I cannot tell you how many times I have had readers ask me why so many religion-news stories seem to turn on the issue of homosexuality.
More on Rice's return to Rome
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Bono on sex, God and rock & roll
One of the more endearing things about Jann Wenner is that he still writes for Rolling Stone nearly 40 years after founding it. His pieces are memorable: a lengthy Q&A with John Lennon shortly before Lennon’s murder, a gang interview with presidential candidate Bill Clinton at Doe’s Eat Place and off a one-page editorial endorsing Al Gore. Whenever Wenner contributes again to the pages of his flagship, you can be sure he’ll bring passion to it.
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Yes, Newsweek missed the Church Ladies
For the past week or so, something kept bothering me about the Newsweek cover story titled “How Women Lead.”
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Face it, the Miers nomination is ...
In a city that is already buzzing with gossip, it takes a really hot story to crank the chatter up another notch. Well, the latest Washington Post twist in the saga of Harriet Miers and God certainly did that. Here’s the bottom line in reporter Jo Becker’s fine story (which deserved much better headlines): Bush’s legal sidekick, while serving as president of the Texas Bar Association, told elite female audiences that she backed what is essentially a libertarian position on abortion.
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Fred Phelps in the European news
Europe’s Sky News is reporting an undercover “investigation” on highly controversial religious leader Fred Phelps. With reporting like this in Europe on religion in America, Europeans will be loving us about as much the Israelis appreciated their Roman rulers. The problem in this case is that you can’t really fault the Sky News report for overly hyping the basic facts in the story.
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An evangelist visits the Naval Academy
I ran into a minister the other day over at the Naval Academy, a man I’ve known for about 10 years. He was leading a really interesting project, one directly linked to a topic that comes up often on this blog — offensive free speech.
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Coven and state clash, yet again
Maybe it’s just my church-state studies background, but this case about Wicca and public prayer strikes me as a major story and a sign of things to come. We may have heard the last of a witch named Cynthia Simpson at the U.S. Supreme Court, but the splintering of the old Judeo-Christian (and now Islamic) civil religion will continue. Here’s the lead from the Richmond Times-Dispatch story, the only MSM coverage that really mattered.
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McCain and religion
It’s never too early to start talking about the next presidential election. The word on the street is that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is the odds-on favorite for the Democrats while Sen. John McCain is the GOP’s likely choice. Considering we haven’t had a president elected directly from the Senate since JFK, a McCain vs. Clinton 2008 contest seems a bit far-fetched. There is too much time, too many variables and too many candidates for anyone to know for sure.
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Adulterers, deadbeats and proselytizers
I know it’s like choosing a pack of nacho-flavored Slim Jims and two cans of Mountain Dew for breakfast, but I often start reading the Sunday newspaper with Parade magazine. The “I hit rock bottom before I learned to believe in myself again” cover stories, the earnest teenagers of Fresh Voices, the fawning celebrity profiles of Jim Brady’s In Step With — all make for a potent brew of hathos and glurge.
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