November 23, 2011 | 12:28 am

Poll: Romney likely to lose votes over Mormon faith

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Follow me on

No kidding:

About half of all voters, and 60% of evangelical Republicans, know that Mitt Romney is a Mormon. The former Massachusetts governor’s religion has implications for his nomination run but not for the general election, should he be nominated as his party’s standard bearer.

White evangelical Protestants – a key element of the GOP electoral base – are more inclined than the public as a whole to view Mormonism as a non-Christian faith. And this view is linked to opinions about Romney: Republicans who say Mormonism is not a Christian religion are less likely to support Romney for the GOP nomination and offer a less favorable assessment of him generally. But they seem prepared to overwhelmingly back him in a run against Obama in the general election.

These are the principal findings from a new national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted Nov. 9-14 among 2,001 adults, including 1,576 registered voters. In the race for the GOP nomination, Romney trails Herman Cain by nine points (26% to 17%) among white evangelical Republican and Republican-leaning voters. Romney leads among white mainline Protestant Republicans (26% to 17% over Cain) and runs about even with Cain among white Catholic Republican voters (26% Romney, 23% Cain).

Read the rest of the study from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life here. Still, as mentioned last week, I think that Romney is the clear Republican nominee to take on President Obama. For the first time in a long time, I’m not convinced that religion—at least not religion of presidential candidates—is going to be a major issue in the election.

Religious beliefs of voters, though, is a different matter.

November 22, 2011 | 2:56 pm

Ryan Braun, MLB’s ‘Jewish MVP,’ named NL most valuable player*

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve written a lot about Ryan Braun. The Brewers slugger—who grew up in the San Fernando Valley and whose father is Jewish—is not yet  the second coming of Hank Greenberg. Braun played on Yom Kippur during the playoffs this year; he’s just not the kind of Jew who wouldn’t. But, like Greenberg, he is a serious ball player.

In MVP talks before (and the Jewish MVP in 2010), Braun was named MVP of the National League today. And I don’t think anyone, certainly not the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp, was surprised.

Mazel tov.

(This post sent from my phone, so links to today’s reports and past posts about Braun to follow.)

UPDATED with links.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 22, 2011 | 12:48 am

Bernard Law, former Boston archbishop, resigns Vatican job

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Almost a decade after Bernard Law was run out of Boston amid revelations of pedophile priests whom he had protected as archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Boston, Law is finally out of a job. On Monday, the Vatican announced, indirectly, that Law as out of a job when Spanish Archbishop Santos Abril y Castello was named the new archpriest of the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major.

RNS reports:

The announcement made no reference to Law, who has served as archpriest since May 2004. Advocates for sex abuse victims criticized the late Pope John Paul II for giving Law the prestigious post after his mishandling of clergy sex abuse in Boston, which broke open the abuse scandals that shook the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Law turned 80 earlier this month, the normal retirement age for cardinals, and also lost his right to vote in any future papal election. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, said Law’s membership in several Vatican offices—including the body that advises Benedict on the selection of bishops—has expired.

Not mentioning Law was likely a PR decision, because no good has come from association with that name. The announcement was also a reminder of just how different the response was to Cardinal Roger Mahony. Despite having been responsible for a handful of pedophile priests, Mahony got to keep his job as archbishop of the Los Angeles archdiocese until he retired this year.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 22, 2011 | 12:30 am

The Patriots Jewish all-purpose player

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The NFL is much more like MLB than the NBA when it comes to members who also double as Members of the Tribe.

The NBA is a desert, and not the one that Moses and the Israelites wandered. But baseball has a handful of Jewish stars—Ryan Braun might even be named MVP of the National League tomorrow.

No Jews in the NFL are that good. I can’t even think of any that fall into the category of fantasy football fill-ins. But if you were watching the Patriots on Monday Night Football, then you probably noticed a little guy named Edelman returning a punt for a touchdown. And maybe, like me, you started to wonder: Is Julian Edelman Jewish?

Edelman has been in the NFL since 2009, and is playing on offense, defense and special teams for the Patriots this season. And it turns out that The Great Rabbino answered this question back then:

Edelman’s father IS Jewish but mother IS NOT. Edelman considers himself Jewish, which is good enough for TGR.

Like me, Edelman was raised Christian. Still, Jew or Not a Jew gives him the label: “Barely a Jew.”

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 20, 2011 | 10:34 pm

‘Jesus The Remake’ trailer

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m going to have to disagree with @almightygod on this one. “Jesus The Remake” does not look promising. I assume that the focus of the film is on what it would be like if Jesus lived today, but, from the trailer, it’s difficult to even tell what is going on.

2 Comments — Leave your comment

November 19, 2011 | 10:52 pm

Factory worker claims he was fired for not wearing ‘666’ sticker

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A Georgia factory worker claims in a federal lawsuit alleging religious discrimination that he was fired for refusing to wear a sticker marking the factory’s 666th accident-free day. The AP has the story. The incredible part to me is not that the worker, Billy Hyatt, felt a religious impediment to wearing the number but that he thought doing so would condemn him to hell:

As the company’s safety calendar approached day 666, Hyatt said he approached a manager and explained that wearing it would force him “to accept the mark of the beast and to be condemned to hell.”

Hyatt claims that his manager at Berry Plastics Corporation said he would not be forced to wear the sticker, but when the day came, he was told that his beliefs were “ridiculous.” He was suspended for three days and later fired.

Read the rest here.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 18, 2011 | 7:07 pm

Lomita investigated for alleged religious discrimination

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Lomita, a tiny town in Los Angeles’ South Bay, has been accused of discriminating against a mosque that sought to expand the Islamic Center of the South Bay. The Lomita City Council rejected the proposal for a consolidated worship 4-0 in March of last year, citing neighborhood and traffic concerns. Now the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether the city violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Iraj Ershaghi, a founding member of the Islamic Center and manager of the redesign project, said council members faced “a lot of pressure”  from residents to reject the proposal.

“There was a feeling that they just don’t want us there,” Ershaghi said of the March meeting.

(skip)

Ershaghi, a USC petroleum engineering professor, said worshipers currently have to walk up to 500 yards to get to different units and restrooms.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Ershaghi said. “The whole idea was to make this part of Lomita clean. You can see that this case really has nothing to do with the building.”

Mosques and worship centers from other religious minorities are no strangers to rejected building-permit applications. I’ve written about this a few times before. But proving discrimination is no easy burden.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 18, 2011 | 10:11 am

Prop. 8 supporters have standing in California court, but what about federal?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It was big, but not unexpected, news that the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that supporters of Prop. 8 have standing to defend the constitutionality of the voter-passed constitutional amendment limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman. The deckhead for an LA Times editorial explained the consequences of the holding this way:

The California Supreme Court’s ruling on standing means the same-sex marriage initiative will be adjudicated on its merits. It should once again be found unconstitutional.

But that is not correct. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to which the group ProtectMarriage appealed an earlier ruling invalidating the law, had certified the question of standing to the California Supreme Court. They wanted to know whether Prop. 8 supporters would have standing to defend Prop. 8 in state court. But the state courts are not bound by Article III of the U.S. Constitution and, even if they were, the California Supreme Court cannot give a binding ruling on federal law to a federal court.

The decision yesterday was merely instructive of how California courts would treat such an appeal. That is important information, but it doesn’t mean that Prop. 8 will definitely be “adjudicated on its merits.” The Ninth Circuit still needs to determine whether ProtectMarriage has standing in federal court.

However, in this case it seems likely that the Ninth Circuit will proceed onto the merits. As Eugene Volokh explains, the question of who gets to represent the state in federal court is a matter of state law:

It’s clear that when a state loses a case at trial, the state may choose to appeal or not to appeal. But who gets to represent the state in making that decision? We’re used to the notion that the “Executive Branch” makes that decision, since that’s the standard federal answer. But of course in many states, including California, there are several separately elected officeholders. Is it the Governor who gets to speak for the state? The Attorney General? The head of an independent state agency, if the state agency made the decision that is being challenged? Someone else? That question of who gets to represent the state in federal court is a matter of state law, and uncontroversially so.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 17, 2011 | 3:14 pm

Jerry Sandusky a Christian?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Every day, new details related to Penn State and the alleged sexual abuse of young boys by Jerry Sandusky seem to emerge. The Christian Post reported yesterday that Sandusky regularly had attended St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in State College, leading the news site to ask: Is Sandusky a Christian?

“You’d have to ask Mr. Sandusky that ... That’s between Mr. Sandusky and God,” said P. Stevens Lynn, senior pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in State College, Penn., in an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday.

“All of us are sinners. All of us fall short of what God expects, and my feeling is that the Christian community thinks that justice needs to be done,” Lynn said about the matter. “The allegations are horrific, and, if proven true, then punishment needs to happen ... but I think, still, we can move toward forgiving as well.”

Like with pedophile priests, it is difficult to imagine Sandusky as a man of God. I’m not judging his heart—just the wicked actions that he stands accused of. Forgiveness is important, but it’s also a lot to ask. Moving toward forgiving will likely be—will understandably be—a very slow process.

4 Comments — Leave your comment

November 17, 2011 | 12:42 pm

The U.S.‘s first Mormon president?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If you have been following the GOP presidential nomination race, then you know that Mitt Romney has gone from frontrunner to an afterthought to frontrunner again after letting all the other interlopers implode.

Now Harold Bloom, the Yale professor of English, asks: “Will This Election Be the Mormon Breakthrough?” An excerpt from his cynical op-ed:

I recall prophesying in 1992 that by 2020 Mormonism could become the dominant religion of the western United States. But we are not going to see that large a transformation. I went wrong because the last two decades have witnessed the deliberate dwindling of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into just one more Protestant sect. Without the changes, Mitt Romney and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a fellow Mormon, would not seem plausible candidates.

Our political satirists, with Mr. Romney evidently imminent, delight in describing the apparent weirdness of Mormon cosmology and allied speculations, but they forget the equal strangeness of Christian mythology, now worn familiar by repetition. Jorge Luis Borges shrewdly classified all theology as fantastic literature, and Joseph Smith’s adventures in the spiritual realm are at least refreshingly original, and were even in 19th-century America, when homegrown systems of belief sprouted prodigiously. Smith was not a good writer, except for one or two of his sermons, as reported in transcriptions by his auditors, but his mythmaking faculty was fecund.

The accurate critique of Mormonism is that Smith’s religion is not even monotheistic, let alone democratic. Though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints no longer openly describes their innermost beliefs, they clearly hold on to the notion of a plurality of gods. Indeed, they themselves expect to become gods, following the path of Joseph Smith.

When the campaign season began, I didn’t think Romney had a chance. But now I find myself wondering whether that’s true. Romney seems destined to get the GOP nomination and I don’t see Republicans or even right-leaning independents withholding their vote from Romney simply because he is Mormon and not a Protestant Christian.

(For a critical look at Bloom’s op-ed, check out this post from Mark Paredes at the Jews and Mormons blog.)

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 16, 2011 | 10:47 am

Tebow saves?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Not since then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, has an American figure’s arrival been so messianic as Tim Tebow’s second coming as an NFL starting quarterback. The Broncos are 3-1 since Tebow took over the starting job, but I don’t think that’s why his jersey has been customized with the name “Jesus” on the back where “Tebow” should be.

You can read about it here, in one of the worst reportorial executions I’ve ever seen. It’s bad even by local TV news standards:

Tim Tebow said he’s a Christian. While at Florida, he wrote scriptures on his eye black paint and now in Denver some are calling him the “chosen one.”

Some have even gone as far as creating Tebow in Christ-like images.

What does a Christ-like Tebow look like? A little clay No. 15 on a cross?

There is at least a picture of the Jesus jersey, though it’s unclear from this story how many have actually been made.

(h/t: RNS Blog)

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 14, 2011 | 3:40 pm

Herman Cain’s Perry impersonation

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If you caught the GOP presidential debate you probably saw three things: (1) Herman Cain refer to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as “Princess Nancy”; (2) Rick Perry’s “oops” moment; and (3) uh ... what was three again?

Well, Cain had his own Perry moment in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Cain had been asked about President Obama’s handling of the revolution in Libya. You can watch his response above. Here’s how it began:

“President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi. Just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, yes I agree, I know I didn’t agree. I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason—no, that’s a different one. I gotta go back to… Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with on what?”

(h/t Political Wire)

1 Comments — Leave your comment