Referring to the Lax/Phillips paper on same-sex marriage in the states I cited (in re: Catholic populations) a month ago, Ryan Sager dramatizes the age gap by noting: “If people over 65 made the laws, 0 states would have gay marriage; if people under 30 made the laws, 38 states would have gay marriage.” Now […]

There’s been some back and forth on TPM lately on the nature of evangelical support for Israel, and specifically the extent to which it rests on millennialist expectations–the need for an in-gathering of the Jews in order to prepare the way for Armageddon, the Second Coming, etc. In fact, it’s hard to put a clear […]

If only in light of the persistent reluctance of leading media outlets (including the New York Times) to use the word “torture” to describe what the Bush administration sanctioned and conducted under the name of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” today’s WaPo editorial is noteworthy: The real culprits in this sordid story are those higher-ups, starting with […]

Michael Steele’s “health bill of rights” for seniors is a transparent enough way to drum up opposition to Democratic health reform–including, of course, the right to hold on to that nifty government-run health care program called Medicare. But perhaps less obviouis is how well the GOP’s “just say no” approach has worked to bridge the […]

Back in harness after a splendid summer break, I will ease into serious business by considering the moral panic that has seized certain high-minded movie critics (e.g. the New Yorker‘s David Denby, the New York Times‘ Manohla Dargis, and Slate’s Dana Stevens) in their respective considerations of Inglourious Basterds. The burden of their distress lies […]

As forecast, the weather has been wonderful, and what with dial-up internet access, it’s not been hard to take a blogging break. I look forward to reports of pitchfork-wielding religious progressives turning up at town hall meetings to demand health reform, even as Mike Huckabee sucks up to the John Hagee wing of the Republican […]

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Three months ago, Gallup created a stir when it found that, for the first time, more Americans described themselves as pro-life than pro-choice (51-42, a reversal from 50-44 the other way). Now, in its latest quarterly taking of the temperature, the numbers have evened out, at 47 percent pro-life and 46 percent choice. Now, with […]

The death of the Rev. Ernest Lefever, onetime pacifist turned hard-edged Christian realist, prompts a question for which I don’t have an answer. Lefever earned his fifteen minutes of fame as Ronald Reagan’s nominee as assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs. He had been (and remained) a loud opponent of the […]

I’ll be on vacation for most of the next few weeks. Prediction is sun with intermittent blogging.

Over the last few days there’s been some chatter (led by Terry Mattingly) about why the Catholic bishops haven’t been weighing in on health reform. This has been a big issue for them, so what’s up? Pretty clearly, they’ve been hamstrung by the abortion issue, having to deal on the right with the likes of […]

Steve Waldman reports on what happened last night in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health care bill in re: abortion coverage. Both sides claimed to be aiming at preserving the status, but in the end only the amendment  of Lois Capps (D-CA) was left standing. Pro-choicers rejoiced, pro-lifers said bah. I predict that Congress […]

In response to my recent postings (here and here) on the correlation between Catholic presence and support for same-sex marriage (SSM), I’ve received an interesting (yet unpublished) paper from Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois and some colleagues conjuring via regression analysis with a number of factors involved in the politics of the issue over the […]

Courtesy of A.E. Housman:     And malt does more than Milton can    To justify God’s ways to man.    Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink    For fellows whom it hurts to think:    Look into the pewter pot    To see the world as the world’s not.

Paul Stanley is the Tennessee state senator who resigned his office a couple of days ago when it was revealed that he was having an affair with a 22-year-old intern. Stanley acknowledged in an interview with WREC radio host Ben Ferguson that he had an affair. He also defended statements he had made condemning sex […]