Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Evangelicals and the Coming Romney Victory
posted on May 10, 2012At First Things, Gerald R. McDermott writes that a new poll in the key swing state of Virginia, which shows increasing evangelical support of Romney, bodes well for the GOP candidate’s prospects for unseating President Obama. While most evangelicals in Virginia are ambivalent about Romney’s Mormon faith, McDermott suggests that because of this key electoral constituency’s deep-seated dislike for Obama’s policies, they will vote for the former Massachusetts governor by large margins. “They will vote for Romney,” McDermott writes, “because they think his policies will grow the economy without jeopardizing their deepest convictions—such as their belief in traditional marriage as the bedrock of society.”
Amendment One: North Carolina Gay Marriage Ban Passes
posted on May 9, 2012On Tuesday, North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment, which defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. In POLITICO, Juana Summers writes, “While North Carolina law already bans same-sex marriage, the amendment means civil unions and potentially other types of domestic partnerships will no longer be recognized legally by the state.” There was unusually high voter turnout, and the measure passed by a large margin, “60 percent to 40 percent, with nearly half of precincts reporting.”
Real Time
posted on May 9, 2012As The American Scholar’s Twitter feed declared yesterday, William Deresiewicz writes on his blog “in defense of the values of voters in ‘fly-over states.’” In doing so, he takes issue with arguments that dismiss the beliefs of working-class voters as misguided. (He sees this trend through Real Time’s Bill Maher and in the central thesis of Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?) He asks: “Are only the wealthy entitled to ideals? Are progressive ideals the only authentic ones?”
“Vilde Khaye!”: Maurice Sendak’s Not-So-Cautionary Tale
posted on May 9, 2012In the Fall of 2010, Pakn Treger, the magazine of the Yiddish Book Center, published an article on children’s author Maurice Sendak, who passed away yesterday at the age of 83. In the article, Ilan Stavans writes of Sendak, the child of Polish immigrant parents: “His father was a tailor who told his children biblical stories in dramatically embellished form.”
Vanderbilt’s “All-Comers” Policy Upsets 36 in Congress
posted on May 9, 2012Members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus wrote a letter objecting to Vanderbilt University’s “all-comers” policy, “which requires that university-recognized groups allow any student to join and run for office — even if a student doesn’t share the group’s central beliefs,” according to The Tennessean. The policy was put in place after a Christian fraternity expelled a gay member. The lawmakers wrote: “We are deeply troubled that Vanderbilt would use its freedom as a private institution to create a nondiscrimination policy that discriminates against religious student groups.”
The Religious Right (Born 1979, Died 2000)
posted on May 9, 2012In the second of a three-part series in Public Discourse, Greg Forster asserts George W. Bush’s presidency was the “death knell” of the Religious Right, as he broke decisively with key leaders of the movement. “Bush’s desire to treat Christianity, Islam, and atheism as functionally equivalent for civic purposes stands in stark contrast to the ‘Judeo-Christian’ moral traditionalism of the Religious Right,” Forster writes. “Bush consistently appealed to what he said were universal values shared by all humanity; whatever you think of that, it isn’t what Pat Robertson believes.”
Half of Americans Support Legal Gay Marriage
posted on May 9, 2012Gallup released a new poll on Tuesday, which showed 50 percent of Americans support gay marriage, while 48 percent oppose it. The number of supporters is down slightly from a poll last year, but it is still “marking only the second time in Gallup’s history of tracking this question that at least half of Americans have supported legal same-sex marriage.” The results show a sharp partisan divide: 65 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents support legalizing gay marriage, while only 22 percent of Republicans do.
Code Pink’s Next Battle
posted on May 9, 2012In Tablet, Jacob Silverman follows the women’s antiwar group Code Pink, who are active in the movement to encourage divestment from Israel. He attempts to answer whether these women can now “turn people against drone warfare.”
Sebelius Speech at Georgetown Draws Fire from Catholic Group
posted on May 9, 2012The Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic advocacy group, wrote a letter to Georgetown University, criticizing their invitation for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at an upcoming awards dinner. The letter read, “The selection is especially insulting to faithful Catholics and their bishops, who are engaged in the fight for religious liberty and against abortion.” At issue is the Obama administration’s mandate that all health insurance plans cover contraception, which the Catholic Church finds morally wrong. Though a Catholic institution, Georgetown has stood by its invitation.
Is Pro-Life Cause Célèbre Chen Guangcheng Actually Pro-Life?
posted on May 8, 2012At Religion Dispatches, Lindsay Beyerstein chronicles how the blind, Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng got claimed by the American pro-life movement. “Anti-abortion news and opinion websites have taken to calling Chen a ‘pro-life dissident,’ which is fundamentally misleading,” Beyerstein writes. “Chen is not opposed to abortion, per se, he is opposed to forced abortion.”