User:Brookebalthrope/sandbox

The National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN), since its inception in 1969, has been an advocate for social and structural change inside and outside the Catholic Church. It represents from 500 to 2,000 U.S. women religious. Membership is not restricted to nuns or Catholics; however, their membership is made up of over 2000 Catholic nuns. The NCAN is partnered with the Women-Church Convergence, which promotes "diverse feminist, faith-filled voices." Their mission statement reads: "Catholic-rooted groups working to build just social and ecclesial structures with shared power for everyone, especially women and those whom church and society marginalize ... we create spaces in which all can live out their vision of full inclusion in church and society. Our commitment to feminist ministries and our social justice values lead us to act boldly in the world for the benefit of all." The NCAN rejects racism and xenophobia in any form because they believe it "contradicts their values and disturbs world peace."

The NCAN has long advanced the idea that women should be fully welcomed into the church including the priesthood. In 1972, the organization published a “Declaration of Independence for Women,” a document which outlined a five-year plan to achieve gender equality within and outside the Church. This declaration advocated for full equality for women, reformation of the economic and power systems, and simple living. In this document, members made a connection between slavery and the oppression of women in the Catholic Church: “Just as today we are appalled that organized religion once approved slavery, so within a few years will the present oppression of women in churches be recognized as immoral.” Additionally, the declaration requested broad-based research programs in human sexuality to encourage fair judgement on the behavior of the human family, and called upon women to refrain from economic assistance to churches until 1976. The NCAN also declared its support for the 2018 Women's Marches around the world and their contradiction of the "vulgar words" used by President Trump.

The NCAN's position on the issues of abortion, homosexuality, and women clerics have put it at odds with the U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops. The NCAN is most well-known for their strong support of Reproductive Justice, or the right of a woman to choose what is best for her own body, including the use of contraceptives and abortions, if needed. In fact, the NCAN was extremely upset after other Catholic groups began challenging the Affordable Care Act by refusing insurance coverage for contraceptives for women. The NCAN believes that this violates the inherent rights and equality given to all men and women of this nation. The NCAN even announced their support of the Obamacare Contraception Access during his presidency. After the pope declared that priests could forgive women who have had abortions as long as they admitted to sinning, the group of American nuns realized there was a lot to be done in order to "make women equal members of the Catholic Church." While the NCAN acknowledged the attempts of pope to act in a pastoral manner and soften his stance on the issue, many women within the church did not find these comments satisfactory and felt as though their right to autonomy was still not recognized by the Church. The nuns argued that "sperm from males was responsible for these unplanned pregnancies." Many other Catholic activism groups, such Catholics for Choice, joined the NCAN and spoke out against the pope as well. A member of the NCAN, Sister Donna Quinn, spoke out against the priest after these comments were made, saying that “I think he gets it within the Vatican sense and about the hierarchy, but he still won’t let women have full membership with the Catholic tradition. Women still don’t have full membership.” Sister Donna Quinn, the coordinator of the NCAN, has been known for "escorting women through a gauntlet of protesters" at abortion clinics. Quinn calls herself "a feminist and an activist and proud of it." Sister Mary Ann Cunningham of Denver, a NCAN board member, says they are an alternative to the church hierarchy's positions on public issues. The organization supports the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

The NCAN is also known for the support of the LGBT community and their acceptance into the church. Involved in the relationship between the church and the LGBT community for over forty-seven years, Sister Jeannine Gramick reaffirms the NCAN's support of LGBT people because of the presumptions that nuns are strict and repressive, especially in terms of social issues like these. Sister Jeannine Gramick shares that she "wish[es] the image of nuns as compassionate and justice-seeking people would replace the old and idiotic image of nuns that still gets repeated." She even wrote an essay, entitled the National Catholic Reporter's "Global Sister's Report," that draws attention to these social justice issues and their relationship to the nuns of the Catholic Church. Gramick reveals that "Catholic nuns have been LGBT people’s strongest supporters among institutional church people." Sister Gramick and many other members of the NCAN participated in the "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign and protest during 2012 to try to convince people that our nation's political freedom was under attack. Sister Gramick explains that, "we want our church leaders to be pastoral leaders particularly concerned with the poor and the vulnerable, the gay and lesbian community, women and the equal rights of all people rather than the partisan politics they seem to be playing." However, their stance on these issues has caused controversy among Christian people over the many years that the NCAN has been in place.

NCAN was founded by Margaret Traxler in 1969. In 1963, Margaret Traxler joined a group of priests and sisters marching for civil rights in Selma, Alabama. This led to her involvement with the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, and thus her creation of the NCAN. NCAN received notice when Sisters Traxler, Donna Quinn, Ann Patrick Ware, and Deborah Barrett appeared, in 1982, on the Phil Donahue Show opposing legislation that limited abortion.

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Article Evaluation: 2018 Women's March Wikipedia

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Although Trump's presidency is, of course, relevant to the 2018 Women's March and the many things these women were protesting, I felt like the article was sort of centered around Trump and his presidency. In my opinion, the 2018 Women's March was about much more than Trump, but about all kinds of women coming together and demanding equal treatment and equal rights. I noticed that the words "equal rights" only appear once in the whole article, where the word "Trump" appears several times, so in my opinion, this distracts from the main point of the article.

Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

I did not personally think that the article was heavily biased one way or another. While it did seem like the editor of article favored Trump, the information on the Women's March itself seemed pretty neutral.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

In my opinion, there really is no "viewpoints" in the article since it is fairly unbiased. However, since the citations are mostly liberal sources, the more conservative side of the issue may have other ideas to contribute as well. In addition, I just think the whole topic in general in underrepresented since there is such a lac of information.

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

The links for the citations all work and the source backs up the claims made in the article.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

From what I could tell, the article used mostly sources like the NY Times and LA Times, which are both fairly left and liberal publications. I found this interesting though, because the article seemed to be in favor of Trump. The author also used a lot of quotes from other people or publications to keep the article credible.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

I don't think anything is out of date because this is such a recent topic, however, I think that there is a lot that could be added to the article in regards to the purpose of the Women's March in general. The article is very short and surface level information.

Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

To my surprise, there is not much of a political debate in the Talk section of the Wikipedia page, and there's actually little discussion at all. Someone proposed organizing the locations of the March in a table just like the 2017 Women's March Wikipedia page, which I thought was a good idea.

How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article is of interest to the following wikiProjects: Donald Trump, Gender Studies, Politics / American, United States, Women, Women's History

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

The Wikipedia article discusses the Women's March in much less detail than we have in class. Also, the article discusses it with much less emotion and passion since it is trying to take a neutral and unbiased stance on the topic.