Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Wheaton College Backs, Rabbi Blasts Birth-Control Fight
posted on July 19, 2012Wheaton College, “an institution so strictly Protestant it has no Catholic faculty,” has joined The Catholic University of America in a lawsuit to block the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, reports Cathy Lynn Grossman for USA Today. However, Grossman writes, Orthodox Rabbi Arthur Waskow has “flip[ped] the religious freedom argument … [arguing] that it’s the bishops who are stomping on other folks’ freedom of conscience.” In a recent letter, Waskow states, “Claiming this program violates religious freedom is an Orwellian perversion of thought–attacking religious freedom in the guise of defending it.”
Jihadists’ Fierce Justice Drives Thousands to Flee Mali
posted on July 19, 2012Tens of thousands of refugees have fled Timbuktu and other Malian cities after “an influx of jihadists—some homegrown and others possibly from afar—intent on imposing an Islam of lash and gun on Malian Muslims,” reports Adam Nossiter for The New York Times. The violence comes months after a coup d’état in which army officers installed “a military junta under an American-trained officer … [bringing to an end] two decades of elected governments” in the west African country. According to Nossiter, “American counterterrorism experts express concerns that Mali could turn into a magnet for international terrorists.”
An American Nun Responds to Vatican Criticism
posted on July 19, 2012Fresh Air’s Terry Gross interviews Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents 80 percent of American Catholic sisters. Following the Vatican’s public condemnation of the LCWR in April, Sr. Farrell wonders, “Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?” The Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith accused the LCWR of having “radical feminist themes.” “[W]hat I hear in the phrasing [of the Vatican’s rebuke],” says Farrell, “is fear—a fear of women’s positions in the church.”
Congressmen Query End of Military Bibles
posted on July 19, 2012At Associated Baptist Press, Bob Allen reports that Congressman Alan Nunnelee, a Southern Baptist from Mississippi, has written a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “questioning the motive behind [the U.S. military] asking LifeWay division B&H Publishing to stop publishing Bibles with the official emblems of the five branches of the military.” Allen writes that the military revoked permission after receiving complaints from a First Amendment watchdog group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. In a statement accompanying his letter, Rep. Nunnelee writes, “The military should not be succumbing to pressure from outside groups to alter longstanding policy.”
Read at Associated Baptist Press
In the New Egypt, Beards Appear Where They Were Once Banned
posted on July 19, 2012Steve Hendrix at The Washington Post reports on the changing Egyptian views regarding Muslim men’s facial hair. Former president, Hosni Mubarak, “banned [beards] by law or custom” because he equated them with Islamic piety, which Mubarak saw as a threat to his regime. Egypt’s newly elected president wears a beard, prompting lawyer, Ali el-Banna, to say with pride, “As Muslims, when we see President Morsi, we feel just as the black people of the United States feel about Barack Obama.”
Replica of Western Wall Planned in Kansas
posted on July 19, 2012Pro-life leaders in Wichita, Kansas plan to build a full-scale replica of Jerusalem’s Western Wall, writes The Jewish Daily Forward’s Naomi Zeveloff. The replica will “be fronted by 60 crosses, each one representing 1 million aborted fetuses.” Rabbi Michael Davis is critical of the the plan, saying, “I see it as another example of a non-Jewish group taking a Jewish symbol and reinterpreting it for their own private use and thereby bastardizing it.”
Mixed Views on Vanderbilt Veto
posted on July 19, 2012The current Vanderbilt University policy allowing “all-comers” to join any university student group will stay in place “after a veto from Tennessee governor Bill Haslam in May stopped popular legislation that sought to block it,” Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra reports for Christianity Today. Kim Colby, a lawyer at the Christian Legal Society, objects to the policy, asserting that Christian groups should be able to ensure that student leaders are Christian. Zylstra writes, “While [Governor] Haslam disagrees with the policy, he said government interference in the policies of private institutions was inappropriate.”
Mormons’ First Families Rally Behind Romney
posted on July 18, 2012Decedents of Mormonism’s pioneering families “have formed a financial bulwark and support network for Mr. Romney at every important point in his political career,” reports Jim Rutenberg for The New York Times. Almost “two dozen members of Mormon families provided nearly $8 million of the financing for the ‘super PAC’ working to elect Mr. Romney, Restore Our Future.” Richard Eyre, a Mormon and a friend of the Romney family, says, “I think for Mormons, particularly for prominent ones who already feel widely accepted and admired individually, this feels like a chance to also see their church, which they love, accepted and admired institutionally.”
Boy Scouts Reaffirm Ban on Gays
posted on July 18, 2012On Tuesday, the Boy Scouts of America “emphatically reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays, ruling out any changes despite relentless protest campaigns by some critics,” reports David Crary for The Associated Press. The decision comes after a “confidential two-year review” of the organization’s policy, writes Crary. Bob Mazzuca, the chief executive of the Boy Scouts, stated that the group reached the decision in large measure because “[t]he vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting.”
The Wedding
posted on July 18, 2012Last month, Tech Sgt. Erwynn Umali married Will Behrens at McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a military base in Wrightstown, New Jersey. The ceremony marked “the first publicly announced gay civil union or wedding ever to take place on an American military installation,” writes Katherine Goldstein at Slate. Goldstein notes that both men grew up Christian and even met at a Baptist church in New Jersey in 2006. Goldstein writes that while “Will and Erwynn have been in faith environments that condemned homosexuality as a sin … they are still deeply religious.”