Sen. Sam Brownback, the likely next governor of Kansas, is putting some distance between himself and controversial Lou “God, the avenger of blood” Engle. In New York, Orthodox Jewish rabbis say GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino “folded like a cheap camera” when he backed off remarks (written by the rabbis) that called gays “dysfunctional” (that’s them, over on the left).
Some genius in South Carolina thought it was a good idea to spell out the words “PIG CHUMP” in bacon outside a mosque. Meanwhile, a small town in upstate New York has told Muslims they can leave their cemetery intact. The Feds have cleared the FBI agents who shot and killed a Detroit imam inside his mosque last year.
Catholic leaders in Colorado say students should be able to wear religious jewelry in school, but it’s fine for administrators to draw the line at rosaries. A New York man (who answered the door in his underwear) says he’s been a saint for 49 years after he saw a vision of Jesus on a hospital ceiling.
Local Christians in King, N.C., are on 24-hour guard duty protecting a Christian flag at a veterans memorial that was ordered taken down by city officials. Our own Jeff MacDonald profiles “American Grace” and “Bowling Alone” author Robert Putnam. Michelle Obama thanked everyone for “praying for us.”
Openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson joins the “It Gets Better” campaign for gay youths, specifically calling out Catholics, Mormons and Southern Baptists for being “flat out wrong” on the gay issue.
There’s a warm place for a 25-year-old British man convicted of terrorizing and robbing an elderly priest.”You are a violent menace and your presence is a menacing one,” the judge scolded him.
Muslim women in Ontario who want to testify in court while wearing a full-face veil will be handled on a case-by-case basis, a court ruled. Anti-immigrant sentiment has spread to Germany, where a third of Germans want immigrants repatriated. Next door in France, some customers aren’t happy about fast-food joints now serving halal hamburgers — wonder if you can still get Freedom Fries with that.
200+ Chinese delegates who want to go the massive evangelical Lausanne Conference in South Africa won’t be allowed to travel. Filipino President Benigno Aquino III had a “pleasant” chat with Catholic bishops after some unpleasantness over distributing condoms; the bishops reassured him he wouldn’t be excommunicated for breaking ranks on birth control.
