NewsTrust - Church and State - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Inaugural Pastor: The Two Faces of Rick Warren

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Time - Jan. 19 (Editorial) - In short, Warren wants to be both the universally admired pastor who speaks to the nation and the influential leader who mobilizes religious conservatives for political ends. But those are two inherently conflicting roles, and he cannot be both, no matter how hard he tries.

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Nativity Scene Stealers

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By David Waters - Dec. 15 (Opinion) - When the state of Illinois agreed to allow private citizens to place a Nativity scene inside the capitol this Christmas season, and the ACLU decided not to challenge to decision, Christian supporters were so elated they invited other groups to join in the free holiday expressions.

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California gay marriage vote negates fundamental freedom

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Dallas Morning News - By Erin Goldman - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - The day after the election, I woke up invincible; Barack Obama was elected to serve as the president of the United States of America. The voting population looked past the color of the man's skin and voted for him based upon merit. However, my restored faith in humanity was short-lived. "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible," declared Obama on Nov. 4, "who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer." He spoke too soon.

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Gay marriage is a question of love

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By Keith Olberman - Nov. 11 (Comment) - This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

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What's God's interest in pipeline?

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Hubert G. Locke - Sep. 25 (Opinion) - On Nov. 4, voters have a vested interest in ensuring that someone who is so glibly confident about knowing God's plan does not get within a heartbeat of the presidency of the United States. People who profess to know what God is thinking engage in the worst, most dangerous form of self-delusion. They should never be allowed anywhere near positions of public responsibility that put the rest of us -- and the world -- at risk.

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Obama up against religious prejudice

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Sep. 23 (Opinion) - In fact, of course, Obama took his oath on the Bible, not -- as the rumors have it -- on the Quran. He is far more active in church than McCain is. ... What is happening, I think, is this: Religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it's not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate's skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Obama is sufficiently Christian.

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Faith-Based Obama

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Jul. 21 (Editorial) - The strict separation of church and state types expressed dismay that Mr. Obama promised a continuation of what they see as undue entanglement. Some religious groups were unhappy about Mr. Obama's caveat: "[I]f you get a federal grant you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them -- or against the people you hire -- on the basis of their religion."

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Get spied on without doing anything wrong

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By D. Parvaz - Jul. 12 (Editorial) - Those who aren't alarmed by racial profiling ought to consider what makes this country special and think about what will be left to protect in a fascistic society where the individual's basic rights -- and our ideal of equal rights -- are meaningless. Just how much of this nonsense are we supposed to suck up in the name of national security?

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Huckabee's Co-Pilot

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Peter Wehner - Dec. 24 (Opinion) - Invoking one's faith is not unprecedented in American politics and is not, by itself, disconcerting. It can even be reassuring. But it is also fraught with danger. If certain lines -- inherently ambiguous lines -- are crossed and faith becomes a tool in a political campaign, it can damage our civic comity and our politics and demean our faith.

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Drawing The Line Between Church And State

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

CBS News - By Martha Teichner - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - But even the possibility that a candidate's brand of faith could become a kind of presidential litmus test worries as many, if not more, Americans than it reassures - among them, Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek. "We are veering very close to violating the article in the Constitution that says, there should be no religious test for federal office," Meacham told Teichner.

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Religion vs. science vs. politics

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By Alan Boyle - Dec. 20 (Opinion) - "The thing that is, I think, so very, very worrisome is that so many people will not realize how dangerous it is for candidates for the presidency to really pander to the religious resentments of people," she said.

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This Is Not a Test

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Christopher Hitchens - Dec. 17 (Opinion) - Isn't it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It's not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of "faith" at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It's not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything "faith-based." It's that when they are even slightly criticized for their absurd opinions, they can squeal as if being martyred and act as if they are truly being persecuted.

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Mitt Romney's case for pastor in chief

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:59:01 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By David Domke, Kevin Coe - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - In that speech, Kennedy declared: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute" and "I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair." Had Romney delivered a similar speech, it would have been good for the nation. But it would have ended his presidential hopes.

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Evolution and Texas

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:12:49 -0800

New York Times - Dec. 04 (Editorial) - Is Texas about to become the next state to undermine the teaching of evolution? That is the scary implication of the abrupt ousting of Christine Comer, the state's top expert on science education. Her transgression: forwarding an e-mail message about a talk by a distinguished professor who debunks "intelligent design" and creationism as legitimate alternatives to evolution in the science curriculum.

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Defining who's 'qualified' in a diverse nation

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:36:43 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By D. Parvaz - Dec. 02 (Editorial) - But... Mitty, buddy, Habibi. Islam isn't an ethnicity. It's a religion. This is something a guy hoping to run a global superpower -- one that's trying to disabuse the Middle East of the notion that the wars it's waging there are rooted in hatred for the faith (one culture's jihad is another's crusade) -- ought to know. But this isn't about forcing Romney to hire someone on the basis of his or her religion. He was asked if he'd consider a qualified Muslim-American for a high-ranking position, and he said no -- based either on the demographic reason, as Ijaz claims, or for reasons that have something to do with his view of the Middle East as filled with nothing but violent fundamentalists. Sounds like Romney needs to clarify his clarification.

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Dividing With God

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:30:01 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Mike Dunford - Aug. 07 (Opinion) - Citizens of the great state of Texas, where I now live, are very proud of their state. Proud enough, in fact, that they've got their very own state pledge of allegiance. We found out about this a few months back while we were researching schools, because every morning all public schoolchildren in Texas pledge allegiance to the United States Flag, then pledge allegiance to the Texas flag, then sit for a moment of silence. We looked up the Texas pledge, and decided that it seemed to be innocuous enough: Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible...Then the Texas State Legislature got in the game and everything changed. They decided that the old version wasn't good enough, but that it could be fixed by just adding a few small words. Now, the children are expected to say this every morning: Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. It's just four little words, but they're words that create problems for me where there were none before. All because a lawmaker in Texas decided that the state wasn't honoring God enough. Now I've got a problem that has no good solution.

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Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Between God and Ataturk

Thu, 10 May 2007 15:14:31 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Andrew Mango - May. 10 (Interview) - Turkey's moderate Islamist ruling party recently provoked massive protests and even the veiled threat of military intervention over its bid to add the presidency to its pillars of power. The clash has exposed deep rifts in a country that prides itself on being a shining example of a Muslim democracy. FP asked Andrew Mango, a prominent scholar of Turkey and an acclaimed biographer of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, what's really at stake in Turkey today.

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Should lawsuits be allowed to halt funding? YES

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:45:00 -0700

Kansas City Star - By Barry W. Lynn - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - American taxpayers cannot continue their protection of the separation of church and state if the courthouse door is slammed in their faces. ... The administration argues that these taxpayers lack the right to sue.

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A Divorce the Church Should Smile Upon

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 04:47:28 -0800

New York Times - By Jack Miles - Mar. 01 (Opinion) - THE decision of the global Anglican Communion to threaten the Episcopal Church, its American affiliate, with expulsion is about much more than the headline issue of homosexuality. Yes, the impending divorce has been precipitated by the decision of the Episcopal Church to consecrate a gay bishop and to allow individual congregations to decide whether or not to allow gay marriages. But as so often in religious history, the deeper issue is one of church governance. In effect, the Episcopalians left the Church of England more than two centuries ago.

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