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Back in 2004, a Christian student group was denied recognition at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law because it required its officers and voting members to uphold certain Christian teachings. The school said that the group couldn’t discriminate on the basis of religious belief.
Yesterday, the National Institutes of Health announced 13 new embryonic stem cell lines would be added to the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry. President Barack Obama received a lot of coverage for his decision to change President George W. Bush’s policy limiting federal funding for embryonic-destroying stem cell research. The media coverage earlier this year was pretty bad on that point. To review, prior to President Bush there were no federally funded lines. Bush began federal funding of the research — controversial because it destroys human embryos — but ordered that only those lines already in existence prior to August 2001 were eligible for said funding.
So Time magazine has an interesting story about social scientists looking at a connection between clean livin’ and Windex. Apparently studies suggest that people behave better when they’re surrounded by the Refreshingly Clean Scent of Streak-free Windex. I don’t doubt this as my own behavior ranges from disorderly mayhem to prim and proper based on the state of my house. (Things aren’t so great right now, thanks for asking.)
This time of year, it’s common to see stories about God and the gridiron. Many miss the mark. But every now and then, as tmatt found in an interview with Troy Polamalu, a reporter will hit paydirt with a story that gets both faith and football.
A couple of weeks ago, I harshed on the Los Angeles Times for its flippant and even silly treatment of the problems that arise from having sex in campus dorms. The hook for the story was that Tufts University enacted a policy forbidding sexual activity if the student’s roommate is present. The Times story never dealt with the morality of extra-marital sex or even just the morality of having sex in someone else’s unwilling presence or in their shared room. Instead it had a brief discussion of legal implications.
When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered Tufts College in 1852, the original act of incorporation said the college should promote “virtue and piety and learning in such of the languages and liberal and useful arts as shall be recommended.” The college began when Boston businessman helped the Universalist Church open a college there by donating 20 acres of land to it. Hosea Ballou, a Universalist clergyman was the college’s first president.
Here’s a story pretty much pre-packaged for broadcast and cable news. Fortunately, it’s found its way onto the AP wire and a few religion blogs, too.
Earlier this week, Steve looked at media coverage of the American Religious Identification Survey and it’s finding that the percentage of Americans that claim no religious affiliation is on the rise. Commenter Martha directed readers over to the web site of Paul Zachary Myers. He’s the University of Minnesota biology professor who was last discussed here at GetReligion for media coverage he received after asking folks to send him consecrated Hosts in order to publicly desecrate them. And then he posted photos of the desecration.
Anyone who knows anything about the work of the conservative journalist and historian Marvin Olasky knows that he loves the old-fashioned advocacy journalism of America in the early 19th Century.
