As Congress continues to play Deal or No Deal with the federal budget, its little game of chicken gets increasingly complicated. To wit: House Republicans want to add a rider that would restrict funding of Planned Parenthood. Senate Democratic leaders call the move a “non-starter.”
You know who prolly wants this deal to happen like RIGHT NOW!?! The 30,000 liberals fasting to protest proposed budget cuts that target anti-poverty programs. The way things are going, a 40-day fast is not out of the question.
As for the rest of the country, evangelicals (51 percent) are the only religious group questioned by Pew, according to a CT analysis, that favors a government shutdown over budget compromise. More than 70 percent of black Protestants, 63 percent of Catholics and 52 percent of mainline Protestants want Congress to pass a budget.
In related news, 58 percent of evangelicals say the Bible does not require tithing. National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson proclaimed himself “surprised” at the poll, since the OT is rife with references to giving God his 10 percent.
The U.S. Ambassador to Malta, Douglas Kmiec, spends too much time writing and speaking about his religious beliefs and not enough time in diplomatic business, the State Department’s inspector general says in a new report. You mean those posts aren’t sinecures? Kmiec, the AP reminds us, was key to Obama’s Catholic outreach during the ’08 campaign.
New Hampshire lawmakers apparently want to close the state’s budget gap by selling wolf tickets. Just as one Granite State legislator apologized for calling Bishop John McCormack a “pedophile pimp,” another, also a Republican and a Catholic, called the bishop a “corrupt scumbag.” A third lawmaker wants to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status.
Meanwhile, the Connecticut blogger who urged readers to “take up arms” against state lawmakers over a bill that would have given lay Catholics more control over parish finances rejected a plea deal.
The Catholic Church talks a good game on labor rights but its own record on employee relations is not so hot, saith Our Sunday Visitor. The Diocese of Wilmington (Del.) will be firing staffers and cutting ministries because of its $77.4 million settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse. Germany’s pedophile priest scandal contributed to a 40 percent surge in the number of Catholics leaving the church, according to AFP.
A federal court in Alabama found that New Orleans police had probable cause to arrest a Christian street preacher for disturbing the peace at a Mardi Gras parade by harassing a 13-year-old girl and carrying signs that read ‘”God hates you wicked baby killing whores repent.” God abhors commas, too, I would guess.
The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Wal-Mart’s firing of an employee who told a gay colleague that God does not accept gays and is sending them straight to Hell, which, if I read my Dante correctly, is a lot like working at Wal-Mart.
WaPo found the Muslim man suckered into participating in Pastor Terry Jones’ mock Quran trial/burning. “All I wanted to to do is give a message to Mr. Terry Jones that the holy Quran is a good book,” said Mohamed Elhassan, a 50-year-old computer store owner who leads a small Sufi congregation in Texas.
In the Netherlands, the Animal Party (who are TIRED of jokesters inverting their name, thankyouverymuch!) wants to pass a bill requiring our feathered and furry friends to be anesthetized before ritual slaughters. An Indian company that supplied an anesthetic used in human executions has stopped selling the drug because its violates the “ethos of Hinduism.”
The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales is throwing his moral weight behind a most worthy cause. He wants a pub around the corner from Westminster Cathedral to keep calling itself “The Cardinal.” Wonder if they serve Bishops Finger there.
