ThursdayâÂ?Â?s Roundup: Jesus has AIDS, Occupy Obama, Tebow v. Warner

“Jesus has AIDS.” For today’s observance of World AIDS Day, First Things dusts off the 2009 article by Southern Baptist theologian Russell Moore that began with that provocative lead. Read it all. Occupy Obama? The prospect of the liberal Left dooming the president may seem as counterintuitive as the Christian Right rescuing Newt Gingrich. But […]

“Jesus has AIDS.”

For today’s observance of World AIDS Day, First Things dusts off the 2009 article by Southern Baptist theologian Russell Moore that began with that provocative lead. Read it all.


Occupy Obama? The prospect of the liberal Left dooming the president may seem as counterintuitive as the Christian Right rescuing Newt Gingrich.

But a hundred or so Occupy Wall Street demonstrators gathered outside a Manhattan location last night where Obama was raking in some campaign cash from the 1 percent. Best sign, via the New York Times: “Obama is a corporate puppet.”

Obama held a second fundraiser at the Upper East Side home of the chairman of the American Jewish Congress, and used the occasion to “humble-brag,” as New York mag had it, about his Israel-supporting record:

“I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration,” Obama said. “We don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security…and that will continue.”

The Israeli government doesn’t want American Jews to compromise on their Jewish identity, and has launched a series of ads encouraging them to move to Israel or wind up celebrating…Christmas! This has sparked a brouhaha.

Or would, except that “brouhaha” has anti-Semitic origins, an argument that should not be dismissed as a bunch of hocus pocus.

A glimmer of hope from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel sent $200 million in frozen Palestinian tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority. Israel has withheld the funds after the PA applied for UNESCO status.

Meanwhile in Cairo, Islamists appear headed for a decisive victory in the first Egyptian parliamentary elections since the fall of the Mubarak regime.

Billy Graham, 93, is in a North Carolina hospital with pneumonia, his fifth hospital stay since 2007.


A Texas man has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for firebombing an African-American church in an effort to “gain status” with a white supremacist gang.

Meanwhile, a small Kentucky church voted to ban interracial couples from membership and from participating in certain worship activities after a white woman and her black fiancé visited.

Want some good news? On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and move to the back of the bus, setting off the Montgomery bus boycott. It lasted a year.

And this week in Georgia, movers and sheriff’s deputies sent by a Deutsche Bank branch to evict Vita Lee, a 103-year-old Atlanta woman, and her 83-year-old daughter from their home of 53 years, took one look at the pair (that’s Vita above) and said no way.

Finally, outspoken Christian quarterback Kurt Warner is telling outspoken Christian quarterback Tim Tebow to tone down the God talk:

“There’s almost a faith cliche, where (athletes) come out and say, ‘I want to thank my Lord and savior,’ ” Warner told The Arizona Republic. “As soon as you say that, the guard goes up, the walls go up, and I came to realize you have to be more strategic.”

So far, Tebow is 5-1 as a starter, which is doing all the talking he needs with Denver Broncos fans.


— David Gibson

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