WWJD

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 3/19/13 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image and then zip on back.)

For Christ's sake!  Republicans and their Religious Reich are giving Christians a bad name, and that's beginning to wear on my last nerve.  The latest "outrage" has to do with (of all things) the selection of the Google doodle for March 31, which happened to celebrate Caesar Chavez day instead of Easter, because, of course, they are mutually incompatible.  It obviously rankled Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times as well.

There’s no intolerance like good conservative intolerance.

On Easter Sunday, Google incurred the wrath of the conservative Twittersphere when it chose to feature on its home page a portrait of California civil rights pioneer Cesar Chavez instead of Jesus Christ. Chavez, of course, was the co-founder, with Dolores Huerta, of the United Farm Workers union.

March 31, as it happens, is Cesar Chavez Day, declared in 2011 by President Obama to honor the man who did more than almost anyone else to improve the condition of migrant farmworkers in this country by leading boycotts, non-violent protests and collective bargaining. ...

To pick on Google for its "doodle" celebrating a man who devoted his life to helping the most downtrodden among us -- living, in other words, the values expressed by Christ -- smacks of the kind of bullying that conservatives are so quick to see in others. ...

This is what illusionists call “misdirection.” The real issue is not Google’s disdain for Christians. The real issue is the Republican Party’s disdain for Latinos. (Did I mention that Chavez was Mexican American?)   [Emphasis added]

First of all, let's make something clear.  Not everyone in the US is a Christian.  There are Jews, Muslims, pagans, atheists, Buddhists.  To expect to impose any version of Christianity on businesses and government is far more of a danger to our democracy than the imposition of Sharia law the morons of the Religious Reich keep mouthing off about.  There is no "War on Christianity," only a war on religious freedom being waged from the basest of the base in the GOP.

Second of all, it's time for real Christians, those of us who take the Sermon on the Mount seriously, to make it clear that this kind of behavior is nothing more than patent bovine excrement designed to catapult the propaganda of the Right Wing of the Republican party. This is shorthand hate speech:  Caesar Chavez worked hard to ensure the rights of farm workers, most of whom were Mexican.  And he did so in a manner consistent with the teachings of Jesus, whether avatar or exemplar. But we must call out the perverters of Jesus' message out with every opportunity. If the Religious Reich and the Tea Partiers can't deal with that, well, then, that's their problem. 

I'm just sick unto death that it is becoming mine.

Bringing The Snark

The Los Angeles Times op-ed blogger Paul Whitefield had me chuckling with this opening set of paragraphs:

Forget voter ID laws. What this country needs are laws to keep stupid people from voting.

Now, I’m not talking about folks who can’t recite the preamble to the Constitution, or who can’t tell you what the 1st Amendment covers, or how many Supreme Court justices there are. I’ll even exempt those poor souls who don’t know who the first president was, or can’t name the two houses of Congress, or don’t know the name of their representative.

But, if you were to show up at the polls in November, and the poll worker were to ask you “Is President Obama a Muslim or a Christian?” and you answered “Muslim,” then — bzzzzzt — you’d be automatically disqualified from voting, on the grounds you’re just too dumb.

Heh.

He's referring, of course, to the recent Pew poll which shows even more Republican voters believe Barack Obama is a Muslim than ever before. Of course, even Whitefield admits that one possible reason for that is the respondents were having a spot of fun with the pollsters. Still, that is a bit disheartening.

After my giggles ended, however, I got the point behind the point, which Grade A Snark should always deliver. What difference does it make, really? What if Obama really is a Muslim? So what? Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn) is a Muslim. So? Why should it matter?

I remember more than 50 years ago when my mother and her sisters declared that if the Democrats nominated that Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy for president they'd never vote Democrat again, and as far as I know, none of them ever did, even after JFK's speech indicating he would uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. I had hoped we finally got beyond that point. Clearly I was wrong.

Stupid is one thing. Vicious bigotry is something else. Michele Bachman (and folks such as John Bolton) know this, but still have no trouble playing on the fears people were taught to have by the last administration after 9/11. The equation is simple: Muslim = terrorist. Roman Catholic = Vatican control. Mormonism = bigamist cult.

So much for the promise of a new century, a new millennium.

I Actually Didn't Expect This

After months of speechifying by Catholic Bishops, fundagelicals, congressional Republicans and campaigning Republicans, apparently the public is growing weary of the intrusion of religion into politics.

Americans are increasingly uneasy with the mingling of religion and politics, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, in the midst of a campaign season punctuated by tussles over the role of faith in the public square.

Back in 2001, when Pew first asked the question, just 12 percent of Americans complained that their politicians talked too much about religion.

That number has risen steadily ever since and hit a record high in the new poll: 38 percent of Americans, including 24 percent of Republicans, now say their political leaders are overdoing it with their expressions of faith and prayer.

And more Americans than ever, 54 percent, believe churches should keep out of politics. That's up from 43 percent in 1996, according to the Pew Research Center. [Emphasis added]

And as to the claim that President Obama and the Democrats (godless heathens all) are engaged in a war against religion (which is defined as Christianity) and religious liberty (which is defined as being free to be a Christian), another poll is also enlightening:

Among the public overall, 23 percent describe the Obama administration as unfriendly to religion, up from 17 percent in 2009. But another recent poll suggests the "war on religion" argument isn't gaining traction with most adults.

A national survey conducted this month by the Public Religion Research Institute found a majority of Americans, 56 percent, do not believe religious liberty is under siege. [Emphasis added]

I admit to being a little surprised. Either I've become too cynical or people are finally waking up.

Either way, I'm delighted at the trend.

Tiresome

Here's the thing: ultimately, I really don't care what religion a politician holds, or even if s/he holds any religion. That shouldn't enter into the mix in a country which has declared freedom of religion and which has traditionally kept intact the separation of church and state. Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Christian, Rastafarian, Pagan: it shouldn't matter.

It shouldn't, but apparently it now does. I thought that with the election of John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, we could finally put the religious test behind us. I clearly was wrong. Religion is a qualifier. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and the fundagelicals are unhappy about that. Will that be enough to keep him from the GOP nomination? Probably not, but the mere fact that it is a matter of discussion saddens me.

Somehow, the idea that we are a "Christian Nation" has taken root in our discourse, especially around election time, even though the founders of our nation deliberately refrained from such a position and even spoke against any religious test for holding office. Those founders would be surprised and appalled at the insistence of a particularly noisy sector of the population that not only does one have to be Christian to lead the country, one has to be a particular brand of Christian.

Unfortunately, some politicians, particularly on the right, are buying into that nonsense, dragging their piety credentials on stage at every opportunity. Michele Bachman does so relentlessly, and that's why I wasn't all that unhappy that she got bit on the backside this week.

According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” said Joel Hochmuth, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the governing body for the church.

Bachmann had apparently been distancing herself from the church for some time. Hochmuth said the couple had not been worshiping with the congregation in more than two years.

Why the breakup? Well, one of the tenets of this particular denomination is that that the Pope is the Antichrist. Initially, Bachman denied that her church held any such stand, but she soon discovered that it did, and that meant her political career just might be jeopardized if enough people realized that. So she split. So much for brand loyalty.

What her church and what she herself believes is actually none of my business, but it becomes my business when she and other candidates continually shove it in my face with smug superiority. It also becomes my business when candidates make it clear that those religious beliefs will become national policy.

So this time I'm actually glad that the Los Angeles Times made an issue of her religious beliefs. I don't expect it will make much difference in the long run, but at least we got past the truthy stage for a brief moment.

The Churchy State

This week's visit to Watching America was an unusually short one, mainly because the featured article was an absolutely perfect match for what I had been thinking about for days. It's from Palestine's Al Quds and deals with the peculiar relationship between government and religion in this country. It's author, Khalil al-Anani, pretty much nails it, even though I disagree with one of his findings.

More than 200 years ago, the United States set a goal to guarantee freedom of belief and religious practice for all faiths, especially for those who had been oppressed in their countries of origin. To ensure that the unhappy European experience with freedom of religion would not be repeated, America’s Founding Fathers made the Constitution a genuine expression of liberalism. They sanctified religious freedom and forbid violations of that freedom in any way, thereby distinguishing the American model of secularism from its European counterparts.

In brief, American secularism is consistently characterized by three traits: First, to borrow the famous phrase of the late Dr. Abd al-Wahhab al-Messiri, it is a partial secularism. That is, even though this model separates religion from state in terms of operations, it does not separate religion from society in terms of practice. This leaves each individual the freedom to embrace (or not embrace) any religion he chooses, tacitly ensuring the protection of and respect for religious belief, practice and symbols.

Second, it is a secularist model, because although it forbids the state from officially adopting or favoring any one religion, it also acknowledges rights for all religious sects and guarantees each the right to worship without restriction through the establishment of places of worship. These rights were enumerated in 1791 in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, alongside the prohibition on Congress from bias toward any one religion.

Third, it is a secularism of faith, meaning that this model takes a negative stance toward atheism even if it does not forbid it. Perhaps this goes back to the genesis of the United States itself, as a place of refuge for the many devout Protestants who sought to escape the religious persecution they faced in Europe at the end of the 17th century.

My first complaint is rather a nitpicking one. Technically speaking, the government does not forbid atheism, but it allows for certain practices which belie that as an acceptable choice. Our currency and our Pledge of Allegiance both make that quite clear. On a less formal level, the US military has long brought pressure to bear on recruits to hew to the Christian format (for example, at the Air Force Academy).

My second complaint is not exactly a complaint because I suspect Khalil al-Anani was being polite. Yes, this nation does protect freedom of religious expression, but the table is tilted towards Christianity, especially conservative Protestant Christianity these days. It took Pagans and Jews a long time and a lot of hard work to get some kind of equality for displays on public property during the Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter, each of which has antecedents in both non-Christian religions.

Such a non-level field has tilted even further to the righteous these past few months as members of the Muslim faith have learned. Not only has holy hell been raised by alleged Christians at the thought of an Islamic cultural center which would include a space for prayer near "Ground Zero", one leader of the Religious Reich intends to host a barbecue on 9/11 in which the fuel will be Korans.

People of good will deplore such disrespect, yet they are not the least dismayed by the use of governmental property, property which is owned by all of us, for the promotion of one particular segment of the religious spectrum. Glenn Beck's Extravaganza is one example, but a more recent example came this week in California. What the two events both espoused was that each convocation was non-political in nature, even non-specific religious in nature.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Summoned by conservative Christian leaders from around the country, thousands gathered on the west steps of the Capitol on Saturday for 12 hours of solemn prayer, gospel and Christian rock – and repeated calls to end abortion and gay marriage.

Much of the day was devoted to speeches about God, love and morality, but there was considerable blurring of the line between religion and politics. ...

"Our citizenship is in heaven," said Rachel Wegner, 25, a nurse who attended from Redding. "This is not political or even religious – denominations don't matter, political parties don't matter. It's completely spiritual."

The stage was flanked by giant video screens and banners proclaiming, "Only one hope – Jesus." Attendees were asked to fast for the day, although volunteers passed out bottled water. At times, small groups formed prayer circles or marched to a large cross, fashioned from metal scaffolding, set up across the street from the Capitol. [Emphasis added]

The only thing that kept me from taking permanently to my bed this morning was this article about a small-town in California which expressed disgust at the vandalism of their town's only mosque. Those people knew people there, knew who would be affected as neighbors, as health care providers for several generations, as fellow citizens. That's some solace, but not enough.

Until each neighbor is willing to give up whatever privilege they have until all share in the American dream, even those who are non-believers, this nation will be churchy. And that is just as unacceptable as Steven Colbert's truthiness.

God-Blessed America

Glenn Beck is still the talk of the nation. Columnists and news analysts are still obsessing over the latest far-right spokesman following the Glenn Beck Extravaganza of the past Saturday, which, given the hype before and during the event, is certainly not surprising. However, I did find one critique of the event, especially of Mr. Beck's speech, which did rather surprise me. It was written by Robert Parham, who is executive editor of EthicsDaily.com and executive director of its parent organization, the Baptist Center for Ethics.

No amount of Bible reading, sermons masquerading as prayers and Christian hymns can cover up Beck's civil religion that slides back and forth between the Bible and nationalism, between authentic faith and patriotic religion.

He treats the "American scripture" - such as the Gettysburg Address - as if it bears the same revelatory weight as Christian Scripture.

What is important to Beck is belief in God - God generically - not a specific understanding of God revealed in the biblical witness, but God who appears in nature and from which one draws universal truths.

Not surprisingly, Beck only uses the Bible to point toward the idea of a God-generic. He does not listen to the God of the Bible who calls for the practice of social justice, the pursuit of peacemaking, the protection of the poor in the formation of community. Beck has little room for God's warning about national idolatry and rejection of fabricated religion. [Emphasis added]

Frankly, I hardly expected such a lashing from a representative of a mainstream Protestant tradition, especially one which is perceived as conservative. That said, I also admit I shouldn't have been surprised, given the mish-mash ladled out by Beck in that rambling, often incoherent speech. The conflation of nationalism and of revealed religion shouldn't sit well with theologians from any of the Christian traditions, something the Christians present at the Extravaganza hanging on every word from Beck probably hadn't considered.

Beck, who I think is nothing more than a huckster plying his trade for his own personal glory and enrichment, displayed his ignorance of both the Christian tradition and of the founding principles of this nation. He may have mouthed words of inclusion for all the religions of the world, but he still promoted a country which could only be guided by faith in God, something which should have our founders spinning in their respective graves. And then he couldn't even get that part right, as Mr. Parham makes clear.

Hopefully Mr. Beck's fifteen minutes will be up soon. He has become as tiresome as his sidekick at the Extravaganza, Sarah Palin.

Intentionally Stupid

I guess there really is no way to misunderestimate the gullibility of the American electorate, which I guess would also explain our current Congress and White House. Reading a Washington Post article on a Pew poll regarding, among other issues, the President's religion confirms both propositions.

The number of Americans who believe -- wrongly -- that President Obama is a Muslim has increased significantly since his inauguration and now account for nearly 20 percent of the nation's population. ...

The president's religion, like his place of birth, has been the subject of Internet-spread rumors and falsehoods since before he began his presidential campaign, and the poll indicates that those rumors have gained currency since Obama took office. The number of people who now correctly identify Obama as a Christian has dropped to 34 percent, down from nearly half when he took office. [Emphasis added]

While it's refreshing to see that the Washington Post has explicitly stated that the President is not a Muslim, it is a bit disappointing that the paper blames the Internet for the distribution of the lies surrounding Mr. Obama's religion and birthplace. Yes, the Internet has been a major source of a lot of this garbage, but other sources have been in overdrive as well, as the poll implies:

Among those who say Obama is a Muslim, 60 percent say they learned about his religion from the media, suggesting that their opinions are fueled by misinformation. [Emphasis added]

I would submit that such venues as talk radio and conservative talking heads on the television have played a role as well. I would also suggest that the "misinformation" might actually be intentionally delivered lies, fed to the speaker by those who resent having a Scary Black Man in the White House, or even a Scary Liberal in that sacred space.

What is most appalling about the whole issue, however, is that any elected official's religion is so very important that a poll was designed to check it out. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a requirement that the President or any other elected official must be a Christian in good standing or even have any religion at all. Yet the people at Pew thought the issue worth exploring and the people at WaPo felt compelled to report on it.

What a shame.

Wingers Getting It Wrong For the Kids

Our founding fathers would be dismayed at many things that the wingers have done to their concept of independence, but teaching that God made them do it would not pass muster. These intellectuals who were dismissive of the fundamentalist teachings of colonial days were not about to carry water for any church. Now present day fundies - who want their church to tell you what your body ought to be required to do - are trying to teach your children their own version of history.

That the enemies of our country envy our freedoms is actually true among these screwy revisionists.

The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.

Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue.

Opponents have decried the move as an attempt to insert religious teachings in to the classroom by stealth, similar to the Christian right's partially successful attempt to limit the teaching of evolution in biology lessons in Texas.

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual".

Barton says children should be taught that Christianity is the key to "American exceptionalism" because the structure of its democratic system is a recognition that human beings are fallible, and that religion is at the heart of being a virtuous citizen.

Another of the experts is Reverend Peter Marshall, who heads his own Christian ministry and preaches that Hurricane Katrina and defeat in the Vietnam war were God's punishment for sexual promiscuity and tolerance of homosexuals. Marshall recommended that children be taught about the "motivational role" of the Bible and Christianity in establishing the original colonies that later became the US.
(snip)
Social studies teachers will meet shortly to consider the panel's views and make their own recommendations to the board of education which has the final say. The board is dominated by conservatives who appointed Barton and Marshall to the panel.

These revisionists ought to be given no say at all in school curriculum. It's doubtful that most churches would allow such drivel to be taught in their bible schools and most parents I know would snatch their children out of any school where such nonsense was taught.

The right wing has been working its way into posts of responsibility to spread their poison, and our negligence of our own citizenship has allowed it to happen by not being involved in our own government locally. I'm guilty, too, since I found out that wingnuts had sought and gotten positions in our city government several years back but thought they'd learn something which might be to everyone's good.

Nothing positive happens when the ignorant get into positions of authority. In Dallas, the Health Department has been allowed once again to distribute condoms - after prohibiting the practice resulted in increased occurrences of HIV, and unwanted pregnancies.

Our founding fathers were men of amazing intellect, and despoiling the great country we've been fortunate to inherit is not to be allowed. Separation of church and state may not be written into the constitution, but our freedoms are spelled out quite definitively, even when it did take many years to extend them to most of our citizens.

We need to protect this country from those who want to deprive us of our freedom. Our children are at risk once again, in Texas.

D.C. Gets Raptured

A long time tradition in the South in the summer is the tent revival. The itinerant preachers came to town, held rousing services, provided entertainment and gave the small towns an excuse to blow off steam without calling it an orgy. The old time religion also produced population explosions and behind-the-tent slips - famously documented in Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, later a successful film.

It seems that the revival spirit has descended on D.C. and taken a slice out of our government, and the usual revelations about over indulging in spirits of one sort or another is making its mark.

The falls of self-proclaimed public representatives Ensign, Sanford, and Pickering all chose a location in common, the C Street 'church' home where they communed and kept each others' secrets - while they indulged in an excess of their favorite spiriting. This has all the ribald character of the classic evangelistic masquerade, and Gov. Sanford has added a new touch today by declaring that God is going to cure him so he gets to keep his salary.

"It's in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience to both trust God in his larger work of changing me, and from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader," he wrote.

The promise comes as the term-limited governor approaches his final legislative session. Even before the scandal, he admitted the session would offer him little chance of success in pushing a small-government agenda that sought to give his office more authority. The possibility of a White House run in 2012 has all but disappeared.

He's known for slamming fellow Republicans who control state government — once by carrying two piglets to the door of the House chamber to protest spending. More recently, a court order forced Sanford to seek federal stimulus money he refused to accept because of his libertarian principles, despite warnings from education officials of massive teacher layoffs.

Legislators said the governor's previous pledges to work together always quickly disintegrated.

The major point in common of the latest round of scandal producers seems to be their pretension to a faith that sets them apart and gives them special dispensation to do their own thing. Not surprisingly, their halos are their golden ring on the public fund carousel, as well.

The oldtime South's town's regular preachers didn't appreciate the revivalists either. That partly was the result of the loss of revenue, and partly because of the mass loss of decorum that usually came with the tent.

For those who have been experiencing a main leader of the revivalist character in Iran, there is more to that self-proclaimed halo than just the the cartoon quality.

...30 years of experience living under the “Islamic Regime”, has taught us that theocratic, authoritarian regimes are much worse and more brutal than other forms of government. In the past 30 years, despite using all of the media, the schools, the mosques, etc. to enforce religion into the minds of people, the new generation of Iranians are more distant from religion than the previous generations. Moreover, the worst thing that has happened to our culture is the domination of hypocrisy, which has become the norm in daily life, probably as a tool for survival in a religious dictatorship.

The usual result of mistaking a religious claim for actual holiness has always been disaster for the deluded. For those of us who grew up in an era when the halo was stripped from the tent revivalists, this has sad familiarity.

Instead of the C Street Christian Fellowship, perhaps the locus for the rightwing philandering should be called The Last Refuge of Scoundrels, a more fitting title.

That remnant that will always follow the tent preachers really doesn't like to see it fall, time and time again. It's best when it does fall, though, for all of us.

Good News

In April, I lamented the fact that the new guidelines for stem cell research issued by the National Institutes for Health did exactly the opposite of what President Obama had promised. Instead of widening the pool of embryonic stem cell lines available for research, the rigorous ethical requirements in fact would exclude many more of those lines than were excluded under the Bush administration. That foul-up has been rectified, according to this Washington Post article:

Hundreds of embryonic stem cell lines, whose use in the United States had effectively been curtailed by the Bush administration, can be used to study disorders and develop cures if researchers can show the cells were derived using ethical procedures, according to new rules issued by the federal government yesterday. ...

In a move that drew praise from advocates of stem cell research and bitter criticism from opponents, the NIH said it will allow the use of any existing stem cell line that was created ethically. Acting NIH Director Raynard Kington said an NIH committee comprising scientists, ethicists and advocates will evaluate older lines to assess how each was derived.

He said all embryonic stem cell lines that qualified for federal funding would have to meet a series of ethical requirements: The embryo that was destroyed to create a line must have been discarded after an in vitro fertilization procedure, and the donors must have been informed that the embryo would be destroyed for stem cell research and made fully cognizant of their choices, including donating the embryo to another couple who want a baby. No donors could have been paid for an embryo, and no threats or inducements could have been used to nudge couples toward making a donation.

The new guidelines are a major improvement over the ones originally issued (see my April post linked above). The original rules required that a specific set of guidelines had to be followed rigidly, and made the rules retroactive so that if old lines were developed from embryos that were donated under systems that did not exactly replicate the new guidelines those lines could not be used. The new guidelines will accomplish the goal of using stem cells and stem cell lines which were obtained ethically.

The original guidelines had obviously been developed to defuse the ire of the Religious Reich, which continues to see the use of embryonic stem cells for research as heinous because the frozen embryos are babies and their destruction abortion, hence murder. That sector of our population weren't going to be happy with any embryonic stem cell research, so their input into the process was designed to shut down that entire line of scientific inquiry. They weren't happy then and they're really unhappy now.

Tough.

Embryonic stem cell research is a promising tool for fighting such devastating diseases and conditions as diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease, and spinal cord injuries, and we need all the tools we can get in that fight. I think the new rules cover the ethical aspects nicely, even if they don't suit those whose agenda claims to be about the sanctity of life, but is really more about controlling women and their sexuality.

The fact that the rules have been changed to be more flexible and more reasonable restores my faith in government and in the Obama White House. Rational input from the researchers and medical ethicists played a big role in the new rules, something that didn't and couldn't happen in the last administration.

That's change I can believe in.

Our Very Own Madrasas

Tim Rutten has an unusually emotional column in today's Los Angeles Times. Mr. Rutten is usually much less confrontational in print and this piece is actually very close to a rant. It's also right on target.

His subject is the controversy being ginned up by ultra-conservative Catholic groups over the selection of President Obama as the commencement speaker at the University of Notre Dame. New presidents are traditionally invited to speak at the university's graduation, and most accept. Yet, because President Obama is pro-choice and has removed his predecessor's restrictions on stem cell research, certain elements within the country's Roman Catholic population are pushing to have the invitation withdrawn for the president's lack of moral purity.

There are a couple of things about this culture-warfare-as-usual controversy that are fresh and consequential enough to be of interest. The first is the protesters and their connections. Many are part of a vocal, Internet-savvy lobby that has been agitating to coerce the church's prelates into denying Communion to Catholic officeholders who deviate from a rigidly "pro-life" line. Made up of a number of smaller groups, this lobby has campaigned to keep other pro-choice officeholders (of any religion) from speaking at Catholic schools. Its supporters also have been vociferously active in the movement to use abortion as a wedge to lever Catholics into the religious right. ...

The principal organizer of the Notre Dame protest is a group called the Cardinal Newman Society -- no, they're not the people who ran the Newman Centers you may recall from your college campus. This bunch came together in 1992 to enforce more stringent orthodoxy at American Catholic universities. ...

The Newman Society is linked to two organizations -- CatholicVote.org and the Fidelis Center -- whose programs are clearly geared toward bringing Catholics into the Republican Party.

Two vigorous spokesmen for the protest have been Southern California talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who converted from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism about four years ago. "The faithful Catholic world is justly enraged at the treachery of Notre Dame's leadership," Terry said. "Notre Dame will rue the day they invited this agent of death to speak."

Some people just won't be happy until the Inquisition has office space again and kindling is being piled up around the local stakes. [Emphasis added]

Fortunately, there has been some push-back by other Catholics, and their response is quite telling:

...The publisher of the influential National Catholic Reporter newspaper has accused the Newman Society of trying to turn the church's universities into "Catholic madrasas." Father John Jenkins, the university's president, has said he has no intention of withdrawing the invitation made to Obama, whom he called "an inspiring leader."

According to Notre Dame's campus newspaper, student reaction to the invitation has been overwhelmingly positive, though the paper reports an interesting split: 70% of the letters it has received from alumni oppose the president's appearance, while 73% of current students and 97% of the graduating seniors approve of the invitation.

It seems that GOP activists are going to have to look elsewhere -- and to another generation -- for their single-issue voters.

Now, I would be the first to accede to the proposition that these groups have every right to protest the selection of any speaker at the university. I know I'd be terribly upset if Notre Dame had invited the holocaust-denying Bishop instead of President Obama. If they had, either Ruth or I would have blasted the selection here. But I don't think we have a right to impose our will in an arena where open inquiry is supposed to be the goal. Free speech has to be free and heard, especially at a university.

What Mr. Rutten objects to, and I agree with him, is that these groups are trying to close down that free speech entirely in order to benefit a particular political party. That's a little different. It's also an abomination.

And Mr. Rutten? More like this, please.

Going on All Fours

An electorate that prefers feudalism often tends to give Texas education a slant back into the dark ages. Yesterday, the state narrowly avoided becoming more of a joke than it already is. By a margin of nothing, a tie vote from our state's School Board kept evolution from being hounded out of science curricula.

That may sound like an item from the early nineteenth century, but you see in our state we have a huge number of voters who are afraid of anything rational. It contradicts the foundations of their entire system. If we go rational it injures their sense of worth.

In a decision watched by science educators across the nation, the State Board of Education on Thursday narrowly turned aside a last-ditch effort by social conservatives to require that "weaknesses" in the theory of evolution be taught in science classes in Texas.

Board members deadlocked 7-7 on a motion to restore a longtime curriculum rule that "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories – notably Charles Darwin's theory of evolution – be covered in science classes and textbooks for those subjects.

The tie vote upheld a preliminary decision by the board in January to delete the strengths-and-weaknesses rule in the new curriculum standards for science classes that will be in force for the next decade. That decision, if finalized in a last vote today, changes 20 years of Texas education policy.

Because the standards spell out what must be covered in textbooks, science educators and publishers have been monitoring the Texas debate closely. As one of the largest textbook purchasers in the nation, Texas influences what is sold in other states.

The science standards adopted by the board also will figure into questions used on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

Voting for the requirement were the seven Republican board members aligned with social conservative groups. Against the proposal were three other Republicans and four Democrats. Critics of evolution managed to add a few small caveats to the curriculum, but none as sweeping as the strengths-and-weaknesses rule.

Board member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, proposed that the rule be put back into the standards, arguing that evolution advocates were trying to stifle classroom discussion of Darwin's theory that humans gradually developed from lower life forms.

"I don't see how we can say there is no disagreement about evolution. There is disagreement," said Mercer, taking issue with science teachers and academics who told the board that the theory of evolution is universally accepted in the scientific community. He cited a document by hundreds of scientists questioning some of Darwin's tenets.

He also charged that evolution advocates have a history of falsifying evidence and drawing erroneous conclusions to support their position.
(snip)
The language adopted by board members on evolution and other scientific theories states that students shall "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning and experimental and observational testing."

Action on the science standards caps several months of debate. The issue last flared up when the board adopted new biology textbooks in 2003, when social conservatives tried to reject books that were deemed too pro-evolution but failed.

This being a new century really threatens those elements that prefer faith, because it's comfortable, to functional. Sadly, the same elements who proclaim their faith sustains them insist that we have to act on its basis too.

The right wing likes to think if they just had the rest of us under control, it would make the world work out better for them. The shame of it all is that we have to keep combating rampant ignorance to keep their kids, as well as ours, from being denied their rights to education.

P.Z. Myers had a rant worth sharing this morning on the occasion of a winger who waxed self-righteous over the death of children on their way to a ski trip in Montana.

Once again, I am confirmed in my opinion that Christianity is a breeder of evil, a cesspit in which the most hateful and inhuman commitment to lies and delusions can ferment. Don't ever preach at me about Christian morality: I've seen it, and it is empty of love for humanity, replaced with sanctimonious idolatry and commitment to dead, dumb superstition.

While I think there are exceptions, it is always a source of amazement that so many base a belief system devoid of acceptance for their fellow men on teachings that emphasize love and tolerance.

Icing

As expected, the Religious Reich has begun its campaign against President Obama's lifting of restrictions on stem cell research. Lobbyists have been dispatched to Congress and to state legislatures to roll back the effects of the executive order, and they have given marching orders to sympathetic columnists as well. Their plans and arguments were described in an article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times.

Conservative leaders said they would lobby Congress to maintain a ban on using federal funds for research that creates or destroys human embryos. They also plan to advocate the use of induced pluripotent stem cells, which are artificially derived from adult cells, as an alternative to embryonic stem cells.

"We have no problem with research that does not result in the death of embryos. This would provide all the stem cell material necessary for research without causing unborn babies to be killed," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "This is very important to our community, and it will make a difference in how many of their constituents get their vote." [Emphasis added]

Notice the language: "death" of embryos and "unborn babies." It's the same language used when abortion is under discussion. The argument is the same because the goal is the same, the end of reproductive freedom for women.

Conservative columnist Cal Thomas uses the same language in his diatribe against President Obama's executive order:

...Shifting moral sands will allow almost anything as soon as the public can be conditioned with images of a trembling Michael J. Fox, or an average American in a wheelchair pleading for the chance to walk again. The unborn have no voice except for those that cry out on their behalf. ...

Removing restraints on stem cell research is another step on a journey leading us to a distant somewhere. Does anyone know the destination? Do enough people care that it might just be leading us not only to the destruction of more pre-born human life, but also ultimately to our own end? [Emphasis added]

The use of this kind of language, however, reveals the problem with this stance, as an ethicist noted in the Times article. Those embryos haven't been created out of nothing, they are the 'extras' left over from in vitro fertilization efforts at fertility clinics. No longer needed, they are frozen.

"It is a problematic strategy because when you define an embryo as a person, what they say is: Therefore you cannot destroy them. My response is: Therefore you cannot freeze them. How can you freeze a person and keep them suspended in animation?" said Paul Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. "The idea that they can pick and choose which aspect of human life will be relevant is interesting."

Interesting, indeed, especially when the numbers of embryos "on ice" are rather staggering and will continue to grow. Ellen Goodman refers to it as a population explosion on ice in her latest column, which is the most honest and sensitive look at the issue I've found so far:

Since the 1980s, more than a half-million children have been created through IVF. There are also about a half-million leftover embryos. A third of the couples storing embryos have more than six, and at least one cryobank offering a prepaid five-year price of $1,188 says the embryos "can remain viable for an indefinite period of time."

Indefinite? Until couples are post-menopausal? Or post-mortem? Are they to be passed on from one generation to the next?

Ms. Goodman points out that the couples involved are given the option of what to do with the unused embryo, a choice which includes allowing the embryos to be used for research purposes. It is, after all, their jointly produced tissue which is involved. However, their decision might very well be trumped if the Religious Reich gets its way, or, they might not get to make any such decision if the unintended consequences of the anti-abortionists' stand makes the IVF procedure unlawful.

There are ethical concerns, justifiable ones, in stem cell research, which is why President Obama has referred the matter to the National Institutes of Health to draw up guidelines addressing those concerns. That clearly is still not acceptable to the anti-abortionists because it would circumvent them.

This is going to be a rough ride.

Nice Frame You Got There

The news is out: President Obama is going to rescind the midnight oil executive order issued by President Bush to protect the jobs of those health workers who refuse to provide care which violates their religious tenets. Of course, the order was designed to make abortion and access to contraception even more difficult, but the Bush administration and its base-base supporters preferred to cast the argument in terms of preserving the religious freedom of a certain group of employees. It's pretty hard to argue against religious freedom in this country, which is why the frame was selected. It's an old tactic, one that the Religious Reich adopted when it designated its stance as "Pro-Life" rather than anti-abortion or anti-choice.

Unfortunately, it's the same frame adopted in this article in the Washington Post.

The Obama administration's move to rescind broad new job protections for health workers who refuse to provide care they find objectionable triggered an immediate political storm yesterday, underscoring the difficulties the president faces in his effort to find common ground on anything related to the explosive issue of abortion.

The administration's plans, revealed quietly with a terse posting on a federal Web site, unleashed a flood of heated reaction, with supporters praising the proposal as a crucial victory for women's health and reproductive rights, and opponents condemning it as a devastating setback for freedom of religion.

Why, in light of Roe v Wade, is there even any discussion of the issue? Well, conservatives of a certain stripe still haven't accepted the law of the land. (They also haven't accepted science either, so that fits the profile.) The whole point of Roe is that a woman is entitled to privacy and that includes the right to choose not to bear a child. It's her decision.

Bush's last minute order went even further than the abortion issue, however. Broadly drafted, it could easily be applied to family counseling and to information on birth control.

Women's health advocates, family-planning proponents, abortion rights activists and others condemned the regulation, saying it created a major obstacle to providing many health services, including family planning and infertility treatment, and possibly a wide range of scientific research. After reviewing the regulation, newly appointed officials at the Health and Human Services Department agreed.

"We've been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written, it could make it harder for women to get the care they need," said an HHS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for the same reason. "It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family-planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care."

Bush screwed the order up by painting it so broadly, but that ignores the argument that women have the right to choose. That is central to the argument and all the harumphing about providers' religious freedoms is just nonsense. If a nurse or doctor is opposed to abortion, then they shouldn't work at a hospital or clinic which provides it. If a pharmacist believes the morning after pill or the birth control pill is of the devil, he shouldn't work at a pharmacy which dispenses them. I am opposed to the death penalty, which is why I never considered working for the District Attorney's office. It's not that hard a decision, folks.

WaPo's article, however, dwelt at length, at great length, on the religious freedom aspect. I didn't count the words, but my impression is that direct and indirect quotes from the Religious Reich far outnumbered those from family planning and choice advocates. The picture on the online version of the story is not of President Obama, nor the president of any family planning group. It is of The Rev. Joel Hunter, an anti-choice religious leader Obama has tapped to serve on his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. And the article leans heavily on the "religious freedom" frame.

It also reiterates the old "let's find some common ground" meme in an area in which it simply does not apply. Just as one is either pregnant or not pregnant, one either has reproductive freedom or one does not.

I guess that's what WaPo's idea of "fair and balanced" is.

Shameful.

Teenage Mutant Sex Fiends

They're all doing it. Teenagers across the land are slipping out with purloined copies of the Kama Sutra and engaging in sex in greater numbers than ever before. They're also no doubt enjoying it, the randy little beggars.

Except the data seems to suggest otherwise.

While a recent report did show an increase in teenage pregnancy for the first time in more than a decade, statistics paint a different story when it comes to teenagers and sexual activity, according to this NY Times article.

Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.

A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent.

“There’s no doubt that the public perception is that things are getting worse, and that kids are having sex younger and are much wilder than they ever were,” said Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University. “But when you look at the data, that’s not the case.”

Then why the increase in teenage pregnancy?

The latest rise in teenage pregnancy rates is cause for concern. But it very likely reflects changing patterns in contraceptive use rather than a major change in sexual behavior. The reality is that the rate of teenage childbearing has fallen steeply since the late 1950s. The declines aren’t explained by the increasing availability of abortions: teenage abortion rates have also dropped.

“There is a group of kids who engage in sexual behavior, but it’s not really significantly different than previous generations,” said Maria Kefalas, an associate professor of sociology at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and co-author of “Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage” (University of California Press, 2005). “This creeping up of teen pregnancy is not because so many more kids are having sex, but most likely because more kids aren’t using contraception.” [Emphasis added]

How unsurprising in this day of "abstinence only" sex education where the mention of condoms and birth control pills is forbidden. Twelve years of the Religious Reich left us with that legacy, one that could be erased if certain people in Washington, DC and in the various state legislatures around the country showed any common sense and common decency.

While their hairstyles are beginning to wear on my last nerve, the kids, eh, they're all right.

Peripheral Damage

A report that is being posted throughout media outlets this morning concerns what happens to youths who are given sex education slanted toward abstinence. The incidence of use of protection is quite naturally higher among those who are given information about prevention.

There were no statistics in the study for actual pregnancies and contraction of disease. As I recently reported, in Dallas, rising AIDs occurrence is leading the City Council to reconsider its prevention of public health workers' distributing condoms.

The sadly recidivist trend in winger circles is damaging children affected in more than just their homes. When community attitudes force schools to shutter down education, in many fields, the future of this country is damaged as well.

The study is the latest to raise questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage. The findings also reignite the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual education just as lawmakers are about to reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for such programs.

Rosenbaum analyzed data collected by the federal government's National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which gathered detailed information from a representative sample of about 11,000 students in grades seven through 12 in 1995, 1996 and 2001.

Rosenbaum focused on about 3,400 students who had not had sex or taken a virginity pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge but were otherwise similar. She based that judgment on about 100 variables, including their attitudes and their parents' attitudes about sex and their perception of their friends' attitudes about sex and birth control.

By 2001, Rosenbaum found, 82 percent of those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises, and there was no significant difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had engaged in any type of sexual activity, including giving or receiving oral sex, vaginal intercourse, the age at which they first had sex, or their number of sexual partners.

There is a tragic difference between the parenting that informs children of facts and that that seeks to indoctrinate children in a particular religious pattern. The adolescent stage for all children includes resistance to whatever background they are familiar with. When they have been given rational patterns to follow, they will find their way to facts that will help them make decisions they will benefit from. When all they have been given is prejudice, of any sort, they start from so far behind that they may have any amount of trouble finding out what works for them.

Caring for children demands intelligence, and hopefully studies of the sort reported here will help guide parents away from the doctrinaire approach that damages their own family.

My direct experience with parents who put their religion above their children in importance do deep and lasting damage - particularly to 'family values'.

Speaking Up On Warren Invocation

Another voice long known for intelligent leadership in extension of rights to all individuals, Kathryn Kolbert of People for the American Way, has spoken out about Rick Warren's giving the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.

The announcement that Pastor Rick Warren has been chosen to give the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony landed with a thud in my inbox.

Many people who know Warren as the affable megachurch pastor and best-selling author may be confused about the anger and disappointment that his selection has generated among progressive activists who worked so hard to help elect Obama. Here's my explanation; you can find plenty of other voices online.

Warren enjoys a reputation as a bridge-building moderate based on his informal style and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa.

He took grief from some of his Religious Right colleagues when he invited then-Senator Obama to his church for a conference on AIDS a couple of years ago. And, in August he hosted presidential candidates Obama and McCain at his church.

Warren has worked hard to cultivate a moderate public personality but his views are very similar to those of traditional Religious Right leaders.In an email sent before the 2004 election he wrote a Falwell-esque message proclaiming that, for Christian voters, the issues of abortion, marriage for same-sex couples, stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia were "non-negotiable." In fact, he said, they are "not even debatable because God's word is clear on these issues."

And while some Religious Right leaders were nervous that Warren would give Obama a platform to talk about poverty and the environment at the August event, Warren thrilled them by eschewing those issues entirely in order to emphasize issues like abortion and marriage that worked to McCain's advantage with the evangelical audience.
(snip)
...Warren has been divisive and dishonest on the issues of marriage equality and religious freedom -- and on other issues important to many Obama supporters, as well.

I will repeat what I said this morning in comments at Eschaton:
Televangelists are the worst sort of vultures, using a pose of religiosity to rake in profits from the weakminded, always has been a particularly offensive sort, and to put one up at the inauguration is an insult to actual 'values'. There are a lot of real theologians of eminence in this country who ought to be letting Obama know that this demeans every real believer, every churchgoing person in the U.S.

Sunday Sermon

Sometimes a blessed event seems to occur when it is appreciated, and today that happened to me. Visiting Progressive Eruptions, I came across a post on praying for the Supremes to find President-elect Obama an alien. In getting together a comment referring to Pat Robertson having originated the idea of praying for SC decisions by asking his Got to off a Justice or two, I found the following. I excerpted from a priceless letter which you will enjoy visiting. Even the ads are great.

Dear Mercurially Merciful Lord:

O Lord, we come before you today because we are sure that, by now, you know that Brother Pat Robertson has turned to you in solemn Christian prayer to righteously beseech you to kill off a few Supreme Court justices that have rudely treated those pesky so-called "gays" with respect. With bracing candor, Brother Pat is calling this a "prayer offensive." Ever helpful in thinking of ways to kill off liberals, Brother Pat hints: ``One justice is 83-years-old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition."

Call us timid, O Lord, but it makes us rather nervous when a man who just went through a bout of prostate cancer thinks it wise to ask his Creator to start going on a killing rampage, targeting people with cancer and heart conditions. After all, who will run the country if you take Dick Cheney from us? We are further concerned that you might respond to Brother Pat's imprecatory prayers in that mischievous, ironic way of Yours and, well, kill him, too. It is with your delicious penchant for technically giving people what they pray for in mind (like when John Kennedy, Jr. screamed, with the coarse impetuousness endemic in Democrats, : "Lord, do something to shut up that damned braying cokehead in Row A!") that we grow concerned for Brother Pat's safety.

Yes, it goes on and is good throughout. Nice job, Sister Shaw Kenawe and Sister Betty.

Two CSpan callers this morning referred to 'knowing' that our next president will not take office because he has been found not to be a citizen. Thank you host Steve Scully and guest Martin Kady, from Politico, for telling them that the president-elect was born in Hawaii and will be president. These people are nuts.

The Heartbreak of Denial

There was a heartbreaking story in today's NY Times today. A study has established that because of a government policy, hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly.

A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.

The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki’s denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it.

How could this happen? And why did it? Thabo Mbeki is no fool. He was a well-respected leader at a time when South Africa needed him. What happened? Well, he succumbed to ideology over science, as the article makes clear.

Mr. Ramatlhodi [a senior ANC party member now running the party’s 2009 election campaign] himself acknowledged in a recent interview that in 2001 he sent a 22-page letter, drafted by Mr. Mbeki’s office, to another of Mr. Mbeki’s most credible critics, Prof. Malegapuru Makgoba, an immunologist who was one of South Africa’s leading scientists. The letter accused Professor Makgoba of defending Western science and its racist ideas about Africans at the expense of Mr. Mbeki. [Emphasis added]

Mr. Mbeki fell for the science deniers' allegations that it was all a nasty Western plot to portray black South Africans as sex-crazed like all primitive blacks are. HIV didn't cause AIDS, and besides, beet juice would take care of everything.

Generations of South Africans are dead as a result, including babies who were born with and then died of the virus when retroviral medication would have prevented the deadly outcome.

Sadly, this is only the latest tragedy of science denial. I did a search of just this blog and found that I had posted on some similar situations in which ideology trumped science with disastrous effects. I indicated in that post, it's not just 'underdeveloped' nations who fall prey to such easy thinking. As I noted three years ago, the link between HPV and cervical cancer is undeniable, and yet fundagelicals in this country are still fighting against the administration of the vaccine to pre-teen girls who aren't yet sexually active for fear that the kids will see this as a license to fuck:

In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

But there is something worse than ideology trumping science, as hard as that might be to imagine at first. Sometimes short-term economic considerations have the same effect. A recent vice presidential nominee suggested that she is still not convinced that there is a link between human activity and global warming. Now, this is a slight improvement: it's only been the last nine months or so that some people in this country have acknowledged the reality of global climate change.

However, in the last eight years the current administration and its financial owners have done everything possible to thwart any meaningful American involvement in the problem and, more importantly, in the solution. To so engage the country might result in shrinking bottome lines for oil companies and their lackeys. Alaska might not get its natural gas pipeline. Coal mine owners might not get their government dole for the next "clean coal" advertisement.

It will take more than a new president with a new vision to turn things around for this country and for this planet. It will take a commitment by the entire world, including those who are uncomfortable with the role science must play. If we cannot make that commitment, then we truly are doomed. Each day the problem is not addressed more species disappear, more complications arise, and more chances for reveral dissipate. The human world, at the very least, will end.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Biblical Hate Group

While I'm not Episcopalian, what I see happening near here is sad to me. Because the church has opened up to women and gays in its clergy, some of its Ft. Worth members are leaving. How anyone can use the Bible to justify prejudice is beyond me.

The hating division of any church doesn't seem to me like a group you'd want to join.

...the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, including St. Stephen's, is to break officially from the Episcopal Church today, becoming the fourth diocese in the nation to leave since last year over such issues as the ordination of female priests and the acceptance of an openly gay bishop.

Though Ms. Carpenter doesn't agree with everything the Episcopal Church does, she loves it, and doesn't want to leave.

So on Sunday, she and other Episcopal Church loyalists from St. Stephen's plan to hold services at a local women's club.

"It's like a man and woman getting a divorce, and now they have to have two households," she said. "It saddens me greatly."

The 2.2 million-member Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations have long struggled over what is the true Christian approach on social issues. The fight has come to a head among Fort Worth Episcopalians, dividing congregations and setting up a legal showdown.

At the urging of Bishop Jack Iker, delegates to the Fort Worth Diocese's annual convention today are to take the final vote for realigning with a conservative, Argentina-based province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Fort Worth clergy and lay delegates overwhelmingly approved the break in a first vote at last year's diocesan convention, and Bishop Iker expects that margin to hold today.

"We no longer see a secure future in the Episcopal Church as traditional believers," he said.

Women as priests

Evidence of the conflict is perhaps best seen in the issue of female priests.

The Episcopal Church officially permitted female priests in 1976, and the Diocese of Dallas had its first in 1985. But the Fort Worth Diocese still hasn't had one.

"It's a departure from the biblical witness," Bishop Iker said, noting that Jesus chose 12 male apostles, "and from the historical practice of the church."

The Episcopal Church decided in 1997 that dioceses must allow female priests. Though that hasn't been enforced in Fort Worth, Bishop Iker is sure the Episcopal Church would eventually force the diocese to comply.

As more evidence of a church galloping down a liberal, nonbiblical path, Bishop Iker points to the 2003 decision by top church leaders to allow an openly gay bishop (the Rev. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire) and the 2006 election of a woman as presiding bishop (the Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori).

"We're not leaving the Episcopal Church," he said, echoing Ronald Reagan's quip about the Democratic Party. "The Episcopal Church has left us."

Of course, any church will be better off without people in its congregation who are determined to oppose other folks' way of life. Maybe they can name the new, split, congregation something that will tell prospective members that they are expected to be intolerant. May I suggest Episcopal Church of the Damned?

***************************************************

As Avedon Carol points out at The Sideshow;
A letter to The Salt Lake Weekly suggests that there's something wrong with a church that can spend $20m to counter gay rights while many Utah families are living in shelters.