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Action Alerts - August 1, 2025

LOVEboldly’s Action Alerts is a weekly resource curating calls to action, news, opinions, commentary, reflections, and updates on legislative actions in Ohio and the US government. We know that democracy dies in silence and darkness. This message is our candle for you.


Timely Resources




What’s Catching Our Eyes

























Reasons for Hope







Bills and Policies LOVEboldly is Following


Note - We will only list bills here that are new or updated. You can find all the bills we're tracking at www.loveboldly.net/billtracker.


Ohio General Assembly


The Ohio General Assembly is currently on recess.


US Congress


Congress is currently on recess.



Please reach out to admin@loveboldly.net or bhuelskamp@loveboldly.net if you have any questions.


If you want to see more emails like this and other accessible resources from LOVEboldly, please donate to LOVEboldly today.



 
 
 

Viewpoint Diversity and Moral Absolutes

Monday, July 28, 2025


Happy Monday, my friends! One of the constant refrains we hear and advice we’re given is that we need to get out of our echo chambers and listen to the thoughts of others. Progressives are particularly bad at this because we will find spaces where people talk about “diversity,” but who rarely if ever experience the words and voices of diverse authors and commentators. I continue to be surprised by how people who actively fight book bans have never read a book by a BIPOC, Queer, or international author. Yes, I see you white liberals patting yourself on the back because you’ve read a book by Barack or Michelle Obama. You could still do better. No matter our commitment to free speech, the free press, and the free exchange of ideas, we still retreat into our caves and watch shadows on the walls.

 

Discussing books which are “fashionable” and being read by many people, Haruki Murakami’s character, Nagasawa, says, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”[1] For Nagasawa that meant selecting books whose authors had been dead for at least 30 years. For other people that might mean selecting books from authors who hold different identities than the reader or taking stock of the books you’ve been reading and intentionally finding books from other political, religious, and social views. It also might mean following a few charitable people with whom you don’t agree on social media or periodically reading a news site or magazine with a different political or social perspective than your own.

 

Nagasawa is an example of an archetype often found in academic and other supposedly enlightened communities, which, yes, the church can often fashion itself. Yet, many of us don’t have the luxury to only read material that has passed the test of three decades or some other metric. To do so would be as bad, maybe worse, than containing our news consumption solely to Huff Post or Breitbart. We need to be reading and listening to many different sources and perspectives.

 

That said, there is a clear difference between diverse perspectives, where multiple truths can exist simultaneously, and plain error. Recently, while testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee, US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was asked about “viewpoint diversity.” Part of her exchange with Representative Mark Takano (D-CA) included this question and answer.

 

Representative Takano – “Does refusing to hire a Holocaust denier as a member of Harvard’s history department faculty count as an ideological limit test?”

 

Secretary McMahon – “I believe that there should be diversity of viewpoints relative to teachings and opinions on campuses.”

 

Denying that the Holocaust happened or that it was less gruesome and severe than it actually was, is wrong. That the Holocaust happened is no more a subjective truth claim than 2 + 2 = 4. It isn’t an ideological statement. One of the most dangerous philosophies of modernity and post-modernity has been the claim that there are no moral absolutes. For instance, it is a moral absolute that taking a life is wrong. That doesn’t mean that there are not justified reasons for taking a life or that governments, societies, and cultures can’t decide that certain types of life-taking are acceptable. Regardless of the ethical constructions which can assuage our guilt, mitigate our complicity, and even glorify our actions, moral absolutes remain. Perhaps the best way to teach ourselves about and remind ourselves about the moral absolutes which transcend culture, nation, religion, and spirituality is to read and listen to many voices where we find these absolutes and the voices who attempt to build frameworks which invalidate the absolute rather than justify certain actions. Remember, we can justify specific actions and render the people who take those actions blameless and sinless, even though the transgression remains immoral.

 

Who do you listen to and read? Where do you need to include other voices and perspectives?

 

Let us pray: God, font of truth and morality, you created our world with certain immutable truths which, like you, transcend culture, religion, spirituality, and politics. Help us find those truths, those moral absolutes in the diverse voices and people you’ve created and put in our paths. Whether we read from people long past or contemporary, whether we find truth in sages, shamans, witches, pastors, and priests, or in the quiet voices of nature and the revelations of science, grant us moments of wonder which connect us to each other across time and place. May our morality and ethics be founded as much on you as it is in the great cloud of witnesses of which we are a part. We ask this in your great name and in the name of your son, Jesus, our liberator. Amen.

 

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

 

Faithfully,

 

Ben +


[1] Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood, trans. Jay Rubin (Vintage Books, 2000), 31.




 
 
 

I Rise

Sunday, July 27, 2025


Sol M. Rizzato, MM, CAGO

Director of Worship & the Arts, Washington Avenue Christian Church (Elyria, OH)

Queer Christian

 

In my bedroom, there hangs a portrait of Marsha P. Johnson, in the form of an icon painting. Next to it is my Transgender pride flag, in its beautiful hues pink, blue and white. There are days I stand and stare at the flag filled with joy and hope. Other days, sometimes there are no words, not even tears, only blank stares. Yet, amidst it all, I still rise. Sometimes I rise apprehensively, weighted down by the heaviness of the world. But I still rise. I rise with questions, I rise with challenges, I rise as my own, highly imperfect, but ever-true self. In a world surrounded by “correct” ways of being, especially when it comes to prayer, I still rise.

 

Perhaps our rising looks like the icons on my wall. Perhaps also, though, rising looks like a Queer pastor, a transgender organist, and a small congregation beating the odds, taking back their musical home, and singing with the utmost holy and bold strength to the tune of Gustav Holst’s THAXTED:


Here, O God, your people gather to worship in this place Singing psalms and hymns of wonder, we long to see your face.


Moved by sounds of pipes and voices, hush of silence, rush of wind,


We are dancing in the rhythms of grace that will not end. Shape our lives with phrase and cadence, compose a living score, As we swell the fuller chorus to praise you all the more.

 

Though the path may not be steady when filled with grief and strife, Your uplifting Spirit

greets us with promise for new life.


You transcend our expectations as you stun us with surprise,


Thus we cannot help but marvel at all before our eyes. While the pow’rs and fears around us can threaten to destroy, You, our God, are ever with us! You bring a greater joy.

 

God, we sense your hope and passion that call us to shalom.


We are yet a pilgrim people still searching for our home. Lead us ever on the journey to your future that will be Filled with justice, love, and mercy across the land and sea. Guide us through the times and seasons of life within your care. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage!

Give us the faith to dare!

 

~Words by the Rev. Nathan A. Russell, 2023. Written with PRIDE and in celebration of Sol Marcus Rizzato, who they are, and their myriad gifts that are already transforming the church and the world.

 
 
 

LOVEboldly exists to create spaces where LGBTQIA+ people can flourish in Christianity. Though oriented to Christianity, we envision a world where all Queer people of faith can be safe, belong, and flourish both within and beyond their faith traditions.   

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