President Obama has unleashed a “secret weapon” in his push for immigration reform, says the NYT, conservative evangelical leaders.

Abortion foes, including the U.S. Catholic bishops, are claiming victory after the Obama administration said a federally funded program in New Mexico to provide health insurance to patients turned down by private insurers will not cover elective abortions.

The Vatican on Saturday defended its revised rules on clergy sex abuse. The Vatican continues to get hammered, though, for listing women’s ordination alongside child rape on its list of “graver crimes.”

The first woman ever elected as a Lutheran bishop resigned from her German post after allegations that she did not thoroughly investigate a sexually abusive pastor.

The world’s most populous Muslim nation has been praying in the wrong direction — towards Africa rather than Mecca, Indonesian imams admitted. Sarah Palin called on “peaceful Muslims” to “refudiate” (sic) their religion and their plans to build a cultural center and mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero in NYC. Oklahomans will vote in November on a resolution that would bar courts from considering or using Shariah law. Syria has banned full-face veils in public universities. Spain’s legislature will debate a public ban on burqas this week.

Israeli PM Netanyahu said he will oppose a bill that has angered liberal Jews by giving Orthodox rabbis control over conversions, and thus greater influence on the debate over who is considered Jewish. Hamas wants ladies to stop crossing their legs and smoking hookahs in public.

Maryland is considering allowing death-row inmates to chose a clergyperson to be in the excecution chamber with them, rather than rely on state-appointed clerics. A Kentucky prison is cracking down on pastoral visits.

An appeals court in Kansas says judges should not consider a Muslim man’s objections to his wife’s religion (Jehovah’s Witness) in a custody dispute. A scholar in British Columbia, which is considering an anti-polygamy law, says multiple marriages (aka “the principle”) lead to increased crime, prostitution, inequality between men and women, ignored children, and younger marriages.

A Texas bus driver is suing after he was fired for refusing to take a woman to Planned Parenthood. Christopher Hitchens said he is “touched” by all the religious people praying for him to be healed of cancer. Pilgrims and partiers flocked to a sacred waterfall in Haiti. (AP photo of said waterfall, which kind of reminds me of a Romare Bearden painting, at top left.) Religion is filling a spiritual vacuum in increasingly prosperous China.

A politician in India has been charged with impersonating a goddess on campaign literature. Religion scholar Stephen Prothero says it’s time for Hindus to talk about the caste system. Reuters wonders whether there are too many sacred topics in India.