Entries for September 2009

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Marking a major shift from last year, a new Gallup poll finds that most Americans say the government should promote "traditional values." Check out this graph on the trend:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

The New York Times reports that antiabortion Democrats have gained traction with complaints that their party's healthcare reform proposals lack adequate bans on federally funded abortion. Check out these new developments involving Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, leader of the antiabortion Democrats:

After months of pushing the issue, Mr. Stupak said in an interview, Mr. Obama finally called him 10 days ago. "He said: 'Look, try to get this thing worked out among the Democrats. We want you to work it out within the party,' " Mr. Stupak said, adding that Mr. Obama did not say whether he supported the segregated-money provision or a more sweeping restriction. "We got his attention, which we never had before."

After the president called, Mr. Stupak said, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi agreed to meet with Mr. Stupak on Tuesday to discuss his proposals for the first time, her office confirmed. Her spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, said in a statement, "As we have throughout the process, we are meeting with our members to listen to their concerns, consulting with the administration, and making progress."

Does this mean that Democrats will accept a stricter ban on federally funded abortion in healthcare reform? Not necessarily. But it sure looks like the party's leaders are open to compromise on the issue.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Is it so surprising that many prominent Catholics are taking aim at Roman Polanski's lefty defenders after the filmmaker's arrest last weekend, wondering how the Hollywood set would respond if a priest had admitted to having sex with a minor, as Polanski has?

I guess not.

But what is noteworthy about the Catholics speaking out against Polanski's generally liberal apologists is that they are overwhelmingly liberal themselves. Progressive Catholic blogs are downright apoplectic today about what they say is a double standard for celebrities like Polanski and the Roman Catholic Church when it comes to sex abuse scandals.

Here's Georgetown University's Thomas Reese, proud lefty:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Popular atheist/biology blogger PZ Myers, who seriously skewed my recent poll on "no religion" Americans, criticizes religion reporters like me for stressing that atheists account for a tiny share of the U.S. population, despite the surge in Americans claiming "no religion":

It's rather annoying. Every article I see on this subject makes this desperate rush to reassure their readers that this growing cohort of Americans aren't really those goddamned atheists—they're nice people, unlike those cold-hearted, soulless beasts called atheists, and they aren't planning to storm your churches and rape the choir boys and boil babies in the baptismal fonts, unlike the scary atheistic monsters. . . .

Oh, please. All the low frequency of self-reported atheists in the survey tells you is that the long-running campaign in American culture to stigmatize atheism has been highly successful—and it's an attitude that we still see expressed in reports like this. The most important news they try to transmit is not the increase in unbelievers, it's "Thank God they aren't atheists! They're just rational skeptics, instead!"

PZ has his facts wrong. We know that very few Americans are atheists not because pollsters call around asking "Are you an atheist?" but because they ask about specific religious beliefs. And when Trinity College recently asked "no religion" Americans what they believed about God, here's what they found:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Although he converted to Catholicism six months ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has kept more or less mum about his new faith, declining interview requests on the subject. Gingrich talked to me about his conversion in May, but that was during the course of a longer interview for a profile I was writing. Now, he's sitting down with the Catholic news media for the first time since being received into the Roman Catholic Church.

The occasion: Gingrich is talking up his forthcoming documentary on the role of Pope John II's 1979 trip to Poland in helping to bring down the Soviet Union.

I don't doubt the sincerity of Gingrich's conversion—the decision was arrived at over the course of a decade, and he appears to have given it lots of thought—but it is unavoidable that there are political benefits to having found a new spiritual home.

Though Gingrich has become one of the most high-profile spokesmen of the Republican Party, he's got a lot of personal baggage standing in the way of a 2012 presidential nomination, should he decide to go for it. He's thrice married and has admitted to carrying on an extramarital affair even while, as speaker of the House in the late 1990s, he was leading the impeachment charge against Bill Clinton. Many so-called values voters and influential Christian leaders see him as morally challenged.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

The greening of American religion is a very real phenomenon that stands to have a big influence in the coming Senate push for a climate bill, as I explain in my latest God & Country column for U.S. News Weekly. At a time when many senators are skittish about adopting the House climate bill's cap-and-trade provision because of fears it could further slow the economy, religious activists may prove crucial to building support, or at least dampening opposition, among important religious constituencies.

Here's the top: 

When Orthodox Jews met with top White House adviser David Axelrod and a handful of U.S. senators this month as part of an annual lobbying effort, they talked up climate change legislation as a way to improve security for the United States and Israel. "America's reliance on imported oil from the Arab Middle East has been a grave concern for a very long time," says Nathan Diament, public policy director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. "The Jewish community is interested in energy independence."

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

I'm always struck by news stories that receive lots of attention in conservative Christian circles but get much less play in the mainstream media. The murder of Michigan-based abortion foe Jim Pouillon was one recent example.

This week, the death of ultrasound imaging pioneer John Wild is getting notice in both camps. But Wild is being remembered much differently in antiabortion circles.

Check out this article from Focus on the Family Action's daily political alert, CitizenLink: