Columns
Catholic tea partying
By Mark Silk — February 12, 2010
Over on In All Things today, Sean Michael Winters dumps on Deal Hudson’s call for a Catholic Tea Party movement to protest such authority (moral and hortatory if less than strictly canonical) that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wields over the faithful. Sean Michael is shocked, shocked that someone as allegedly devoted to […]
OK, it’s a cheap joke
By Mark Silk — February 12, 2010
But Ralph Reed really did tell Brody, “We just couldn’t wait for the Republican Calvary to show up and do it anymore.” Happy Lent.
Two Cheers for OFANP
By Mark Silk — February 11, 2010
Or at least its Advisory Council. A year in, Faith-Based 2.0 (aka the Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships) has come in for a fair amount of snarking, most notably from David Waters on WaPo’s Under God blog, but also from this corner. Because its mission has broadened to the point of fuzziness and its […]
Sarah Palin is not a force to be reckoned with
By Mark Silk — February 11, 2010
Chill, Sullivan, Wolff. A new WaPo poll shows her approval ratings continuing their downward slide, now at 37 percent favorable, 55 percent unfavorable. Meanwhile, Huckabee kicks her butt with Alabama Republicans. Guess that book-ey, Foxy, Tea-Partyey thing isn’t working out for her–other than all the way to the bank.
DADT by religion
By Mark Silk — February 10, 2010
Sixty-thee percent of Catholics and Jews support repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Protestants support it barely, 49 percent to 45 percent. Those identifying as Evangelical/Born Again oppose it, 51 percent to 41 percent. According to a new Quinnipiac poll.
Why the Anglican Covenant is good re: Uganda
By Mark Silk — February 10, 2010
Addressing the General Synod of the Church of England yesterday, Rowan Williams made a clever argument for why his proposed Anglican Covenant could help in the battle against anti-gay legislation such as has been proposed in Uganda. The Covenant would establish a measure of doctrinal control over individual Anglican national churches (provinces), and has raised […]
Bayle’s Challenge
By Mark Silk — February 9, 2010
More than three centuries ago, the philosopher Pierre Bayle scandalized the educated world by contending that there was no necessary connection between religion and morality, and that atheists could be as good citizens as Christians. Now comes a paper (based on survey research) out of Harvard and the University of Helsinki purporting to show the […]
Father Martin sez:
By Mark Silk — February 9, 2010
Send The Wall Street Bonuses To Haiti. Now there’s a pact with the Devil. C’mon Sen. Dodd, let’s get that into the financial regulation bill.
Squeezing Uganda
By Mark Silk — February 8, 2010
In retrospect, last week’s Prayer Breakfast shout-downs of the Uganda anti-homosexuality bill look like a carefully orchestrated effort to pressure Ugandan strongman Yoweri Museveni to make the bill go away. The play went like this: Coe to Clinton to Obama. Coe is Doug Coe, the publicity-shy head of The Family, which has mounted the Prayer […]
Slate petitions the pope
By Mark Silk — February 6, 2010
Timothy Noah’s letter beseeching Benedict XVI to help out with health care reform is on the money, but he’d probably have better luck with St. Jude, the patron of hopeless and desperate causes.
Vatican Drill
By Mark Silk — February 5, 2010
Message of the Day:Deep-six the condoms (see jump). Deep-six the nuns (see NCR).
Capitalism, socialism, whatever
By Mark Silk — February 5, 2010
Gallup has discovered that 53 percent of Democrats have a positive view of capitalism and 53 percent of Democrats have a positive view of socialism. Also, that 85 percent have a positive view of free enterprise. Republicans are a little more positive about free enterprise (90 percent), a good deal more positive about capitalism (72 […]
Obama v. Uganda
By Mark Silk — February 4, 2010
So both the secretary of state and the president attacked Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill at the National Prayer Breakfast today. I haven’t found Clinton’s remarks yet, but Obama had this to say (full text after jump): We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians […]
Faith-Based Initiative 2.0
By Mark Silk — February 4, 2010
Yesterday, WaPo’s Michelle Boorstein and William Wan commemorated the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s version of President Bush’s faith-based initiative with a story and a blog post suggesting a measure of unhappiness among the members of the advisory council that has been the most distinctive element of the Obama version. The charge, in a word, […]
Profile in pusillanimity
By Mark Silk — February 3, 2010
Elisabeth Bumiller in today’s NYT: Gay rights leaders pointed soon afterward to comments Mr. McCain made in 2006 on “Hardball” on MSNBC about his willingness to change the policy if Pentagon leaders called for repeal. “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ […]
