Islam-Muslims

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Newsweek, the musical

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So, uh, this happened. Newsweek has a story on Mormons headlined “Mormons Rock! They’ve conquered Broadway, talk radio, the U.S. Senate-and they may win the White House. Why Mitt Romney and 6 million Mormons have the secret to success.” And as the headline might indicate, it’s a favorable article about Mormonism. We may look at the article in the days to come. I do have to point out this second paragraph about former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s candidacy and announcement for the presidential nomination:


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Profiles in journalistic courage, Pakistani edition

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A Pakistani journalist was found murdered this week. I wanted to highlight that tragedy here because his beat involved a lot of religion coverage. Here’s how the San Francisco Chronicle explained it:


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Ghosts in the Egyptian virginity tests?

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CNN is up with a horrifying story about what female protesters went through during the recent Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt. A senior Egyptian general has admitted that women were subjected to “virginity checks.” Amnesty International had alleged as such in a report following the protests. That group claimed that females “were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.” Those reports were denied. Things have changed:


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Cutting edge synagogue-state clash

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It would be hard to imagine a more apocalyptic battle between synagogue and state than the ballot-box battle that is unfolding in San Francisco over the right of Jews (and anyone else) to circumcise their newborn males. Now the battle is spreading down the left coast to Santa Monica.


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Driving While Female

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Last week Saudi housewife Najla al-Hariri made news by defying the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia. She drove around for four days in Jeddah “to defend her belief that Saudi women should be allowed to drive.”


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The power of generic public prayer

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Suffice it to say that the Newspaper That Lands in My Front Yard has a complicated church-state story on its hands. It’s one of those stories that takes place when civil religion collides with free speech (and old local traditions) and the usual suspects start getting mad.


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Holy Catholic Rollers Praying For Osama?

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I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that attempts to cover the following story are a mess. The hook is that South Floridian Henry Borga paid the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in West Palm Beach $10 to put bin Laden’s name on the prayer list there. The name appeared with four others under the mass intentions section in the church’s pamphlet, with a cross next to bin Laden’s name.


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