lift the ban on research on animal-human chimera research. Basically, a chimera “is a single organism composed of cells from different zygotes. This can result in male and…

  • Expanding Social Security to Protect Millennials and Future Generations

    By Steven Hill Social Security will always have somewhat of a perception problem among younger Americans. For a certain number, it will always be viewed as “money for old people who get it from the government.” For people of any age who are working and having taxes deducted from their paychecks, Social Security is a…

  • NBA Jam: Deciding Which Protests are Palatable

    By Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, MA The most recent show of support for LGBTQ causes in professional sports was the July 21 announcement by the NBA that the men’s All-Star Game would be moved out of North Carolina because of the state’s new anti-LGBTQ law, which includes a section barring transgender people from using bathrooms that…