Buried on page A12 of this morning’s paper is a brief item, but what may be the most intriguging piece of news in the whole paper:
Carrie Prejean herself is coming to Lancaster, to speak at Thursday’s “Celebration of Marriage and Family” banquet, hosted by the Pennsylvania Family Institute.
No link because we don’t actually have it […]

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It must be so confusing to be a religious conservative.

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Interesting. I used to get a lot of these; not so much anymore, but then we don’t write about religious issues as much anymore. Maybe we should.
Until several months ago I had been an Evangelical Christian most of my life.  During the past several decades I have witnessed various desperate health situations both within and […]

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These people are freaks.

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This one’s making the rounds this morning, as reported by U.S. News and World Report:
As the White House readies its plan for finding “common ground” on reproductive health issues and reducing the need for abortion, a major debate has emerged over how to package the plan’s two major components: preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing the […]

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You gotta be kidding me.

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Miley Cyrus makes statements supporting gay marriage. American Family Association goes full metal wingnut:
Miley Cyrus responded to Hilton through her Twitter.com account with the following comments:
• “Everyone deserves to love and be loved and most importantly smile.”
• “Jesus loves you and your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! That’s like a […]

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Anyone need some new shirts?

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Doing some quick hit vids these days, the first of which is below - on that amazing survey showing that the number of people self-identifying as Christian has plummeted, and the number of people claiming no religion at all now constitutes 15 percent of the population. Even more fascinating - this op-ed from the Christian […]

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Via Sullivan, this would be Kathryn Jean Lopez:
We’re a nation not just where you are free to believe or not to believe; we’re a nation founded for Him — so we could praise Him, so we could do His will.
Historically dubious though this may be, you see the implications.
If we were a nation founded by […]

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A letter in the mail this morning:
Here is one of President Bush’s most important accomplishments. Because of the horrible war in the Middle East, missionaries were able to get in and begin planting churches. …
<snip>
According to the scrpitures we were put here on this earth to spread the “gospel.” President Bush has made this possible […]

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Via Sullivan, we see Calvinism is having a bit of a revival:
But what is new about Driscoll is that he has resurrected a particular strain of fire and brimstone, one that most Americans assume died out with the Puritans: Calvinism, a theology that makes Pat Robertson seem warm and fuzzy.
At a time when the once-vaunted […]

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You know, I’m trying to stay out of this Rick Warren business a bit because I understand and even sympathize with the need to bridge the gap between evil lib’rulz and conservative evangelicals, find some common ground, etc. But then I see krep like this and it just p*sses me off:
Today, NBC’s Ann Curry aired […]

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Regarding this Alliance Defense Fund (right-wing Christian organization) ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TedAr31uiwo

Sullivan writes:
The importance of portraying 2 percent of the population as far more powerful than the 98 percent and the need to keep that 2 percent from destroying civilization - and allegedly making Christianity illegal - has some interesting historical forebears.
Well, it’s not just right-wing Christians; that’s […]

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Uh-oh. I see where Newsweek is oppressing poor conservative Christians by running a big piece on “The religious case for gay marriage”:
Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when […]

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Hilarious. So in Washington state, there’s been conotroversy over the “holiday tree” (by the Association of Washington Business, for 19 years) erected in the state capitol. The wingers hate the name, obviously. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer tells us:
That prompted a lawmaker from Spokane to stage a protest at the Capitol, demanding the holiday tree be […]

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Hm. Via Daniel Larison, Rod Dreher has a piece in USA Today from Monday arguing that the GOP would be foolish to toss religious conservatives overboard - but at the same time, he says, the nature of religious conservatism has to evolve:
Times change. Today, the greatest threats to conservative interests come not from the Soviet […]

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Because, see, if a store doesn’t actually use the word “Christmas” then the store hates Christmas and is trying to destroy Christmas, and good red-blooded God-fearing American loons shouldn’t shop there.
According to Dr. James Dobson:
Eight firms caved immediately: Best Buy, Cabela’s, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Nordstrom, Pier 1, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart.
The Gap, Banana Republic and […]

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Dr. James Dobson responds to Kathleen Parker - well, he had to, didn’t he?
So, Kathleen Parker has determined that getting rid of social conservatives and shelving the values they fight for is the solution to what ails the Republican Party (“Giving Up on God,” Nov. 19). Isn’t that a little like Benedict Arnold handing George […]

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Hm. Via Sullivan, an extremely provacative interview with gay Catholic Mexican-American (!) author Richard Rodriguez on California’s Proposition 8, and the hypocrisy he sees behind what he terms a ”deliberate civic intrusion” by the churches. Exerpts:
American families are under a great deal of stress. The divorce rate isn’t declining, it’s increasing. And the majority of American […]

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