National
Verily, Christians disagree on immigration reform (LA Times)
Imagine a major Christian leader citing Scripture while writing about marriage, abortion, divorce or sexual abstinence in a commentary published by a mainstream newspaper. Imagine him encouraging reforms that “reflect biblical principles,” noting that “nations will be judged,” that Christian lawmakers should “let personal faith replace political fear.” Imagine him arguing that a specific reform “will honor our American values, our biblical values and our God.”
States
(MO) Mystery priest in Missouri rescue comes forward (Catholic News Agency)
The mysterious Missouri priest who gave anointing to a woman in her wrecked car near Center, Mo. has been identified as Father Patrick Dowling, of the Diocese of Jefferson City. “I thank God and the amazingly competent rescue workers,” Fr. Dowling stated today in a comment on CNA’s original article on the Aug. 4 incident.
(ME) Fairness needed for Planned Parenthood patients, protesters (Bangor Daily News)
If you’re pro-choice, you might want to stop anti-abortion protesters from standing near Portland’s Planned Parenthood center where they wave signs and sometimes make intimidating comments to patients entering the building. If you’re pro-life, you might want the protesters to remain to call attention to what many see as a moral or religious affront.
(VA) Virginia Elections Virginia Attorney General Candidates Divided On Abortion Regulations(WAMU 88.5)
By the time the Falls Church Healthcare Center’s legal challenge makes its way into the courtroom, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will no longer be in office. The next attorney general will, and he’ll have to decide how to handle strict new regulations on abortion clinics in the commonwealth.
(KS) Anti-abortion groups to again ask Wichita City Council to rezone area near women’s clinic(The Wichita Eagle)
Several anti-abortion groups on Tuesday will renew their call for the Wichita City Council to rezone the eastside neighborhood at Kellogg and Bleckley so abortions can’t be performed at a longtime women’s clinic there. Representatives from Kansans for Life, Operation Rescue, Word of Life Church and the Kansas Coalition for Life want to prevent the South Wind Women’s Center from performing abortions at the site of George Tiller’s former clinic at 5107 E. Kellogg Drive.
(TN) Messiah Baby Name: Citing Jesus Christ, Judge Changes Infant’s Moniker To Martin(Huffington Post)
A judge in Tennessee changed a 7-month-old boy’s name to Martin from Messiah, saying the religious name was earned by one person and “that one person is Jesus Christ.” Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew ordered the name change last week, according to WBIR-TV.
(TX) ‘No Muslim parking’ signs spark outrage (CNN)
New signs posted outside a mosque in Spring Branch, Texas, have sparked outrage from Muslims nationwide. In black letters, the signs reads, “No Muslim parking in the Westview Shopping Center. Your car will be towed.”
(NJ) Apostles and Booker? Political researcher warns progressives to pay attention (God Discussion)
Tuesday, August 13 , is election day in New Jersey. Voters will decide the nominees for the race to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D). As the Washington Post reports, it’s almost a given that Newark Mayor Cory Booker will win the Democratic nomination. Political researcher, advisor and religious right expert Rachel Tabachnick warns that progressives should be paying attention to Booker’s possible ties to the prophets and apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation who have ‘transformed’ Booker’s City of Newark.
Women’s Health and Right to Choose
Secular businesses shouldn’t be exempt from new rules regarding insurance, conception(Clarion Ledger)
Controversy over Obamacare isn’t news, but any intrusion into deeply held religious beliefs is particularly contentious, and just such a dispute is underway. Beginning this month, the Affordable Care Act requires that most health insurance plans give women access to FDA-approved contraception methods, including birth control pills and the “morning after pill.”
Lawyer: Catholics, vegans and Starbucks all need conscience rights (Catholic World Report)
A leading religious freedom lawyer says the HHS mandate controversy involves whether government can force businesses and their owners to disregard their own values as they seek to make a living. Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said that businesses frequently make “decisions of conscience.”
The “Pro-Life” Movement’s Hidden Subtext (Pointedly Pagan)
The most vociferous and sometimes violent opponents of women’s right to choose claim they act in the name of Christianity and of life. The truth seems to me to be very different.
Yes, pro-choice Republicans are real! (Salon)
While a majority of her colleagues in the North Dakota Legislature were working furiously to advance the single most draconian pre-viability abortion ban in the country (and a series of restrictions aimed exclusively at shuttering the state’s last remaining abortion clinic), Kathy Hawken was working just as hard to stop them.
Abortion Fights In The States Turn To Digital World (Kaiser Health News)
Eleven states now ban abortion by telemedicine, the Guttmacher Institute says in a new study. In the meantime, the Government Accountability Office is investigating how Planned Parenthood and other related organizations spend public money.
Science & Medicine
Near-death experiences aren’t figment of imagination, study shows (CBS News)
The brain remains conscious after the heart stops beating, according to University of Michigan researchers. It may even function higher in the moments immediately following cardiac arrest than it does when the body is in a normal state. The finding supports the shared experience of nearly 20 percent of people who have survived cardiac arrest.
Particle Physicists Want A New Collider To Study The Higgs (NPR)
“It’s a very curious time in high-energy physics,” says Michael Peskin, a researcher at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. On the one hand, researchers have just made the most significant discovery in decades: In July of last year, they announced they had found the Higgs particle at a collider in Switzerland. The Higgs is part of the mechanism that gives mass to everything. It is so fundamental that without it, we wouldn’t exist.
California Parishioners Believe Tree Is Weeping God’s Tears; Arborist Says It’s Just Bug Excrement (Huffington Post)
A group of parishioners have taken to praying under a tree located outside a cathedral in California because they believe the plant is weeping God’s tears. An arborist, however, thinks differently.
Ohio the only one of 50 states without immunization law for youngest kids (WKYC)
For very young children who go to preschool or daycare, the fact that they live in Ohio puts them at a special risk. While most kids would prefer not to go to the doctor’s office and get their vaccination shots, most parents have them do it anyway. It’s required by law once the kids are school age.
Education
Va. gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli to unveil K-12 education plan (Washington Post)
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II plans to unveil a 12-point education plan on Tuesday that would push for charter schools, offer voucher-like scholarships for preschoolers and empower a majority of parents to close down, convert or overhaul their children’s failing school, according to an outline of his K-12 education plan.
Charter schools in Texas a focus of praise, concerns (The Monitor)
Three years, 5,000 door hangers and several garage sales after its opening, Beta Academy has a long waiting list but an empty bank account. But if the school’s founder, Latisha Andrews, has her way, Beta, a private elementary school that operates out of the Houston Christian Temple Assembly of God Church, will soon transform into a new operation: a publicly financed charter school.
Evolution May Be Questioned In New Texas Textbooks (Texas Public Radio)
A political nonprofit has filed a petition with the state alleging that creationists on the State Board of Education are planning to adopt textbooks that discount the theory of evolution. Creationists believe that everything on Earth and in the universe was created by a supreme being.
LGBT & Discrimination
Gays are not guaranteed the right to wed in church (Sacramento Bee)
The congregation cheered. When Barbara Brecher and Terry Allen married in June 2008, during the brief window that year when same-sex marriage was legal in California, they asked the entire membership of Congregation B’nai Israel to witness the ceremony. Hundreds of congregants took them up on the invitation.
Church might boot Boy Scouts over allowing gay members (La Crosse Tribune)
The Boy Scouts of America’s decision to allow openly gay troop members has prompted at least one western Wisconsin church to consider cutting ties with the organization. St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Altoona, which is a parish of the Diocese of La Crosse, has been the meeting place for Boy Scout Troop 90 for more than 20 years, but last week the church’s pastoral council “strongly recommended” ending its relationship with the troop.
Arkansas AG Rejects Resubmitted Ballot Proposal To Repeal Marriage Ban (Times Record)
For the second time in a month, the state attorney general Monday rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would repeal Arkansas’ same-sex marriage ban. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel cited “misleading tendencies” and a failure to identify the measure’s effect on Amendment 83 in a July 13 opinion rejecting the initial submission by the group Arkansans for Equality.
Support grows for fired gay Catholic schoolteacher (Washington Post)
Support for a Roman Catholic high school teacher fired for marrying his same-sex partner continued to grow Monday (Aug. 12) as the number of people signing an online petition topped 58,000 people.
California grants transgender students restroom, sports choices (Global Post)
California public schools must allow transgender students to choose which restrooms to use and whether to join the girls’ or boys’ sports teams under a law signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown on Monday. Supporters say it is the first state law to require equal access to sex-segregated school facilities based on the gender with which the student identifies instead of their biological gender.
Atheism
5 Famous Americans You Never Knew Were Atheists (Policy Mic)
You might think, given the recent publicity about the rise of atheism, that nonbelievers are new to the American story. (Spoiler: We’re not.) And these five individuals are perfect proof. They come from different eras, regions, fields of study, political persuasions, and have each left their mark on America.
Religion
Mary and the Feminist Movement (The National Catholic Review)
Religious devotion to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, has grown and developed during the Christian era, but not without criticism. Recently, feminist-inspired critiques have claimed that Marian devotion is now and always has been counterproductive for women’s flourishing-a serious accusation indeed.
Thoughts From a Millennial on the Church (Huffington Post)
Christianity in the States is fascinating right now. On one side, we see millennials leaving the Church at a prodigious rate. On the other hand we have Pope Francis, a cagey old Jesuit who, almost unbelievably, is emulating Christ. People who stopped caring about Christianity are taking notice of the 76-year-old Argentinian as his radical style of love which, if I’m reading the Gospels correctly, should be the standard Christian practice.
World
Uganda: Christian Lawyers to Fight ‘Evil’ Laws (All Africa)
Christian lawyers have resolved to ensure that Uganda and other African governments do not enact laws that encourage evil practices. The judges and lawyers from 20 African countries said enacting laws that encourage evil practices have potential to erode morals, cultural values and the institution of the family on the continent.
Pope attacks abortion after Brazil’s ‘morning-after’ law (ANSA)
Pope Francis on Monday defended the Catholic Church’s stance that human life begins at conception in the wake of Brazil passing measures to open the door to abortion-causing drugs in its public healthcare system.
(Opinion) Note From Across The Pond: Church-State Separation Isn’t For Everyone (Religion Dispatches)
The State Department’s new initiative for an office of religious engagement is welcome. Over in the UK, I’ve been arguing for years that there needs to be better engagement between politics, religion, and religion research, and I founded the Westminster Faith Debates with former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to advance this very aim. We bring researchers, religious spokespeople and policy makers into dialogue. A state department which talks of “religious engagement” warms my heart.
In Haiti, Gay Couple’s Engagement Party Attacked By Angry, Bomb-Throwing Mob (Queerty)
A violent mob in Haiti interrupted a gay couple’s engagement ceremony with rocks and molotov cocktails on Saturday as homophobic violence continues to escalate in the beleaguered island-nation. Symptomatic of a country in which anti-gay crimes are fairly rampant, this recent attack left several people injured and two cars destroyed in the capital of Port-Au-Prince. Luckily, police arrived in time to prevent any fatalities.
The International Impact of Russia’s Anti-Gay Laws: The Olympics and Beyond (Huffington Post)
It goes without saying that any large international event that puts a country in the big spotlight makes them keener than ever to tidy up, show a smile, make nice, try to appease everyone in sight, and bolster their reputation and worth. China did so during the Beijing Olympics. England also cleaned things up in time for the London Olympics. But Mr. Putin and the Russian government seem to have missed the memo.
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