Mainline

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What a religious freedom rally looks like

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We’ve been talking quite a bit about how the public outcry over religious freedom issues has been portrayed in the press. When the Obama administration created a new requirement that religious employers fully fund abortion drugs, contraception and sterilization, many religious employers and their supporters cried foul. The people who support the mandate argue that free contraception is a fundamental right that the government must force employers to provide. Further, failing to force employers to provide these things constitutes a war on women.


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Whatever Vandy wants, Vandy gets

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When the experts start talking about elite private universities — non-Atlantic Coast division — Vanderbilt is always near the top of the list. The school is so prominent, especially as a member of a major sports conference, that people often forget that it is, in fact, a private school.


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Santorum and the mythical "women's vote"

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Anyone who has followed American politics since, oh, roughly 1973, knows that one of most consistent patterns, election after election, is this: The more people attend worship services, the more likely they are to vote for candidates who are moral and cultural conservatives. This is a clear pattern among white voters and if you are looking for conservative voters among African-American and Latino voters, you are most likely to find them — as a vocal minority — in their churches.


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Pod people: Time for liberal Catholics to quit?

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In recent weeks, there have been a number of major news stories that have — to one degree or another — pivoted on the sharp doctrinal divisions among American Catholics. Think religious liberty vs. the Health and Human Services rules. Think about the case of Father Marcel Guarnizo and the Buddhist-Catholic-artist-gay-activist Barbara Johnson.


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Crystal Cathedral: Empty pews, hollow story

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Once again, we the people who care about religion news are seeing another sad round of thin mainstream press stories about the decline and fall of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller and his family’s megachurch monument — the Crystal Cathedral.


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Got news? Obama on his personal theology

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Gentle readers, I have spent much of the day dodging tornadoes and hail on the interstate from Jackson, Tenn., to Guitar Town and I am exhausted. It will take all the energy I have left to type a few paragraphs that will point GetReligion readers toward one of the must-read journalistic items of the day.


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A 'quieter battle' over ... gay marriage and ordination

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If you watch internal church debates, you know that nothing gets people riled up more than just about anything to do with sex: premarital sex, homosexuality, you name it. People feel quite passionately about these issues, enough to part ways with one another. So I laughed out loud when I read a line from a piece published in New York Times about a “quieter battle” being waged within churches over gay marriage and gay ordination.


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