Monday's News & Ideas - 6/26/2023

U.S. Catholic bishops to create first guidelines for transgender health care
The Washington Post: The doctrine group creating the draft a few months ago said trans treatments “are not morally justified.”

Jesse Helms, family values, and his gay granddaughter*
The Assembly: The late senator made harsh opposition to gay rights his signature issue just as his granddaughter was coming to terms with her own sexuality. For the first time, she talks publicly about her struggle with his legacy.

He walked away from his evangelical roots to escape feeling suffocated
NPR: Jon Ward says it got to a point where he didn’t like being in an environment where everyone thought the same thing.

Unitarian Universalists elect first woman of color, openly queer president
Religion News Service: A womanist theologian, ethicist and minister, the Rev. Sofía Betancourt previously served as interim co-president of the UUA in 2017.

US talks sanctions against Uganda after a harsh anti-gay law – but criminalizing same-sex activities has become a political tactic globally
The Conversation: Leaders pushing anti-LGBTQ+ laws claim to be protecting their citizens from foreign cultural threats, but the 2023 law is better understood as a political tactic to retain power by distracting the public from failures of governance.

The Spark

Fights, beatings and a birth: Videos smuggled out of L.A. jails reveal violence, neglect
Some of the videos, all apparently taken from the jails’ surveillance systems, show men so inured to violence* that they continue on with their daily routine, working out and reading even as bloody brawls and beatings by deputies unfold feet away, The Los Angeles Times says. (trigger warning: video contains extreme violence)

*access is limited for nonsubscribers