Good news for dinosaur lovers in New York–the Department of Education has abandoned plans to eliminate “dinosaur” and other words that could be potentially offensive or troubling to certain students from standardized tests. Many words that could be upsetting to students of a particular religion were on the list, like Christmas, Halloween, and even “birthdays.”
Now for some not-as-good news: Someone trying to discredit the Industrial Areas Foundation, a community organizing group, created a failed hoax to “expose” an IAF affiliate. Tim King of Sojourners says that this is an example of casting those who don’t agree with us as “evil” rather than just respecting our differences.
In Ohio, a woman who was fired from a Catholic school while pregnant because her baby was conceived through artificial means is taking the archdiocese to court. I discussed the pastoral nature of the decision today on our blog.
Alabama faith leaders are striking back at the state’s harsh immigration law in a new TV ad. On our blog, Father Tom Joyce looks at the Supreme Court case over Arizona’s immigration law.
The trial of Msgr. William Lynn continues in Philadelphia and, as expected, details of sexual abuse by priests that are being revealed are extremely troubling. Lynn, who faces charges for failing to remove priests from ministry, is arguing in his defense that he tried to do so but was blocked by then-archbishop (and now deceased) Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.
And lest we forget it is an election year, a new Gallup poll shows that government policies on contraception aren’t the top priority for most voters. Predictably the bigger concerns are gas prices, unemployment, and health care. And speaking of Gallup, their latest numbers show that Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney among registered voters by a slim margin of 49-45.
