Thursday, March 04, 2010
Thursday’s roundup
Gay couples emerged from a D.C. courthouse yesterday, marriage licenses in hand. NPR found a few gay Catholic couples who say the decision to suspend spousal benefits for Catholic Charities employees (as a way around the city's gay marriage law) makes them wonder whether the church really wants them at all. WaPo says teh gay marriage fight was never a question of if, but when.
A stampede at a Hindu temple in northern India has left more than 60 dead; most of the victims were, not surprisingly, women and children. In the midst of the Malaysian dispute over whether non-Muslims can use the term "Allah" for God, a court has decided not to prosecute two Muslim men who took Communion at a Catholic church.
A Mexican woman is claiming she had two children by disgraced (and now dead) Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel. Germany's Catholic Church is asking for the Vatican's help in probing abuse allegations. The U.S. branch of the small Traditional Anglican Communion says it will take up the pope's offer to cross the Tiber and become Catholics.
Following on our story yesterday about Muslim concerns over full-body scanners in airports, two Muslim women were not allowed to board a flight to Pakistan after they refused to go through the scanner in Manchester, England. Anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders' Freedom Party is making gains in local elections.
Critics of global warming are jumping into the public school fray, alongside critics of evolution, saying both deserve a skeptical look by the nation's schoolchildren. As we reported yesterday, a new foundation in Georgia is seeking to pass the plate among the nonreligious. A United Methodist church in Dallas will no longer be able to offer Sunday services to elderly residents at a public housing complex, officials say.
The Supreme Court won't weigh in on a dispute involving U.S. Postal products at a church-run store, and the wrecking ball may be coming soon to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's old PTL hotel in South Carolina. USA Today profiles every reporter's favorite Catholic priest, Jesuit Jim Martin.
A full 95% of Texas Republican primary voters supported a nonbinding ballot measure (a sort of partisan temperature-taking device) on promoting God in the public square: "Proposition #4: Public Acknowledgment of God, which would allow the use of the word 'God,' prayers and the Ten Commandments at public gatherings and public educational institutions, as well as be permitted on government buildings and property, will appear on the November ballot. It received 1,368,565 yes votes (95.13 percent)."
The Manischewitz factory in Newark, N.J., is churning out pound upon pound of matza, a sign that Passover is right around the corner. The Duggars -- you know, the conservative Christian parents in Arkansas whose brood is now 19 and counting -- are actually members of a fringe cult that wants to overtake the U.S. government ... or so says the National Enquirer.
Posted by Kevin Eckstrom at 10:30 am
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