immigration – Feminism and Religion

The Epstein Files Prove Just How Right Carol Christ Had Been, part 2 by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Part 1 was posted March 1st. You can read it here. The definition that Carol refers to as well as a link to her original article can be found there as well. Her words are in italics.

It has long seemed to me that patriarchy cannot be separated from war and the kings who take power in the wake of war. Many years ago I was stunned by Merlin Stone’s allegation that in matrilineal societies there are no illegitimate children, because all children have mothers. Lately, I have been trying to figure out why the Roman Catholic and other churches and the American Republican party are so strongly opposed to women’s right to control our own bodies and are trying to prevent access to birth control and abortion. In the above definition of patriarchy . . . I bring all of these lines of thought together in a definition which describes the origins of patriarchy and the interconnections between patriarchy, the control of female sexuality, private property, violence, war, conquest, rape in war, and slavery.

Here Carol lays it all out. I, too, have wondered why the Church, why conservative politicians are so obsessed with women’s bodies and reproductive systems. No wonder abortion, in fact all of the healthcare of women is so on the political radar. Taking away the agency of women when they become pregnant is dehumanizing, reduces women to incubators. And that doesn’t even go into the fear of treating women for any health issues when they are pregnant. Take the tragic case of Tierra Walker who died in Texas, pregnant and facing growing health problems. She had a 14year old son and after weeks of severe distress attempted to get an abortion. She was unable to do due to the strict anti-abortion laws in Texas as she went to doctor after doctor. Here is what they told her: “But the doctor, her family said, told her what many other medical providers would say in the weeks that followed: There was no emergency; nothing was wrong with her pregnancy, only her health.” Its as if there was a cabal to diminish the value of women’s lives that even the doctors, who know better, participate in. And that is the templated of patriarchy. True that the doctors are threatened with loss of license and 10 years imprisonment begin. But when they spout the “party” line, they not only risk their patients, they deepen the already ingrained belief that women and our bodies are without worth.

The Rest of the Christmas Story by Beth Bartlett

Every day another story of ICE agents randomly arresting and detaining immigrants – these are the chronicles of these times in the US. A few days ago, the news broke of ICE agents trapping two construction workers on the roof of a construction site in a suburb of Minneapolis for hours in frigid temperatures, while the thirty or so ICE agents took turns being inside their warm vehicles. They didn’t even know who the men were. They simply looked to be Latino. A day or two later, in Minneapolis, ICE agents tackled and arrested a Somali-American citizen who stepped outside during his lunch break simply because of the color of his skin. Yesterday brought the story of ICE agents forcibly arresting and separating suburban Minneapolis parents from their 7-year-old child when they came home from the grocery store. The story went on to talk about efforts being made to educate parents about preparing a DOPA – a Delegation of Parental Authority – that gives a designated caretaker temporary legal and physical custody of a child in the event parents are taken away from their children. This is the nightmare facing so many families in this country under the reign of terror inflicted by the Department of Homeland “Security.” One must ask, security for whom.

A few weeks ago, “This American Life” profiled a family trying to decide whether the husband and father of two should stay and risk arrest and detention or self-deport. Fidel, the dad, was married to an American citizen, but due to a technicality, could not get citizenship through his wife until he had lived outside the US for ten years. He had been living in the US “illegally” for thirty years, raised a family, had a good job, paid his taxes, had no criminal history. But the family had heard the stories of torture and abuse in the detention centers, and that possibility loomed over them now. When ICE agents started appearing near their small town in North Carolina, they faced the decision of whether to uproot the teenage girls and go together to Mexico or for Fidel to leave on his own. It was a painful decision. Ultimately, they decided Fidel would leave, and after working five years and getting her teacher’s pension, his wife would join him. The girls would come visit when they could. The family would be torn apart.

Patriarchy, Thy Name is Cruelty by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Andrew Young famously said that ‘anything is legal if 100 businessmen decide to do it.” I would add a more modern take. Nothing is too low, too immoral, too illegal if 5 or 6 Supreme Court justices decide to allow it.

Their recent decisions could fill a book on how corrupt they are. (I’ve discussed this before. But this post is looking at immigration and the cruelty that this administration is fomenting. We have always been a cruel nation. Patriarchy has honed cruelty as its worked to crush women’s bodies while silencing women. How else would women have agreed to our loss of power? Carol Christ has written eloquently about this. Immigration policy has blown the lid off this pot. Perhaps because it is too new, too shocking. Because ICE is in our faces with agents flooding neighborhoods and engaging in unfettered cruelty.

For example, when ICE raided an apartment building in the Bronx on Feb 24th, they arrested 19 year old Merwil Gutiérrez. When they realized they had the wrong person, their response was “take him anyway.” Read that again, “take him anyway.”

Merwil Gutiérrez was then deported to the notorious prison CECOT in El Salvador. For months, his family couldn’t find him. He was eventually sent to his native Venezuela.

#ShareTheirStories, June updates

Mahmoud Khalil, one of the first people arrested under the administration’s ICE raids. He was targeted because of his outspoken views on Palestinian rights. He is a legal green card holder and was never charged with a crime. Nevertheless the administrations flew him to a holding cell in Louisiana (from NY) in a particularly cruel move that prevented him from being present at the birth of his first child. Even after the baby was born, the government tried to put up roadblocks for his family to visit him and for him to touch his newborn son. He has now been freed by court order but US government is still trying to deport him. He has vowed that he will not be quiet and has already been seen at protests. He is a profile in courage.

Kilmar Albrego Garcia is another case entirely. The eyes of the government have turned his way and now that this has happened, they are doubling down on their cruelty. Just think for a moment of what it is for the government which the power of law enforcement, the powers of detainment to focus their sights on one person. He was originally deported to El Salvador in March. After the government ignored court orders for months he was finally brought back to the US to face federal charges. It is likely this was a face-saving move on the part of the government so they could say, “see he’s a bad guy who deserves this, look at these horrible criminal charges.”

#ShareTheirStories, June 2025 Edition

Photo from Amnesty International. For more information and to support his petition click here.

This is a project that FAR has started to share the stories of immigrants who are targeted by the US administration. It is our belief that when people are recognized as human beings, it is harder to dehumanize them and to take away their civil rights. We are facing a devastating situation where in the United States people are being “disappeared” without any recourse to the legal system. The viciousness of what is happening is growing. Some of those arrested have been released but it is a small drop in the bucket of the flood of arrestees, most not even receiving a day in court and some caught in legal mazes that show no sign of ending.

Take Mahmoud Khalil, whom we have already discussed. He was arrested in March due to his outspoken Pro-Palestinian views. In May, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio likely violated the Constitution when he stripped Mahmoud Khalil of his green card and ordered him deported. Even so the Judge declined to release him because he has not proven “irreparable harm” caused by his detention. I think an elementary school child can even understand the irreparable harm one suffers by being detained, esp. in Trump prisons that are designed for harshness. And to add to it, Khalil is a new father who only got to hold his son while in prison after a flurry of lawsuits.

Building Houses: Welcomed Here by Margot Van Sluytman

I have been building houses. Reducing. Reusing. Recycling. Recreating. Birthing homes from giant cardboard boxes, old newspapers, twigs, twine, flour paste, and joy. Joy for it is vital for me to nourish my days with meaning that strengthens my commitment to being. To belonging. heART that is offered to and for community because community and housing are siblings. With the sale of each finished piece, both funds and awareness are raised for the New Canadians Center Peterborough. Here in my city. A city which offers the heart of welcome. Newcomers to this city, to any city, to any country, yearn for home. To find, to create, and to be: welcomed home.

Home and welcome are an intricately and finely woven fabric.

The heART of home, the heARTh itself, is welcome and warmth.

I Am an American, Too by Marie Cartier

I am an American.
I am proud to be an American.
I am not proud of everything America does—
But I am proud of democracy—
of the idea of democracy.
And I do not want to waste my shot, either.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: THE CARELESS SPIRIT OF ANNIE CORLISS: TRUMPING DESPAIR IN THE NEW WORLD

This was originally posted on April 2, 2012 and updated on December 30, 2016

Annie Corliss was my great-great-grandmother. The Corliss name, also spelled Corlis, Corless, Corlies, Corlers, and Carlis, is derived from “careless” meaning someone who is “carefree” or “happy-go-lucky.”

Annie Corliss was the daughter of James and Mary Corliss, both born in Ireland. Her parents may have been tenant farmers, but given that their surname could refer to someone who doesn’t settle or own property, they may have been Irish Travellers– itinerant craft persons and traders, sometimes called tinkers because they mended cooking pots and farm implements. “Irish Travellers are a traditionally nomadic people of ethnic Irish origin, who maintain a separate language and set of traditions. … Irish Travellers have their roots in a Celtic (and possibly pre Celtic) nomadic population in Ireland.”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: I am Beginning to Understand

This was originally posted on Feb. 13, 2012

Elizabeth Kelly Inglis died in 1927 at age 62 from complications of a stroke. Secondary causes were malnutrition and exhaustion.

When I was a child, my father, though he was very close to his own parents and sister, spoke very little about his ancestors. I knew that both of his parents lost their fathers when they were small children. I was told that the Christs were German and the Inglises were Scottish and Irish. My grandmother Mary Inglis Christ was as Irish as the day is long. She prayed to the blessed Virgin and took me to church with her in the early mornings where she lit candles and whispered the rosary while fingering faceted lavender beads. She voted for Kennedy because he was Irish and Catholic—to the horror of my father and his father who had no use for the Democrats. My grandmother sometimes cried when she showed us photographs of her family, especially when she pointed to her sister Veronica, called Very. I sensed that my grandmother felt sad to have left her family in New York when she moved with her husband and children to California during the depression, but I was too young to understand fully. As far as I know, I never met any of the relatives from her side of the family, even when I moved to “back east.”

Nurture Life: Ethics of Goddess Spirituality by Carol P. Christ

Nurture life.

Walk in love and beauty.

Trust the knowledge that comes through the body.

Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.

Take only what you need.

Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations.

Approach the taking of life with great restraint.

Practice great generosity.

Repair the web

In Rebirth of the Goddess, I offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The touchstones are not commandments delivered from outside the world, nor are they accompanied by the promise of reward in heaven or the threat of punishment in hell. Rather, the Nine Touchstones are based upon observation of the world and rooted in the insight that human and other beings are connected in the web of life. They are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.

As I review the Nine Touchstones two decades after I first intuited and reflected on them, I marvel at my younger self. When I write, I often enter into a kind of trance in which words emerge from a place in myself that lies deeper than my conscious rational mind. I do not know that I know something until the words take shape on the page, and even then, their meaning unfolds over time. Something like this must have happened with the Nine Touchstones. I was drawn to the Native American teachings expressed in several of the touchstones even though I did not fully understand their context or meaning at the time. I was drawn to maternal values without knowing that they are the basis of ethics in egalitarian matriarchal cultures. Continue reading “Nurture Life: Ethics of Goddess Spirituality by Carol P. Christ”