Last night was all about Paul Ryan at the GOP convention in Tampa, but Mike Huckabee stole the show with a barn-burner of a speech that included a line about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith:
“I care far less as to where Mitt Romney takes his family to church than I do about where he takes this country.’’
and a dig at Vice President Joe Biden:
“For years he gave less than two-tenths of 1 percent of his money to charity. He just wants you to give the government more so he and the Democrats can feel better about themselves. Mitt Romney has given over 16% of his income to his church and charity, and I'd feel better about having a leader who gives more of his own money instead of mine.”
He also called President Obama the only “self-professed evangelical” on either ticket — that's news to us; in covering POTUS for the past six years, we've never heard him label himself an evangelical.
Meanwhile, in other news …
WaPo's Michelle Boorstein profiles New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who will bless the GOP convention tonight, and the DNC next week in Charlotte. Says NCR's John Allen: “Left to his own devices, he would talk to anyone anywhere about anything.”
Whirling Dervishes Ceremony in Istanbul (Turkey, 2005).
Is it a sin for Muslims to dance? Depends on which imam you ask.
Prominent Catholic priest Benedict Groeschel says first-time offending priest abusers “should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime.”
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, he of the so-called “Ground Zero” mosque (although not really, anymore) talks about the fight between Muslims and the West, and Muslims against Muslims.
Out in Washington state, churches are being warned not to collect money for the upcoming ballot battle over gay marriage.
Strange case out of Mother Russia: Two women were found murdered in an apartment, with the message “Free Pussy Riot” scrawled on the wall, “presumably” in blood. Pussy Riot, you'll recall, is the female punk band that got convicted of religious “hooliganism” for staging an anti-Putin protest in Moscow's central Orthodox cathedral.
— Kevin Eckstrom
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