Religious Right

Max Fisher writes that Obama’s comment was “so banal it could be an after-school special. That it has provoked national controversy goes to show that there is still a mainstream thread of thought in America that Islam is an inherently violent religion, that the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are somehow different, and that non-Muslims are superior human beings.”

The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman advocates that Obama skip next year’s National Prayer Breakfast and instead “hold his own inter-faith breakfast at the White House, one geared more toward understanding and less toward proclamations of the one true faith. Of course, conservatives would be apoplectic if he did that, saying that it just shows how he hates Jesus and hates America. Which is…

After years of virtually always failing to file a print news report on the March for Life, the New York Times this year ran a full half-sentence on the rally of tens of thousands in Washington, in a Jeremy Peters' report that used the march's existence solely to embarrass the Republican Party over its mishandling of an abortion bill.  

On Wednesday's Now With Alex Wagner on MSNBC, Eric Bates raised the specter of censorship by Christian conservatives during a panel discussion on the past Muslim backlash against Charlie Hebdo magazine – the target of an Islamic terrorist attack in Paris earlier in the day. Bates, a former executive editor for Rolling Stone magazine, cited Jerry Falwell's lawsuit against porn magazine Hustler in…

In a Talking Points Memo piece, Ed Kilgore opines, “Even if the supply side of theocratic impulses in America is abating a bit, the demand side will boom” because of “a large and noisy Republican presidential nominating fight in which Christian Right resources will be a fiercely contested prize.”

With Christmas three days away, one liberal atheist took to the far-left website Salon to dismiss the existence of a “war on Christmas” spotlighted annually by conservatives and news pundits, led by the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) Bill O’Reilly. At the same time, however, the author seemed perfectly fine attacking Christmas himself, claiming that Jesus Christ never existed and wondered if “anyone” …

The Daily Beast's Jay Michaelson warned his left-wing fellow-travelers in a Tuesday item that Pope Francis "does not intend to change fundamental Catholic doctrine" on human sexuality. His evidence: the Bishop of Rome spoke at a "bizarre" (in his words) conference where "a who's who of theological conservatives from a breadth of Western religious traditions" gathered to discuss traditional…

Left-wing academics Candida Moss and Joel Baden blasted conservative and traditionalist Catholics in a Sunday post on The Daily Beast website for their opposition to Pope Francis's change in tone on social issues. Moss and Baden made their loathing of orthodox believers clear by hyping how supposedly, "conservative Catholics have had their chastity belts in a twist over Francis and apparently,…

Don Lemon surprisingly brought on a Catholic seminarian on Thursday's CNN Tonight for his take on cancer patient turned euthanasia advocate Brittany Maynard's controversial plan to kill herself. Philip Johnson, who, like Maynard, is afflicted by a terminal brain tumor, recently published an open letter to his fellow cancer patient – calling on her to cancel her suicide plans and "fight this…

On the early Wednesday edition of Nightline, ABC's Byron Pitts zeroed in on how Adam Daniels, the organizer of a Satanic ritual in Oklahoma City, claims to be a "religious leader," and is yet a "convicted sex offender." The correspondent bluntly turned to Daniels and said, "You get how, for most people, those two things don't line up." Pitts also pointed out another controversy that the Satanic…

Ed Kilgore says conservative Christians don’t want to put up with unpleasant things like “equality” and “rights” and “government schools.”

The lefty blogger claims that Christian conservatives, given the chance to protect the liberty of others to practice different faiths, “turn right back into the theocrats they always were, interested only in having government endorsement of their religion.”

The lefty writer says conservatives are at war with reality, and they want schoolkids in the Lone Star State and elsewhere to learn illusions about American history. Marcotte’s peg was a report from the liberal Texas Freedom Network alleging, in Marcotte’s words, “that conservatives have been able to inject a shocking number of lies and disinformation into [Texas] public school history…

The Missouri legislature may override Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of a 72-hour abortion waiting period. If that happens, it's another victory for social conservatives' quest to impose religious law in America.