Maybe the economy is a political black hole, sucking every other issue into an impossibly dense void.
Maybe Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are just private, cautious men by nature.
For whatever reason, neither President Obama nor his Republican challenger is talking much about religion these days ”” neither about his own faith nor that of his opponent, or the social issues that motivate religious voters.
Bishop Timothy Clarke, head of the First Church of God, a large African-American church with a television ministry in Columbus, Ohio, was perhaps most typical. He felt compelled to address the president’s comments at a Wednesday evening service and again Sunday morning. He was responding to an outpouring of calls, emails and text messages from members of his congregation after the president’s remarks.
What did he hear from churchgoers? “No church or group is monolithic. Some were powerfully agitated and disappointed. Others were curious ”” why now? to what end? Others were hurt. And others, to be honest, told me it’s not an issue and they don’t have a problem with it.”
What did the bishop tell his congregation? He opposes gay marriage. It is not just a social issue, he said, but a religious one for those who follow the Bible. “The spiritual issue is ground in the word of God.”
Polls show a significant difference in results depending on how they ask about same-sex marriage, especially when it’s framed as a “right” compared to when it’s framed as supporting marriage between a man and a woman. The difference in wording can create about a 12 percentage point difference.
The federally-funded General Social Survey has asked about the public’s views toward homosexual relationships for decades, revealing how attitudes have shifted over time. In 1988, the two-thirds of white Americans believed that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” was “always wrong,” including 85 percent of born-again Christians. By 2010, both groups began to accept same-sex relationships. Born-again Christians still opposed homosexuality, but they answered the questions the same way non-believers answered in the 1980s. In 2010, two-thirds of evangelicals believed that homosexuality is “always wrong,” compared to just 30 percent of others.
At a black Pentecostal church in Raleigh, N.C., the Rev. Patrick Wooden entered the sanctuary on Sunday to a standing ovation, exulting that God’s “high hand” had led voters last week to pass a statewide amendment banning same-sex marriage. He took to the pulpit and denounced President Obama for taking a stand “in support of sin,” and “in opposition to the biblical model of marriage.”
A thousand miles away, at a predominantly white, Lutheran church in Madison, Wis., where a rainbow banner greets churchgoers arriving for services, the Rev. Susan Schneider preached that gay men and lesbians were included when Jesus commanded his followers to love one another: “Knocking down the walls is what Jesus was after.”
Mr. Obama’s declaration last week that he supports same-sex marriage prompted ministers around the country to take to their pulpits on Sunday and preach on the issue. But in the clash over homosexuality, the battle lines do not simply pit ministers against secular advocates for gay rights. Religion is on both sides in this conflict. The battle is actually church versus church, minister versus minister, and Scripture versus Scripture.
President Obama’s comments today in support of the redefinition of marriage are deeply saddening. As I stated in my public letter to the President on September 20, 2011, the Catholic Bishops stand ready to affirm every positive measure taken by the President and the Administration to strengthen marriage and the family. However, we cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons.
That the losses would only dent the quarterly profits at one of the world’s largest banks, and that they were revealed by the bank’s own management, did not diminish the chorus on Capitol Hill for tighter controls. The charismatic and often outspoken Dimon, who has argued rigorously against strict financial regulations, fielded calls Friday from several lawmakers and regulators at the bank’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters.
The biggest blow-up between Wall Street and Washington since 2010, when Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act to tighten oversight of the financial industry, comes just as regulators are drafting new rules governing banks. A signature feature of the law is the Volcker Rule, a prohibition on banks engaging in speculative bets. The authors of the act say the measure might have prevented JPMorgan’s bad trades had it been in effect.
“There are certainly members of the church and members of the diocese who believe it is a justice issue, but we have as many who believe that it is a theological issue,” [Upper South Carolina Episcopal Bishop Andrew] Waldo said. “The stand that I’ve taken for a long time is that when Jesus called the disciples to love one another, he also called the disciples to give themselves up for each other.
“The question that I’m asking is, ”˜What are we willing to give up for the sake of each other?’”
At the national convention of the Episcopal Church in July, Waldo and other bishops will take up the issue of the blessing of same-sex unions, although Waldo said “there is not going to be a vote that says here is what the church is going to do. It will be for experimentation and contemplation.”
Symbolically, Obama’s comment to ABC News that “same-sex couples should be able to get married” is an important, even historic, marker of how far public opinion has shifted. No previous president has endorsed gay marriage.
Politically, his declaration injects another hot-button social issue into the presidential race, to uncertain effect. Republican candidate Mitt Romney promptly reiterated his view that marriage “is a relationship between a man and a woman,” setting up a sharp contrast for the fall campaign.
But practically, Obama’s “evolution” changes little. Marriage remains a state matter. Same-sex marriage is unlikely to become the law of the land any time soon. And polls aside, the idea has yet to catch on where it matters most: with voters.
The President went on to justify his new definition of marriage with these words: “The thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the golden rule ”” you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated”¦” Mr. President, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary was for the sins of the world. Jesus did not die to take away the moral law or the God-given teaching on marriage. He died to redeem us from our inability to keep that law. The Golden Rule is also misapplied in this instance. To redefine marriage in a way that is contrary to God’s word is to do immeasurable harm to one’s neighbor, not good.
On this day after the announcement, we are told that pollsters have now determined that 50% of the country aligns with President Obama’s position on redefining marriage. Whether or not we believe these numbers, it is important to remember that some decisions are not about the majority or what we feel is best. Some decisions are made in eternity and determined by a loving and just God. Some decisions are above our pay grade. And so I say respectfully No, Mr. President.
In fact, one of the most striking aspects of Obama’s revelation on Wednesday (May 9) that he and his wife, Michelle, support marriage rights for gays and lesbians, is that he invoked their Christian faith to support his views. In past years, Obama ”“ as many believers still do ”“ had cited his religious beliefs to oppose gay marriage.
Obama told ABC News that he and the first lady “are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated.”
President Obama today announced that he now supports same-sex marriage, reversing his longstanding opposition amid growing pressure from the Democratic base and even his own vice president.
In an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, the president described his thought process as an “evolution” that led him to this place, based on conversations with his own staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and conversations with his wife and own daughters.
“If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them,” the statement says. “No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.”
The document cites a number of other perceived threats to religious freedom besides the contraception policy, such as harsh immigration laws that could impede the church’s social ministry and university policies targeting campus student religious groups.
The statement also makes a concerted effort to portray the Catholic campaign as bound up with the fight to defend American values from an overbearing central government.
“Obama had two main objectives ”” to deflect Israeli pressure to conduct or acquiesce in a premature war, and to neutralize Republican criticism that he is too soft on Iran and too hard on Israel,” said Robert Malley, program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group. “On those fronts, mission accomplished.”
But, Mr. Malley added, “victory came at a price.” By stating clearly that containment of a nuclear-armed Iran is off the table, Mr. Obama may have committed America to military action to halt Iran if other means fail to do so, Mr. Malley said.
Mitt Romney to be Republican Presidential Nominee in 2012–92.1
Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012–59.2
Due to the requirements that the HHS Mandate imposes on Catholic institutions, the Obama administration has been widely criticized over the question of religious freedom. “The real issue in political life,” explained [Professor William] Luckey, “is not contraception: it’s the First Amendment. That’s the real issue because the Constitution says that there’s not going to be a national religion. [”¦] But it also says, ‘Congress shall make no law restricting the freedom of religion.'”
The federal government’s attempt to involve itself in the religious beliefs of people, explains Professor [Bernard] Way, associate professor of political science, goes against the Constitution in a very fundamental way. “On the surface,” Way said, “the biggest issue has to do with First Amendment concerns, and freedom of religion. No religious institution should be forced by the government to do anything against their conscience or their beliefs. [”¦] People, and other associations in society, should be left free, especially on matters of conscience, which the founders always understood was a matter of religion.”
Mitt Romney to be Republican Presidential Nominee in 2012 90.0
Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012 60.0
At some point, the spectacle America is now calling a presidential campaign will turn away from comedy and start focusing on things that really matter””such as the “fiscal cliff” our federal government is rapidly approaching.
The what? A cliff is something from which you don’t want to fall. But as I’ll explain shortly, a number of decisions to kick the budgetary can down the road have conspired to place a remarkably large fiscal contraction on the calendar for January 2013””unless Congress takes action to avoid it.
Well, that gives Congress plenty of time, right? Yes. But if you’re like me, the phrase “unless Congress takes action” sends a chill down your spine””especially since the cliff came about because of Congress’s past inability to agree.
The CBO forecasts it will now cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, whereas before they forecast it would cost 940 billion.
Read it carefully and follow all the links. Also, you can read more over there.
A majority of Americans say religiously affiliated organizations — such as hospitals and universities — should be exempt from the Obama administration’s abortion/contraceptive mandate, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll.
The survey found that by a 57-36 percent margin, U.S. adults believe religious organizations should be allowed to “opt out” of covering birth control for their female employees. The poll did not use the word “abortion,” although Christian leaders say the mandate would require them to cover contraceptives that can cause chemical abortions.
The poll also found that 51 percent of adults believe that any employer — and not just the ones with religious ties — should be able to opt out if they find such coverage objectionable based on religious or moral beliefs. Forty percent disagree.
The Catholic bishop leading the push against the White House’s contraception mandate says the bishops hope to restart contentious talks with the Obama administration, but cautioned that church leaders “have gotten mixed signals from the administration” and the situation “is very fluid.”
Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., who chairs the religious liberty committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Religion News Service that Catholics have to stay united if the hierarchy is to have any chance of prevailing in negotiations with the White House.
The facts are that the Korans were seized at a jail because jihadists imprisoned there were using them not for prayer but to communicate incendiary messages. The soldiers dispatched to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had seized the books, had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve the books when the situation was brought to their attention.
Of course, these facts may not become widely known, because no one is supposed to mention the main significance of what has happened here. First, as usual, Muslims ”” not al-Qaeda terrorists, but ordinary, mainstream Muslims ”” are rioting and murdering over the burning (indeed, the inadvertent burning) of a book…
….Bloomberg News reported last week that “the U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency. … Domestic oil output is the highest in eight years. The U.S. is producing so much natural gas that, where the government warned four years ago of a critical need to boost imports, it now may approve an export terminal.” As a result, “the U.S. has reversed a two-decade-long decline in energy independence, increasing the proportion of demand met from domestic sources over the last six years to an estimated 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011.” This transformation could make the U.S. the world’s top energy producer by 2020, raise more tax revenue, free us from worrying about the Middle East, and, if we’re smart, build a bridge to a much cleaner energy future.
All of this is good news, but it will come true at scale only if these oil and gas resources can be extracted in an environmentally sustainable manner. This can be done right, but we need a deal between environmentalists and the oil and gas industry to lock it in ”” now.
The Obama administration will propose lowering the top income-tax rate for corporations to 28% from 35% but would raise overall tax revenue by eliminating dozens of popular deductions in an effort to restructure the corporate tax code.
The proposal, which will be announced Wednesday, would lower the “effective” tax rate on manufacturers to “no more than 25%,” according to a senior administration official, down from the current average rate of about 32%. It raises taxes on oil and gas companies that would lose many large deductions and subsidies.
The plan would require U.S. companies operating overseas to pay””for the first time””a minimum tax rate on their foreign earnings.
One of the key questions of 2012 is which party can make the stronger case to voters who, in Obama’s words, “feel the American dream slipping away.” Democrats are heartened by more favorable reports on employment, rising approval ratings, and their apparent victory in Congress on extending the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits. But, as the Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg notes, the Party’s base now consists mainly of young people, African-Americans, Latinos, single women, and affluent suburbanites. In 2008, Obama struggled to connect with voters he referred to as “lunch-pail folks”””the ones clinging to their guns and their religion. He lost them by eighteen points. As the conservative political analyst Michael Barone points out, even though Obama won a higher percentage of the total vote than any Democratic President except Andrew Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, he did it with “a top-and-bottom coalition”””holders of graduate degrees and high-school dropouts.
With the Republicans preoccupied by their race to the right, Obama has the luxury of honing a message aimed at the middle. The slogan he tried out in the State of the Union, “an America built to last,” sounded like an ad for a mattress company, or a car company””a little like Clint Eastwood’s “halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler. The Republican onetime mayor of Carmel, California, huskily declared that “all that matters now is what’s ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together?”
For the fourth year in a row, President Obama is proposing lower tax deductions for the wealthy on donations to churches and other nonprofit organizations. And for the fourth year in a row, nonprofit groups say the change would lead to a dramatic drop in charitable giving.
The reduction, included in Obama’s 2013 budget proposal, rankled the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
“We were hoping this would not come up again this year. We asked that they not renew it, but unfortunately the request was not taken,” said Nathan Diament, the group’s Washington director. “It’s a real concern.”
A crucial thing to remember, both about the mandate and the promised adjustments-to-come, is that it is deeply un-American in its hostility to diversity and pluralism in civil society. The mandate’s religious-employer exemption is limited only to inward-looking entities that hire and engage only their own. It embodies the view that religious institutions may be distinctive only insofar as they stay in their place ”” in the pews, in the pulpit, at the altar. It reflects a troubling tendency to impose ideological sameness and conformity in the public sphere, to insist that all groups and associations act like the government, in the service of the government’s goals.
The mandate prompted an impressively united reaction by those who cherish America’s tradition of religious freedom and accommodation. On the left and on the right, among Republicans and Democrats, there was an appreciation for the fact that this was an overreach. It was, and still is.
At what point is a middle-class American ”” who has insurance ”” allowed to complain about the increasing taxes we pay to finance the national health-care system?
After all, what is a tax but an assessment imposed by authority on citizens for public purposes? And that seems a fair description of how our health-care system works. The federal government tells companies which services they must provide. In turn, the companies raise rates so they can meet these requirements and still make a profit. Basically, each time a federal official tells us that “insurance companies” will pay for, say, free condoms or expanded coverage, premiums paid by the middle class go up. Call it an unofficial tax, one collected by private industry instead of Washington.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d prefer to pay a federal health-care tax and get European-style care. But the current plan is the worst of both worlds: socialist enough, if you will, to provide free care for the poor; capitalist enough to make sure companies are guaranteed profit.
Attorneys general from a dozen states say they intend to sue over the Obama administration’s contraception mandate that requires many religious employers to violate the teachings of their faith.
In a Feb. 10 letter, the attorneys general voiced their “strong opposition” to the mandate, which they called “an impermissible violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment virtually unparalleled in American history.”
They said that if the mandate is implemented, they are prepared to “vigorously oppose it in court.”
Seeking to avoid a politically toxic vote, Congress has failed to pass a federal budget for three years. This year’s new twist? Congress might not even try.
On Monday, President Obama presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013. It’s going nowhere on Capitol Hill, legislators and political analysts agree. What’s more, Senate Democratic leaders show no intention of presenting their own budget proposals ”“ or taking up any lobbed over from House Republicans.