The recent tragedy in Flint, Michigan makes all too clear what occurs when severe austerity budgets are implemented: innocent people suffer. And all too often, it’s low-income and communities of color that suffer the most. That's why the People’s Budget includes $765 million for Flint to replace toxic pipelines and provide needed health, education, and other services for our people exposed to lead. The teachings of our respective faiths are steeped in the understanding that we have a communal responsibility to care for the most vulnerable in society. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, ensuring that all workers receive a fair wage are not simply policy positions: they are sacred obligations. The People’s Budget would also invest in housing, education, transportation, clean energy and safe water to create millions of jobs. It would increase educational opportunities by providing Pre-K and debt-free college for all. And it would fulfill our communal obligations to our parents and grandparents by increasing, not cutting, Social Security and health care. In short, The People’s Budget, if passed, would set our nation on the path toward a fair and healthy economy. You can read more about the "People's Budget" here: http://1.usa.gov/2200IQb Our government should serve all of its citizens. By bolstering the social safety net for those who most need it and prioritizing measures that reduce the growing inequality in our nation, The People’s Budget does just that, and it deserves the support of Congress. We urge you to vote for it when it comes to the House Floor. Thank you for your consideration.

For decades, the Gwich'in people have been defending their ancestral land and culture from the imminent threat of oil exploration and drilling. For daily sustenance, the Gwich’in depend on the Porcupine caribou herd, whose birthing patterns would be disrupted by oil exploration. The Gwich'in call the caribou birthing grounds "the sacred place where life begins," and they believe the caribou and Gwich'in people share a piece of each others' hearts. Defending the ecological integrity of the Arctic Refuge is also about defending the lives, livelihoods, spirituality, and culture of the Gwich'in people.

Pope Francis, your first visit to America comes at a critical time. As you have powerfully stated, many people, including some “committed and prayerful Christians,” tend to “ridicule expressions of concern for the environment,” while “others are passive.” Many of the same people, including candidates for our presidency and elected officials, are stirring old embers of racial and religious prejudice and fear in an effort to get attention and votes. When we, as Americans of many faiths, think of our children and grandchildren, we feel the urgency of this moment even more, because, as you say, “the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us.” We affirm that the cries of pain we feel are interconnected - from the demonization of immigrants, to racial animus, to economic inequality, to ecological destruction -- and we hope that your visit can help ignite a moral (r)evolution that shows us a better path. Multi-faith leaders are developing a plan to help congregations around the country translate your call into action, and we will gather to announce that plan at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, the same day you address Congress. Many others are hosting vigils and prayer services to welcome your message of hope and inclusion. Thank you for your visit, Pope Francis. May God guide and empower you to speak the truth to those in power.

All of Creation is in danger. If we let Big Coal continue polluting our air at the current rate we could witness Greenland melt, sea levels rise more than 11 inches, and persistent flooding devastate major U.S. cities by 2045. We can’t let it happen. The deadline for commenting on the EPA’s new standards to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30% is quickly approaching – but they’ve extended the deadline because they need to hear from more of us! Please, join IPL and Groundswell by signing your name to tell the EPA you support crucial carbon standards that will cut global warming pollution by at least 30%. Lend your voice, and urge the EPA to pass new carbon standards for a brighter, safer, more sustainable future for generations to come. As people of faith, this is our opportunity to lift our voices in defense of God’s creation, but we’re only loud enough if we all join together. That’s why Interfaith Power & Light and Groundswell are partnering to speak out in support of the EPA’s new, common sense carbon standards and help protect the planet God has blessed us with.

Dear President Obama: Thank you for your leadership in protecting our national parks, monuments and public lands, most recently the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks in New Mexico. As members and friends of America's faith community, we believe we have a shared moral responsibility to protect our national parks, monuments and public lands. The clean air and water, wildlife habitat and natural and cultural heritage contained therein are our legacy to our children and grandchildren; the threats posed to these resources by climate change and unfettered oil and gas development require our urgent attention. The U.S. House of Representatives’ recent passage of legislation to curtail your authority to protect new parks and monuments is just the latest example of the unproductive partisanship of this Congress. Across the country, local communities are fed up and eager for you to use your “pen and a phone” to conserve their public lands heritage. As important as many of these lands are for oil and gas and clean energy production, we are confident that you agree that our most prized national parks and monuments are equally deserving of enhanced protections in recognition of their value for clean air and water, wildlife habitat, local economic opportunity, and our physical and spiritual health. America’s Great Outdoors is our shared legacy on behalf of our children and grandchildren. Thank you for working to conserve the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and other public lands that, as Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said so eloquently, are “too special to develop.” Sincerely, People of faith and friends who care about our environment Including: ∙ Rev. Richard Cizik President, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good ∙ Eric Chivian, M.D. Founder and Director Emeritus, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School ∙ Bob Doppelt The Resource Innovation Group ∙ Larry Schweiger President, National Wildlife Federation ∙ Rev. Sally Bingham Environmental Activist ∙ John Elwood Founder, Beloved Planet ∙ Lise Van Susteren, M.D. CEO, Lucky Planet Foods, Inc. ∙ Dena Merriam Founder, Global Peace Initiative of Women ∙ Rev. M. Dele Founder, Nature's Friends Institute

On April 15, 2014, the Louisiana House of Representatives voted 66-27 to retain a state law that bans sexual relations between consenting adults. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such laws are unconstitutional, and they cannot be legally enforced. During what is for many people one of the most sacred seasons of the year (Holy Week and Passover), Louisiana lawmakers decided that the best use of their time would be to make an official pronouncement against the 100,000+ Louisianans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and the millions more who love them. Their vote means: "You are not welcome in Louisiana. If it were up to us, you would be fined thousands of dollars or put into jail for up to five years." Trying to extend the reach of government, they also said with their vote: "What you choose to do in your own bedroom is our business." This is in violation of a central tenet of all our faith traditions -- to "love your neighbor." It is especially damaging to LGBT children, who like all children need to know that they are loved and respected as God's unique creations. Louisiana lawmakers used their positions and taxpayer resources to express those intolerant and ignorant opinions, instead of focusing on the fact that Louisiana: > Ranks second in terms of state poverty rates > Has the nation's highest murder rate > Has the highest incarceration rate in the world > Stands to lose billions of dollars and refuse medical care to low income people by refusing to accept federal money to expand Medicaid > Is slipping into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of one football field per hour The legislature's vote is not only mean spirited, it is also ironic: Many of these lawmakers are themselves guilty of the "sin of Sodom" as expressed in Ezekiel 16:49: "Sodom's sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door." As clergy and ordinary people of faith, we call on the Louisiana House of Representatives to repeal Louisiana code 14:89 - the "sodomy law" - and then move on to the real work that needs to be done so the state can live up to its full potential: > Help people to rise out of poverty > Make our streets safe > Keep people out of jail if they don't need to be there > Accept federal money to expand Medicaid > Save this beautiful land before it disappears into the sea.

Did you know that Texas sets the trend for school textbooks across the country? Sadly, these textbooks could soon teach children to deny the reality of climate change. Several members of a textbook review panel - who are on the panel despite being associated with fringe anti-science groups - are urging the Board of Education to censor the findings of climate science. If the publisher bows to their pressure, textbooks across the country might speak ambiguously about climate change! The Board of Education will make their decision about the textbooks in mid-November, so we need to act now. Even though 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is real and humans are the primary source of the problem, these fringe groups are looking to sow confusion. One review claimed “We don't really know that the carbon cycle has been altered.” Another, that: “In reality we don't know what climate change will do to species diversity.” This is wrong – we need to protect honest education about climate change. Facts shouldn’t be up for debate – and people of faith have a role to play in countering the lie that religion and science are at odds. Some of the reviewers are using faith in their argument against science, so we need to counter their misinformation. Students deserve to learn the truth about the damage being done to creation. Join Sojourners in telling the Texas State Board of Education to teach the facts about climate change.

Twenty years ago, more than 100 global faith and spiritual leaders declared a shared vision of the world’s critical challenges, and what we can do in harmony to eradicate these problems. While we celebrate this pioneering global ethic, the work toward true interreligious and human harmony continues. Our generation lives in the face of the same struggles: Continuous war, division, poverty, hunger, violence, ecological danger, and political dysfunction toward achieving true, lasting harmony. And yet, the world is still populated by a groundswell of caring, collaborative, and eager people. The innovators of contemporary interfaith trailblazed; their declaration to fix a world languishing presented a CALL TO ACTION we as millennials are better equipped to accept than any generation before. It is time for a fundamental change of hearts and minds, to act harmoniously with one another and our earth, transcendent of boundary and creed. THE GROUNDSWELL FOR A BETTER FUTURE BEGINS WITH THIS PLEDGE. SIGN AND DECLARE: We are interdependent. We take individual responsibility for all we do. All our decisions, actions, and failures to act have consequences. We consider humankind our family. We commit ourselves to a culture of non-violence, respect, justice, and peace. We must strive for a just social and economic order in which everyone has an equal chance to reach full potential as a human being. Earth cannot be changed for the better unless the consciousness of individuals is changed first. We pledge to increase our awareness by disciplining our minds, by meditation, by prayer, or by positive thinking. Without risk and a readiness to sacrifice there can be no fundamental change in our situation. Therefore we commit ourselves to this global ethic, to understanding one another, and to socially beneficial, peace-fostering, and nature-friendly ways of life. WE INVITE ALL PEOPLE, RELIGIOUS, SPIRITUAL, AND ETHICAL, TO DO THE SAME. Signing is easy, but committing takes guts. Will you: 1) Commit to and sign the Global Ethic!* ( Full text of the Towards a Global Ethic declaration is downloadable by clicking on "Campaign website" on the left sidebar. 2) Share how you will live out the global ethic for a better future for all. 3) Start a conversation with your teachers, faith leaders, family partners, and especially those with whom you seek to find common ground: like your grandparents, co-workers, and in-laws! 4) Ask your neighbors to sign, too. Use Facebook, e-mail, and around the old-fashioned water cooler . Tip: If a debate erupts, steer the conversation toward your common core values. 5) Pick a partner, pick a common cause, and pick a time to act together. 6) Let go of hate. Live out the vision.

In his recent address on the topic at Georgetown University, President Obama stated the following: "One day, our children, their children, will almost certainly ask, 'What did you do to solve the climate challenge?'" Over the decades since its founding in 1942, the Association which represents 45,000 local churches and 40 different denominations, has adopted official statements and resolutions on dozens of public-policy issues, ranging from immigration to sexual trafficking. But it has yet to acknowledge the reality of human-caused green house gas emissions nor our human responsibility as stewards of creation to take individual and governmental action to address such carbon emissions. In light of what appears to be a complacency, if not simple abdication of our shared responsibility and leadership, we urge the Board of the National Association of Evangelicals to officially declare itself by Resolution on the reality of human-caused climate change and the need of not just individuals and churches to take actions to reduce carbon emissions, but for the federal government to do so by supporting the Environmental Protection Agency's planned regulation of existing coal-burning utility plants. Given the importance of protecting our natural heritage, we also urge the Board of the Association to declare itself on our faith-based, moral responsibility to future generations to ensure conservation of America’s parks and public lands -- including the clean water, wildlife habitat, and cultural treasures protected therein -- on equal ground with the priority afforded to oil and gas development on our public lands. Unfortunately, under the first term of the Obama Administration, the oil and gas industry leased more than 6 million acres of public land, more than double the 2.6 million acres that were permanently protected for the public to access and enjoy. People of faith believe we do not need to sacrifice the latter (public lands) for the former (oil and gas leases). Our moral responsibility to speak to these two issues, the first being a regulatory action, and the second a request of President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden, are well-within the parameters of previous NAE resolutions which have urged actions which the light of history reveals to be far-sighted and impactful, from the banning of smoking on airlines to support for government to encourage fuel efficiency, reduce pollution, encourage sustainable use of natural resources, and provide for the proper care of wildlife and their natural habitats. When the Board of the National Association of Evangelicals meets in October 2013, we will present you the signatories to this petition, which we hope and pray will include many of the names of leaders who previously and currently serve on the Board and who want the Association to go on record on behalf of these worthy and compelling public policy issues, as well as young Millennials and New Evangelicals who are our friends and colleagues. Thank you for your leadership. Signed: Richard Cizik, President, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good Anna Jane Joyner, Creation Care Advocate

For thousands of New Yorkers this winter, the unwanted and uninvited guest is Sandy. Three months after the storm devastated New York, 8,600 New Yorkers living in the Rockaway Peninsula still don’t have power, heat, or help to fix mold so severe it’s causing health problems in children and adults. Clergy in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Lower Manhattan are supporting congregations reeling from Sandy, and families are trying to maintain their holiday spirit in spite of the hardship. Join faith and community leaders from across New York City as we stand with families in the Rockaways who will be forced to spend their winter in the dark and cold.