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Romney Steers Hard Right on Immigration; Huntsman Out After New Hampshire?

By Joanna Brooks

…Mitt Romney released a new video attacking Rick Perry as being “soft” on immigration. Romney is aiming at Perry’s support for a Texas state policy that permits the young people who came to the United States “illegally” as children to attend public universities paying in-state tuition. It’s not radical policy, but Romney’s criticism is yet another point—like Social Security—he’s using to draw a strong contrast with Perry. But doing so puts him to t…

Jeb Bush’s “New Way” Of Talking About Gay Marriage

By Sarah Posner

…believe is unlikely. “I know that Republican candidates get extremely squeamish when talking about anything to do with homosexuality,” Dreher went on. (When he says “squeamish,” he appears to mean the candidates are too apprehensive to express the conservative view, which goes against the tide of public opinion, not that they are squeamish about talking about homosexuality. Which they may well also be.) “[W]hat do Republican candidates plan to do…

Rebuilding the Wall of Separation: A Progressive Discussion on Church & State

By Bruce Ledewitz

…avity and accommodation to the religious right. But I see no need to legitimize any of it via legislation or judicial blessing. As for inaugural prayers: let’s underscore that Barack Obama learned the hard way that while a prayer might not in itself be divisive in a moment of national unity, an ill-considered choice like religious right leader Rick Warren to deliver it can be a disaster. Navigating this often uneasy sea of powerful principles and…

Unauthorized Catholic Immigrants will Renew a Christian America, Archbishop Says

By Marie Friedmann Marquardt

…mez also serves as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration. As chair of that committee, he consistently articulates the five-fold platform that was clearly laid out in that group’s 2003 pastoral letter, “Strangers No Longer: Together on a Journey of Hope,” co-written with the bishops of Mexico, and broadly referenced by Catholic advocates for immigration reform as he foundation of their action. (See a summary of…

Sikh Prof Attacked on Heels of New Study

By Rob Shryock

…Laden, a fact that makes it more believable that in 2008 alone fully 9% of New York City Sikhs said they had been assaulted because of their religion. But it’s not just association with radical Islam and the resulting attention from Islamophobes that haunts Sikh-Americans. After all, it’s hard to argue that Wade Michael Page, the white supremacist who shot and killed five Sikhs last year at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, didn’t know who he wa…

Trans Protections in India and Malta; Death-by-Stoning Law in Brunei; Church-State Divides on Marriage

By Peter Montgomery

…ty registrars to register the marriage of a gay couple who were married in New York in 2012, saying there is no reference to gender in the city council registry of married couples. The president of the Italian Bishops Conference, Angelo Bagnasco, condemned the ruling, which he said was likely to “sweep away the fundamental pillars of the institution of marriage.” Ethiopia: Anti-Gay Legislation and Planned Rally Reportedly Dropped We have previousl…

“The Gift of Gay”: Father Matthew Kelty, Confessor to Thomas Merton, Dies at 96

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…born. Forced to flee the impending violence of World War I, they sailed to New York and settled on Long Island, where they rode out the Great War with extended family. Merton’s mother died in 1921 when he was only six years old. His father left him the following year, in pursuit of an unlikely romance. The precocious young man was installed in a French boarding school for a couple of years, returning to live with his father until the artist succum…

Religious Exemptions and the New Non-Culture Wars

By Sarah Posner

…licitly made) argument that religious objectors shouldn’t be complicit in any possible way in anyone’s access to abortion. While the Senate maneuvers are clearly an effort to muck up the Lynch nomination, they do look very much like they are imperiling a bill that goes to the heart of one of millennial evangelicals’ top post-culture war issues: fighting sex trafficking. It’s the culture war tucked away in one of the signature issues of the suppose…

UK Atheist Church Invasion

By Becky Garrison

…Both Greg Epstein and Chris Stedman have spoken at the Sunday Assembly in New York City. Greg has been so helpful to us as a sounding board, and advice giver. He is great. We are going to Boston on November 5th. There is a local team who are organizing it who are hungry and keen. How do you address concerns that by calling this church, you may be giving people the impression that Sunday Assembly is equipped to provide actual pastoral care? Jones:…

Conservative Bishops Still Mad at Pope; Oligarch Launches Orthodox Network; Yoga Won’t Change Sexuality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ian Houston, head of the evangelical megachurch Hillsong, was asked by the New York Times about his position on same-sex marriage. Houston, whose congregation is based in Australia but boasts around 100,000 weekly worshipers at campuses in a dozen cities around the world (including New York City and Los Angeles), responded to the question by saying that while he wouldn’t offer a firm position on the matter, he also wouldn’t rule out further conver…