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I’m not sure if it’s GetReligion policy or anything, but we try our best to avoid giving hatemongering Westboro Baptist Church any more publicity than that which its members so desperately crave and receive. But this month’s $10.9 million judgment against the group makes it a bit hard to ignore. The Baltimore Sun‘s Matthew Dolan went to Topeka, Kan., to see how Westboro has affected its hometown:
Catholic social thought is all the rage these days. Or so says Michael Gerson, in his never-ceases-to-annoy-me Washington Post column. I think Terry is going to look into the column and some of the recent media coverage of Gerson. But here’s just a snippet in which he argues that Catholic social teaching is battling for the soul of the Republican Party:
If you needed more evidence that not all cultural conservatives are true political conservatives, all you need to do is read the tea leaves on page one in today’s Washington Times. If you needed more evidence that many of the populist Christians from the old Democratic Bible Belt have not been fully integrated into the country clubs of the old Republican guard, you can click on that same link. Because here is the news from reporter Ralph Z. Hallow:
The Rev. Drew Phoenix of Baltimore is back in the news, as the United Methodist Church tiptoes back into the minefield of human sexuality.
I am well aware that many Harry Potter fans want GetReligion to help them answer this question: If Albus Dumbledore had a gay skeleton in his closet, why didn’t reporter Rita Skeeter of the Daily Prophet include that information in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, her tacky, unauthorized, tell-all biography of the Hogwarts headmaster? Doesn’t that make his dark, dangerous and ultimately deadly relationship with the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald all the more scandalous? Or not?
So a radical, anti-Roman Catholic, gay activist group called, charmingly, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence gravely disrespected the church. Two men from the activist group — dressed in white face, garish makeup and nuns’ habits — received the sacrament of Holy Communion a few weeks ago from San Francisco’s top Catholic official.
Ann Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a prolific religion writer. Using the hook of a seminar scheduled at a Roman Catholic seminary, Rodgers looks at the pain endured by religious adherents suffering from infertility.
Don’t get me started on the state of air travel these days. My wife and I had lots (and lots) of extra time yesterday in Logan International Airport during a trip north for parents day at Gordon College, and I spent much of that time digging really deep into the new issue of The New Republic.
After a few of my friends decided against circumcising their newborn sons, I began paying attention to the issue. Every year I happen to be walking around the Capitol during the annual anti-circumcision rally held there. The circumcision rate in the U.S. has been on the decline. And there are all those hipster authors loudly proclaiming against the ancient rite. And the dramatic Andrew Sullivan, of course.
