Tuesday’s roundup

As we reported late yesterday, longtime White House scribe Helen Thomas has resigned/retired for saying that Jews in Israel should “go home” to Germany, Poland and elsewhere. As the LAT puts it, it was the answer that ended a lifetime of questions. The gay press examines the use of exorcists to rid gays and lesbians […]

As we reported late yesterday, longtime White House scribe Helen Thomas has resigned/retired for saying that Jews in Israel should “go home” to Germany, Poland and elsewhere. As the LAT puts it, it was the answer that ended a lifetime of questions.

The gay press examines the use of exorcists to rid gays and lesbians of their gay “demons.” An insurance company is arguing that it has no obligations to cover injuries sustained in an exorcism gone wrong. Evangelical leaders who say they support immigration reform are threatening to pull their support if the bill contains a provision to allow U.S. gays to sponsor their foreign partners for green cards. A gay man in Canada has reconciled — sort of — with his church and bishop who told him that his sexual orientation made it impossible for him to be an altar server.

Yesterday we asked whether (and how much) America’s problematic cultural exports complicate President Obama‘s efforts to retool relations with the Islamic world.


Bob Smietana down at the Tennesseean explores the problem of too many clergy and too few available jobs (our take on this story here). A Georgia preacher and his son are in court to face charges they burned down their church to collect insurance money.

NPR looks at that letter to the pope from dozens of Italian women who’ve had affairs with Catholic priests, pleading for an end to celibacy. Speaking of women and the church, advocates of women’s ordination are petitioning the Vatican to allow women clergy as the church ends its Year of the Priest celebrations.

The Philippines has a new president, Benigno Aquino III, son of Beningno and the late President Corazon Aquino. One of Denmark‘s original Muhammad cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, is retiring, in part in hopes of lowering the terrorist threat against him.

Israeli lawmakers decided to make it legal for women to donate their eggs to couples using IVF; an anonymous database will include the donor’s religion for parents who want to know. Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed a treasure trove of 3,500-year-old Pagan artifacts. Israel’s former chief Sephardic rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, was buried after his death at 81; he was a strong proponent of the settlement movement and once linked the Holcoaust to the growth of Reform Judaism.

Anglicans in Canada are siding with their Episcopal brethren on this side of the border in the ongoing dispute over gay bishops and gay blessings with the wider Anglican Communion. A Canadian court is scheduled to hear arguments today on whether a Muslim woman must remove her full-face veil when testifying in court; the case centers, in part, on whether a defendent has the right to face his accuser, and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is set to record an album of Rastafarian spirituals.

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