Overheard (November 2026)

If any belief system creates a power imbalance that puts women or anyone in a position of fear, isolation or total dependence, I reject it. If my past content contributed to that, I am so genuinely sorry.

Bernadine Barber, a former tradwife who went by the name Bernadine Bluntly in her online persona. She left her husband after she claimed he abused her.

New York Times, 9-25-26

This is not a way to treat any living organism, it’s horrific. I know that this is for a religious ceremony, but this is animal cruelty.

Eddie Rosenberg, a New York City resident who lives near where a U-Haul was filled with crates of hundreds of chickens, most of which were dead. The chickens are believed to be for the Orthodox Jewish holiday ritual Kaporos, a pre-Yom Kippur ritual that entails a person waving the chicken above their head by the wings, then turning the chicken upside down and slicing its throat.

New York Post, 9-27-26

Behind every one of those numbers is a child whose safety was violated, a family that was changed forever, and a survivor who carried the trauma of that abuse for years and, in many cases, decades.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, whose investigation found that more than 270 Catholic clerics sexually abused almost 1,000 children in three Massachusetts dioceses over decades.

Reuters, 10-1-26

I do not want government employees [public school teachers] forced into reducing our family’s deeply held beliefs and sacred texts into pseudo-religious screeds that serve political ends. . . I never wanted my children to absorb a watered-down cultural Christianity message, and in many ways, the actions of our Texas politicians feel like an infringement on my religious liberty.

Carrie McKean, a devout Christian mother who is against the Texas law that requires the Ten Commandments to be  displayed in every public school classroom.

Religion News Service, 10-6-26

Whatever you think about public schools, it is difficult not to seethe at the fundamental unfairness of voucher programs that give money to schools that don’t have to educate all students.

Columnist Jessica Grose, regarding Texas’ voucher program, which went into effect this year.

New York Times, 10-7-26

Faith, religious liberty and the separation of church and state matter to Americans, and this is an election where their votes will register a preference for theocracy or democracy.

Marci A. Hamilton, in her column, “Theocracy is on the ballot, part I: The white evangelical nationalists.”

The Verdict, 10-19-26