It's time to join the ranks of nations that have put the ugliness of capital punishment behind them.
When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works.
As the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, I see on a daily basis the impact of politics and policy on my family, neighbors, friends, and residents.
My high school in South Bend had nearly a thousand students. Statistically, that means that several dozen were gay or lesbian. Yet, when I graduated in 2000, I had yet to encounter a single openly LGBT student there.
My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man.
I do think, actually, one thing I noticed with Silicon Valley post-Trump is it kind of made them more politically aware, more aware that, like, business and philanthropy alone isn't going to make the world a better place.
Our neighborhoods are safer when there is trust between communities and the police who are in charge of protecting them.
Building a wall won't solve our border security challenges.
I don't have a problem with enhanced border security, perhaps to include fencing. I think the mistake is believing that border security is as simple as just putting up a wall from sea to shining sea.
You're not free if you can't start a small business because you fear losing your health care, and you're certainly not free if a male boss or politician prevents you from making decisions about your own reproductive health.
When I was fourteen, Mom and Dad sent me to St. Joseph High School, the Catholic school up the hill from our place, housed in a 1950s-era tan brick building sometimes confused for a light industrial structure due to the surprisingly high smokestack of its old incinerator.
The old line of thought used to be that local government is the bush leagues.
Businesses always have competitors nipping at their heels. Historically, cities have not viewed themselves as subject to that same type of competition. But that's wrong.
The challenge in confronting Trump is that there are certain things that he does that that you have to respond to, just morally. When he lies, you've got to correct the lie, which will keep you busy because he does it so often. When he does something wrong, you've got to point to it.
People in communities like Granger, Indiana, are rarely heard from on cable networks. But they, too, believe it is wrong to deport friends and neighbors who do no harm and much good.
I think there's an opportunity hopefully for religion to be not so much used as a cudgel but invoked as a way of calling us to higher values.
That really important freedom in my life, the freedom to marry, came about because of choices that were made by policymakers who had power over me and millions of others.
I don't know how it plays in San Francisco. But I can tell you I came out, during a reelection campaign, in Indiana, while Mike Pence was the governor. And I wound up winning reelection by 80 percent.
By the way, conversely, one thing I've learned in my career, beginning when I ran for mayor, is that a lot of older voters are among the most excited about a younger candidate. So, you know, I think somebody of any age can deliver a compelling message.
If you're a white candidate, it is twice as important for you to be talking about racial inequity and not just describing the problem - which is fashionable in politics - but actually talking about what we're going to do about it and describing the outcomes we're trying to solve for.