jimrigby.org

Two years ago, White Lodging Development Services came to the city of Austin seeking to build a Marriott hotel in the downtown area. The city agreed to wave $3.8 million in fees if the company would agree to pay the city’s “prevailing wage.”

It was clear at the time White Lodgings did not want to be held to any kind of standard on worker wages. Eventually they complained that paying the workers the prevailing wage would cost them more than they would gain through the rebates. In other words, they wanted as much of the 300 million dollar project as possible to go to profits, and as little as possible to go to the workers.

The city later cancelled the incentive package when it became clear White Lodging was underpaying workers. The company said, “We’ve done everything they’ve asked. This has a become a political issue, not an issue being discussed based on facts.”

By “facts” the company does not mean any binding standard for paying wages. By “facts” the company means its own definitions and calculations. It had assumed it could make an agreement, get the incentive package, and then rely on wordsmithing to justify paying the workers less than it promised. That ploy has worked all over the nation, the reason it did work in Austin is that our city a vigilant group called “Worker’s Defense Project” that watches over issues of safety and fair wages. It was Worker’s Defense Project that blew the whistle on White Lodging and every citizen of Austin who cares about fairness should feel thankful to them.

This Tuesday at 6:30 Manor I am hosting an open house at the offices of Worker’s Defense Project (5604 Manor) to draw attention to the good work they do. If you would like to join us to learn more about this amazing organization, please email me at jrigby0000@aol.com and we will make room for you.

A recent attitude poll yielded interesting results. As expected Georgians still oppose gay marriage, no surprise there. But, some pollsters are shaking their heads at the finding that Martin Luther King had only a 59/28 favorability rating with Georgia Republicans, whereas Paula Deen (the cooking show host who recently disclosed she has used racist labels) was able to draw a 73/11 favorability rating from those same conservatives.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/08/08/ppp_poll_georgia_conservatives_favor_paula_deen_more_than_mlk.html

Ebony Magazine has been under attack for its cover showing Travon Martin’s family and headline: “We are all Trayvon now.” Some conservatives have expressed outrage at the cover as trying to stoke racial resentment at the Zimmerman verdict. Stacia L. Brown responds:

“Regardless of our personal opinions about the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the black community has felt an acute sense of responsibility to the boy he killed. That boy is like too many others who have been gunned down prematurely, due to circumstances beyond their control. In Trayvon’s case, the circumstance was racial profiling. The circumstance was his being viewed as suspicious because of his profile in the dark. For prosecutors and a jury to ignore race as a precipitous factor in this case has been almost as unsettling as the fact that the teen was murdered in the first place.

…The “controversy” is absurd but the attitudes it reveals call for persistent and serious attention. We are as weary of hearing that Trayvon wasn’t killed because he was black as Tea Partyers are of seeing our hoodies. We wish this were a protest we didn’t have to undertake. But as long as the school-to-prison pipeline exists, as long as a judge can spend five years fraudulently sentencing black children to jail before his misdeeds are uncovered; as long as poverty and bureaucracy continue to ensure that the education of black children is not a priority; and as long as cases involving men opening fire on unarmed black youth occur, this will be a battle worth waging.” -Stacia L. Brown, Salon

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/08/the_rights_ridiculous_ebony_outrage/

It is well known that women are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. African American women make 64 cents, and Latina woman make only 55 cents for every dollar made by a white male.

The Lilly Ledbetter Act stipulates that pay discrimination claims on the basis of sex, race, national origin, age, religion and disability begin to accrue whenever an employee receives a discriminatory paycheck.

For some people, even such meager protections for fair wages are too much of a burden on business owners. Macy’s, Kroger and several other retailers have sent a letter to Governor Perry requesting that he veto the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act enacted here in Texas.

Rep. Senfronia Thompson, who has always been a champion for people being mistreated, has asked that we show our support for fair pay by boycotting Macy’s and Kroger until they end this assault on worker rights.

Click here to sign petition:

https://secure3.convio.net/pn/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3983&JServSessionIdr004=3up615t7i1.app334b

I wish more Christians realized that when we use the word “Christian” as a synonym for “ethical” we are insulting the rest of the world. My church has lost members because I refuse to display  the Christian Yellow Pages in our foyer. The idea behind such a phonebook is that by shopping from Christian merchants one is less likely to be cheated. But what kind of a worldview is that? Is every Jew like Shakespeare’s anti-Semitic character in Merchant of Venice? Is every atheist indifferent to matters of virtue?

To use the word “Christian” as a synonym for “good” drifts very close to self worship. Are we Christians really better than ordinary humans? After thirty years of ministry I have seen very little evidence of it. We may be better to people from our own group, but then so is the mafia.

Jesus said the test of ethics is how we treat the outsiders to our group. To love another, we must surrender any desire to shape them into our own image. This means we must surrender the desire to convert them. We cannot answer the call to love if we see the Jewish person or atheist only as a potential Christian. To answer Jesus’ call, we must love the Jewish person as a Jew and the nonbeliever as an atheist.

When Jesus walked the earth there was no church to convert to, there was no Bible to read, and no creeds to brainwash converts with. So Jesus did not come to convert the world to a sect that did not yet exist, he came to convert us all to communities of universal love. Would that more Christians knew the inclusive universal love Christ taught before they tried to spread their own smaller sectarian idea of it.

It sure feels safe here in America. We are bodily scanned, spied upon, protected from information that we can’t handle about our foreign activities, and we now have a greater percentage of our population in prison than any other nation. In fact, according to FBI statistics just released 1 in 25 Americans were arrested in 2011.

“The FBI stats on total arrests with regards to race are as follows: 69.2 percent of all persons arrested were white, 28.4 percent were black, and the remaining 2.4 percent were of other races. It’s worth considering that black people make up only 13.6 percent of the total U.S. population, but yet nearly 30 percent of those arrested in 2011.” -Natasha Lennard, Salon

Many of my friends say they will gladly exchange freedom for safety, but I remember an earlier voice in our nation’s history crying “give me liberty or give me death.” Have we lost the courage it takes to be a free people?

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/07/in_2011_1_in_25_americans_was_arrested/

As a minister, I shudder at that things said and done in the name of religion. I take seriously the question whether religion is a root cause of the madness we see around us, or if it is being usurped and used by other parts of the human psyche. In my opinion, the worst examples of religious insanity result from people with ulterior motives, or from people who are violently mentally ill, who use religion as a mantle to justify deeds committed for other reasons.

If someone runs a “false flag” operation, it does little good to blame the flag. The same crimes are committed in atheist cultures using other icons like “the people,” or “the fearless leader” or some other justification.

George Bush famously “got religion” when he lost a political campaign to a candidate spouting religion and swore he would never let that happen again. Napoleon, who showed no signs of having a religious practice, found religion very useful in bewitching the masses.

Is an idea bad if it is often misused? For example, our nation has recently fought multiple wars over the idea of democracy. Is the idea of democracy itself discredited in any way if a nation fights wars using “democracy” as an excuse? Or look at all the pseudoscience books. No one says science is guilty because it is often misused.

I hate bad religion as much as any atheist and probably much more so. In addition to hating religious superstition, violence and arrogance, I lament that bad religion prevents some people from ever discovering true reverence and living out every person’s mission to serve humankind. To blame religion itself when it is misused, is like people blaming politics for our problems. I doubt that I’ve ever met a person without some kind of politics, nor without some kind of metaphysical assumptions.

I share the concern many have with bad religion, but it seems to me the message of Gandhi and Martin Luther King is in no way discredited when someone uses pseudo-religion to obtain an ulterior goal. I admit that the Bible becomes a weapon when taken up for psychotic purposes. I abhor the religious right’s assault on women, gays, the poor, atheists, other religions and science. I’m just saying it is important to remember that these religious bullies did not get their politics by reading the Sermon on the Mount. They take up the Bible not for guidance, but to justify their lust for power and their fear of reality.

What they are doing is manifestly evil, but the banner they are waving has little to do with their true motives.

In Tuesday bible class today we will look at Psalm 46 (A Mighty Fortress is our God.)

Whatever is mean by “fortress” or “refuge” is not understood in terms of strength or permanence. The text describes God as a “fortress,” but then speaks of it as something we experience in the midst of earthquakes and floods. The Psalmist then says, “Be still and know I am God.”

One does not have to believe in God to get something from this text. Whatever is the ground of being stands outside the ravages of change even if that something is nothing more than the nature by which things change.

When we get stuck in a literal or concrete understanding of scripture it is helpful to read science or scriptures from other world religions to remember the poetic nature of scriptural insight.

So after we read the Hebrew scripture, we will also look at a Taoist scripture, the Tao Te Ching, that says the rhinoceros finds no place in the sage to stick its horn. That doesn’t mean that Taoists are invulnerable, it means one who is harmonious with the way of things does not stand outside nature (mentally) to be harmed by accidents. Because the wise identify with all life and not just their own little life they are at peace even with their own demise.

We will also so look at a Buddhist scripture (The Dhammapada) that speaks of “taking refuge” in Buddha, in the Dharma/Dhamma, and in the Sangha (spiritual community.) Again we will ask what kind of “fortress” is meant.

Hopefully between these sources and our own conversation we can get a sense of what it means to say there is a place of peace within a chaotic universe of change.

The Advocate reports that at least a dozen Louisiana men were arrested last year for “attempted crimes against nature.” In other words, they were arrested for being gay. Even though such discrimination has been ruled unconstitutional, thirteen states have maintained anti-sodomy laws in their own constitutions. I don’t need to tell you this assault upon the Constitution is taking place in Republican states, nor that the good ol’ boys who govern Texas are right there in the middle in the pack of bullies attacking any effort to offer equal protection to anyone who isn’t white, male, Christian and heterosexual.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/05/gay_people_are_still_being_arrested_for_having_consensual_sex_in_some_red.html