A few conservative activists accuse Obama of intentionally ignoring Easter, while others are taking issue with his choice of church. Last week, President Obama hosted the second annual Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House. On Easter, President and his family attended Easter services at historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington. Monday featured the annual White House Easter Roll. But in today's political climate, even Easter can be controversial.
When a member of the White House press corp asked on Monday why the president did not issue an Easter proclamation, Jay Carney said that Obama and his family went to church to celebrate Easter, but he was unsure if a proclamation was sent out.
For the American Family Association (AFA) the lack of an official proclamation was “an intentional act of disrespect.” The AFA said he ignored Easter, but “he has released statements in honor of Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha, holidays which most Americans cannot pronounce and certainly do not celebrate.” The AFA encouraged people to send an e-mail to the president over the issue.
The lack of proclamation was featured in a Fox News story that was subsequently picked up by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, which referenced it on Twitter: “The White House failed to release a statement recognizing the national observance of #Easter or Good Friday. http://ow.ly/4Hoo8 @foxnews"
While the White House did not issue a proclamation, it did host an Easter prayer breakfast April 19 with around 130 Christian leaders in attendance. Obama initiated the prayer breakfast last year. In his remarks at the breakfast, Obama explained the purpose for the breakfast and the importance of Easter:
"I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason -– because as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season, we are reminded that there’s something about the resurrection -- something about the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective," Obama said. "…And we’re reminded that in that moment, he took on the sins of the world -- past, present and future -- and he extended to us that unfathomable gift of grace and salvation through his death and resurrection."
The Family Research Council FRC noted that the group of clergy included clergy from “non-traditional groups, among them clergy from homosexual and pro-homosexual denominations, one considered a forerunner in shaping homosexual theology.”
In a very different take on the breakfast, ThinkProgress.com criticized the breakfast for featuring two prominent “anti-LGBT pastors,” Bishop T.D. Jakes and Pastor Tim Keller, who “preach that homosexuality is among the sins for which individuals should seek repentance.”
Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have each featured stories on the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church where the president and his family attended Easter services. The pastor of the church is Rev. Wallace Smith, who is Dean of the Smith School of Christian Ministries at the Palmer Theological Seminary, the seminary of Eastern University.
The Fox hosts focused on statements Smith made around Martin Luther King Day last year at Eastern University when Smith was asked to speak on the topic of racism. Hannity compared Smith to Obama's long-time pastor in Chicago Jeremiah Wright. Since the broadcasts on Fox, Shiloh Baptist Church has received threatening phone calls and emails, the Washington Post reported.
Obama is not the first president to go to worship at the church; Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have also attended the church.
Both the church and its pastor have been generally viewed as positive in the past. For example, in May 2006, First Lady Laura Bush went to the church. Shiloh was helping helping seniors sign up for Medicare prescription drug plans.
“I want to thank Reverend Smith from the Shiloh Baptist Church here. Shiloh is one of the most distinguished churches in Washington, one of the oldest African American churches, and it's a church that's always had a ministry into the community,” Bush said.
Images: (1) President Barack Obama, T.D. Jakes, (behind the President) and others stand and applaud Wintley Phipps at the Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House April 19, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
(2) President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Malia and Sasha attend Easter church service at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., Sunday, April 24, 2011.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 29, 2011 11:08AM | Comments (11)
A religious freedom watchdog panel has added Egypt to its list of the worst violators of religious liberty, citing attacks on Coptic Christians that occurred surrounding the downfall of former President Hosni Mubarak.
“The Egyptian government engaged in and tolerated religious freedom violations both before and after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11,” said Leonard Leo, chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which released its report Thursday.
“In his waning months, religious freedom conditions were rapidly deteriorating and since his departure, we’ve seen nothing to indicate that these conditions have improved.”
Members of the independent commission also continued their criticism of the Obama administration for not making religious freedom a higher priority.
“President Obama’s administration has yet to break from the practice of previous administrations of keeping the issue of religious freedom on the margins of U.S. foreign policy,” the report states.
Leo acknowledged the recent confirmation of the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook as the new ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom and said he hopes it will lead to “meaningful actions” in the near future.
Commissioners, who are appointed by the president and members of Congress, listed a total of 14 countries that they recommend the State Department designate as “countries of particular concern.” The department currently lists eight such countries, a number that remains unchanged since President George W. Bush left office.
Countries on the State Department’s list include Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.
In addition to Egypt, USCIRF says the list should also include Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.
State Department spokesman Evan Owen differed with the commission’s analysis, saying his department issues reports on both religious freedom and anti-Semitism, and now has special envoys for both areas. He said the department will consider USCIRF’s recommendations as it weighs updating its list of the worst violators of religious freedom.
“It’s a long process and with the appointment of an ambassador for religious freedom, we expect it to be a more streamlined process in the future,” he said.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 28, 2011 2:47PM
Activists and members of Congress are nearing the end of a fast over cuts to federal programs aimed at assisting the poor in the U.S. and globally. HungerFast.org, a collection of relief and hunger organizations that opposed cuts, says more than 30,000 people have joined the fast, including members of Congress and celebrities.
There is one notable—and vocal—absentee: David Gushee of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. Gushee said that the fast was well-intentioned but did not address the nation's fiscal issues in the right way.
“While I admire the compassion for the poor that motivates these actions, I think this is a time for deliberative decision-making about our nation’s long-term fiscal responsibility and moral sanity rather than a moment for dramatic gestures,” he said.
Gushee said the U.S. needs to address its structural fiscal problems. He called for a debate over the size and role of the military, the cost of health care, means-tests for Social Security, reductions in government spending and tax breaks, and tax increases for everyone but the poor.
“If we followed this kind of rational path toward fiscal solvency, tackling the big issues in a grown-up way, then we wouldn’t have to resort to showy, irrational budget-hacking or dramatic gestures of protest in response,” Gushee said.
Sojourners president Jim Wallis, a participant and advocate for the fast, said that deficits are moral issues, including how they are reduced.
“Of course, many Americans, including in the faith community, believe that rising deficits are immoral and a threat to our future,” said Wallis. “But how you reduce a deficit is also a moral issue, and to do so by further impoverishing the poor in order to add more wealth to the wealthy is not an acceptable political or moral strategy.”
The fast has been spearheaded by former Congressman and Ambassador Tony Hall. He said budgets are moral documents and that the recent budget compromise shows that the poor are not a national priority.
“I believe fasting, when done with the right heart and the right motive, gets God’s attention,” Hall said. “Hopefully this fast also gets the attention of politicians who would balance the budget on the backs of the poor. It’s time to call on God.”
Criticism of the budget as immoral has also come from the right. Social conservatives backed efforts to ban any federal funding of Planned Parenthood, to curtail the Environmental Protection Agency, and to repeal the health care law passed last year.
“Sadly, the Senate rejection of the defunding of Planned Parenthood and of ‘Obamacare’ means that these two moral blights on the American governmental landscape survived for a little longer,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins also agreed that budgets are moral documents.
“Budgets that shift the burden of responsibility to future generations, while seeking to use taxpayer funds to eliminate those same future generations through abortion, are not only immoral choices, but irresponsible as well,” Perkins said.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 21, 2011 10:45AM | Comments (8)
In Washington, cherry blossoms are in bloom. Love for political leaders, however, is not. A majority of Americans do not approve of how President Obama is handling critical issues such as the situation in Libya or the deficit, according to the April political poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll suggests that Americans also are pleased with leaders in Congress.
While Obama’s overall approval rating was 47 percent, approval of his handling of the deficit was only 33 percent. He fared better for his handling of the situation in Libya, with 41 percent approving. Support was, not surprisingly, highest among Democrats, over 60 percent of whom gave Obama thumbs up on both issues. Republicans were not impressed, with less than one-in-ten approving of his handling of the deficit.
Evangelicals were similarly disapproving of Obama. Only 13 percent approved of his handling of the deficit; 25 percent approved of his job on Libya. This was lower than approval ratings for other religious groups, though mainline Protestants and Catholics showed a similar pattern of having higher approval for Libya than the deficit. Black Protestants and those who are not affiliated with a religious tradition showed the same level of support for Obama's handling of both issues.
But if GOP leaders expected evangelicals to approve of Republican leaders in Congress, they were disappointed. Overall, the public does not look kindly on Congress. Roughly a third approved of Republican leaders in Congress. The same proportion approved of Democratic leaders.
As with Obama's approval rating, there is a partisan split, but not as much of a religious one. Republicans approved of GOP leaders (60 percent) but not Democratic leaders (10 percent). Democrats were the opposite with 59 percent approval for their party's leadership and 15 percent approval for the Republicans.
Evangelicals were the most approving of religious groups of the Republican leadership, but a majority disapproved of the GOP and only 43 percent approved. Mainline Protestants and Catholics disapproved of both parties, and only a third of each tradition approving of each party's leadership. Black Protestants and those unaffiliated with a religious tradition had higher approval of Democrats than Republicans in Congress.
It is unclear from the poll whether the lack of support among evangelicals reflects a low view of Republican leaders per se. While evangelical approval of GOP leaders was not as lopsided as the approval among the rank-and-file Republicans, evangelicals were the only religious group to have a higher approval rating for Republican leaders than Democratic leaders.
Editors Note: The Public Religion Research Institute provided Christianity Today with a religious breakdown of questions from the poll. However, CT is responsible for all analysis and interpretation of the results. Around one-fifth of Americans are identified as white evangelicals in the poll. The margin of error for subsamples is larger than for the poll as a whole. The results are descriptive; religious differences could be due to partisanship, ideology, income, or other factors.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 20, 2011 10:02AM | Comments (7)
President Obama spoke of the “grace” demonstrated by the resurrection at the Easter prayer breakfast Tuesday morning in the East Room of the White House.
Pastor Tim Keller of New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church and Bishop T. D. Jakes of The Potter’s House in Texas also spoke at the event. The breakfast is a “good excuse to bring together people who have been such extraordinary influences in my life and such great friends,” the president said in his opening remarks. Keller’s attendance was his first visit to the White House.
Other guests also included Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, Suzan Johnson Cook, the president’s recently confirmed ambassador of international religious freedom, and faith leaders from Protestant, Catholic, and other religious groups. North Point Community Church pastor Andy Stanley and National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson were among participants in a list provided by the White House.
The president noted recent storms that have swept North Carolina, specifically pointing out Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) and his wife, Dee, who “will be helping those communities rebuild after the devastation.” He also singled out USAID Administrator Dr. Raj Shah for his work with faith leaders.
Obama acknowledged the “hustle and bustle” as the “inbox keeps accumulating,” to a chuckling audience. Easter puts everything into perspective, the president said. “Everybody in this room has weighty responsibilities, from leading churches and denominations, to helping to administer important government programs, to shaping our culture in various ways,” he said. “And I admit that my plate has been full as well.”
But Holy Week is a reminder of God’s grace, Obama said after reading Isaiah 53:5. “This ‘Amazing Grace’ calls me to pray,” he said. “It calls me to ask God for forgiveness for the times that I’ve not shown grace to others, those times that I’ve fallen short. It calls me to praise God for the gift of … his Son and our Savior.”
Over a breakfast of mini foods—including mini yogurt parfaits, muffins and bagels—attendees also heard prayer from Episcopal Bishop Vashti McKenzie and the Rev. Sharon Watkins and performances by the Washington Performing Arts Society Children of Gospel Choir and gospel singer Wintley Phipps.
“You notice that these days prayers are on an iPad,” the president said, pointing out the Apple device when he introduced Bishop McKenzie for the opening prayer. McKenzie thanked God for Easter as the “reversal of Good Friday” in her prayer.
The breakfast was hosted on the Tuesday before Easter in order to avoid conflict with Holy Week services, a White House official said. Joshua DuBois, the head of White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, opened the event with a short guest list and limited press coverage.
The president said that he plans to make the event, now in its second year, “annual” from now on. “The Easter Egg Roll, that’s well established,” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd. Last year, Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels and Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen attended the breakfast.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 19, 2011 10:23AM | Comments (39)
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has announced members of a commission to advise a Capitol Hill review of financial reform of religious groups.
Secularists, however, say the panel's all-evangelical leadership will be unable to police other evangelicals.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked the council to lead an independent review of "self-reform" of religious organizations after he concluded a three-year probe of alleged lavish spending by six major broadcast ministries.
On April 13, the ECFA said the 15-member panel will include Oral Roberts University President Mark Rutland, Campus Crusade for Christ President Stephen Douglass and megachurch leaders Joel Hunter and Bishop Kenneth Ulmer.
Sean Faircloth, executive director of the Secular Coalition for America, criticized the choices.
"Stacking this so-called 'independent' commission with people representing only one narrow religious viewpoint is entirely inappropriate," he said.
ECFA President Dan Busby said the commission will seek advice from legal experts, leaders from a variety of faiths, and representatives of mostly secular nonprofits. The three-year process will include public meetings where anyone can make suggestions, he added.
"We have made a significant effort to set up a framework that will provide broad, broad input," he said in an interview Thursday.
In a statement, Grassley said the commission's mix of input is "important because some of the issues raised by my staff report apply to all charities, not just religious organizations."
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 18, 2011 11:58AM
The Senate has confirmed Suzan D. Johnson Cook to be ambassador at large for international religious freedom.
President Obama waited until June 2010 to send a nomination to the Senate, and then the Senate then failed to act. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) put a hold on the nomination, effectively vetoing it, according to Samuel G. Freedman of the New York Times.
The Obama administration submitted her nomination again in February. Last month, a group of faith leaders sent a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging them to emphasize religious freedom in foreign policy.
Johnson Cook, also known as "Dr. Sujay," retired in 2009 as pastor of Bronx Christian Fellowship Church. Last week, she compared herself to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. "This will go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest nomination," she said at a dinner held last week. "But we thank God to just be in the number."
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 15, 2011 4:10PM
A new poll suggests that 78 percent of religious people display the American flag while 58 percent of nonreligious people do the same. The poll finds that evangelicals are the most likely to show off the stars and stripes.
The American flag is a ubiquitous part of life in the United States. People pin it to their jackets, hang it outside their homes, and stick it to the bumpers of their cars. In its March 30-April 3 survey, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked 1,507 Americans if they “display the American flag, in places such as at your home or office, or on your car or clothing.” Three-quarters of Americans said they displayed the flag.
Showing off the American flag is most common among those who belong to a religious tradition; 78 percent of religious Americans show off the flag. More than 80 percent of evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Catholics display the flag. Black Protestants are slightly less likely to do so, but overall the differences between religious groups are small and are not statistically different from each other.
Together, members of these religious traditions are more likely to display the flag than those who are not affiliated with a religion. About one-fifth of Americans are not actively part of a religion. Only 58 percent of these unaffiliated display the flag.
Even though the flag is a national symbol, it is more likely to be displayed by those on the right than the left. The vast majority of political conservatives display the flag (87 percent). Liberals (55 percent) and moderates (75 percent) were less likely to do so.
Pew also asked about the flag as part of a series of questions on the Confederate flag and the American Civil War, which began 150 years ago this week.
The war may have occurred one and a half centuries ago, but a majority of Americans (56 percent) believe that the Civil War is still relevant to American politics today. One-third of Americans said it was appropriate for public officials to praise Civil War leaders, and more Americans (48 percent) said the war was mainly caused by states' rights (38 percent said it was about slavery). There were few differences between different religious groups on these items.
Eight percent of Americans display the Confederate Flag. About a third of adults (30 percent) have a negative reaction to seeing the stars and bars. Only 9 percent have a positive reaction. A majority (58 percent) feel neither positive nor negative.
White evangelicals have a more positive reaction to the Confederate flag (15 percent), which is higher than the positive feelings among mainline Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religion. About the same number of black Protestants (13 percent) also feel positive feelings toward the Southern symbol.
However, the key answer to this question may be the percentage saying that they feel negative toward the Confederate flag. Four-in-ten African-Americans have a negative reaction when they see the flag, compared to only three-in-ten whites. So while white evangelicals and Black Protestants have the same percentage feeling positive toward the Confederate flag, black Protestants were twice as likely to have a negative reaction (39 percent vs. 21 percent).
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 15, 2011 11:04AM | Comments (7)
A federal appeals court today ruled 3-0 that dismisses a lawsuit against the National Day of Prayer. The decision overturns last year's ruling by U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb that ruled that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Freedom From Religion Foundation did not have standing to bring the lawsuit against President Obama. "But unless all limits on standing are to be abandoned, a feeling of alienation cannot suffice as injury in fact," the court said in its opinion.
President Truman signed into law in 1952 a Congressional resolution establishing a National Day of Prayer. The Justice Department had appealed Judge Crabb's decision.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 14, 2011 11:54AM | Comments (4)
The budget compromise approved by Congressional leaders last Friday made few evangelical leaders happy. The deal dropped the ban on funding to Planned Parenthood sought by social conservatives. Cuts to foreign aid and hunger programs remained despite outcries from relief organizations. Also dropped was an attempt backed by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) to curtail efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate green house gases.
The fight against the EPA began last summer when the agency announced that it would begin regulating CO-2 emissions despite failed efforts in Congress to pass so-called “cap and trade” legislation. The Senate voted last year to stop the EPA, and despite lobbying by the ERLC, the American Family Association, and business groups, the effort failed.
With more Republicans in the Senate this year, the GOP leaders in the House and Senate tried again with a two-prong approach: stand-alone legislation to block the EPA and provisions in the budget negotiations that would strip the EPA of funds needed for the new regulations.
When the Senate voted on the stand-alone legislation last week, the ERLC sent an “Action Alert” urging people to ask their Senators to vote for legislation that would stop the EPA's plan to regulate greenhouse gases. The ERLC said that the regulations would unnecessarily hurt the economy.
“The poor would be hit especially hard,” the ERLC action alert said. “Making this worse, the whole basis for the policy—catastrophic, human-induced global warming—is not even settled among scientists, who are growing increasingly skeptical of such human impact.”
The ERLC's Doug Carlson said, “Caring for God’s creation is a biblical mandate. So is caring for the poor. But taking nonsensical regulatory steps that promise little if any environmental gain yet would adversely affect every man, woman and child through job losses and higher costs for energy and everyday commodities is foolhardy. It is all the more reckless for a government agency to do so when Congress has rejected the idea.”
The Senate voted, and the stand-alone legislation garnered only 50 votes (60 were necessary for passage). According to Politico, the lack of a simple majority emboldened Democratic leaders who used the outcome to show the lack of Senate support for efforts to cut the EPA's budget.
The Evangelical Environmental Network's (EEN) Jim Ball said that despite the outcome, the U.S. needed more leaders who support environmental causes. “Having more evangelical Christians who are actively engaged in the fight to overcome global warming will go a long way to creating such support,” Ball said.
According to a survey last September by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a vast majority of all Americans (81 percent) and of evangelicals (73 percent) favor tougher environmental laws. However, only one-in-ten evangelicals said that their faith was the biggest reason for their position on the environment, compared to a majority who said religion was the most important reason for their position on same-sex marriage (62 percent) or abortion (53 percent).
Many evangelicals are hearing messages from their pastors on the environment. About 40 percent of evangelicals said their clergy had spoken on the environment. In comparison, 89 percent of clergy spoke on hunger or poverty and a majority (52 percent) made statements on same-sex marriage.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 12, 2011 10:32AM | Comments (8)
As the deadline looms to pass a funding measure or shut the government down, budget negotiations took a familiar twist today as some suggested that the debate hinges on abortion funding. The government cannot directly fund abortions, but many social conservatives say that funding other Planned Parenthood services ends up allowing it to provide abortions. A similar issue became a central issue in the health care debates last year until the final compromise.
The New York Times ran with with a early headline, "No Deal Overnight on Federal Budget as Abortion Remains Sticking Point" and a corresponding editorial that blames the Republicans' refusal to bend based on the issue on abortion. The Wall Street Journal says, "Abortion Returns to Center Stage." Businessweek says, "Abortion, Spending Divide Leaders Trying to Avert Shutdown."
However, most of the people making the case that the issue revolves around abortion appears to come from Democrats. The Hill reports that House Speaker John Boehner rejected claims that abortion is the central issue.
“There’s far more than one provision that’s holding up any agreement, I can tell you that,” Boehner said.
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post tweeted, "I don't know if the shutdown is really hung up on Planned Parenthood. But if public perceives it is, GOP is toast."
Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said House Speaker John Boehner is pushing a rider that would enable governors to do what they want with Title X funding, a $327 million program which provides grants for clinics like Planned Parenthood that most conservative governors would defund.
Reid was asked by CNN's Brianna Keilar if he'd offered Boehner more money to drop the Title X rider. He said he had, but that Boehner had turned him down. This surprises me as I've always been under the impression that Boehner was using the policy riders as leverage for more cuts -- that he never really expected to move the needle on abortion, climate change or health care reform. The brouhaha over the riders must be taken with a grain of salt as it behooves Dems to portray Boehner as obsessed with "extreme" riders rather than negotiating in good faith on funding the government. Given that even Michele Bachmann called on Boehner to drop the riders and just pass a "clean" one week extension to give negotiators more time*, I'd be surprised if the only issue at play here is truly Title X.
*Bachmann voiced support for dropping riders for a bill that would insure that military paychecks continue in the event of a government shutdown. Her office made clear Friday that she does not support stripping riders that deal with abortion from the main 2011 continuing resolution bill that is now being negotiated by Boehner, Reid and Barack Obama.
Update: Boehner insisted again today that the debate is not over abortion and said, “Stay tuned. Keep the faith,” National Journal reports.
The lawmaker said Boehner reiterated that the hold-up is spending cuts, and not policy riders, contrary to what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev., has suggested. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., explicitly asked the speaker if the hold-up was “women’s rights” and Boehner said it was not.
Some conservative groups are suggesting that abortion does remain an issue. “The President has singled out Planned Parenthood, a significant financial and political supporter for special attention and protection,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List said in a statement.
Talking Points Memo reports that some Republican lawmakers are urging Boehner to drop the social issues discussion.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) another pro-life conservative echoed his call on MSNBC Thursday, saying the GOP should "move on."
"I'd like to defund Planned Parenthood, but I understand that Republicans don't have complete control of the elected government," Toomey said. "I think what we should do is cut spending as much as we can, get the policy changes that we can, but move on, because there are other, bigger battles that we are fighting."
The post also raised the question over whether the tea party is putting more prominence on fiscal issues over social issues.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 8, 2011 10:27AM | Comments (3)
The Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously ruled against a law that banned both gay and straight unmarried cohabiting couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents. Arkansas voters approved “Act One” in November 2008. Yesterday, the court decided that such an across the board ban violated the right to privacy by forcing couples into a choice between sexual intimacy and parenthood.
“The choice imposed on cohabiting sexual partners, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is dramatic,” the court said in its ruling. “They must chose either to lead a life of private, sexual intimacy with a partner without the opportunity to adopt or foster children or forego sexual cohabitation and, thereby, attain eligibility to adopt or foster.”
The Arkansas-based Family Council Action Committee (FCAC) sponsored Act One and assisted in the defense of the law. FCAC president Jerry Cox called the ruling “anti-child” and “the worst decision ever handed down by the Arkansas Supreme Court.”
“This is a classic example of judicial tyranny,” said Cox. “We have said all along that Act One was about child welfare, and fifty-seven percent of the voters in 2008 agreed. They declared that the State of Arkansas has an obligation to adoptive and foster children to ensure that they are placed in the best possible homes.”
The FCAC argued that Act One was justified because unmarried relationships are less stable, more abusive, more infidelity, lower income levels, and less social support than marriages. The court said that these claims are not true of all cohabiting couples and each of these issues can be addressed when the state screens potential parents.
FCAC was represented by Byron Babione, an Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney. “The court’s decision tragically places more importance on the sexual interests of adults than on protecting children,” Babione said. “The people of Arkansas believe that children deserve the most safe and stable home possible. They cast their ballots to ensure that children wouldn’t be deprived of the best possible family environment and decisively approved Act 1 for that purpose only, but the court struck down the people’s will anyway.”
Public opinion polls suggest that the nation is split on the question of whether gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. A 2006 poll by the Pew Research Center for the Public and the Press found 46 percent of Americans approve of gay couples adopting and 48 percent opposed such adoptions. The vast majority of evangelicals, however, opposed gays adopting. Three-quarters of white evangelicals and 60 percent of African-American Christians opposed such adoptions. Opposition was much lower among Mainline Protestants (44 percent) and Catholics (37 percent).
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 8, 2011 10:15AM | Comments (5)
The Obama administration's embattled nominee for religious freedom ambassador is comparing herself to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as she tries for a second time to land
the post.
"They called Margaret Thatcher the `iron lady,"' the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook said Tuesday in an address to a dinner of religious liberty advocates. "Change the name. It's mine now."
Cook was nominated for the post last June but her nomination stalled and expired in December. President Obama renominated her in February after critics complained the longtime vacancy reflected a low priority for the issue.
Critics, including some on Capitol Hill, have questioned whether the retired New York City pastor lacks enough direct experience to help guide policy on an issue that's at the heart of numerous international conflicts.
"This will go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest nomination," she said. "But we thank God to just be in the number."
Cook was introduced by the legislative affairs director of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, who said attendees hope she will be the next ambassador. As she did at her recent Senate confirmation hearings, Cook recounted her international travels and work after 9/11 as a New
York police chaplain.
The Baptist minister known as "Dr. Sujay" retired in 2009 as pastor of a Bronx, N.Y., church she founded in 1996.
In her address to some 200 ambassadors, lawmakers and church leaders, Cook mentioned recent examples of religious turmoil, including the "arrogant" assassins who killed Pakistan's Christian minister for religious minorities. She called a Florida church's recent burning of a Quran -- which led to deadly riots in Afghanistan -- a "despicable act."
Without singling out any country by name, Cook said governments often give lip service to religious freedom while also taking steps to limit it. "Laws are too often broken by their own governments," she said, "and their people suffer."
Cook said U.S. diplomacy on religious freedom should involve not just forging relations with government officials but working with religious leaders abroad who can help influence political leaders.
"The front lines demand strategic action, not emotional nor reactionary tactics, but strategic, prayerful action," Cook said. "Either we deal with it now or fundamental extremists can fill the power vacuums where regions have lacked democratic institutions."
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 6, 2011 3:29PM
The federal government is, once again, nearing a government shutdown due to the impasse between House Republicans and Senate Democrats over this year's budget. The key issue is how much to reduce discretionary spending. For evangelical political leaders, the fiscal fight represents a moral battle where there is little room for compromise.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press suggests that a majority of Americans want legislators to compromise, but evangelicals want politicians to stand their ground.
Pew asked the public how they wanted lawmakers who share their views to do. A majority of Americans (55 percent) said that their legislators should “be more willing to compromise even if that means they pass a budget [I] disagree with.” Only 36 percent said lawmakers should “stand by their principles even if that means the government shuts down.”
Evangelicals are more likely to want lawmakers to say, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” Among the major religious groups in the U.S., evangelicals are the most likely to agree that their lawmakers should not compromise even if it leads to a shutdown. A majority (51 percent) took this position; 39 percent favored a compromise.
This attitude on the budget is not found among other religious groups. Black Protestants are the most in favor of compromise (72 percent). A majority of other groups including Mainline Protestants (52 percent), Catholics (63 percent), and nonreligious people (55 percent) support compromise even if it means a budget that they disagree with.
Social conservatives want to keep in a complete ban on funding for Planned Parenthood. Advocates for relief organizations are conducting a month-long fast to raise awareness of cuts to aid for the world's poor. Both groups are calling on lawmakers to resist any compromise that violates these issues.
Even though Pew asked people about “lawmakers who share your views,” those who held more conservative political views were more likely to want lawmakers to make a stand. Support for “standing by their principles” was highest among Republicans (50 percent) and conservatives (48 percent) and lowest among Democrats (21 percent), moderates (26 percent) and liberals (31 percent).
If a shutdown occurs, evangelicals would blame President Obama, not Republicans. A majority (55 percent) said Obama would be to blame; only one-fifth said it would be the GOP's fault. Other religious groups tended to blame both sides. Black Protestants were the only religious group to have a majority (72 percent) put the blame on the Republicans.
Republicans in the poll would blame Obama (68 percent). Democrats would blame Republicans (70 percent). Independents were split, with one-third blaming the president, one-third naming Republicans, and one-quarter pointing fingers at both.
The survey, conducted March 30 through April 3, interviewed a random sample of 1,507 adults.
Editor's Note: The Pew Research Center for People and the Press (Pew) provided Christianity Today with a religious breakdown of questions from the poll. However, CT is responsible for all analysis and interpretation of the results. Pew identifies evangelicals as white, non-Hispanic Protestants who described themselves as "born-again or evangelical." Around 18 percent of Americans are evangelicals by this definition. The margin of error for each religious group is larger than for the sample as a whole. The results are descriptive; religious differences could be due to partisanship, ideology, income, or other factors.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 6, 2011 10:14AM | Comments (31)
The U.S. House of Representatives and many state legislatures are considering new abortion-related policies, but will these efforts actually result in fewer abortions?
A new study suggests that the number of abortions is reduced when states enact parental involvement/consent laws, informed consent laws, and restrictions on Medicaid funding for abortion. University of Alabama political science professor Michael J. New published the study in the March State Politics & Policy Quarterly.
Parental involvement laws require minors who are seeking an abortion to have the approval of a parent. Informed consent laws require doctors to inform women on the risks associated with an abortion, details about fetal development, and the resources available for pregnant women and mothers. As of 2005, 33 states had parental involvement laws on the books, and 34 had informed consent requirements.
Both types of laws were unconstitutional prior to the 1992 Casey decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then the courts have ruled that these laws are constitutional because they do not place an “undue burden” women's access to abortion services.
The number of abortions in the U.S. has dropped significantly since the Casey decision. From 1990 to 2005, the annual number of abortions dropped by around 22 percent, from just over 1 million to 820 thousand.
New found that some of this reduction is due to changes in state laws. He examined the abortion rates for each state from 1985 through 2005 and found that prohibiting Medicaid-funded abortions reduce abortions by 7 to 8 percent. This finding has a direct bearing on debates in Congress, which is considering new laws that would codify restrictions on abortions funding in the health care law passed last year.
Informed consent laws lower the abortion rate but are not quite as effective in reducing the number of abortions. Such laws reduce abortions by 3 to 4 percent.
One outcome of the November election is that pro-life legislators increased their numbers both in Congress and in many statehouses. For activists, this provides an opportunity to enact new laws designed to lower the number of abortions.
Parental involvement laws, however, have produced mixed results. These laws do not affect the overall abortion rates. However, New finds evidence among the states that report data by age that parental involvement appears to reduce abortions among minors.
Teasing out whether state laws result in changes to abortion rates is not simple. There are multiple ways to measure numbers of abortion. Some researchers use the number of abortions relative to live births (nationwide, there is one abortion for every three births). Others compare the number of abortions to the number of women. New found consistent results using both approaches and using data from both the Center for Disease Control (which collects reports from states) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (which surveys abortion providers).
The study tests for the efficacy of abortion policies while statistically controlling for factors known to affect abortions, such as the economy and state demographics. The analysis also took into account idiosyncratic effects of states.
New cannot say with his results why informed consent and parental involvement laws are effective. It may be that women change their decisions when confronted with more information on abortions. Likewise, minors may be less likely to seek an abortion if their parents are involved. It may also be the case, however, that women are changing their behavior so that they are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy in the first place.
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 4, 2011 12:18PM | Comments (5)
