At around 2007, I was visiting different churches and wondering whether I still wanted to be a Christian. I had been in some painful conflicts at a former church that really was very disillusioning to me. Then I found Crossleft, a progressive Christian blogsite, and I was thrilled to find a number of Christians who had liberal and progressive points of views. Though Crossleft no longer exists, I still keep in touch with a number of the former Crossleft bloggers. One of the most interesting individuals that I met there was Jim Ramelis. Jim Ramelis was born in Virginia, but raised in Detroit during the 1960s, where he witnessed the racial divisions that were affecting the country. A Vietnam War veteran, Jim's experiences led him to be a strong peace advocate and is a member of the Veterans for Peace, the Presbyterian Peacemakers, and the Michigan Peace Network. A progressive Christian, Jim volunteers his service as a lay pastor to the First Presbyterian Church Munising Michigan, is affiliated with the Progressive Christian Alliance, and is founder of the non-profit UP North Ministries. Jim is currently a trustee of the Mackinac County Department of Human Services Board and a member of the Board of Directors of the West Mackinac Food Pantry. He has lived all over the country, and has lived in for the past 22 years in Michigan. He has a family of three children.

Last March the Christian gay rights group Soulforce has sponsored the Equality Rides to challenge LGBT discrimination in many of the Christian colleges across the nation. This is part of a growing group of Evangelical Christians who are challenging the homophobia within the Evangelical church and are fighting for the fair treatment of LGBT people in the Evangelical church. A younger generation of Evangelicals are challenging longstanding assumptions among older evangelicals on social justice issues, gay rights issues, environmental issues and immigration issues.

The big news of the past week has been President Obama's comments in an interview that he now supports same-sex marriage. Over the years, he has stated his opposition to gay marriage, but added that his views were "evolving". This has been an issue where many Democratic and Republican politicians have seen their views evolve to the point where they now support gay marriage. This issue cuts across ideological lines where now several conservative Republicans are joining their liberal Democrat colleagues in support of marriage equality. In an article by Helene Cooper and Jeremy Peters for the May 15, 2012 New York Times, they write:

“If you don’t know anyone who’s gay, then it’s an alien lifestyle,” said Theodore Olson, the former solicitor general for President George W. Bush who supports same-sex marriage. But, he added, when “you realize that that’s Mary from down the street, she’s a lesbian and she’s with Sally, what would it be like if they couldn’t be together?” people come around.

During the civil rights movement, many white Northerners — including some who had never before interacted with black people — joined African-Americans to fight for the principle of equal rights, often opposing white Southerners who had lived among blacks all their lives yet saw nothing wrong with the separate but equal statutes. Principle seemed to come before the personal in many cases.

With the gay rights movement, it often seems that the opposite applies. While there are many people who support gay rights because it is in line with their personal or political views, for many others, their approach on the issue is experiential, and comes down to a simple issue: knowing an openly gay couple. In fact, it can seem as if there are two Americas when it comes to gay rights: one in which same-sex couples interact regularly with their straight counterparts, helping to soften impressions of homosexuality, and another in which being gay or lesbian remains largely unspoken.

The second political cartoonist that I met after Steve Greenberg in the convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists two years ago was Monte Wolverton. The son of famed MAD cartoonist Basil Wolverton, Monte was trained at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design and he also studied editorial photography with Look magazine's Earl Theison. His cartoons have been published in CB Radio magazine, Creative Computing, CARtoons and Youth Magazine. He did advertising, publication design and illustration work in L.A., Seattle, and Portland, running an innovative design business that produced advertising, corporate images, and comic illustration. In the last 1980s Wolverton was the design director for Plain Truth, a large faith-based publishing concern that produced magazines and promotional materials.

Since the mid 1990s, Monte began doing editorial cartoons for syndication by Cagle cartoons to over 850 publications weekly. His political cartoons also appear weekly in the LA Daily News.

Adam Zyglis is one of the best young political cartoonists today. I met him briefly about two years ago in an Association of American Editorial Cartoonist Convention in Portland, Oregon, and have been a fan of his work since seeing his incisive cartoons in the Buffalo News. Adam's cartoons are internationally syndicated and appear in publications like The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He also does illustration work for magazines such as The Week, Time, and MAD Magazine. In 2004, he graduated from the Canisius College Honors program summa cum laude, with a major in Computer Science, a minor in Math and a concentration in Studio Arts. Adam's first cartooning job was for The Griffin, the weekly student newspaper at the college, where he a first place national award from the Associated Collegiate Press and the Universal Press Syndicate. He placed second in the 2004 John Locher Memorial Award, and he was a finalist in the 2003 CharlesM. Schulz Award. In 2006 and 2011, Adam won third place for Editorial Cartoons in the National Headliner Awards, sponsored by the Atlantic City Press Club.

One of the most interesting bloggers on the Everyday Citizen blogsite has been Gerald Britt. Rev. Britt is a graduate of Harvard University’s Summer Leadership Institute and taught about community organizing at Yale University’s fellowship program for public housing administrators. He served as pastor of New Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church for 22 years. As a preacher, he has performed chapel services for the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics and Chicago White Sox.
Rev. Britt writes a monthly column for the Dallas Morning News, and contributes to his blogsite Change the Wind. Rev. Britt serves on a number of Boards of Directors in areas that include, health and wellness, community and institutional organizing as well as ministry. He is one of the founders of the local network of the Industrial Areas Foundation (Dallas Area Interfaith), as well as the African-American Pastors’ Coalition and the Baptist Ministers Conference. Gerald currently serves as the VP of Public Policy & Community Program Development for City Square (formerly called Central Dallas Ministries).

In 1996 Rev. Britt was awarded the Coca-Cola African-American Heroes Award. He is also a recipient of the Mickey Leland Human and Civil Rights Award by the Texas State Teachers Association for his work in public education.

This is just a reply to Diane Wahto's blog. It's a wonderful blog of your experiences at churches at different times in your life. I've gone through a similar journey, and am going through some spiritual struggles of my own. It's great that you followed your own path and that you have the integrity to stay true to yourself. I'm glad that you're enjoying your Sundays.

A good comment too, Ken. The Christian Church has a lot of good and a lot of bad, but anything that has human beings is going to be that way. I know a number of Christians who've left church due to the hassling of other Christians. But there are a lot of good Christians too, doing good work for their community and living humble devout lives.

Around two years ago I attended a convention in Portland by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists where I met some of the best cartoonists in the U.S. and the world. During my time at the convention, I met Tjeerd Royaards, a Dutch political cartoonist who was recruiting American political cartoonists to join the Cartoon Movement, a global website that Tjeerd launched to promote political cartooning and comics journalism. Tjeerd had been a political cartoonist for seven years since getting a masters degree in political science at the University of Amsterdam. In that time, his cartoons have appeared in the Dutch dailies NRC Next, Der Pers, and De Volkskrant, the German newspapers Handelsblatt and Hannoversche Allgemeine, and the Swiss weekly Weltwoche. In 2010 Tjeerd won the "Citation for Excellence" for the United Nations Political Cartoons Award.

I've never really liked rap music much as a kid. I'd like the occassional song from Run D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys, but I had a hard time understanding the anger of the gangster rap that came during the late 1980s and early 1990s. As time has passed, however, I've gained a greater appreciation of what those rappers were trying to get at with their lyrics and strong sound. The rappers of the 1980s and 1990s were expressing the anger and despair of the black youths of the inner city in the same way that punk rockers in the 1970s were expressing the anger and despair of the working class white British youths of England's inner cities. Both rap and punk rock were criticized for its angry lyrics and its harsh sound. Yet both movements were just reflecting the despair of a young generation trapped in dismal economic conditions. One of the most influential and political rap groups of the 1980s and 1990s was Public Enemy

One of the great pleasure of the Everyday Citizen blogsite is reading the blogs of Diane Wahto. A teacher, a pro-choice advocate, an anti-war activist, an award winning poet, and a precinct committeewoman for the Sedgwick County Democratic Central Committee, Diane has worn many hats in her life. A native Kansan, she has a BA degree, cum laude, in English from Western Michigan University, an MA in English from Pittsburg State University, and an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University. Diane raised three sons as a single mother, and now has three wonderful daughters-in-law, and five entertaining grandchildren.

From your bio in the Everyday Citizen site, it sounds like you have a wonderful family. Tell us a little of your family.

I have three sons and five grandchildren. They all live near. My youngest and his family live in Lawrence and the other two and their families live in Shawnee, a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. All of children, their wives, and two of my grandchildren are KU grads. Rock chalk, Jayhawk!