The likelihood that this year's Democratic Party platform will support same-sex marriage and condemn the Defense of Marriage Act creates as bright a culture war line as one could wish with the Republicans, for whom the sanctity of the Old-Time Nuptuality has long been an article of partisan faith.

Did Chick-Fil-A's Dan Cathy disrespect gay marriage or didn't he? That is the question exercising the tiny world of religion news criticism, wherein GetReligion's redoubtable Terry Mattingly has chastised the MSM for supposing that he did. 

Before it became a state in 1896, Utah had two political parties--the Peoples Party for the Mormons and the Liberal Party for those they called Gentiles. And over the past few decades, the state has pretty much restored that old political order, with the Saints gathered unto the GOP and Democratic Party largely confined to the, uh, Gentiles

I'm writing from Salt Lake City, where last evening I gave the keynote address at the opening of the annual Sunstone Symposium.

One of the possibly unintended consequences of the megachurch phenomenon is that there are now all these huge air-conditioned, sound system-equipped auditoriums available for rental by public school departments for the purpose of holdinng graduation ceremonies. And as some have availed themselves of the facilities, so as night follows day, there have been lawsuits challenging the practice.

Last Friday, Cathy Grossman, USA Today's eagle-eyed veteran religion reporter, scooped the rest of the world by reporting that, according to the Pew Research Center, the proportion of Nones in the American adult population has now reached 19 percent. Among those she scooped was Pew itself.

My colleague Ned Cabot, sometime head of Common Cause, sent along the following reflections this afternoon:

I had to turn off my Christian radio station this afternoon. (Given my perverse tastes, it will not surprise you that I very much enjoy tuning into their musical entertainment: “God's Country.”)

We in Connecticut had our own little GOP Islamo-fearmongering episode the other day, when Fifth District Congressman-wannabe Mark Greenberg called Islam "a cult in many respects." This being Connecticut, Greenberg began backing off almost immediately, and was roundly criticized for his remarks by all three of his opponents in the Republican primary.

For those of you interested in keeping up with the saga of the sacking of Metropolitan Jonah by the Synod of Orthodox Church in America, the latest chapter is a letter from the synod explaining the reasons for its action. While there are general claims of maladministration, the central charge is that Jonah covered up a rape accusation against a priest he brought into the church.

In yesterday's column, Ross Douthat smacked the Episcopalians for selling their Christian birthright for a mess of secularist pottage. If only they had stuck to the old time religion, they wouldn't be shedding parishioners by the flockload. But old-time religion-stickers like the Southern Baptist Convention and Douthat's own Catholic church have also been losing their sheep at a rapid pace. So what gives?

Imagine an alternate universe where the Catholic Church behaved the way the trustees of the Pennsylvania State University have when confronted with evidence of the cover-up of sexual abuse of minors by the leadership of one of its important institutions.

In 1898, Émile Zola stunned the French nation by publishing "J'accuse," an open letter to French President Félix Faure charging him with anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus. Tom Junod's stunning article in the latest Esquire, "The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama," is a "J'accuse" for 21st century America.

Eastern Orthodox church politics are by definition Byzantine, but the defenestration of Metropolitan Jonah by the synod of the Orthodox Church in America over the weekend carries with it some larger significance for American religion as well.

So the Jews have managed to eke out another victory over the advocates of disinvestment in Israel in the Presbyterian Church USA. But last night's 333-331 General Assembly vote against withdrawing church funds from three companies that allegedly contribute to the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories hardly signals an end to the war.

GetReligion's Bobby Ross, Jr. took a look at the MSM obits of Andy Griffith and unsurprisingly found them wanting in the religion department. By contrast, Ross notes, CBN quoted a statement from his widow, to the effect that “Andy was a person of incredibly strong Christian faith and was prepared for the day he would be called Home to his Lord.” That doesn't get us very far.