National

President Barack Obama participates in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC's Good Morning America, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, in Washington. Obama declared his unequivocal support for gay marriage on Wednesday, a historic announcement that gave the polarizing social issue a more prominent role in the 2012 race for the White House. (Pete Souza - AP) Earlier this week, when Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson and author Sophia Nelson verbally sparred on The Ed Show over Dyson’s claim that President Obama’s recent endorsement of marriage equality has brought out "sexual rednecks" from within the black church, it brought to head the passionate debate raging in black America over gay marriage. The intense theological climate that the same-sex marriage debate has stirred begs the question: What’s at stake for the black church on this issue?

Jamal Harrison-Bryant, pastor of the Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, Md., has been one of the most vocal voices on this front. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius answers a question during a briefing to release Social Security and Medicare trustees reports at the Treasury Department April 23, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee - GETTY IMAGES) Below is the full address Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave to Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute Friday. The text was sent in advance of her speech.

Dean Montgomery, members of the faculty, family, friends, and graduates: it’s an honor to be with you this morning. And let me start with some well-earned congratulations. Last weekend, on Mother’s Day, I was at the University of Kansas when my younger son received his Masters degree. So I know the hard work and effort that got you here today.

I married a Georgetown law graduate and am a Hoya Mom – the mother of a double Georgetown graduate. So in my family, Hoya Saxa comes second only to Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

As Jeremiah Wright is once again thrust into the political spotlight, we must ask ourselves if we’re truly a nation ready for racial progress, writes Rahiel Tesfamariam. (Chip Somodevilla - Getty Images)

While Barack Obama was still hot on the campaign trail in his first bid for presidency, many Democrats began to fear that his history of church attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Jeremiah Wright would cost him the election. Four years later, as the NY Times reports that a Republican “super PAC” had plans to unleash an intense advertising campaign intended to resurrect the controversy, it’s important to reflect on why the G.O.P.’s use of the strategy mattered so much then and why it still matters now.

People walk past the JP Morgan Chase Building on Park Avenue May 15, 2012 in New York. The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into JPMorgan Chase's more than $2 billion trading loss that the Wall Street bank announced last week, media reports said Tuesday. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY - AFP/GETTY IMAGES) JPMorgan’s losses from risky bets the bank made continue to grow . According to reports, investors who lost money because of these “bets” are now suing the bank because of it.

A Hindu devotee makes an offering of food to a sacred cow on the eve of Gopastami in Hyderabad on November 3, 2011. The Gopastami festival, which commemorates Hindu Lord Krishna becoming a cowherder, brings devotees preparing food and offering religious rituals to cows. AFP PHOTO/Noah SEELAM (NOAH SEELAM - AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Student protests are often memorable for their creativity: Sloganeering, marches and sit-ins are often par for the course. In India, Mahatma Gandhi wielded the hunger strike so effectively, that even today social reformers gain attention--and gravitas--by giving up a meal. But what to make then of a student rally turning hunger on its head: an in-your-face beef-eating festival at a university campus in India?