FPL Daily News Reel: August 17, 2012
After a six-year run bringing you the best faith and politics news every day, Faith in Public Life will be ending the daily news reel email on Friday, August 24th. Thanks for your loyal readership. If you want to stay up to date on all things faith and politics, you can follow our Twitter account @BoldFaithType, where we will be posting stories throughout the day.
Memo to Ryan: “Life Issues” Go Beyond Abortion
By Simone Campbell — Religion & Politics, Opinion
Today, we continue to question how a budget that deliberately harms people at the economic margins while further enriching the wealthiest can ever be defined as “pro-life” or in keeping with Catholic social teachings.
Catholic Group Prays for Paul Ryan’s ‘Conversion’
By Alicia Mundy — Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire
The group launched a website, PrayforPaulsChangeofHeart.org, that asks visitors to “Please pray for Paul Ryan, a devout Catholic, to have a change of heart on the federal budget.” It includes a special Rosary prayer to St. Paul, “the great convert,” to bring about a transformation in the anti-deficit Republican.
As the White Protestant Vote Recedes, the GOP Turns to ‘Voter Fraud’
By Allan J. Lichtman — Daily Beast
Republicans are not responding to a newly discovered crisis in voter impersonation at the polls, but to a partisan crisis brought on by their party’s declining base of white Protestant voters.
Analyst says Romney plays religion card
By Terry Goodrich — Associated Baptist Press
A new political ad by presidential candidate Mitt Romney accusing President Obama of “waging war on religion” is an opening salvo in religious rhetoric that likely will escalate as the November election approaches, says a Baylor University political expert and author.
Obama turns back the clock on Guantanamo
By Baher Azmy — Washington Post, Opinion
In other words, far from closing the prison camp as he promised, President Obama is steadily returning Guantanamo to the secretive and hopeless internment camp that he vilified as a candidate.
PHOTOS: Masses yearning to breathe free
By MSNBC, Maddow Blog
Hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants scrambled to get papers in order Wednesday as the U.S. started accepting applications to allow them to avoid deportation and get a work permit under a new government program.
Nuns group: We are not leaving the church
By Kevin Eckstrom — Religion News Service
A leader of the group of Catholic nuns who are facing a crackdown from the Vatican said Thursday (Aug. 16) that her members have no plans or desire to leave the church, or reconstitute their group beyond Vatican control.
Family Research Council accuses Southern Poverty Law Center of sparking shooter’s hatred
By Chris Lisee — Religion News Service
The SPLC’s Mark Potok called Perkins’ accusations “outrageous,” and said his group is committed to offering “legitimate and fact-based criticism.”
What the Right Gets Wrong About the FRC Shooting
By Adam Serwer — Mother Jones
Given his group’s years-long characterization of gays and lesbians as child-molesting sociopaths bent on abusing children, I doubt [Family Research Council President Tony] Perkins wants his silly standard for what constitutes a justification of violence to be applied to himself.
