Magazine > Issues
A Question of Empathy
How science is rehsaping the abortion debate READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
Bill, the Times They are a Changin’…
I could hardly process the thoughts and images that flooded my mind as I watched Bill Clinton angrily chastise a group of pro-life student protesters from Franciscan University in Ohio this past weekend. After all, this was the same Bill Clinton whose political aspirations were forged during the antiwar protest years of the sixties, the same … READ MORE >
News > Issues
For the Children: David Blankenhorn and Kay S. Hymowitz on marriage
“The material Blankenhorn amasses establishes that far from a private relationship to satisfy adult needs, marriage is a social institution to meet social needs. Against this argument the case for same-sex marriage cannot stand… [A]ccepting same-sex marriage means accepting same-sex parenthood, by whatever means a child is acquired. This will deny the child the very benefit marriage was instituted to confer on him. Blankenhorn characterizes Andrew Sullivan's argument as ‘reeking of narcissism’ and demanding that ‘we worry less about children and more about adults.’" READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
They’ll Believe in Anything: Study says atheists are more irrational
A new Gallup study, “What Americans Really Believe,” suggests that if anti-religious crusaders Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins want a more rational, less superstitious world, they should encourage people to go to church. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that, according to the study… “…traditional Christian … READ MORE >
News > Issues
Human Therapeutic Cloning at a Standstill
News > Issues
Pat Robertson Endorses Giuliani for President
Pat Robertson puts the “War on Terror” and Christian nationalism ahead of the Gospel and traditional values, and confirms liberal claims that the Christian Right is interested in power, not piety. READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
Catholic Bishops in England and Wales take on secularism
The Catholic Church in England and Wales is moving into political high gear. On Wednesday last week Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor hosted a meeting of 25 Catholic MPs in preparation for the forthcoming parliamentary battle over the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill – provoking the ire of secularists. “The church is at it again,” … READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dies
Over on his Tumblr, Radar Online Editor Alex Balk takes a moment to note the passing of former secretary of agriculture Earl Butz. First, he lauds fellow blogger Daniel Radosh for being willing to print what the papers won’t, namely, the actual quote that eventually led to Butz’s booting. The NY Times wrote: “he described blacks as … READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
Michael Massing: An Inconvenient Truth Teller
Two years ago for GodSpy I interviewed press critic Michael Massing about his Columbia Journalism Review essay that criticized the New York Times for ignoring public concern about the harmful effects of pop culture on children. In an interesting twist, Massing in the New York Review of Books this week cites a GodSpy interview in an essay … READ MORE >
News > Issues
These Scientists Can’t Tolerate the Pope
"Sixty one Italian scientists have signed a letter protesting against a planned visit this week by Pope Benedict XVI to Rome's Sapienza University because of his stated views on Galileo... Then Cardinal Ratzinger ... observed that 'At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just.' The Italian Catholic writer Vittorio Messori agreed, saying Galileo 'was not condemned for the things he said, but for the way he said them. He made statements with sectarian intolerance...'" READ MORE >
News > Issues
Bob Guccione Jr. finds his way back to church
"For Gooch, an erstwhile altar boy who describes himself as 'a lazy but devout Catholic,' science is incomplete without the contemplation of faith. 'I have no trouble whatsoever accommodating, side by side, the ideas of multiple universes and the Immaculate Conception...'” READ MORE >
News > Issues
A Liberal Admits that ‘Christianophobia” is a Problem
“In parts of Africa where bandits and warlords shoot or rape anything that moves, you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians. In the town of Rutshuru in war-ravaged Congo, I found starving children, raped widows and shellshocked survivors. And there was a determined Catholic nun from Poland, serenely running a church clinic. Unlike the religious right windbags, she was passionately ‘pro-life’ even for those already born — and brave souls like her are increasingly representative of religious conservatives. We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.” READ MORE >
