From The Liberty Blog:
The Court’s decision now elevates homosexuality to the same legal status as race, a protected class. This Court has refused to grant religious freedom the same status as a fundamental right, instead expressing doubt about the free exercise of religion and ruling against religious freedom consistently in a series of decisions over [...]
The Supreme Court of Texas has ruled the state did not have the authority to seize children from the FLDS settlement. Children are to be returned to families and allowed to go home.
A couple of videos of Fr. Michael Pfleger preaching at Trinity UCC in Chicago (the church of Jeremiah Wright and Barack H. OBama). In one, he castigates whites who say they shouldn’t be held responsible for American slavery (which ended in 1865) because, he says, they still benefit from it. In the other, he calls [...]
From the ADF: the governor of New York has done an end run around the legislature and the courts by saying state agencies will recognize homosexual marriages done elsewhere.
Susan Comstock asked that she be able to divert her union dues because of the union’s advocacy of homosexual marriage. She’s now been turned down at the third level, the Federal Court of Appeal.
She sought accommodation under a provision that exists for those who have religious objections to unions. She’s in a bind, however, because [...]
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein comments on the John Hagee matter at Jewish World Review.
Dunkin Donuts has withdrawn an advertisement featuring Rachael Ray–because some ignorant and paranoid folks complained that her frilly black and white paisley silk scarf looked like a Palestinian keffiyeh. Leading the charge: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and Michelle Malkin. Yeah, her scarf and a keffiyeh are black and white. So are zebras and [...]
So says an Iraqi policeman who witnessed Blackwater mercenaries open fire without cause on Iraqi civilians, killing 17. He and other witnesses are testifying before a federal grand jury.
Some naive folks tell us that the California ruling favoring gay marriage supports religious liberty, and could not harm it. Gay writer David Benkof disagrees.
Although California marriage-equality leaders won’t say what impact they expect the new decision to have on religious freedom, activists in other states haven’t been so shy. Openly gay Washington state Sen. [...]
For some, “globalism” means an excuse to make a profit anywhere in the world without asking moral or legal questions. Jim Hightower comments on a trade show in China, where US and other manufacturers paraded their wares for Chinese military and police use. Via Tompaul.
But this is nothing new. It was the United Fruit Company [...]
Remember the guy who used to wear a rainbow wig at sports events? What’s he up to now?
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas Bartlett writes of the fraud of National Geographic’s “Gospel of Judas”–”The Betrayal of Judas: Did a ‘Dream Team’ of Biblical Scholars Mislead Millions?“
When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled at a news conference in April 2006, it made headlines around the world — with nearly all of those articles [...]
Dallas Morning News Religion Blog quotes Rice University professor of religious studies Jeffrey Kripal:
When I look at American religious history, I see a long history of puritanism, of Christian fundamentalism. It’s been there from Day One. But I also see what some historians would call American metaphysical religion. I see people who are not religiously [...]
Parishioners and staff of Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in downtown Houston are hurt and angry. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo is transferring the rector (pastor), Fr. Troy Gately. Bad timing, they say; he just completed construction of the new cathedral, and has started renovating a new administrative center (the former Federal Reserve Building). Why pull a pastor in [...]
They don’t say whether it is blue (or perhaps black), but a $10,000,000 sophisticated spy helicopter is keeping its eye on New York. Law abiding folks have nothing to fear … of course.
(Another page shows a picture, and lets us know it is silver).
Fr. Virgil Cordano, OFM, a name and face synonymous with Santa Barbara in the eyes of many, died yesterday at 89. The funeral next Friday will be on the steps of the Mission, so great are the crowds expected. He was one of my spiritual directors, and his guidance to me is summed up in [...]
At re:frame, Ryan Bell is interviewed about ministry to postmoderns.
Today in the Catholic calendar is Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ–a day established to honor the Catholic church’s dogma of transubstantiation, the teaching that “by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the [...]
Under debate in the state next door: the Louisiana Science Education Act, which would, according to a news report, allow use of supplemental materials in classrooms which promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and [...]
The Third Court of Appeals has ruled against the state of Texas, saying it had no right to take children from the FLDS community, and has no right to keep them.
From Bruce Tomaso at the DMN Religion Blog, link to a NYT story: At One University, Tobacco Money Is a Secret. Tomaso comments:
The university’s vice president for research, according to the story, refused to say how much money Philip Morris gave for this “restricted research.” Apparently, he forgot that he works for a public institution [...]
Stephen Curtis Chapman and his family have suffered a double tragedy–his five year old daughter was struck and killed in their driveway … by her teenage brother.
Catholic theologian John F. Haught of Georgetown University is interviewed at BustedHalo about spirituality, theology, ecology …
… and never gets around to mentioning Jesus.
For some years now, some Catholics have been pushing to get the pope to declare a new Marian dogma, that she is “mediatrix of all graces” and “co-redemptrix.” Mark Miravalle of the Franciscan University of Steubenville is one of the most vocal proponents of this. In January, five cardinals wrote to Pope Benedict XVI and [...]
Iraqi Christians have condemned the death sentence for the killer of their archbishop.
“Monsignor Rahho, would not have accepted the sentence. Christian principles say it is not allowed to sentence someone to death, and instead it invites us to forgiveness, reconciliation and justice.”
The U S Embassy, however, celebrated the sentence.
In London, a 15-year-old faces charges for holding up a placard calling Scientology a “cult.”
The state of Minnesota has called for changes at a Minneapolis charter school accused of promoting Islam.
The Tomah, WI, school district has been reminded that the First Amendment applies to students. As I blogged March 31, an art student was penalized for referencing John 3:16 in an art project–he was given a zero and two detentions. He was also penalized for using religious expressions in a jewelry making class. Other students [...]
