Romney helped & hurt by LDS Prop. 8 activism

Church of Latter Day Saints’ political ‘Death Star’ image may help Mormon politican Mitt Romney, says The Salt Lake Tribune.

And also hurt him in any future presidential bid.

Thomas Burr of the Tribune staff writes:

The LDS effort could give Romney a crucial boost among evangelicals who wield great power in choosing the Republican presidential nominee. But it might leave the former Massachusetts governor an even tougher slog among a broader electorate.

Read the rest of the story here.

Prop. 8 crowd breaking on Supreme Court rock?

ProtectMarriage.com is now fighting its friends as well as its foes as the Proposition 8 battle in the California Supreme Court proceeds, says the San Francisco Chronicle, excluding some allies as too extreme and off-putting.

According to John Wildermuth of the Chronicle, general counsel for the “Yes on Prop. 8” campaign Andrew Pugno said:

We represent the people who got things done, who got Prop. 8 passed. An important part of defending Prop. 8 is eliminating arguments not helpful to our concerns.

Read the rest of the story here

Bailout for the religious right

Frank Schaeffer explains how to bail the religious right out of moral bankruptcy and help heal the country. He writes:

Having once told the truth about those with whom you disagree you evangelical right wingers, and all your fellow travelers, should concentrate on providing both the inspiration for, and the means for, positive change of heart. You could do this in a way that would actually advertise religious faith as an attractive alternative to secularism, rather than making it seem that you are the sort of ignorant rubes who are about to pull a hood over your heads and burn a cross on somebody’s lawn.

Here

SBC cutting slender threads to Baptist women

“This church really is historically tied to the Southern Baptist Convention, but lately it’s only been tied by the slenderest of threads,” the Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell of First Baptist Church Decatur, Ga., told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

It was her first Sunday in the pulpit following the Georgia Baptist Convention’s approval of a policy allowing it to refuse donations from churches which do not adhere to Southern Baptist Convention’s statement of faith.

At the outset, her appointment as pastor in Decatur attracted comment from Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who defended the SBC position that only men may pastor churches.

Southern Baptist Convention leadership (dominated by men) may be divided from the women in Baptist pews and homes, suggests Susan Shaw, director of women’s studies at Oregon State University, in her book God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home & Society.

Breaking the threads connecting it to women in the pew would be the ultimate SBC divorce, would it not?