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Abortion Fight Moves to Mikulski Amendment
Tweet Share on Facebook December 3, 2009 Comment (6)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The Mikulski "women's health amendment" to the Senate healthcare reform bill didn't include the word abortion. But opponents of abortion allege the amendment, which was passed today, leaves the door open for the Health Resources and Services Administration to include abortion as "preventive care" in its guidelines and therefore guarantee no-cost coverage for the procedure.
"Because today's bill as written has no exclusion for abortion in its language, there is no doubt that Sen. [Barbara] Mikulski's amendment opens the floodgates to massive public underwriting of abortion, a position Planned Parenthood has always favored," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement. "Without the adoption of 'Stupak-Pitts' amendment language in the Senate version of the bill, it's now very clear that taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions."
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D.C.'s Anti-Gay-Marriage Crusader Ponders This Week's Loss
Tweet Share on Facebook December 3, 2009 Comment (22)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
I asked the Rev. Harry Jackson, the Maryland megachurch pastor who led the unsuccessful effort to prevent legalized gay marriage in Washington, what lessons Christian conservatives took from this week's loss. (The D.C. council overwhelmingly approved a gay marriage bill Tuesday.) Jackson said his movement needed to get more politically sophisticated to complement its grass-roots organizing success. Jackson, who is black, also spoke to the racial politics surrounding D.C.'s move toward legalizing gay marriage—and vowed political revenge:
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Is Sarah Palin the Next James Dobson?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 2, 2009 Comment (37)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Could Going Rogue establish Sarah Palin as a Christian Leader as much as it solidifies her status as a political player? I make the case in my most recent God & Country column from U.S. News Weekly.
Here's the top:
How much is Sarah Palin's new book tailored to evangelical Christian readers? Her writing partner for Going Rogue, Lynn Vincent, is a longtime editor at World magazine, which practices "biblical worldview journalism." Though the book is published by an imprint of HarperCollins, it is being distributed to Christian booksellers by Zondervan, the world's leading publisher of Bibles. And Going Rogue brims with testimony about Palin's Christian faith. Its opening pages relate how Palin's daughter Piper literally became the poster child for the antiabortion group Alaska Right to Life by posing for a picture with "pretend angel wings fastened to her soft shoulders."
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Pew Survey: Democrats' Faith-friendly Image Suffers, While Obama's Fares Better
Tweet Share on Facebook December 1, 2009 Comment (3)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Americans view the Democrats as less religion friendly now than they did a year ago, while President Obama's administration is seen to be warmer toward religious faith than its party is, according to a new survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Twenty nine percent of Americans say Democrats are friendly toward religion, compared to 38 percent who said that last year, according to the survey.
Thirty seven percent say the Obama administration is friendly toward religion, though it's unclear how that compares to previous views because Pew didn't ask the question last year.
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Was Huckabee's Maurice Clemmons Clemency Faith Based?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 1, 2009 Comment (32)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Once again, one of Mike Huckabee's seemingly faith-based maneuvers has gotten him in big trouble with his party's base. First it was his stance on immigration, when he called for children of illegal immigrants to be able to get government aid for college. Now there's evidence that Huckabee's decision to commute the sentence of suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons as governor of Arkansas was motivated, at least partly, by religious beliefs. Talking Points Memo notes that Clemmons stressed his faith in a 2000 letter to Huckabee:
Clemmons said he came from "a very good Christian family" and "was raised much better than my actions speak (I'm still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought to my family name.)," he wrote.
"Where once stood a young (16) year old misguided fool, who's (sic) own life he was unable to rule. Now stands a 27 year old man, who has learned through 'the school of hard knocks' to appreciate and respect the rights of others. And who has in the midst of the harsh reality of prison life developed the necessary skills to stand along (sic) and not follow a multitude of do evil, as I did as a 16 year old child."
Clemmons added that his mother had recently died without seeing him turn his life around and that he prayed Huckabee would show compassion by releasing him.
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