Wednesday’s roundup

The State Department says the imam planning to build the Islamic center near Ground Zero is wrapping up his diplomatic tour of the Persian Gulf early, returning to the U.S. on Wednesday. On Tuesday in Dubai, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told a group of intellectuals that the fight over the mosque is about more than […]

The State Department says the imam planning to build the Islamic center near Ground Zero is wrapping up his diplomatic tour of the Persian Gulf early, returning to the U.S. on Wednesday.

On Tuesday in Dubai, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told a group of intellectuals that the fight over the mosque is about more than “a piece of real estate” and could shape the future of Muslim relations in the U.S.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that a state investigation of the finances behind Park51, as the project is known, would set a “terrible precedent.” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., disagreed, saying it is essential to find out who is behind the project. “A number of terror plots have emanated from mosques,” King told the AP.


A group of teenagers fired a shotgun at a small-town mosque in western New York during two nights of drive-by harassment, according to authorities. Austria’s far right Freedom Party has designed an online video game that has players collect points by shooting mosques, minarets, and muezzins, who call Muslims to prayer.

A new Newsweek poll confirms what last month’s Pew and Time magazine polls have already shown: About 20 percent of Americans think President Obama is a Muslim.

The president is opening a new round of Mideast peacemaking today in Washington, as he brings Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House for their first face-to-face talks since 2008. On cue, a Palestinian gunman opened fire one a Israeli vehicle in the West Bank, killing four passengers, and Israeli settlers responded by vowing to break a freeze on West Bank settlements.

As expected, the Obama administration on Tuesday asked a federal judge to lift a restraining order blocking federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

A conservative legal group that includes Christians is trying to force California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger and attorney general to defend Prop 8 in court. Gay couples cannot divorce in Texas, where they also cannot get married, a state appeals court has ruled.

A federal lawsuit against the new health-care bill alleges that the legislation violates the religious freedom of the plaintiffs by funding abortion and establishing the “secular religion of Socialism.”


Pennsylvania law enforcement will not bring charges against a 40-year-old Catholic priest who impregnated a 19-year-old girl; the Vatican, though, is looking into defrocking him. The priest and the girl, who has given birth, are evidently living together now, the AP reports.

James Dobson and Glenn Beck touched their rings together and activated their Wonder Twins powers, Beck said. The conservative commentator noted, though, that several other conservative Christian leaders declined to enlist in his “Black Robe Regiment,” saying they’d “lose half their congregation.” The RNS story on Beck’s courtship of evangelicals is here.

Indonesian Buddhists succeeded in getting a “Buddha Bar” closed, and its owners were fined about $110,000 for causing mental distress, according to Reuters. NPR looks at whether religious belief confers an evolutionary advantage.

Oklahoma City has rented out a room to a Satanist Church for a public exorcism ceremony; a Rastafarian forgot to say that his dreds were religious, which means the security company that refused to hire him did not discriminate against his religion, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court ruled.

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