Oscar-nominated writer-director Chris Weitz is known for making popular fare like American Pie, About a Boy and Twilight: New Moon. But last year he made the independent feature A Better Life, which chronicles an undocumented gardener in East LA. Now he’s turned his talents on four short films about the inhumane anti-immigrant law in Alabama.

On the subject of lady parts and the things women should have available to them. “In 2002, at the height of the outcry over the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests, the Archbishop of New York, Edward M. Egan…offered an apology about the church’s handling of sex-abuse cases in New York and in Bridgeport, Conn., where he was previously posted.”

And now this most influential leader of Catholic Bishops has a new special message…PSYCHE!

The House Committee for Oversight & Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, held a hearing on the presence of Occupy DC in McPherson Square. The hearing was titled “Who Made the Decision to Allow Indefinite Camping?” and called into question the National Park Service’s role in allowing occupiers to have tents and engage in what Issa and other members of Congress believe to be illegal camping.

Too many people think King’s statements regarding justice are only about race and the African-American community – thus excluding the LGBTQ community. But King said that, “Eventually the civil rights movement will have contributed infinitely more to the nation than the eradication of racial justice.” Members of King’s family also embrace his words, extending them to the LGBTQ community.

Another American cliche bites the dust, thanks to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (who hasn’t done a lot I like until this). Faced with overwhelming outrage, voiced eloquently and led by poet Maya Angelou, over a misleading and truncated quote of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr carved into his national memorial on the Mall, Secretary Salazar decided that “carved in stone” needn’t mean irrevocably permanent, when a wrong has been done.

Ah, the confusion that reigns when folks talk about church and state . . . SCOTUS rules in favor of religious freedom on one day, and the next day — the very next day! — religious conservatives come out screaming about the threat to religious freedom.

No one could have anticipated . . .

The President signed the defense authorization bill today, appending a signing statement expressing concerns with the detainee measures in the bill.

In a stinging report, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division released their findings of a two-year investigation into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, showing that he unfairly targeted Latinos and discriminated against them at the expense of other crimes in his jurisdiction, including sexual assault crimes.

US Attorney General Holder gave an address at the LBJ Library in Austin yesterday billed as the opening salvo in a Justice Department counter-attack against disenfranchising voter laws, particularly in states which just turned over to conservative legislatures and governors.

Rick Perry’s claims notwithstanding, not all Christians think LGBTs should be discriminated against. Yesterday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune carried a powerful pro-equality voice: retired ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert Chilstrom.

The tide is turning, both inside the church and beyond. And it’s not moving in favor of bigotry, homophobia, exclusion, and hate.