Tuesday’s round up

President Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the White House yesterday and pressed him to “reintegrate religious minorities,” open the Halki seminary, and give Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew some room to do his job. The Supreme Court said it will decide whether a California law school illegally discriminated against a Christian group that discriminates […]

President Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the White House yesterday and pressed him to “reintegrate religious minorities,” open the Halki seminary, and give Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew some room to do his job.

The Supreme Court said it will decide whether a California law school illegally discriminated against a Christian group that discriminates against gays and lesbians.

With religious folks on the left and right looking on, the Senate is expected to vote on the Nelson amendment to the health-care reform bill today. Nobody seems to think it will pass, but anti-abortion provisions could be included in the final bill anyway. Former Maryland Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, not cowed by her cousin’s public spat with the Catholic Church, says the bishops conference “has lost its way” by forcefully insisting on the primacy of abortion in the health-care debate.


An Anglican commission on unity meeting in England urged Episcopalians to vote against confirming the lesbian elected as a bishop in Los Angeles last week.

The prosecution’s psychiatrist at the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping trial said abusive clergy “routinely and dramatically distort their relationship with God.”

Rather than go through the legal hassle, cities are just not putting up religious holiday displays this year. Washingtonians are celebrating Festivus by airing their grievances at noon every Saturday and Sunday. One could argue that the airing of grievances is a year-round ritual in Washington.

Litigious Atheist Michael Newdow wants the D.C. Circuit Court to stop saying “God Save the United States and this Honorable Court” before arguments. Eight Rastafarians have been in segregated confinement for 10 years because they refuse to cut their hair.

European foreign ministers urged Israelis and Palestinians to make Jerusalem their shared capital. Israel’s justice minister said the Bible is a “complete solution to all the things we are dealing with” and proposed that its tenets become binding law. Opponents said Israel is being Talibanized.

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