It’s so baffling to me how some of society’s most stringent ethical and pro-social rules are exempted for Churches. Churches get some of the most leeway to discriminate and don’t have to pay taxes back into the society that supports them (even when their leaders pocket massive profits), and now they’re allowed to flout basic public safety rules as well. It’s so shameful that any faith-base institution would gladly take the opportunity to endanger lives.

I’m an atheist for the most part, but I attended a Reverend friend’s digital Easter service this Sunday. His sermon was incredibly moving. He spoke about how the first people to discover the risen Jesus were impoverished women who lived near his grave site. Nearly all of the apostles refused to believe them when they claimed that Jesus had come back to life. The Reverend drew parallels to how oppressed people — women and Black folks and LGBTQ people and more — are always the first to point to society’s problems, and its solutions, yet we get ignored until events touch the lives of white straight cis men.

It was comforting to sit, digitally, with all these Christians who really understand what oppression feels like, and who realize how high stakes this moment is.