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That’s what seemed to be brewing in the land of Shakespeare when it became public knowledge that British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had banned 22 people from entering the country (only 16 are named). Apparently the drawbridges against the “least-wanted” have been raised since October, but Smith only just made the decision to publish the list, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
It’s very hard to write a story about homosexuality, conservative activists, hypocrisy and politics without veering into religion — at least a little bit.
In a strange kind of way, a team of reporters at the Washington Post metro desk (including my long-time friend Hamil Harris) has written a fitting sequel for that recent news feature about the First Family’s struggle to find a church home, one that fits them in terms of political realities and the liberal Christian beliefs that drive the heads of the household.
I tend to agree with my fellow libertarian Penn Jillette about people of different religious backgrounds attempting to convert me: I’d be more offended if they didn’t. It shows they care about me temporally and eternally. So I don’t personally share the disdain so many people have for the Mormon practice of baptism of the dead.
If you read the comments threads on the Divine Mrs. MZ’s recent post on Notre Dame, President Barack Obama and the U.S. Catholic bishops (or some of them, at least), you can see that we are veering back into familiar territory. I am referring to the tendency among many mainstream journalists to make references to trends among “Catholic voters,” “American Catholics” and other broadly defined terms that reveal next to nothing in terms of usable information.
Secular media hero? Or a Trojan horse among Catholics? This week, Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, Jr., was portrayed as both.
With so many Roman Catholic bishops speaking out against Notre Dame University’s decision to honor President Barack Obama at this year’s commencement, we’ve seen quite a few stories in the mainstream press. When Mary Ann Glendon declined to receive the Laetare Medal in protest, we saw even more. But it’s been hard to put the story in perspective or context since there have been few stories looking at the overall scenario.
Now that the White House has settled the puppy issue, folks inside the DC Beltway have returned to whispering about the even more symbolic issue — the First Family’s church home. This means it’s time for a trip into tmatt’s folder of GetReligion guilt.
Yesterday we saw quite a bit of coverage of new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life analysis which had — to the many who read it splashed across the interweb, cable television, and newspapers — some shocking results. Here’s CNN, for instance:
