Separation of mosque and state?

The Washington Post ran an intriguing story Sunday about the apparent lack of state funding to provide Muslim chaplains in Virginia prisons.


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Search your newspaper for 'Ya Mahdi'

Clearly, the unfolding nuclear drama in Iran is one of the world’s most important news stories. If that is the case, and I think it is, there is a strange and powerful ghost that is haunting almost all of the mainstream news coverage of what is happening.


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Discrimination v. adoption agencies

Back in 2007, Mollie mentioned that the British government had passed a law requiring all adoption agencies to provide services to gay couples. Now we’re seeing ramifications from that law in recent stories about a Catholic adoption agency’s loss in court.


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All the single ladies

I frequently mention how much I appreciate interesting stories about day-to-day religious life. A few weeks ago we looked at that great New York Times piece about how different religious adherents live out their faith in their residential choices.


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Return of the apostate president

Gentle readers, it’s time to set the wayback machine to May 12th in the year 2008, where we read the following in a New York Times op-ed page piece written by historian Edward N. Luttwak, of the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies.


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Who fact checks the fact checkers?

Part of me is hoping we get a good sex scandal next week so we can move off of all-Park51-coverage all the time. On the other hand, now is not a bad time to be on the Godbeat, eh? We have all the excitement right now. There are great opportunities for all sorts of angles. Paul Vitello at the New York Times simply asked a bunch of different New York City Muslims how they feel about the controversy. The result was very well-executed and really fascinating. It’s not heavy on religion so much as accommodation and compromise, but I actually think that’s a better way to handle those very important issues.


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Obama Islam hysteria!

Have you heard the news? President Obama is a Muslim after all. I couldn’t believe it, but he must be. I mean, 18 percent of Americans couldn’t be wrong. I can only assume that, two years after I thought this “story” had been laid to rest, that some reputable media outlet finally exposed Obama for the closet Muslim (not that there’s anything wrong with that) that nearly one in five Americans think he is.


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