Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup: UnChristian Coffee * In Vitro Firing * Catholic Gamers

David Barton says good Christians should not drink Starbucks. Teachers at Catholic schools are in trouble for fertility treatments. And is your Xbox keeping you from Mass?

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Conservative activist David Barton wants Christians to stop drinking gay-friendly coffee. “Lesbians Making Coffee With French Press.” Image by Jari Hindstroem via Shutterstock.

This is not the church/state case of the year or maybe even the month (remember what the Supremes are working on), but it’s a fascinating one: a lesbian who taught computer science in an Ohio Catholic school got fired for having a baby through artificial insemination.

A federal jury just awarded her $171,000. Expect an appeal.


And lawyers are preparing for a similar case – an Indiana Catholic school teacher who had in vitro fertilization — that also involves the “ministerial exception” issue the Supreme Court ruled on last year.

Good Christians shouldn’t drink Starbucks, says conservative activist and former evangelical pastor David Barton, because Starbucks is good with gay.

The oldest U.S. senator, Frank Lautenberg, (D-N.J.), died Monday at 89. The last World War II veteran in the Senate, Lautenberg was Jewish, and active in Jewish causes, but his principal political achievements were not in areas of particular Jewish interest, The Forward writes.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has elected its first openly gay bishop, writes our own Sarah Pulliam Bailey. The move gives Rev. R. Guy Erwin a six-year-term in Southern California, and strengthens a trend among mainline Protestant congregations that have shown themselves increasingly willing to appoint gays and lesbians to leadership positions.

When the Boy Scouts of America said welcome to gay scouts last month, some churches immediately cut ties with the BSA. Here’s a look at some of the first to say “see ya.”

Speaking against a same-sex marriage bill in the House of Lords, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby says he fears the “abolition” of traditional marriage. He added:

“But it is not, at heart, a faith issue; it is about the general social good.”

RNS blogger Jana Reiss thinks the LDS can do better than “reassure Mormon women and girls “that even though they don’t hold the priesthood they can still enjoy the full blessings of the priesthood.”


In a special edition, an al-Qaida magazine takes credit for motivating the Boston bombers and warns the West of more “Lone Wolf” terrorist attacks.

The Czech Republic is going ahead with a plan to disburse 59 billion koruna ($3 billion) to religious institutions to help compensate for what was taken from them under communism. Fifty-nine percent of confiscated property will also be restored.

Ohio State University’s president withdrew as the graduation speaker at a  parochial high school after making disparaging remarks about Notre Dame, Catholics and the Southeastern Conference.

Eternal World Television Network, one of the world’s largest religious broadcasters, debuts a Washington-based news show next month featuring current events from a Catholic perspective.

Re. the Xbox faithful. Gamers don’t go to Mass so much, according to a study from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate

My colleague David Gibson is not Religion News Service’s movie critic, but he makes a cogent and entertaining argument for why “After Earth,” Will Smith’s new Scientology-inspired film, is such a bad one.


The story also gets me thinking: RNS should have a movie critic . . . and a TV critic. I should probably run these ideas past an editor before I throw them out to Roundup readers.

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– Lauren Markoe

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