A Tea Party billboard in Iowa that compares President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin is raising eyebrows, even among Tea Party activists. “The purpose of the billboard was to draw attention to the socialism. It seems to have been lost in the visuals,” said billboard sponsor Bob Johnson. The NAACP passed a resolution accusing the movement of condoning racism and bigotry.
Speaking of Tea Parties, the anti-establishment insurgency that could give Republicans control of Congress also ousted the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; incumbent Gerald Kieschnick was depicted as a power-hungry megachurch wannabe, and delegates elected the church’s disaster response chief in his place. Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, who’s trying to oust Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, indicates she has God on her side.
President Obama has a new plan to fight AIDS in America. New York City officials are wrangling over whether to allow that mosque near Ground Zero to go forward. Five Cleveland Catholic churches scheduled to be closed may have gotten a new lease on life from the Vatican. Pastors of two Alabama churches that fell victim to arson say the fires were part of God’s plan.
A federal court has struck down the FCC‘s rules against “fleeting expletives” (Bono‘s “f***ing brilliant” and Janet Jackson‘s “wardrobe malfunction“); conservatives are incensed. The fedsare going after a Utah “minister” who they say is running a scam that encourages members of his church to take a vow of poverty and sign over their property to his control.
Sarah Palin says her daughter Bristol believes in “redemption and forgiveness” after hearing the news that Bristol and baby daddy Levi Johnston are an item again, with plans to marry. NPR asks why a Las Vegas megachurch is supporting a Ugandan pastor who wants to throw people in jail for not reporting their gay relatives or neighbors to the police.
A conservative Anglican bishop is warning that an exodus of members because of women bishops is inevitable. Things are getting nasty north of the border, where a Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff refuses to apologize for likening Canadian PM Stephen Harper to Satan. Argentinians took to the streets to protest a proposed bill to legalize gay marriage. Surprise runaway best-seller “The Shack” is bogged down in an ugly legal fight over royalties, rights and payments.
France‘s lower House, as expected, passed a ban on burqas and face veils; the bill now heads to the Senate. Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (the one with links to the panty-bomber and the Times Square-bomber) has now put a ransom on the head of Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, who launched “Everyone Draw Muhammad Day.” Those “Leaving Islam?” bus ads have been followed by anti-honor killing ads on Chicago taxis.
Former New York Theological Seminary president George “Bill” Webber has died at age 90, and Grammy-winning Gospel singer Walter Hawkins has died at 61.