'On the road to Gilead': Alarm raised over conservative push to curtail women's rights

Photo by Josh Johnson on Unsplash

Sarah K. Burris

December 11, 2025

ALTERNET

Comedian and podcaster Deborah Frances-White isn’t joking in her recent column for The iPaper, where she describes a growing movement of men who believe women’s right to vote should be taken away.

"The Guilty Feminist" host noted that she first assumed that it was rumblings coming from the "manosphere," an umbrella term for a loose network of online communities that promote ideologies of male supremacy and anti-feminism.

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"However, even the most fiercely anti-feminist forces haven’t openly questioned women having the vote in my lifetime, because no one can remember a time when it wasn’t normal," wrote Frances-White.

She recalled being cornered in the lobby of one of her comedy shows, by a woman who claimed that women are "too emotional" to have the right to vote.

"That was my first alarm bell," she confessed.


White women in the U.S. earned the right to vote in 1920. Frances-White noted that Native American women weren't even classified as citizens until 1924 and some Black women were blocked from voting until the 1960s — particularly in the South.

But in the last decade, Supreme Court rulings eliminated the Roe v. Wade standard, allowing the government to regulate reproductive health.

Frances-White pointed to the "Project 2025" handbook, a plan authored by those working with the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation amid President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.

The goals include not just replacing FBI staff with Trump loyalists, but the complete dismantling of the Department of Education, the mass deportation of immigrants and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

One section, however, focuses on enacting laws pushed by Christian nationalists, including laws that criminalize reproductive health.

"Much of this is being actioned now," she warned.

"Part of this new political climate includes the visibility of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which counts more than 160 congregations across North America, Europe, Asia and South America," she continued. "Their most recent outpost was strategically planted in Washington DC under the leadership of Pastor Doug Wilson. While they are not directly connected to Project 2025, many of their aims align neatly with it."

CREC spokespeople are outright arguing to overturn a woman's right to vote and put women "back to the household." Women's suffrage is "eroded family values" in their eyes. Women should only be voting, they believe, if she is the head of the household. That does not mean that men who are not the head of the household are not allowed to vote, however.

This reflects a broader argument within the Trump coalition. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has contended that if women are to be included in combat roles, they must meet the same physical standards as male soldiers.

In her closing remarks, Frances-White contends that what marks the beginning of the journey "on the road to Gilead" is not the overturning of a ruling like Roe, but rather when ideas questioning women's voting rights spread through conversations, social media, and videos without significant public opposition.

"It’s a quiet conversation in a church basement," she said. "It’s a campaign shared on social media. It’s ideas dropped in YouTube videos with millions of hits. It’s a moment when someone says, “maybe women shouldn’t vote,” and it doesn’t get laughed off. If you believe democracy means that each of us has a voice – the right to vote, choose, speak, dissent – now is the time to guard it."

Read the full column here.

Faith groups join other death penalty opponents in new campaign

Faith groups join other death penalty opponents in new campaign

(RNS) — The new initiative points to an increase in the use of the death penalty over the past year as public support for it has fallen in the United States.

FILE - Protesters against the death penalty gather in Terre Haute, Ind., July 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Adelle M. BanksDecember 4, 2025
RNS

(RNS) — More than 50 faith, civil rights and other organizations launched a joint initiative to oppose the death penalty in the United States as the groups’ leaders say they have been alarmed by increases in its use over the past year.

Laura Porter, executive director of the new initiative, the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, announced the initiative to media in a virtual event on Wednesday (Dec. 3). 

“In this moment, we see a very clear disconnect between the handful of politicians pushing for more executions and the expansion of the death penalty and current public sentiment on this issue,” she said, adding that those in the coalition will work to build joint advocacy and messaging strategies “to coordinate a national response to executions.”

Sister Helen Prejean, a longtime Catholic anti-death penalty activist and the author of the book “Dead Man Walking,” was one of several who spoke at the announcement. 

“When you look at the death penalty itself, it epitomizes all the deep wounds in our society, and top-most among that is that you use violence and cruelty to solve social problems,” she said.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 44 prisoners have been executed in 11 states in the U.S. in 2025, an increase from 25 prisoners executed in nine states in 2024.

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RELATED: The death penalty: Vengeance, justice or mercy?

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Laura Porter participates in the virtual event announcing the U.S.

 Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Video screen grab)

Porter, who also is the executive director of the 8th Amendment Project, another organization that has worked to rescind the death penalty, and other speakers criticized the Trump administration and states — especially in the South, including Florida, which has had the most death penalty executions in 2025.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the day he began his second term that called capital punishment “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” and sought to enforce its use for certain crimes. 

The coalition includes a combination of faith-based organizations, conservative groups and civil rights organizations.

“By showcasing this partnership and collaboration publicly for the first time, we are able to build more trust and broaden our outreach to work directly with a range of faith communities that we weren’t able to reach before and connect them with campaigns in their state or local areas,” Porter told Religion News Service in a statement. “Each of our partners speak to different faith-based communities, including Evangelicals, Catholics, Black and Indigenous faith leaders, Spanish-speaking faith communities, youth ministries, and Protestant denominations allowing us to share information more widely than ever before.” 

The faith-related groups involved include Prejean’s Ministry Against the Death Penalty; Catholic Mobilizing Network; Mission Talk, a Florida-based evangelical Latino group; Faith Leaders of Color Coalition, which includes Black and Indigenous opponents of capital punishment; and Live Free, a national group mobilizing faith leaders to help end mass incarceration. 

The coalition pointed to declining American support for the death penalty. A Gallup poll published in October found 52% of Americans favor the death penalty for a person convicted of murder — the lowest level of support since 1972, although the change was not statistically significant over the past two years. Support for it was highest in 1994, when 80% of Americans were in favor of using it for someone convicted of murder. 

In 2021, Pew Research Center found that 60% of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder. Looking at religious affiliation, it found opposition to the death penalty was highest among atheists (65%) and agnostics (57%), followed by Black Protestants (47%), white Catholics (43%), Hispanic Catholics (37%), white non-evangelical Protestants (27%) and white evangelical Protestants (23%). 

Opinions on the death penalty also vary based on political affiliation. According to the 2021 Pew study, 77% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents support the death penalty for convicted murderers compared to 46% of Democrats. 

Demetrius Minor, executive director of Conservatives Concerned, a network opposing capital punishment, said he is working with “pro-life groups” and joining with other anti-death-penalty partners to raise their concerns about cases of prisoners scheduled for execution where issues like innocence, prosecutorial misconduct, severe mental illness and intellectual disability are factors.

“More and more conservatives across the country are questioning the death penalty and advocating for change,” he said. “In the past two years, Republicans have introduced repeal or moratorium legislation in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Oklahoma.”

Demetrius Minor participates in a virtual event about the U.S.

 Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Video screen grab)

Barry Scheck, co-founder and special counsel of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people, cited bipartisan and religious support for Robert Roberson, a Texas prisoner with autism convicted of murdering his 2-year-old daughter, whose scheduled October execution was stayed by an appeals court. He has maintained his innocence for more than 20 years on death row, and the Innocence Project has argued his case was “riddled with unscientific evidence, inaccurate and misleading medical testimony, and prejudicial treatment.” Scheck said the campaign to save him from death was “infused” with faith leaders. 

“It was quite moving and extraordinary to see these Republican legislators go to prison and pray with Robert,” he said. 

Prejean, a veteran of the movement, expressed her appreciation for other long-term death penalty opponents in the new coalition as they continue their work in a new partnership.

“I am full of hope on this issue, despite the harshness and terribleness of what’s going on,” she said. “When you build a fire, you need a fire in each log to build on the rest to keep the fire going.”

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RELATED: Vatican, other faith leaders join in push for end of death penalty in Louisiana

ICE Nativity scenes: Churches reimagine Christmas story amid deportations

(RNS) — 'We know that Jesus was born into a Roman imperial occupation, and pretty much immediately becomes a refugee in Egypt, has to flee and faces political violence,' the Rev. Michael Woolf said.

A Nativity outside Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois.

 (Photo courtesy of the Rev. Michael Woolf)

Jack Jenkins
December 5, 2025
RNS


(RNS) — At first glance, the Nativity scene outside Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois, has all the traditional hallmarks: Figures resembling Mary and Joseph stand near a baby Jesus, who rests in a manger.

But this year, the details are decidedly different. For starters, Mary and Joseph are wearing gas masks. Jesus, who typically is depicted lying in hay, is instead nestled in a reflective blanket often used by immigrants in detention, with his hands bound with zip ties. And behind the family stands three Roman centurions wearing vests with a very modern label: ICE, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Rev. Michael Woolf, senior minister at the church, said the Nativity was meant to reference the recent influx of ICE into Chicago and the surrounding area as part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing mass deportation effort. The pastor noted Department of Homeland Security agents have tear-gassed protesters in the area and that locals reported seeing children among those detained with zip ties by federal agents during a recent high-profile immigration raid in a nearby apartment building. DHS has denied the latter claim, although evidence of similar actions has been reported elsewhere.



“We know that Jesus was born into a Roman imperial occupation, and pretty much immediately becomes a refugee in Egypt, has to flee and faces political violence,” he said. “So we have to ask: what would it be like if Jesus were born here today?”

The Nativity is one of multiple immigration-themed religious displays that have popped up in different parts of the country in recent weeks, with at least one live-action depiction of Christ’s birth slated to take place outside an ICE facility later this month. Amid rising faith-based pushback to Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, religious leaders say they are hoping to make the Christmas story relevant to modern believers by recalling the dire circumstances faced by Jesus and his parents as recounted in the gospels.

Churchgoers at Saint Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, recently erected a similar immigration-themed Nativity just outside their building. The display includes traditional depictions of the magi, stable animals and other figures, but the banner above reads “Peace on Earth?” And propped up in the center of the arrangement, where Mary, Joseph and Jesus would normally appear, sits a sign that reads: “ICE was here.”

A Nativity outside Saint Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts.

 (Photo courtesy of the Rev. Steve Josoma)

The sign, in smaller font, notes that “the Holy Family is safe inside The Sanctuary of Our Church.” But it goes on to encourage viewers to call a local immigration justice hotline if they see ICE officers.

The Rev. Steve Josoma, the priest at Saint Susanna, said he understands some people would rather have “a nice little place for baby Jesus and his family to celebrate Christmas” and “leave it at that.” But he argued religious art should engage the viewer.



“It’s not supposed to be something that you look at and admire,” he said. “It’s supposed to challenge you, to move you, to help you see things differently, to maybe force some questions that you know need to be answered.”

He added: “I think Pope Francis used to always say, if you want to hear God, you’ve got to go to the margins of life, in the stables and with the shepherds. You couldn’t get more to the margins of life.”

Woolf and Josoma said their churches have erected Nativity scenes with political themes in the past, touching on the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza or past immigration debates. But while those displays garnered media attention and even criticism, the clergymen suggested blowback to their latest efforts has been more intense — especially after Fox News host Sean Hannity dedicated an entire segment of his show to condemning Lake Street’s Nativity scene.

“A woke church set up a truly horrifying Nativity scene,” Hannity said on his show. “I guess the war on Christmas is back, isn’t it?”

Hannity’s guest, Allie Beth Stuckey, decried the display as “blasphemy.” Stuckey, a conservative author, has garnered a following in certain far-right circles this year, particularly for her argument that Christians can be misled into embracing “toxic empathy” for immigrants.

After Fox and other conservative media outlets picked up the display, Woolf said his church has received an avalanche of calls — many supportive, but others decidedly not

“There’s been some suggestions that I should kill myself,” Woolf said.

Josoma reported a similar influx of messages.

“You get a lot of support, but as it goes on, most — not all, but most — of the negative ones aren’t really conversational,” he said. “They’re just swearing and yelling.”

Yet the displays follow months of public — and often confrontational — faith-based pushback to Trump’s mass-deportation effort. Pope Leo, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and clergy from a range of traditions have spoken out against the administration’s immigration agenda throughout 2025, with some denominations even filing lawsuits challenging the government’s policies. Faith leaders have been injured after being shot with non-lethal pepper balls and pepper rounds while demonstrating outside ICE facilities, and others have even been arrested — including Woolf, who became a fixture on social media last month when an image of him being detained by police outside an ICE building went viral.

The same faith-fueled movement is inspiring another immigration-themed Nativity scene on Christmas Eve, this time featuring real-life participants. The Rev. Dave Woessner, an Episcopal priest and congregational coordinator with the Massachusetts Council of Churches, said his team is organizing a Christmas worship service outside of an ICE facility in Burlington that will feature a real-life recreation of Jesus’ birth — including, potentially, a donkey.

“It is a full Christian worship service celebrating Christmas, telling the story of Jesus’ birth, and telling the story of the Holy Family as a refugee family,” Woessner said. “We celebrate knowing that our Savior comes into the world as a person who is oppressed, a person who is persecuted and fleeing government violence into a family that is under the thumb of tyranny and empire. Yet God comes into the world — the light of the world comes into the darkness.”

Woessner, who works with communities impacted by deportation efforts, said he and others have convened a weekly vigil outside the ICE facility for 33 weeks straight. The faith leaders have also attempted to accompany immigrants who are appearing for ICE check-ins, but have been repeatedly denied. At least one immigrant Woessner accompanied to the building’s door, he said, entered the building and was promptly deported.

The Massachusetts Council of Churches is also a plaintiff in one of the faith-led lawsuits against the Trump administration, challenging the government’s decision to rescind an internal policy that discouraged immigration raids at churches and other “sensitive locations.”

Asked if they coordinated efforts or even spoke with each other about their immigration-themed religious displays, the three pastors said no. But none expressed surprise that Nativity scenes criticizing ICE would become popular this season.

“We’re learning from Christ’s story so that we can see more clearly how that is playing out in our midst today,” Woessner said.

 UK Christians challenge Christmas rally organized by far-right provocateur

(RNS) — The Church of England has countered with posters at bus stops and other locations that say ‘Christ has always been in Christmas’ and ‘Outsiders welcome.’

A Salvation Army brass band plays near a Christmas tree while soliciting donations at the Waterloo train station, Dec. 9, 2025, in London. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)


Yonat ShimronDecember 9, 2025
RNS

LONDON (RNS) — The last time the British anti-migrant agitator Tommy Robinson led a rally through the streets of London, marchers, some dressed as Crusaders and carrying crosses, kicked and punched police, threw bottles and spewed offensive chants against political leaders.

So, when Robinson called for another rally, titled “Putting the Christ Back Into Christmas” religious groups across the country quickly organized in counterprotest ahead of the march, which is scheduled for Saturday (Dec. 13).

The Church of England has launched a poster campaign at bus stops and other locations that says “Christ has always been in Christmas” and “Outsiders welcome.” A coalition of three other Protestant denominations has put out a set of resources for churches to use, called “Joy for All.” And the Sanctuary Foundation, a Christian organization that provides support services to refugees and asylum-seekers, is hosting a live Nativity scene — donkey included — at a London church hours before the march.

“Tommy Robinson is most famous for his work stirring up hatred and fear amongst the British population toward asylum-seekers, refugees and immigrants,” said Krish Kandiah, who directs the nonprofit. “This seems so ironic when Jesus himself was a refugee, right?”

A poster featuring a bus stop Nativity in the #JoyForAll campaign by the Church of England. (Image courtesy of the Church of England)

England, as in the United States, has a surging white nationalist movement that seeks to reclaim its Christian identity. One of those leading the charge is Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He rose to prominence in 2009 as a leader of the now-defunct English Defense League, which was known for drawing soccer hooligans to anti-Islam protests. While serving a prison term for repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee, he was reported to have converted to Christianity.

He has since repeated the white supremacist “great replacement” theory — a baseless conspiracy positing there is an orchestrated plan to replace white people with people of other races.

“While we rejoice that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has come to faith in prison, what he then doesn’t get to do is to reduce that wide embrace of God’s mercy and start redefining it on his own terms,” Church of England Bishop of Kirkstall Arun Arora told RNS. “The hallmarks of the ministry of Jesus Christ are healing, forgiveness and self-sacrifice, and those are not the values that you see coming out in Tommy Robinson and his supporters.”

Arora rejected the claim made by organizers of the rally that Christmas has been canceled or forgotten.

“In every church, in every cathedral, in every parish, in every corner of our country, they can find a story of hope, joy and love,” he said.

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RELATED: ICE Nativity scenes: Churches reimagine Christmas story amid deportations

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Still, the plans by the populist far-right leader have prompted a vigorous counteroffensive in part because Christians may not recognize the dangers to minorities, refugees and other vulnerable people, said Alex Clare-Young, campaigns and church engagement officer for the Joint Public Issues Team, a social justice advocacy organization for three denominations: the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church.

“A lot of people in churches are confused because some of the advertising that’s been coming out about this has been suggesting that it’s about Christian revival, and it’s just a worship event about praise and celebration,” said Clare-Young. “And they might feel, ‘Oh, well, that’s something we might actually like to go to.’ So we’re strongly encouraging people not to go.”

People demonstrate during the Tommy Robinson-led Unite the Kingdom

 rally, in London, Sept. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Joanna Chan)

The September Unite the Kingdom rally, which took place three days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, was considered the largest by the far right in England’s history, with estimates of 110,000 people crowding through the streets of London.

Among the speakers at the rally was Elon Musk, who appeared on screen via video railing against the “woke mind virus” and telling the crowd that “violence is coming” and that “you either fight back or you die.”

Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, was also invited to the march but did not make it.

At the march, Robinson was quoted saying “It’s not just Britain that is being invaded, it’s not just Britain that is being raped. Every single Western nation faces the same problem: an orchestrated, organized invasion and replacement of European citizens is happening,”

About 5,000 counterprotesters demonstrated against the rally. But some Christians said they were discouraged by the counterdemonstrations.

Christmas carolers perform in Trafalgar Square, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025

, in London, England. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)

“We found the response of the counterprotesters, which was basically to shout ‘fascist scum’ at people, didn’t really line up with our vision of loving our neighbors, loving our enemies and trying to find a different way of engaging with people in a way that is not dehumanizing,” said Thomas Sharpe, a 25-year-old Christian in London who founded the group Better Story.

Sharpe, who attends an evangelical Church of England congregation in North London, said he’s going to lend his support to the live Nativity planned earlier in the day at Trafalgar Square’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

He knows it likely won’t match the numbers of the far-right march, but he’s hopeful a focus on the Christmas story that inspires charity and kindness will sway British Christians more.

“We’re trying to make sure that what we do is hopeful and positive,” he said. “We’re not there to be combative. And so, it’s not really a numbers thing for us. It’s more of just wanting to show a bit of who we see Jesus as.”