Protesters are occupying an historic New Orleans church to save it, reports Bruce Nolan in Tuesday’s RNS report: Activists opposed to the closure of historic St. Augustine Parish occupied its vacant rectory before dawn Monday (March 20) and said they would not leave until the Archdiocese of New Orleans promises to reopen the parish, which operated for 165 years before it was recently closed. An activist inside the rectory in the Treme neighborhood declined to say in a telephone interview how many people were inside. He said, however, that they belonged to a hurricane relief organization not affiliated with the parish. Another man, speaking from a second-story window, said several hurricane relief organizations were represented. The Rev. William Maestri, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, called the occupation “an unfortunate setback” in the archdiocese’s reorganization of worship in the region after Hurricane Katrina.
Charles Honey writes about Gregory Forbes, the evolution specialist for Michigan science teachers who has made it his mission to defend evolution: Some conservative Christians call evolution “just a theory.” But to Gregory Forbes, it is a scientific principle under attack. He considers it his mission to defend it. “In science, there has never been a more well-founded theory than evolutionary theory,” Forbes says. By contrast, intelligent design, which proposes an unspecified higher intelligence behind creation, is not science at all but a dishonest attempt to inject religion into science classes, Forbes argues. As the evolution specialist for Michigan science teachers, Forbes pushes back against lawmakers who are pushing to have public-school students taught intelligent design alongside evolution. In lectures around Michigan and other states, the biology instructor explains the workings of evolution, the difference between science and religion and the dangers of a misguided movement to mingle the two.
Scott Davis reports on the lawsuit being dubbed `Roe v. Wade for Men,’ in which a man is suing the mother of a child he says he never wanted: Matt Dubay doesn’t see himself as a deadbeat trying to duck child support for his 8-month-old daughter. He views himself as a champion for men who are “railroaded” into becoming fathers for children they never wanted. The computer programmer says that frustration led to his filing a lawsuit March 8 in U.S. District Court in Bay City against a former girlfriend who gave birth to a child he didn’t want, then obtained a court order forcing him to pay $500 monthly in child support. The National Center for Men, a men’s rights organization based in New York, also is filing the lawsuit-dubbed “Roe v. Wade for Men”-against Lauren Wells, also of Saginaw Township. It’s shaping up as a battle of the sexes as advocates for men’s rights hope the lawsuit allows men to decline financial support in unintended pregnancies, while women advocates contend the support of a child from both parents-even in broken relationships-is a cornerstone of American child-rearing.
