Faith

From an article of the same title in the NY Times by Jane Perlez:

From the scant personal details that can be pieced together about Lina Joy, she converted from Islam to Christianity eight years ago and since then has endured extraordinary hurdles in her desire to marry the man in her life... Five years ago she started proceedings in the civil courts to seek the right to marry her Christian fiancé and have children. Because she had renounced her Muslim faith, Ms. Joy, 42, argued, Malaysia's Islamic Shariah courts, which control such matters as marriage, property and divorce, did not have jurisdiction over her. In a series of decisions, the civil courts ruled against her... About 60 percent of Malaysia's 26 million people are Muslim, 20 percent are Buddhist, nearly 10 percent are Christian and 6 percent Hindu... "Malaysia is at a crossroads," Mr. Dawson said. "Do we go down the Islamic road, or do we maintain the secular character of the federal constitution that has been eroding in the last 10 years?" In rulings in her case, civil courts said Malays could not renounce Islam because the Constitution defined Malays to be Muslims.

From an AP article of the same title on abcnews.com:

Customers in a bakery for a Bible study saw a different kind of buns Wednesday morning. A drunken teen came into the Atlanta Bread Co. shortly after it opened, used the bathroom in a storage closet, then walked out of the bakery naked, Bluffton Police Department spokesman Mike Creason said... Employees at the store said the Bible study regulars just shook their heads at what happened.

In last night's episode of 30 Days, Jennifer, a pro-choice administrative assistant who works part time at a womens' health clinic spends 30 days at His Nesting Place, a Christian, pro-life maternity home. It struck me how caring and loving both Jennifer and the pro-life couple who ran the maternity home were. Most disturbing were the images on posters used by some of the protesters as well as the parents of the teenager who died after a botched illegal back-alley abortion which they blamed on their state's parental consent law. Choice or not, it just reminded me how ugly abortion is.

From an article in the LA Times by Karen Kaplan:

Scientists have created human embryonic stem cells using a technique that does not require the destruction of embryos - a development that could break the political roadblock over the highly touted but controversial research. The method, described today in the journal Nature, involves taking a normal 3-day-old embryo with eight to 10 cells and removing a single cell, which is then biochemically coaxed into producing embryonic stem cells. The original embryo, despite missing one cell, is unharmed, thus avoiding concerns about destroying life. Fertility clinics have been removing cells from embryos created in vitro since 1990 to screen them for genetic diseases and chromosomal abnormalities. Doctors estimate at least 2,500 children alive today had a cell or two removed when they were days-old embryos. The Bush administration, which has restricted federal support for human embryonic stem cell research to prevent taxpayers from funding the destruction of embryos, said it was too soon to say whether the new approach could solve the issue's ethical dilemma.

There are similar articles in the NY TImes and The Washington Post.

From an article of the same title on beliefnet by Daniel Burke:

A "new generation of Religious Right" pastors is turning churches into Republican political machines, three left-leaning interest groups charged on Tuesday (Aug. 22). The report, titled "The Patriot Pastors' Electoral War Against the `Hordes of Hell,"' was issued by the NAACP, the People for the American Way Foundation and a subsidiary group, the African American Ministers Leadership Council... In particular, Ohio pastors Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley have been active in Buckeye state politics, the report says, building "a powerful political machine with growing influence ... and the potential to reconfigure both the political and spiritual map, as godliness becomes more clearly defined on a partisan ideological spectrum."... Both Parsley and Johnson have repeatedly and publicly extolled the virtues of Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, though both insist they lead non-partisan efforts.