The White House faith-based office has posted on the InterWebs tallies from its advisory council’s vote on two controversial issues.
On the issue of whether religious charities should be allowed to serve clients in rooms that contain religious symbols or messages, 16 councilmembers voted not to require the removal of the symbols, seven voted to allow them if there’s no other space, and two said take’em down.
Separately, 13 councilmembers said the government should require religious congregations to form separate corporations in order to receive federal funds. Twelve said no.
The 10 U.S. Baptists charged with kidnapping in Haiti want more attention from the government and less from the media. (See pic of their confining quarters at top left.) Their new lawyer says he thinks they had the right paperwork to take the 33 children out of the country.
The Yemeni-American Muslim cleric with ties to the accused Fort Hood gunman and Underwear Bomber says he taught the latter but did not order the attack.
Thirty-four Lutherans are recovering from the carbon monoxide poisoning they got from a stuck chimney in their church. A federal official confirmed the eighth case of arson in Texas churches since the new year. Baptists nailed the Ten Commandments on a Georgia county courthouse.
The ACLU says a professor at a California community college has been presenting his religious views on homosexuality as scientific fact. Atheists are just as ethical as churchgoers, according to a new study. Chicago is moving a UCC cemetery to expand its airport. The UCC said the moving the graves violates their belief in the resurrection of the dead.
The Church of England pushed off a decision on when and where women can become bishops until July. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was addressing the synod this morning. ELCA leaders, including Presiding Bishop Hanson, met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Turkey. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori visited her church’s Haitian diocese.
Sweden’s unemployment agency has been found guilty of discrimination for kicking a Muslim who wouldn’t shake a woman’s hand out of its job training program.