Ross Douthat makes some important observations about abortion in red states vs. blue states in today’s New York Times. He writes: “Liberals sometimes argue that their preferred approach to family life reduces the need for abortion. In reality, it may depend on abortion to succeed. The teen pregnancy rate in blue Connecticut, for instance, is roughly identical to the teen pregnancy rate in red Montana. But in Connecticut, those pregnancies are half as likely to be carried to term. Over all, the abortion rate is twice as high in New York as in Texas and three times as high in Massachusetts as in Utah. “So it isn’t just contraception that…
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Obama To Name Kagan to Supreme Court
NBC News reports that President Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Who is this nominee? MSNBC.com has “The Skinny on Elena Kagan.”
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Speaking of Franklin Graham
Albert Mohler sees the bigger picture in Franklin Graham’s disinvitation from praying at the Pentagon. Mohler asks the salient question: “Who Will Be Tested Next? — The Dilemma of Franklin Graham.” Mohler writes, “Evangelical Christians in the United States had better see a big challenge staring us in the face. Franklin Graham was disinvited by the Pentagon for making statements that are required by faithfulness to the gospel of Christ. As reports make clear, it is not just his statements about Islam being prone to violence that cause offense, it is his statements that Islam is wicked because it does not lead to salvation in Christ that cause the greatest…
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Jon Meacham vs. Franklin Graham
Newsweek has a fascinating conversation between Jon Meacham and Franklin Graham about Graham’s disinvitation from the “National Day of Prayer” ceremony at the Pentagon. To me what was most interesting was Meacham’s open animus towards Franklin’s position—an odd posture for a journalist. Meacham simply tells Franklin that he is offended by the public expression of Franklin’s views on Islam.
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Presidential Proclamation—National Day of Prayer
There were some rumors last month that President Obama was cancelling the annual “National Day of Prayer.” But those rumors turned out to be untrue. On April 30, President Obama declared May 6 the “National Day of Prayer” by presidential proclamation. In his own words:
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Russell Moore on the Gulf Oil Spill
For a great perspective on all things ecological, see Russell Moore’s “The Gulf of Mexico and the Care of Creation.” He writes: ‘Some conservatives, and some conservative evangelicals, act as though “environmentalism” is by definition “liberal” or even just downright silly… ‘There’s nothing conservative though, and nothing “evangelical,” about dismissing the conservation of the natural environment. And the accelerating Gulf crisis reminds us something of what’s at stake… ‘We need the creation around us, including the waters and all they contain, because we are not gods. We are creatures who thrive when we live as we were made to live. We exercise dominion over the creation not only when we…
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President Obama’s Litmus Test
There’s a scene in the movie “Three Amigos” in which a leader of Mexican bandits chastises one of his minions for using the word “plethora” while not knowing what the word means (watch it here). I thought about that scene again yesterday when I read about President Obama’s promise not to apply a “litmus test” to judicial appointments. It sounds like the President doesn’t know what a “litmus test” is. Here’s how the New York Times reports it:
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Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to Retire
“Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July… “Stevens’ departure will not change the court’s conservative-liberal split because Obama is certain to name a liberal-leaning replacement. But the new justice is not likely to be able to match Stevens’ ability to marshal narrow majorities in big cases.” –Washington Post
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Final Note on President’s Easter Remarks
A few days ago, I noted President Obama’s remarks at the Easter prayer breakfast that appeared to affirm the resurrection. One wag suggested that the remarks reflected the work of a speech writer and not of the President himself. Amy Sullivan reports for TIME.com, however, that Obama did in fact write the speech himself. She writes:
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Who said that?
You get 100 points in the big book in the sky if you can name the source of this quote: “Even after the passage of 2,000 years, we can still picture the moment in our mind’s eye. The young man from Nazareth marched through Jerusalem; object of scorn and derision and abuse and torture by an empire. The agony of crucifixion amid the cries of thieves. The discovery, just three days later, that would forever alter our world — that the Son of Man was not to be found in His tomb and that Jesus Christ had risen. “We are awed by the grace He showed even to those who…