Politics Daily

Why Gingrich Needs to Find His Inner Victim

David Gibson — 2011-03-10T21:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Bill Clinton, 2012 President, Culture, Disputations, Conservatives, Newt Gingrich, Ethics

Newt Gingrich has always been a hard guy to feel sorry for, given his blustery and often bilious political opinions and an indulgent personal life marked by three marriages and a chilling indifference to the dire circumstances of his jilted spouses.

As David Frum put it, "It's not the infidelity. It's the arrogance, hypocrisy, and -- most horrifying to women voters -- the cruelty. Anyone can dump one sick wife. Gingrich dumped two."

And yet Gingrich's latest explanation for his tendency to stray from his vows -- an attempt to soften his image with the public ahead of an expected run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination -- doesn't seem to be helping, either.

Survey Rebuts Rep. Peter King's Claims on Radicals and Mosques

David Gibson — 2011-03-10T10:29:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Investigations, Immigration, Terror, National Security, Disputations, Congress, Conservatives, al Qaeda, Islam

As Rep. Peter King opened his controversial hearing into "radicalization in the American Muslim community" on Thursday morning, researchers were noting that King's claims about mosques in the United States being controlled by "radical imams" who are producing extremists are apparently untrue.

King, a Long Island Republican under fire for once supporting Irish Republican Army terrorism but now pursuing Islamic extremism, has claimed that over 80 percent of American mosques are controlled by "radical imams" and that Muslims are "an enemy living amongst us" who are not helping authorities combat terrorism. He has also lamented the number of mosques in the United States because they breed "home-grown" terrorists.

But a 2008 survey of 1,410 Muslims that was the largest ever conducted showed that almost all Muslims who regularly go to a mosque are likely to agree with the statement that Islam and the American political system are compatible.

The study by Karam Dana, who teaches at Tufts University, and colleague Matt A. Barreto shows that among Muslims who do not attend religious services regularly, 77 percent answered "yes" when asked whether Islam and American political values are compatible. Among those who are regularly involved in a mosque, that figure rose to 95 percent. The research confirmed results from a smaller, earlier survey.

"The more religious American Muslims happen to be, the more they participate in American politics," Dana told Religion News Service.

Like other religious institutions in the United States, mosques have helped members assimilate into American society and promoted support for American civic and political values, Dana said.

"Decades of scholarship on religious institutions, be they churches or synagogues, have shown that they foster participation in the political system," said Dana. "We believe that mosques are no different."

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Should Rep. Peter King Investigate the Catholic Church?

David Gibson — 2011-03-09T16:40:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Terror, Disputations, Congress, Conservatives, Analysis, Islam

Rep. Peter King, the Long Island congressman who for years supported the Irish Republican Army as it waged a terror campaign to eject the British from Northern Ireland, says that track record has no bearing on his controversial decision to hold hearings this week on what he calls the "radicalization" of Islam in America.

The two examples are different, he argues, and the main reason is that unlike radical Muslims, the I.R.A. never launched attacks in the United States. (That made sense, since Irish-Americans were sending crucial material support to the I.R.A.)

"I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the I.R.A. never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States," King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told The New York Times.

Ash Wednesday Idea: Beat Guilt This Lent -- Literally

David Gibson — 2011-03-08T22:26:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Culture, Disputations, Ethics

In an age when boosting self-esteem is seen as the answer to every problem, the idea of physically punishing oneself to expiate guilt is a notion that borders on the medieval.

But just in time for Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season of penance, new research shows that some form of "mortification of the flesh" -- the old-fashioned term for inflicting physical discomfort for spiritual growth -- can in fact alleviate feelings of guilt.

The old Christian ascetics knew it, and now social scientists have some proof that it's true -- and some explanation as to why that's so.

"One reason may be that the experience of physical pain alleviates feelings of guilt associated with immoral behavior," Brock Bastian writes in an article titled "Cleansing the Soul by Hurting the Flesh," which appears in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science.

Bastian and his colleagues at the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia divided 62 volunteers into three groups and asked two of the groups to write about an occasion when they "rejected or socially excluded another person" -- in other words, when they did something they felt bad about. The third group wrote about a neutral "everyday interaction [they] had with another person yesterday."

All completed a questionnaire that tested for levels of guilt. Then one group that wrote about something they felt guilty for immersed their hand into a bucket of ice water for as long as they could (it hurts -- try it) while members of the second group that wrote about treating someone badly immersed a hand in a nice, warm bath. The third "control" group -- the folks who didn't write about being a jerk and didn't feel especially guilty -- also got the ice water treatment.

Afterward they all rated how painful it was and also how guilty they felt after it was over.

The verdict: those people who had written about rejecting someone not only left their hands in the ice water longer and reported more pain, but they also emerged feeling half as much guilt as those who got the warm water treatment.

In short, Bastian argues, we want to give meaning to pain, to portray it as a comprehensible part of a cosmic balance sheet or a means of achieving justice so that suffering is not pointless; indeed, the Latin word for pain is poena, which means "penalty."

"Understood this way, pain may be perceived as repayment for sin in three ways," he writes.

"First, pain is the embodiment of atonement. Just as physical cleansing washes away sin...physical pain is experienced as a penalty, and paying that penalty reestablishes moral purity. Second, subjecting oneself to pain communicates remorse to others (including God) and signals that one has paid for one's sins, and this removes the threat of external punishment. Third, tolerating the punishment of pain is a test of one's virtue, reaffirming one's positive identity to oneself and others."

Now maybe you don't have a guilty conscience. Or maybe you recoil from the thought of flagellating yourself everyday like that spooky albino monk from "The Da Vinci Code" who actually did have something to feel guilty about. (Though it turns out the late Pope John Paul II did something similar, and he is up for sainthood. Go figure.)

But Bastian's research does indicate that engaging in some form of physical self-denial during the 40 days of Lent (or the High Holy Days or the month of Ramadan or whatever you prefer) might be beneficial to easing normal guilt, and that today's milder forms of mortification -- giving up chocolate or going on a carbon fast (reducing energy consumption) or even making Ash Wednesday a "spa day," as one pastor is doing -- may not be enough.

On the other hand, an earlier paper on the same topic, by Rob Nelissen and Marcel Zeelenberg at Tilburg University in The Netherlands, also identified what it called "the Dobby effect" -- named after the self-punishing house elf from the "Harry Potter" series. Poor Dobby felt guilty for disobeying his (albeit evil) masters and could not make amends, and hence continually abused himself.

While Nelissen and Zeelenberg also showed that people tend to alleviate guilt by punishing themselves, they found that they take that option only when they are not able to directly repair their relationship with the person they believe they have hurt.

That may explain why people use general rituals of self-denial -- fasting or a stone in the shoe or a hair shirt in more extreme cases -- if they can't or won't bring themselves to apologize directly to the offended person and why Lenten penance is being adapted for wider social causes, like climate change or world hunger, in which there is a no individual person to whom we can say, "I'm sorry."

"[H]elping someone else...does not repair your relationship with the victim," Nelissen writes. "I think that by self-punishing we in fact try to send a signal of remorse to our victim to let him or her know we still care about the relationship, even though we are unable at present to make amends directly."

Nothing wrong with a little mortification, then, as long as we don't go around broadcasting our virtue like "the hypocrites," as Jesus warned.

And as long as we don't take it too far. The Catholic Church defines a "fast day" as having just one full meal, and exempts children under 14 and those over 60, and anyone who could not physically tolerate such a regimen. That's not too onerous, and is probably good for us given the nation's epidemic of obesity.

Simple, clear rituals of physical penance are also less likely to deteriorate into an overemphasis on personal guilt and expiation, which is criticized by traditional Christianity as "scrupulosity," and is diagnosed by psychiatry as an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Indeed, while guilt is so often dismissed as the unjust product of manipulative religions -- Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt, Puritan guilt, you name it -- Sigmund Freud and his disciples saw guilt as a fact of the human condition. And guilt can be good in motivating conscientious people to make amends to victims, if possible, or to the wider community, or to God, or all three.

The key is to do something about guilt rather than just going around banging our head against furniture. After all, who wants to be Dobby?

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

21 Priests in Philadelphia Suspended on Sex Abuse Allegations

David Gibson — 2011-03-08T18:32:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Scandal, Crime, Disputations, Catholic Scandal

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia on Tuesday placed 21 priests on administrative leave following a damning grand jury report last month -- the second investigation of sex abuse by priests in recent years -- that said up to 37 clerics suspected of abuse remained in ministry.

Rigali suspended the priests on the eve of Ash Wednesday and the penitential season of Lent. In a statement, Rigali expressed his "sorrow" for the abuse of children by clergy.

"I am truly sorry for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, as well as to the members of our community who suffer as a result of this great evil and crime," Rigali said.

The grand jury charged three priests and a parochial school teacher with raping and assaulting boys in their care, while a former official with the Philadelphia Archdiocese was accused of allowing the abusive priests to have access to children. Most of the cases were beyond the statute of limitations and could not be prosecuted.

Several of the 37 priests cited by the grand jury had been suspended from ministry before Tuesday's action or were incapacitated and have not been in active ministry, the archdiocese said. Two other priests no longer serve in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and are members of religious orders, whose leaders have been notified of the accusations.

Eight priests cited by the grand jury were cleared by an independent examination, the archdiocese said.

The revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in Philadelphia and threaten to reopen the abuse scandal that the U.S. hierarchy has tried to put behind it.

Shortly after the grand jury report was released, Rigali hired Gina Maisto Smith, a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney who has prosecuted child sexual assault cases for nearly two decades, to lead a review of the 37 cases.

"I was given the unlimited freedom to do a thorough review with full access to all files and documents," Smith said in the statement.

She will now lead a team that includes a "nationally renowned pediatrician" in the field of child abuse, a forensic psychiatrist and psychologist, an expert from the child advocacy community and other experts in investigating the remaining cases more fully.

"These administrative leaves are interim measures," Rigali stressed. "They are not in any way final determinations or judgments."

Tuesday's action was one of the most sweeping in the decade since widespread revelations of child sexual abuse by clergy began battering the Catholic Church, and they indicate that the church is still in the midst of what has been called the "Long Lent" of American Catholicism.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Public Support for Gay Marriage on Verge of Surpassing Opposition

David Gibson — 2011-03-05T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Republicans, Abortion, Gay Rights, Race Issues, Polls, Obama Administration, Culture, Disputations, Poll Watch, Congress, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates, 2012 Elections

Gay marriage is continuing to gain acceptance among the public -- the latest survey from the Pew Research Center shows Americans almost evenly split between those who oppose and those who support same-sex marriage.

According to the poll, conducted during the last week of February, 45 percent of Americans say gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, up from 37 percent in 2009 (and just 27 percent in 1996) while 46 percent oppose same-sex marriage, down from 54 percent two years ago, and down from a 65 percent disapproval rate in 1996.

Partisan differences remain stark, with 57 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents backing gay marriage. Only one in four Republicans support the right of gays to marry, but that is up from 15 percent in 1996.

Newly released data from the General Social Surveys (GSS) shows an even more striking shift, with a solid majority of 46 percent supporting gay marriage and just 40 percent in opposition.

As Charles Franklin notes at the Huffington Post, recent polls on same-sex marriage show approval for for civil unions, which was once considered by many to be the "safe alternative" to gay marriage, has remained flat while support for same-sex marriage itself has surged. And the rise is occurring not only among younger Americans.

"The trends here show that opposition to gay marriage is becoming a less and less acceptable position through the public more generally," Franklin writes. "It is not merely the young who are shifting views. While individual states are certain to vary widely in the balance of public opinion, the national shift is so striking and so regular that it is hard to imagine this issue will remain in doubt for much longer."

The latest shift is especially notable in that it comes as social conservatives have drawn a line in the sand against gay marriage, and just after President Obama announced his administration would no longer argue in court on behalf of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

But Republicans are ascendant in Washington and in statehouses across the country. And pollsters note that the public often reacts to shifts in political power by backing issues of the party that is perceived to be losing influence, preferring that lawmakers not go too far one way, especially on uncomfortable and polarizing issues like gay marriage and abortion.

In fact, support for legal abortion dropped from 55 percent to 47 percent in the first year of Obama's term, perhaps reflecting concerns that he would move too far too fast in liberalizing abortion rights. Support for abortion rights had since rebounded, the recent Pew survey shows, to 54 percent -- again a possible backlash against the GOP's sweeping takeover of the U.S. House in January and the Republican decision to make curtailing abortion rights and funding its top priority.

Social conservatives can take some solace in the fact that the degree of support for the anti-abortion position has remained relatively stable.

But the trend lines on gay marriage do not bode well for the conservative cause, and as Politics Daily reported, the relatively low-key Republican response to Obama's DOMA decision suggested that waning public backing is going to translate into diminishing political clout.

Indeed, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Focus on the Family's Jim Daly last week that "it's clear that something like same-sex marriage -- indeed, almost exactly what we would envision by that -- is going to become normalized, legalized, and recognized in the culture."

"It's time," Mohler added, "for Christians to start thinking about how we're going to deal with that."

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Mike Huckabee Holds Strong Lead Among Conservative Christian Bloc

David Gibson — 2011-03-04T21:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Mitt Romney, Religion, Mike Huckabee, Polls, Sarah Palin, 2012 President, Disputations, Conservatives, Newt Gingrich, Barack Obama

Mike Huckabee has been making waves lately for his comments about Natalie Portman's out-of-wedlock pregnancy and Barack Obama's "anti-colonial" boyhood, but a new poll shows the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential hopeful still seems to be the hands-down favorite of conservative Christian voters who will be critical to securing the nomination.

The survey from the Barna Group, a leading Christian research organization, also indicates that Huckabee could go toe-to-toe with all Republican challengers, and he would be the toughest foe for President Obama in November 2012.

Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, is strongest among evangelical Christians -- the 7 percent of the population that Barna defines by the strictest criteria of traditional faith and biblical literalism -- with an 88 percent favorable rating, followed by former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, with a 79 percent favorable ranking.

The field tails off considerably from there among evangelicals, with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney -- who are widely expected to be among the first to throw their hats in the ring -- clocking 57 and 56 percent favorability ratings, respectively.

President Obama registers a meager 6 percent approval rating among this group, and an eye-opening 94 percent unfavorability rating.

Among "born again Christians" -- a pivotal and largely Republican-leaning group in the last three elections that Barna describes as "considerably less conservative than its evangelical subset" -- Huckabee still leads, with a 58 percent favorability rating. But Romney surges to a 49 percent positive ranking, just behind Palin at 53 percent. Gingrich polls at just 43 percent among born again Christians.

Among all Republicans, Palin and Romney post 69 percent favorability scores, but Huckabee is just behind with a 68 percent favorable rating. Gingrich generated a 62-32 positive-to-negative score among members of his party.

Spread across all voters, the numbers for the leading GOP candidates reflected other recent polls, as Huckabee still led, with 44 percent of adults holding a favorable view and 38 percent a negative view of him, followed by Romney, at an almost even 40-39 favorable-to-unfavorable ratio.

But the numbers for Palin (36 percent favorable) and Gingrich (32 percent favorable) fall off sharply from there.

An analysis by the Barna Group, which is led by evangelical Christian George Barna, concludes that while Obama stands "a better-than-even chance of being re-elected . . . Mrs. Palin would be the easiest opponent for him to defeat, while Mr. Huckabee would be the toughest adversary."

The numbers also suggest, however, that Huckabee's greatest electoral challenge could be securing his own party's nomination. In 2008, Huckabee's support among religious conservatives propelled him through the primaries, but he still finished second to John McCain.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

What Would Jesus Cut? Deficit Debate Rallies Christians -- and Exposes Divisions

David Gibson — 2011-03-03T22:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Taxes, Polls, Disputations, Congress, Conservatives, Liberals, Deficit, Tea Party, White House, Economy, John Boehner, 2012 Elections

"What would Jesus do?" That question has for years been a powerful slogan for conservative Christians who want to challenge Americans to conform to Gospel teachings. But now that some are applying the rallying cry to the nation's divisive budget battles, it is also exposing divisions among Christians as much as it is offering a united witness of faith -- or public policy.

Earlier this week a coalition of dozens of progressive Christian leaders led by Jim Wallis of Sojourners launched a campaign, "What would Jesus cut?" with a full-page ad in Monday's edition of Politico, and the group is following it up by sending e-mails and orange wristlets with the slogan to all members of Congress in an effort to prevent cuts for the poor and reduce defense spending.

Then on Thursday, a group of prominent evangelicals with a more conservative cast (though some signed onto both initiatives) launched a "A Christian Proposal for American Debt Crisis" that focuses on the deficit as a moral issue -- much as House Speaker John Boehner did this week -- but which also opposes the Republican-led effort to address the debt by slashing discretionary spending.

"Effective programs that prevent hunger and suffering and empower poorer members of society must continue and be adequately funded," the latest petition says.

Yet even as these Christian leaders, many of them card-carrying conservatives, push to spare the poor while reducing the deficit, they face serious internal tensions and fractures on two fronts: among themselves, on the one hand, and between these leaders and the folks in the pews, on the other.

Among the leadership, one clear difference of opinion is over what ought to be cut. Some would spare foreign aid to the poor and sacrifice more on the domestic side, while others disagree about whether defense spending should be significantly reduced. And the minefield of entitlement reform is treaded on ever so lightly, much as it is on both sides of the aisle in Washington.

At the same time, these faith-based campaigns focus almost exclusively on the issue of cutting spending and largely avoid the dreaded "t-word" -- taxes -- which has the potential to splinter any coalition.

For example, the "Christian Proposal for American Debt Crisis" launched on Thursday has only a broadly worded phrase near the end that says Congress "should remove many special exemptions, end many special subsidies, and keep the tax code progressive."

"Our general statement says we keep the tax code progressive. It doesn't say exactly how we do that," Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, a chief organizer of the petition, said on a Thursday conference call with other signatories that was organized by the liberal-leaning group, Faith in Public Life.

Sider said he would personally support a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans but acknowledged that not all of his colleagues agree with him.

Indeed, only one of the other five evangelicals on the call, Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, who is now a fellow at the ONE Campaign and a columnist for the Washington Post, responded to a question about tax hikes, and he cautioned against the idea because he said it would undermine economic growth.

Yet even modest language on protecting anti-poverty programs, for example, which are a relatively miniscule part of the federal budget, were seen as tantamount to "heresy" by Peter Wehner, writing at Commentary, about the "What Would Jesus Cut?" campaign.

Wehner's critique points directly to the other fault line facing Christian leaders advocating for the poor, namely the veritable gulf between even the more conservative activists like Michael Gerson and the believers in the pews.

As a recent Pew survey showed, evangelical Christians in particular are significantly more likely than other Americans to favor spending cuts on aid to poor people in the United States and overseas, and cuts on spending on behalf of the unemployed, environmental protection, scientific research, health care and education.

"I would say that we need an ongoing biblical dialogue with my brother and sister evangelicals," is how Ron Sider diplomatically phrased his reaction to the survey.

Shane Claiborne of The Simple Way, another speaker at Thursday's press conference, was more direct:

"I think that much of evangelical Christianity has lost the centeredness of Jesus and Jesus' heart for the poor and Jesus' Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount," he said. "We're starting with Christians because in some ways we've forgotten the 2,000 [Bible] verses that dare us and challenge us to remember the poor."

Claiborne called defense spending the "elephant in the room" that no one wanted to talk about, a reflection of the fact that the Pew survey showed that the only sectors of the federal budget on which evangelicals wanted to increase spending more than the rest of the public was defense and fighting crime.

Likewise, Gideon Strauss, president of Center for Public Justice, seemed to reject the philosophy of the tea party movement -- which surveys show is disproportionately composed of conservative white evangelicals -- when he declared Thursday that "those who disdain government and the political process dishonor God and their own humanity."

That's a powerful bit of preaching, but it's hard to see how it can affect a conversion on a flock that is in no mood to hear about shared sacrifices. Even more daunting is the task of translating such lofty principles into policy proposals that could unite Christian leaders themselves while having any chance of achieving their shared goals of protecting social programs while reducing the deficit and not raising taxes.

In the end, the Devil is always in the details, whether it's a question of the federal budget or what Jesus really meant.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Boy Wrestles With Faith, Not Girl: Is it Christianity or Chivalry?

David Gibson — 2011-03-02T23:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Culture, Disputations

The case of the Iowa high school wrestler who cited his Christian beliefs in forfeiting a recent match against a girl in a state tournament seemed to be another one of those skirmishes in the culture wars that clearly pit religious tradition against modernity.

The sophomore wrestler, Joel Northrup, said his decision to default his match against freshman Cassy Herkelman in the 112-pound class was based on his religious convictions -- he didn't think it was right for a boy to try to subdue a girl physically or to touch her so intimately.

Even Cassy and her family said they respected Northrup's integrity in putting his principles over the chance to compete for the top prize in a state famed for churning out some of the best grapplers in the country.

But when pressed, Northrup and his father, Jamie Northrup, also conceded that they couldn't actually cite chapter or verse in the Bible to justify Joel's decision.

"Even though there's no specific Scripture that addresses wrestling with girls, there is the biblical Christian principle of treating women with respect and dignity and not looking at them as objects to be defeated on the wrestling mat, or in some cases, to be groped or slammed," Jamie Northrup told CNN.

But given that lack of scriptural foundation, some Christians argue that the Northrups -- and their many cheerleaders among conservative Christians -- are confusing Gospel teachings with culturally conditioned traditions that don't do justice to either the Bible or to Cassy Herkelman.

"When Joel refused to wrestle Cassy, he took an opportunity away from her. An opportunity for her to shine using her own God-given strength and ability. An opportunity to win or lose, fair and square," Caryn Rivadeneira, a popular Christian writer, wrote at the "Her.meneutics" blog of the evangelical monthly, Christianity Today.

Rivadeneira made a point of applauding Joel's decision to stress his opposition to violence toward girls.

"But I wonder," she added, "why he thinks the Christian faith smiles on violence-for-fun against fellow boys. I'm confident that it doesn't. My guess is that his decision to default has more to do with his view of who is against him on the mat than it does with actual violence. And I think his refusal has more to do with his cultural view of girls than his Christian faith."

Her post, like the story of Northrup's decision, has generated a huge amount of commentary among Christians, both in support and opposition to Joel's decision.

Joel's defenders said that in refusing to wrestle Cassy the 16-year-old boy was "only expressing what would have been taken as common sense and common decency just a few years ago," as R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, put it in a column on the Iowa wrestling controversy.

"This is insanity masquerading as athletic competition," Mohler wrote. He said the episode represents "a clash of worlds and worldviews" pitting modern liberals who see Joel as "a religious nut" against traditionalists who see Joel "as a young man of brave and noble conscience." Joel's actions were "moments of temporary sanity in a world going increasingly mad."

Similarly, Mark T. Mitchell at Front Porch Republic found it "heartening to see a young man attempt to uphold the ideals of the gentleman" against what he called "the leveling impulse of the age."

"Perhaps that singular ideal can be sustained during our long sojourn through the wilderness of liberalism," Mitchell wrote. "If and when we emerge on the other side, it may provide a hopeful reminder of what is possible and how a decent society might be constructed around ideals that foster acts of nobility, deference, propriety, and kindness."

Yet Mitchell and Mohler and other conservative defenders of Joel's decision invoked the medieval notion of "chivalry" to frame their argument rather than citing any specific Gospel inspiration.

That seems to bolster the view that Northrup's decision was more a matter of good manners than biblical teachings -- not that there's anything wrong with that. There is widespread and understandable nostalgia for the days of old when knights were bold, as well as being honorable and upstanding men who eschewed vulgarity and treated a lady as if she were the Virgin Mary.

Interestingly, it was European contact with Arab Muslims, whose soldiers were seen not only as gifted fighters but also as pious, courteous, and literary men of honor, that helped create the virtues of chivalry eventually adopted by medieval knights. Christendom baptized chivalry as a moral and religious code, and centuries later the idealized knight was transformed by the rising middle class into the role of the respectable gentleman.

In theory, anyone willing to discipline themselves could be a gentleman, and for the Puritans and then the Victorians, Christianity proved to be a useful tool in that training.

"It has been said that no man can be a gentleman who is not a Christian," the 19th century author and moralist T. S. Arthur wrote in one of his popular books. "We take the converse of this proposition, and say that no man can be a Christian who is not a gentleman."

But the connection between the Good Book and good behavior seemed to grow more tenuous the more it was asserted. "Good" Christians should not drink, it was claimed, and that gave birth to the temperance movement that led to Prohibition, despite the fact that Jesus and the apostles all drank wine, and quite frequently. Movie-going was off-limits, of course, and the length of skirts was regulated as if according to a rule set out in Leviticus.

Such scrupulous concern for outward probity led to the quip that Baptists were against premarital sex because it might lead to dancing.

Baptists still aren't big on drinking, actually, but movies are okay and born again Christian girls across America are encouraged to strut their stuff in beauty pageants that would have made their Victorian forebears blanch. (O tempora! O mores!)

The concern now seems to be that wrestling between a boy and a girl might lead to transgressions of a physical nature. (There is apparently no analogous outcry against boys touching each other's private parts while on the mat, nor of girls wrestling as long as it is with each other -- an activity that hardly seems in keeping with chivalrous notions of female modesty.)

But Caryn Rivadeneira notes that Jesus frequently broke the customs of his day when it came to dealing with women. He healed the bleeding woman who would have been considered unclean by standards of the time, for example; he talked with the Samaritan woman who Jews were supposed to avoid, and he allowed a prostitute who the Pharisees said he should completely avoid to wash his feet with her tears.

"That was the way Jesus behaved in a terrible-case scenario for women," Rivadeneira writes. "He provided opportunities. He didn't shirk away because things could be awkward. He didn't ease up because women were weak. Jesus treated women like humans. Like breathing, feeling, thinking, capable people."

Cassy herself seemed to echo that view, saying after winning her match by default that she should not be treated differently because she is a girl.

"The fact that I'm doing the same sport as them [boys], that I'm doing the same things as them, I don't think they should be much different," she told reporters.

Cassy Herkelman and Joel Northrup lost their subsequent matches in the tournament and so are done for the season. But the debate seems destined to go on.

Herkleman and another girl were the first of their gender to wrestle in Iowa's state tournament, but thousands of girls are competing in wrestling tournaments across the country, and their numbers are growing. That has led some to call for separate tournaments for girls and boys, but that may not happen anytime soon.

And it seems unlikely anyone will solve the riddle of whether Jesus would wrestle a girl, or whether his modern-day followers should. The discomfort factor for a teenage boy grinding a girl into the mat -- or being ground into the mat by her -- is certainly understandable, and maybe that should have been the single, and sufficient, criteria for Joel's decision, and the arguments of his defenders.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Pope's 'Passion of the Christ': Don't Blame Jews for Death of Jesus

David Gibson — 2011-03-02T11:43:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Culture, Disputations, Pope Benedict XVI

In a new book on the historical Jesus set for release next week, Pope Benedict XVI forcefully argues that the Jewish people cannot be blamed for Christ's death on the cross and that even the most historically loaded Gospel phrases -- such as when the crowd shouts, "His blood be on us and on our children" -- are "not a curse, but rather redemption."

The blood of Jesus, Benedict writes, "does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all...[R]ead in the light of faith, it means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood."

Jewish groups welcomed the pope's remarks, with Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League calling the book "an important and historic moment for Catholic-Jewish relations" and saying Benedict has "rejected the previous teachings and perversions that have helped to foster and reinforce anti-Semitism through the centuries."

The Vatican on Wednesday published excerpts of the book, "Jesus of Nazareth: Part Two," the second volume of the pope's take on the gospels. The book is to go on sale on March 10, the day after Ash Wednesday and the start of the six-week season of Lent that will culminate with the commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus on Good Friday and Easter Sunday -- the period that Benedict focuses on in this second volume.

Pro-Choice Extremist Reportedly Arrested by FBI for Threats to Pro-Life Activists

David Gibson — 2011-02-26T21:05:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Abortion, Crime, Disputations, Conservatives, Liberals

The FBI in New York has reportedly arrested Theodore Shulman, a radical abortion rights campaigner with a long history of threatening pro-life activists, and charged him with making interstate threats against two abortion opponents who were not identified.

The 49-year-old Shulman was arrested on Thursday and was being held without bond at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, according to pro-life activists who were alerted to Shulman's incarceration by federal investigators. An officer at the correctional center referred a calls about inmates to the public relations office, which is closed over the weekend.

"This is a huge relief to us that Ted Shulman is behind bars where he belongs," Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue, a prominent anti-abortion organization, said in a story on the group's website. "He often posted threatening comments to our website and called me on my cell phone too many times to count."

Sullenger was not one of the two targets listed in the federal complaint, which has apparently been sealed (the FBI did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday). But she and a number of prominent abortion opponents and conservative activists -- including blogger Jill Stanek, Princeton political philosopher Robert P. George, Father Frank Pavone from Priests for Life, Bryan Kemper of Stand True Ministries, and scientist and pro-life activist Gerard Nadal -- have been frequent targets of Shulman's rants.

Nadal wrote of his relief over the "reprieve from death threats" to himself and his family in the wake of Shulman's arrest, and Sullenger and others were equally grateful.

"He was always brazen in his threats and openly identified himself, telling us not to bother calling the FBI because they would never do anything for us," Sullenger said. "Thankfully, he was wrong about that."

In fact, most stories of violence or threatened violence over the volatile issue of abortion tend to be connected to anti-abortion extremists rather than radicals in the abortion rights camp.

But Shulman is an unusual case in many respects.

His mother is Alix Kates Shulman, a feminist author and political activist who first achieved notoriety in 1972 for her novel "Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen," which drew wide coverage for its frank depiction of the sexual experiences of a young Midwestern woman who -- like Alix Shulman -- went off to college in the East. Shulman has spoken of having four abortions, "and not one was the result of carelessness." According to Jill Stanek, Ted Shulman has said two of his mother's abortions were before his birth and two were after.

For whatever reasons, Theodore Shulman -- who goes by Ted -- seemed to fixate on the issue of abortion rights and defined his activism by fierce and often extreme verbal attacks on pro-lifers that often threatened them with a violent end. He liked to allude to himself as the "first pro-choice terrorist" and started a blog called "Operation Counterstrike."

His mission statement says: "Right-to-lifism is murder, and ALL right-to-lifers are bloody-handed accessories. Swear it, believe it, proclaim it, and act on it."

In assisting the FBI over the past few years, Jill Stanek compiled more than 4,000 comments that Shulman posted or tried to post on her site over the last four years or so. One example: "I'm looking forward to watching a documentary entitled 'The Assassination of Jill Stanek'," Shulman wrote on Oct. 27 in a comment using one of his many online aliases.

Stanek told Politics Daily in an e-mail that Shulman's threats to her were not part of the criminal complaint against him.

It's not clear what Shulman may have done to push his actions and rhetoric across the line to alleged criminality. In its website report about Shulman's arrest Operation Rescue includes an audio recording of a threat to Cheryl Sullenger that the group says Shulman left on the group's voicemail:

"Hi Cheryl, I'm calling you to say you need to convert to pro-choice because your Maker is going to send an angel to gather you in very soon, and if you haven't converted to pro-choice by the time you get OFFED you will go to hell and burn!" the message says. "So quick, quick, quick -- convert to pro-choice during the few months you have left on this earth. Do it now!"

In its statement on Shulman, Operation Rescue says that threats to the group and its leader have increased in recent weeks, an increase it links to criticism of Operation Rescue from the liberal MSNBC cable host Rachel Maddow.

Last October, Maddow hosted a documentary, "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller," that examined the assassination on May 31, 2009, of George Tiller, one of just three doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions. While ushering at his church in Wichita, Kansas, Tiller was fatally shot by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist.

Maddow's show linked Operation Rescue, which led daily vigils outside Tiller's clinic for years, to extreme anti-abortion views.

According to pro-life activists, Shulman is also the subject of a federal investigation in Wichita, which could result in additional charges against him.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Gay Marriage Decision May Not Hurt Obama or Help the Religious Right

David Gibson — 2011-02-25T20:42:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, House, Republicans, John McCain, Religion, Mike Huckabee, Abortion, Gay Rights, Bill Clinton, Sarah Palin, Obama Administration, 2012 President, Culture, Disputations, Congress, Conservatives, Campaigns, Liberals, Tea Party, Barack Obama, John Boehner, 2012 Elections

When the Obama administration announced that it would adopt a matador defense on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the reaction from conservative Christian activists alternated between rage and celebration that the president had basically allowed the political right a slam dunk for the 2012 campaign.

The Justice Department declared that it would no longer argue in court on behalf of a key restriction against gay marriage contained in the law, which effectively gives gay marriage a pass from the executive branch -- and gives the religious right a debating point.

Wisconsin Workers Get Support from Poland's Solidarity Trade Union

David Gibson — 2011-02-25T19:38:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Disputations, Governors, Conservatives, Unemployment, Jobs, Economy

The Polish trade union Solidarity, whose protests in the early 1980s helped precipitate the downfall of Soviet communism, has embraced the cause of Wisconsin's protesting public workers.

Piotr Duda, head of the 700,000-member "Solidarnosc" trade union, wrote that on behalf of his organization he wanted to "express our solidarity and support for your struggle against the recent assault on trade unions and trade union rights unleashed by Governor Scott Walker," Wisconsin's budget-cutting Republican executive.

"We are witnessing yet another attempt of transferring the costs of the economic crisis and of the failed financial policies to working people and their families," Duda wrote. "As much as some adjustments are necessary, we can not and must not agree that the austerity measures are synonymous with union busting practices, the elimination of bargaining rights and the reduction of social benefits and wages."

"Your victory is our victory as well," Duda concluded, pledging assistance if the public employee unions need it.

Writing at Politics Daily this week, Gerald J. Beyer, an associate professor of Christian social ethics at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, argued that there are parallels between the Solidarity movement in communist Poland and the efforts by public workers in Wisconsin and other states to resist efforts to curtail their collective bargaining rights.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Mike Huckabee Again Defends Obama's Christian Faith and Family Values

David Gibson — 2011-02-24T17:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Mike Huckabee, Race Issues, 2012 President, Disputations, Conservatives, Campaigns, Barack Obama, Islam

Even as he has continued to critique Islam, potential GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is at the same time making a talking point of defending President Obama against charges that he is not a Christian, and in fact on Thursday he hailed Obama as a role model for the "primacy of the American family."

"He has personally articulated, not once but numerous times, his Christian faith. I take him at his word. I have no reason not to. For us to continue to dwell on that is missing the point," Huckabee said in a lunchtime speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

Mike Huckabee Keeps Up Criticism of Islam in America

David Gibson — 2011-02-23T21:50:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Religion, Mike Huckabee, Terror, 2012 President, Disputations, Conservatives, Barack Obama, Islam

Just days after stirring Muslim ire for ripping Islam as "the antithesis of the gospel of Christ," Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee again sharply critiqued the religion, telling an evangelical magazine that Muslims are receiving special treatment "at the expense of others" -- apparently referring to Christians -- and that is "un-American."

In the interview with Christianity Today, Huckabee was asked about New York Rep. Peter King's controversial plan to hold hearings in March on the alleged radicalization of American Muslims, and Huckabee responded by talking about concerns that Muslims wanted to "impose" the Islamic religious law code known as Sharia on Americans.

Sharia law cannot be used to trump U.S. laws, but conservatives, including Newt Gingrich -- another GOP hopeful for 2012 -- have gained traction with their base by arguing that it can, and Huckabee seemed to be joining that camp.

"We live in a country where people are free to be Muslim. They're not free, however, to impose a Muslim law as if it were civil law," Huckabee, a Baptist and former pastor, said. "If I were to say, okay, everyone must tithe to their local church, people would be outraged."

Huckabee cited a story from 2007 when a campus of the University of Michigan installed foot baths to accommodate Muslim students -- who comprised 10 percent of the student body -- who wanted a safe facility to wash before their daily prayers. At least 18 other universities also have foot baths for Muslims and any others who want to use them.

"I don't remember anyone ever accommodating me and saying we're going to erect a cross so that we can make sure you're comfortable when you walk across campus," Huckabee said. "I find that the accommodation we're making to one religion at the expense of the others is very un-American." (Many universities do have Christian facilities and symbols, such as chapels and crosses, to accommodate believers or as a legacy of their original church affiliation.)

Appearing on a Fox News show over the weekend, Huckabee also took aim at Islam as he criticized two Protestant churches that allowed Muslims to worship in their facilities when mosques in the area were too small or under construction.

"If the purpose of a church is to push forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I have a hard time understanding that," Huckabee, a Fox host, said while he was a guest on "Fox & Friends." "I mean if a church is nothing more than a facility and a meeting place free for any and all viewpoints, without regard to what it is, then should the church be rented out to show adult movies on the weekend?"

Huckabee added that Islam "is the antithesis of the gospel of Christ." A leading Islamic advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), called Huckabee's remarks "inaccurate and offensive" and asked him to apologize. CAIR said it would also help arrange a meeting between the former Arkansas governor and Muslim leaders "to discuss growing Islamophobia in American society."

Huckabee has not responded to either request.

In his Christianity Today interview, Huckabee did weigh in on the "birther" controversy -- about those who allege President Obama was not born in the United States -- and suspicions among many conservative Christians that Obama is not a Christian or may even be a Muslim. He said Obama is clearly a Christian and dismissed as "inappropriate, wrong-headed, and not helpful to the overall discussion when people try to say he doesn't have a birth certificate or he's a Muslim."

He said people should be focusing on whether Obama's policies are good for the country, "not what did he hear when he sat in church."

"If people went back and heard every sermon I heard when I was a little kid and some of the more fundamentalist pastors were yelling from the pulpit at me, if they took every one of those sermons and lifted out of them certain phrases and things, it could be scandalous, but only out of the context of the bigger picture."

In a similar vein, Huckabee seemed to give his close rival in the Republican sweepstakes, Mitt Romney, a boost when he said evangelicals should not consider Romney's Mormon faith when they weigh their preferences.

"I don't think they should, unless that person advances something truly bizarre," Huckabee said. (Evangelicals remain deeply suspicious of Mormon beliefs despite the fact that the two groups share many conservative values.) Huckabee said he was more interested in whether candidates live up to the teachings of their own faith.

Elsewhere in the interview, Huckabee maintained his standard line about a 2012 presidential run, saying he has not made up his mind. He said he projects a late summer decision, which would likely be three or four months after candidates including Mitt Romney make their official announcements.

He also casts social conservatives like himself as integral to fiscal conservatism and conservatism in general, pushing back at some of the more libertarian-minded conservatives who want to focus on economic issues at the expense of opposition to things like gay marriage and abortion.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Glenn Beck Meets Billy Graham, Later Blasts the Left as 'Evil'

David Gibson — 2011-02-22T22:46:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Republicans, Barack Obama, John McCain, Religion, Sarah Palin, Disputations, Conservatives, Liberals, Tea Party

Controversial Fox News host Glenn Beck met quietly with the aging and revered evangelist Billy Graham on Saturday and said that after their three-hour encounter he is convinced that the political left -- including "the average Democrat" -- is "standing now with profound and clear evil."

"In sitting there and speaking to Reverend Graham, I thought, here is a man who has been all around the world," Beck explained on his website on Tuesday, apparently a transcript of comments made on his radio show on Monday. "Here's a man who has seen it all. Here's a man who's done profound good. One of the first to stand in Alabama as a white preacher and stand and say we must come together."

Dublin Archbishop Washes Feet of Sex Abuse Victims

David Gibson — 2011-02-21T13:46:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Crime, Disputations, Ethics, Pope Benedict XVI, Catholic Scandal

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has been seen as a rare champion of reform and repentance in the Catholic hierarchy as the clergy sex abuse crisis has pushed the Irish church to the abyss, and he reinforced that reputation on Sunday by washing the feet of eight abuse victims during a service in the cathedral in the Irish capital.

Martin was joined by Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who has been spending time in Dublin as part of a Vatican team sent to assess the state of Catholicism in Ireland, which O'Malley reportedly planned to tell Pope Benedict XVI was "on the edge of collapse."

At the start of the 90-minute liturgy "of lament and repentance" Archbishop Martin and Cardinal O'Malley both prostrated themselves in silent prayer before the altar, the Irish Times reported.

The service was largely prepared by the victims and included readings from a damning 2009 Irish government report on widespread child abuse by priests in the Dublin archdiocese between 1975 and 2004. The report said the church in Ireland had "obsessively" concealed the abuse.

"For covering up crimes of abuse, and by so doing actually causing the sexual abuse of more children...we ask God's forgiveness," Archbishop Martin told the congregation in St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral. "The archdiocese of Dublin will never be the same again. It will always bear this wound within it."

Martin knelt as he washed the feet of five men and three women who had been abused by priests as children. O'Malley then dried their feet in a ritual that is seen as a classic gesture of penance and humility. The service recalls the passage in the Gospel in which Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, a scene that priests and bishops reenact each Holy Thursday evening before Good Friday and the celebration of Easter the following Sunday.

"For them to get down on their knees, it was humbling," Darren McGavin, 39, who was abused as a child, told Reuters. "I've found it hard to forgive, but today I found a small bit of closure."

"Today was a day of liberation for me," said another of the eight victims, a 63-year-old. "I never thought I'd live to see this day when the church gave full recognition for the horror that was there."

O'Malley said that the washing of the feet was a gesture of atonement that victims wanted and deserved.

"The wounds carried in Ireland as a result of this evil are deep and remind us of the wounds of the body of Christ. We think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as he experienced his own crisis," he said.

"He, too, was overwhelmed with sorrow, betrayed and abandoned. Not only survivors of abuse and their family members, but many of the faithful and clergy throughout Ireland can echo our Lord's plaintive cry, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' "

"But today, through the saving power of the cross, we come together to share in each other's sorrows as well as our collective hope for the future."

A woman victim also read from Matthew's gospel about Jesus and children, and his words that "anyone who is the downfall of one of these little ones...would be better drowned in the depths of the sea."

At the end of the liturgy a "Candle of Protection" was blessed by Archbishop Martin and lit from the Paschal Candle before it was carried in procession to nearby St Joseph's altar.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Obama Administration Returns to Earlier Conscience Protections For Health Workers

David Gibson — 2011-02-18T21:18:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, House, Democrats, Republicans, Religion, Abortion, Health Care, Obama Administration, Disputations, Conservatives, Liberals, Ethics, Medicine, Barack Obama

The Obama administration on Friday reversed most of the provisions of controversial federal conscience-protection regulations that were instituted by George W. Bush at the end of his presidency, thereby leaving Bush's successor with a politically difficult decision that would alienate either abortion rights supporters or opponents, or both.

The Bush administration had pushed the 11th-hour regulations through in December 2008, despite President-elect Obama's vow to rescind them; when Obama came into office, he instead said he would have the Department of Health and Human Services review the rules after considering input from all sides, and Friday's decision was the result.

The new rules -- meant to protect workers from having to perform certain medical procedures if they object on moral or religious grounds -- do away with Bush administration language that was seen as so far-reaching that it could allow health care workers to opt out of a broad range of medical services, such as providing the emergency contraceptive Plan B to rape victims, assisting on infertility treatments, treating gay men and lesbians, prescribing birth control to single women, and following end-of-life directives by patients if they conflicted with a health worker's beliefs.

The HHS statement said the previous wording "caused confusion and could be taken as overly broad." In fact, the Bush language faced court challenges in at least eight states.

Friday's move generally seemed to please pro-choice groups, and while the decision was anticipated to be handed down soon, it was an especially welcome boost for abortion-rights supporters on a day when the House voted to stop funding Planned Parenthood clinics.

The HHS decision was, as expected, a compromise that leaves in place some of the newer Bush language on exemptions regarding abortion and sterilization.

But because it drops much of the Bush language, the Obama rule was seen as a step back by social conservatives.

The Obama rule largely restores the previous policy that for decades protected health care workers and faith-based institutions like Catholic hospitals whose religious or moral convictions would prevent them from taking part in certain procedures.

It also retains a threat to withhold federal dollars from institutions that do not comply with conscience protections and it keeps the Bush-era mechanism by which those who feel their rights are being infringed can appeal to the HHS Office for Civil Rights. That makes the current regulation, at least in the abstract, stronger than anything in place at any time except the last month of the Bush administration.

"The administration strongly supports provider conscience laws that protect and support the rights of health care providers, and also recognizes and supports the rights of patients," said an HHS statement. "Strong conscience laws make it clear that health care providers cannot be compelled to perform or assist in an abortion. Many of these strong conscience laws have been in existence for more than 30 years. The rule being issued today builds on these laws by providing a clear enforcement process."

The department also announced a new "awareness initiative" for facilities receiving federal money to ensure they understand the conscience protections and the appeal process for those who believe their rights have been violated.

Conservatives had originally lobbied the Bush administration for stronger regulations because of what they said was increasing pressures on nurses, doctors, pharmacists and medical facilities -- mainly Christian -- to perform procedures and provide services they found morally objectionable. They also argued that stronger regulations were needed in light of Obama's victory and the anticipation that he would not be as vigilant in protecting the conscience rights of health care workers. And they wanted conscience protections to cover emerging issues, such as "morning after" pills and fertility treatments and the like.

The Bush regulations that were promulgated in December 2008 could have cut off federal funding for up to half a million entities, including state and local governments, hospitals, health plans and clinics, if they did not take the initiative to certify to the federal government that they would accommodate the beliefs of health care personnel.

The new regulation still ensures that no federal money can be used to "support coercive or discriminatory policies or practices in violation of federal law."

While pro-choice groups were pleased with the change -- Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, cast it as a much-needed victory on a day that the House voted to cut funds to Planned Parenthood -- social conservatives registered varying degrees of disappointment and outrage.

"Conscience Trampled by the Regime" was the title of a column by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a prominent voice among Christian conservatives, reacting to the administration's decision.

"Gone are all protections for those who object by conscience to abortifacient drugs and 'emergency' contraceptives, the treatment of gay men and lesbians, and prescriptions for birth control sought by single women," Mohler wrote. "In these cases, medical personnel have objected that their conscience and understanding of medical ethics do not allow them to facilitate acts and behaviors that are both immoral and unhealthy."

Mohler portrayed the move -- which actually leaves conscience protections stronger than they were during Bush's eight years in office -- as a signal that "the Obama administration is now ready to use the coercive power of the state to force medical personnel to perform acts they consider to be morally wrong and unhealthy for their patients." He cast it as "a tyrannical trampling of individual conscience by the power of the state" and suggested Christians should be prepared to face government sanctions for their beliefs.

Dr. J. Scott Ries, an official with the Christian Medical Association, an evangelical-oriented organization, also lamented the administration's rule changes. Ries said they would drive people of faith out of the medical profession and deprive the neediest of medical care that is often provided by religiously motivated health care workers.

The Catholic hierarchy, which had also supported the Bush rule, took a more measured view of the changes.

"The Administration's action today is cause for disappointment, but also offers reasons for hope regarding an emerging consensus in Washington on the need for clear conscience protections for health care providers," said Deirdre McQuade of the Pro-Life Secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Catholic Health Association, which represents more than 1,200 Catholic health care systems and facilities, welcomed the regulations as vital protections for religiously-affiliated institutions like Catholic hospitals, as well as for individuals, who oppose abortion.

"In conjunction with the Catholic bishops of the United States, we were pleased to see the clarity of these federal conscience protections and were especially pleased to to see the provisions for education on conscience protection and the pathways for enforcement," Sr. Carol Keehan, head of the CHA, told PoliticsDaily.

Robert Vischer, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis who has written widely on conscience issues, saw the new rule as a mixed bag that would -- like the Bush regulations -- largely depend on how it was interpreted and enforced. And he said those who doubt the president's commitment on this issue are likely to be suspicious of his administration's preference to sort out problems on a case-by-case basis rather than through a single universal rule.

"There has been two years' worth of smoke surrounding federal conscience protection for health care providers, but it is difficult to discern exactly where the fire is when the debate plays out on the pages of the Code of Federal Regulations," Vischer wrote in an analysis at the website of the National Catholic Reporter.

"Apparently, the less said on the subject, the better," is how Vischer interpreted the administration's "punt" on conscience protections. "The problem, of course, is that Congress has never been especially astute at crafting user-friendly legislation. The implementing regulations, at their best, can provide a roadmap of the relevant legal rights, privileges, and obligations. Forsaking the opportunity to provide any sort of roadmap fosters doubt as to how seriously one takes the corresponding obligations."

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Deepak Chopra: 'Obama Should be a One-Term President'

David Gibson — 2011-02-18T15:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Religion, Obama Administration, 2012 President, Culture, Disputations, Conservatives, Catholic Scandal, Barack Obama, 2012 Elections

Deepak Chopra, the phenomenally successful guru of America's New Age spiritual craze, tells Playboy magazine in its March edition that he has fallen out of love with President Obama and now thinks he "should be just a one-term president."

"It's a sad state of affairs. I loved President Obama. I've met with him, I voted for him and I supported him, but I think he's ineffective at the moment," Chopra tells the racy monthly in excerpts of his feature interview released on Playboy's website.

"I mean, with all the support and the majority in Congress that he had, he couldn't get the health care bill passed comfortably! It's that way with all the things he said he would do. He can't get rolling, he can't get the support. I think Obama should be just a one-term president."

Some could argue that Chopra's political analysis is not as sharp as his spiritual insights, given the realities that Obama faced with the Republican filibuster in the Senate and the cratering economy, as well as the fact that the legislative victories of his first two years were widely considered as impressive as any administration's.

So should conservatives embrace the Indian-born self-help author and motivational speaker as one of their own?

Maybe not. Chopra "totally can't take Rush Limbaugh" and thinks Fox News host Sean Hannity "is a bigot and is not smart." He seems to like Bill O'Reilly, but the whole Fox News approach, he says, "caters to the basest instincts of our collective consciousness."

"In Eastern terms I'd say [Fox News] is stuck at the first chakra, which is the fight-or-flight response and everything that goes with it -- you know, fear mongering, influence peddling, cronyism among the extreme right wing."

The problem with America, as Chopra sees it, is that it is "a country at war with the world and at war with itself."

Apparently referring to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chopra says troop deployments "resulted is a lot of men being absent, dysfunctional families and children growing up with insecurities. When you grow up in a society at war with itself, you come of age with uncertainties and fears, and the result is that many people are lost."

As for solutions, Chopra says America needs to get back to manufacturing products -- "America's two biggest exports right now are Hollywood and weapons of mass destruction" -- so that people regain skills for the "jobs that don't require advanced degrees."

Elsewhere in the interview, Chopra talks about doing drugs in the past, and in particular with the late Beatle George Harrison, the problem with all organized religions, in particular the Roman Catholic Church ("It's the hypocrisy I worry about"), and how he doesn't save any of the millions he's earned for himself:

"I've hit the jackpot as far as selling books is concerned. That's where my income comes from. But I put it back into the business, and what's left I put into my foundation...I don't invest and I don't save. I carry maybe $200 and a credit card in my pocket. If you ask me to read a bank statement, I can't. I believe that when I die there won't be anything for anyone. In the meanwhile, until I'm dead, my wife is totally taken care of from my royalties. My children are self-sufficient, so I don't need to give them any money. I keep about $30,000 in my account and the rest goes to keeping the operation running."

Oh, and he offers the secret to happiness:

"The highest form of intelligence you can have is to observe yourself. Let it go at that. You don't need to judge, you don't need to analyze, you don't even need to change. This is the key to life: the ability to reflect, the ability to know yourself, the ability to pause for a second before reacting automatically."

"The worst thing you can do is be a conformist and buy into conformity. It's the worst possible thing. It's better to be outrageous...better to hang out with the sages, the people open to possibilities, even the psychotics. You never know where you'll find the geniuses of our society."

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Is That a Christian Cross or a Plus Sign? Ohio School in 'Crossfire'

David Gibson — 2011-02-17T14:21:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Education, Disputations

The architect saw the building decoration as a plus sign. A local resident saw a cross. But you can't be too careful these days, so school officials in Toledo, Ohio, have asked the designer of a new elementary school to remove a series of cross-like symbols on the exterior of the gymnasium.

"The architect will submit a fix to the design; they have indicated it will be an easy fix," James Gant, chief business manager for Toledo Public Schools, told the Toledo Free Press this week.

Call it addition by subtraction.

"As soon as we found out there were issues we got a copy of the plan design and talked to the architect about it; it was not the intent of the plan at all," Gant said. The design was to represent a plus sign.

Questions emerged about the design when a neighborhood resident, David Eichenberg, whose children will be attending the new Beverly Elementary School, posted a photo of the architectural feature at the Free Press' Facebook page on Jan. 23. (Eichenberg's photo includes some cross-shaped electrical towers in the background, but those apparently didn't register in the same way.)

Gant said he had not received any other complaints from parents or the community, but still thought it best to change the design.

"I appreciate the concern that was brought up and it does look that way and we need to be careful about that process of what we're doing," Gant told the Free Press. "It's a legitimate concern, and it was not the intended design."

Still, it's not clear whether the changes will end the debate.

The Free Press Facebook posts on the story are abuzz with debate over the cross/plus sign symbol, and Eichenberg has weighed in with some provocative comments that are only likely to keep the arguments going.

"How about a swastika. Can we stick that up on your church?" he wrote to one critic. "There is seperation [sic] of church and state in this country since the school in question is a public building the symbols in question can not appear on it. On a private school, fine, whatever floats your boat. Not a public school. It is against my civil liberties, that is what is wrong with it. Contrary to popular belief this is NOT a Christian country. Nor was it ever intended to be."

And they're off....

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Politics Daily

Why Gingrich Needs to Find His Inner Victim

Related Stories

Survey Rebuts Rep. Peter King's Claims on Radicals and Mosques

Should Rep. Peter King Investigate the Catholic Church?

Related Stories

Ash Wednesday Idea: Beat Guilt This Lent -- Literally

21 Priests in Philadelphia Suspended on Sex Abuse Allegations

Public Support for Gay Marriage on Verge of Surpassing Opposition

Mike Huckabee Holds Strong Lead Among Conservative Christian Bloc

What Would Jesus Cut? Deficit Debate Rallies Christians -- and Exposes Divisions

Boy Wrestles With Faith, Not Girl: Is it Christianity or Chivalry?

Pope's 'Passion of the Christ': Don't Blame Jews for Death of Jesus

Related Stories

Pro-Choice Extremist Reportedly Arrested by FBI for Threats to Pro-Life Activists

Gay Marriage Decision May Not Hurt Obama or Help the Religious Right

Related Stories

Wisconsin Workers Get Support from Poland's Solidarity Trade Union

Mike Huckabee Again Defends Obama's Christian Faith and Family Values

Related Stories

Mike Huckabee Keeps Up Criticism of Islam in America

Glenn Beck Meets Billy Graham, Later Blasts the Left as 'Evil'

Related Stories

Dublin Archbishop Washes Feet of Sex Abuse Victims

Obama Administration Returns to Earlier Conscience Protections For Health Workers

Deepak Chopra: 'Obama Should be a One-Term President'

Is That a Christian Cross or a Plus Sign? Ohio School in 'Crossfire'