Take that, Peter King: Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, is planning his own hearings on American Muslims, this one on threats to Muslims’ civil rights (that him, at left, speaking in 2004 at a mosque in suburban Chicago). The tit-for-tat between the two chambers is going to be fun to watch.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is suing on behalf of a Muslim teacher in suburban Chicago who was fired when she skipped school to make the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Pegged to the opening of a new Holocaust museum in Los Angeles, the NYT asks: How many Holocaust museums do we really need? Up the coast in San Luis Obispo, an 11-foot cross was stolen from a Lutheran church and set on fire near the home of a black family.
POTUS paid his respects and lit a candle at the tomb of martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero during a stop in El Salvador.
Charitable giving is starting to stabilize after the Great Recession, according to a new report. Reform Jews tapped an innovation-minded N.Y. rabbi as their new president.
So much for sparing the rod — members of a Wisconsin Bible church are facing charges of beating kids with rods and dowels. A pastor in the Bronx who’s charged with raping and impregnating a 12-year-old parishioner said no to a “sweetheart” plea deal that carried three years in the slammer, saying he’d actually prefer probation instead.
There’s an internecine spitting match brewing between home-school groups (who believe in creationism) and Ken Hamm, the force behind the Creation Museum, whom the home-schoolers accuse of “unChristian and sinful” behavior. And evangelicals want FLOTUS to keep out of their cupboards.
A Vatican official says religious groups who oppose homosexuality are “stigmatized … vilified or prosecuted.” The Obama Administration is pushing a U.N. body to combat anti-gay discrimination around the world, a stark change after years of “ambiguity” from the Bush White House.
Meanwhile, here at home, new research shows that American Catholics are more supportive of gay rights than other religious groups. Gay-rights groups won a second high-profile victory after Apple removed an ex-gay app from Exodus International from its AppStore.
In the Story That Will Never Go Away (in part because we keep writing about it), the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan issued a statement condemning the burning of a Quran after a mock trial held at the Gainesville, Fla., church of Pastor Terry Jones. Franklin Graham, apparently, believes the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Right-wing fringe U.S. Catholics — the same folks who wish Vatican 2 had never happened, and are angry at Rome for a host of things — are questioning the rush to sainthood for JP2.
American and Israeli Jews are working to improve safety and stability in Jerusalem‘s iconic cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
