Just Law and Religion

So Terry Jones won't "today, not ever" burn a Quran. I guess the media can now move on to sensationalizing some other previous unknown willing to say ludicrous things and get us all talking about it for a week.

Jones suggested he doesn't need to burn the Quran because his goal all along was "to expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical."

Actually, I think that Islam had a radical element was abundantly clear when four planes were hijacked nine years ago and thousands perished--Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, and every other stripe of humanity--at the hands of militants wrapping themselves in their own version of Islamic ideology and decrying the West and its perceived hegemony.

It was abundantly clear when, all over the world, planes have been hi-jacked, bombs detonated, human rights leaders assassinated, and fatwas issued for all manner of supposed violations of Allah's justice, as interpreted by the radicals.

We didn't need Jones and his hate-filled stunt to expose this. It was already in plain, bloody sight.

However, the constant refrain for the past few months coming from those who are, like Jones, trying to "expose the radical element of Islam" has been transformed by some into a tune that all of Islam is inherently militant, its roots are political and not religious, and every Muslim is a potential terrorist. Read the blog comments of most any article, or some politicians' statements, and you'd think every Muslim was hellbent on destroying every non-Muslim. The problem, so they say, is not how the Quran is interpreted, but the Quran itself. It's not "radical Islam," but "all of Islam."

These blanket statements, however, ignore that the vast majority of Muslims seek the same peace and tolerance that everyone else does. It ignores the vast reflection of the commonalities among religious traditions--particularly those from the common Abrahamic root (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Catholics can turn to âŽNostra Aetate, in which Pope Paul VI declared: "The Church...has a high regard for the Muslims, who worship one God, living and subsistent, merciful and omnipotent, the Creator of heaven and earth."

And one need only take the "Islam is inherently evil" plank from one's eye and read the daily world news to see that one other primary target of terrorists operating in the name of Islam are "moderate" Muslims. These sweeping assertions ignore the many, many Muslims who have died at the hands of terrorists (including the significant number of Muslim-Americans who perished on 9/11). Muslims trying to shop in markets, ride on buses, and go to prayer are regularly blown up by radical Muslims. Osama bin Laden and his ilk don't just hate us; they hate those who could be their brothers-in-arms but instead embrace peace, love, harmony, and modern values. Osama bin Laden's henchmen would blow up the Cordoba House or President Obama as readily as they would want to blow up President Bush's house in Texas. And they target many Islamic governments throughout the world. Those who are against bin Laden's vision--whether "liberal Muslims" or the US Commander-in-Chief--are equally their enemy.

As much danger as Jones' bonfire posed to our military interests--and that realization did apparently did shake him to come to his senses--the greater danger was to our own character as a nation. Jones and his cheerleaders would have incinerated both the religious holy book of many who embrace peace and love, but also our nation's core duty to embrace and work toward tolerance and justice. This is an aspirational goal, and requires much hardwork, but it defines our national project. Those who burn books have, instead, always been on the wrong side of history. Freedom-loving people, instead, pursue critical dialogue and, when necessary, force to defend every peace-loving citizen--Muslim, Christian, or non-believer alike.

And the real material danger of this callous and counterfactual lumping together of all Muslims as terrorists is the simple fact that it is a diversion of attention and resources of epic proportions. It takes our collective eye off the ball, the real threat can go stealth under the immense fear and hate that is building in our culture.

Besides the myriad constitutional problems for violating Muslim-American civil rights, in many cases our precious and limited resources would be diverted needlessly if we thought it necessary to monitor every American doctor, lawyer, engineer, or gas station owner who happened to be Muslim. Efficiency, prudence, and reality demand that we pursue those who display a propensity to radicalism, and collaborate with the many others who seek peace and hate violence as much as "we" do.

Of course, the much harder work for Christians like Jones is not exposing the radicalism in Islam (or in other religions). The hard work is keeping in public sight the immense diversity of the Islamic world and making distinctions between those intent on harming innocents and those hellbent on destruction of peaceful peoples everywhere. We should continue to devote (and increase exponentially) every available resource to stopping, arresting, or eliminating those who will seek the destruction of peace and stability. At the same time, the demands of calm reason--and Christian love (and similar notions in the other world religions)--require us to embrace those different from us, so long as they work toward peace and security.

Missiles for bin Laden, peacful dialogue and collaboration with those seeking peace.

With all the loud clamoring about the proposed Islamic Center to be built near Ground Zero, reasonable voices are hard to discern. One thing is clear: this is not a debate about religious freedom. A mosque by peaceful Muslims of good will, unrelated to perpetrating the 9/11 attacks has every right to exist anywhere on these shores. It is the worst form of religious intolerance--and very un-American--to think that one form of religion has limits on where and when it may be practiced.

The Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited opinion in Christian Legal Society Chapter of the University of California, Hastings College of Law v. Martinez (CLS). The decision may go largely unnoticed since it arrived on the first day of future Justice Kagan's confirmation hearings and, McDonald v. Chicago, another decision released the same day, is gaining much more attention after it extended the Second Amendment to limit state gun control laws. Yet the CLS decision hits all the fault lines of the clash between non-discrimination requirements and claims about religious freedom. Welcome to the future of the so-called "culture wars."

Law is supposed to protect the life, liberty, and property of citizens. That's part of its moral purpose--regulating conduct so that the dignity of citizens is not assaulted and harmed by others' inattention, wrecklessness, or aggression. Yet at a concrete and local level, we can see how the laws designed to protect pedestrians are terribly broken and point to the failure of the government to achieve a basic, moral goal of its existence.

Memorial Day 2010 will go down in history as all about oil. As the economic near-collapse of the past two years appears, finally, to be subsiding, we are measuring recovery in terms of the increased number of travelers this Memorial Day Holiday. At the same time, we sit by our live visuals of the 5,000 foot deep underwater top kill experiment to see if BP can stop the gush of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It is worth taking a moment to memorialize just who is responsible for all of this mess.

The cross in the desert can stay.

Or, more precisely, the federal government can go ahead with a land transfer with a VFW chapter to allow the cross to stay on formerly federal land in the Mojave National Preserve. In a narrow--and technical--decision, the Court decided 5-4 that the land transfer Congress mandated was permissible and the injunction that the lower court had issued was improperly decided. Does it tell us anything about the establishment clause? Not much.

Advocates of religious freedom should be skeptical of Judge Crabb's ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. If you are rightfully concerned about preventing "establishments of religion," attacking this particular statute was not, in my estimation, the one to worry about. That said, if you're religious and want prayer recognized nationally, having the government do it is a really bad idea.

The 59th National Day of Prayer is scheduled for May 6. It is supposed to be a day of unity for citizens to come together in reflection. Instead, our deep-seated confusions about the proper boundaries between religious practice and governmental power have turned the official recognition into a huge wedge issue. Good intentions on every side have led to corrupted outcomes. And now a federal judge says it is unconstitutional.

Justice John Paul Stevens has announced his intention to retire this summer, ending the teasing speculation of the past few weeks. Lapsed-Republican traitor to some (he was appointed by President Ford in 1975) and unflappable liberal lion to others, the jurisprudence of Justice Stevens has always been hard to predict or categorize. More consistent is his record on religious freedom issues, characterized by a deep concern for government neutrality so that the religious lives of citizens can flourish without governmental intrusion.

With the economic downturn and massive job losses, it seems many Americans have no sympathy for employees requesting religious accommodations for Sabbath observance. Comments on a recent news story about an EEOC lawsuit against Lowe's for failing to allow a Baptist to not work on Sundays almost all tilt toward hostility to the man's religious beliefs. Hard times seem to make for hardened hearts.

Imagine you are 18 years old and worked hard to be the best student in your class. You are the valedictorian and are invited to give a brief speech at graduation. You want to thank those important to your successful journey, including mentioning the importance of your religious belief to your academic success. And the principal tells you that you are not permitted to do so.

Does the Establishment Clause prevent the President from using or aiding religion as part of foreign policy? Absolutely not, so long as it is not action upon U.S. citizens.

The Washington D.C.-area "Snowmaggeddon" of 2010--unplowed streets and undelivered goods--has probably revealed to many just how reliant the professional classes are on all the people who work hard to keep the region's streets maintained, stores stocked, and the other necessities of life humming along. Hopefully the dignity of labor won't be forgotten when the snow melts and life returns to normal.

As ABC News first reported, Trijicon, a Michigan company, has been supplying rifle scopes to the U.S. military with serial numbers containing scriptural citations. (Thursday, the company decided to stop doing that and to help erase the existing cites.) Was it a stupid practice? Probably. Unconstitutional? Not likely. More interesting to me is how responses to story reflect some fundamental divides among Christians about how they reconcile their religious convictions with military action.

Chuck Norris thinks Obamacare could morph into first-century "Herodcare." Norris thinks a democratic Congress seems hell-bent on slipping in funding to kill all the unborn to save money for health reform. He asks of Jesus' mother Mary: "what if that young, poor and uninsured teenage woman had been provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy?" What if, indeed?

Well, I think there's an easy answer to dilemma Norris poses. My guess is the angel of the Lord would have been capable of strategically planning how to get around the lure of a government program that supposedly paid for abortion on demand. Jesus' kingdom was not of this world, after all, and God--trying to bring about the salvation of the world through this child--might have been able to incline Mary's heart to choose to let Jesus be born, as the gospel tells us she did. Herod, or Obama, powerful as they are in earthly government, presumably wouldn't be any match for Yahweh's intervention in shaping the choice of this young woman.

What's more interesting about the Mary and Joseph story, though, is the light it sheds on the conscience-based exemptions some propose as a way forward in the debates over abortion and same-sex marriage.

Conscience clauses in same-sex marriage are intended to allow clergy and religious groups the opportunity to avoid participation in same-sex marriages without running afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Some proposals include extending the exemption to individuals, even those who are serving in public office, or offering a business service. In the abortion realm, they allow caregivers to not participate in or provide procedures they object to, without running afoul of other applicable laws.

I have often thought that religious exemptions are probably a good compromise position for the inevitable conflict between the basic moral goods of free exercise of religion and equal protection/access of the law. If you don't want to participate in some ritual or act that you disagree with--particularly on the basis of your conscience--you shouldn't have to. Legally, I think these exemptions are a wise way to balance competing interests.

As I see it, there is at least one moral problem, though: Overconfidence in one's own moral views might make one miss the subtle movement of God through surprising means.

Recall the story of the birth of Jesus in the gospel of Luke:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirin'i-us was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2: 1-7, RSV)

Imagine, for a moment, that Joseph and Mary were denied a room at the inn, not because it was overcrowded, but because the innkeepers were conscientious about their own consciences telling them that a pregnant, unwed mother traveling with the presumptive father had no business sleeping in their respectable establishment. A conscience clause and religiously-based exemption would give them that right. In fact, they refused them entry even to the manger. Harlots get out!

These well-meaning innkeepers, intending to remain pure, would have denied what Christians know to be God's love bestowed upon the world because the vessel of this grace didn't fit within their conception legitimate and natural love.

Mary, Joseph, and the babe who opens the way to salvation would have frozen out on the plain.

Again, I'm not making a claim about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of abortion, or same-sex marriage. Those debates are for another time.

Rather, I'm urging us all in this holiday (and for me, this Christmas) season to dwell on that trite phrase that Norman Vincent Peale popularized: "God works in mysterious ways."

The Christian story of Christmas unfolds the world-historical path to redemption through a babe laying in a manger. We should be careful before we presume to so rigidly exclude certain people and relationships from the many, mysterious ways that God's love moves in, upon, and through each of us.

By now everyone knows the pathetic story of Tareq and Michaele Salahi's successful crash of last week's White House state dinner. Trying to land a spot on Bravo network's upcoming Real Housewives of DC, they apparently believed attendance at this diplomatic affair would ensure the world knew they were major players in the DC scene. Instead, most everyone thinks they're a joke. But don't blame Bravo. They are merely documenting the best--and worst--of human achievement.

First, one caveat--no one yet knows whether the Salahis will be featured on the upcoming Real Housewives of DC. After the White House incident, a Bravo spokesperson told Zap2it, "We are in the middle of production, we have been shooting since about the middle of September. Bravo never announces cast members, doesn't disclose specifics about production ever with its reality programming. That's why the cast has not been officially announced, because we need to get all the way through production. We've got many more weeks of shooting before we finish up with the production... Michaele is one of the handful of women that we have been documenting, but again, we have not announced the cast."

Speculation has been rampant that the Salahis must have believed that a high-profile attendance might boost their chances of being on the show. Among her other strategies appears to be expensive (and often unpaid) primping at an exclusive Georgetown salon, so as to look the part of socialite.

Likewise, to create a sense of past accomplishment, Michaele apparently made up an affiliation with the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders: The President of the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders Alumni Association, Terri Lamb, told the Post that "We have no record that she ever was a Redskins cheerleader. She was listed on our 1991 roster at Ms. Salahi's request and based on her misrepresentation to us." How sad.

The ironic fact about the Salahi's social aspirations are that all of the DC folks who actually "are" on the "inside" would never appear on the show. Not only would most probably think exposing one's daily habits to national television is a silly idea, there is also the more important matter of professional discretion. To be on the inside in Washington as a power player--most of whom weren't themselves invited to this State dinner--is to be a person who knows what parts of one's life to keep out of the public eye.

As local businessperson and community chronicler Carol Joynt suggests: "discretion is key to marital and professional success...Most of the husbands here -- those who are the real deal -- live off the public dollar." A Politico story echoed the basic fact that most major players on the DC inside wouldn't go near this kind of exposure: "Among those who would have made the show more Washington focused -- but chose to opt out -- is Georgetown's Susanna Quinn, wife of Democratic lobbyist Jack Quinn. 'My husband didn't achieve all his success so I could turn into an older, paler Lauren Conrad,'...referring to the 20-something star of The Hills."

Likewise, many of the women who might have participated are themselves highly accomplished professionals: "Lobbyist Edwina Rogers thought the show was about D.C. lifestyles. Would she do Housewives? 'I don't really know,' she said. 'I'm not a housewife. I run a trade association.'"

Of course many of those on the inside may very well be posers, themselves. But they have gotten on the inside--most of them--because of a record of accomplishment in the political and policy game. Such ambition and hard work counts for something; one doesn't get on the inside simply through cultivating a celebrity image. Those like the Salahis may sneak into events and shake someone's hand, but everyone knows they don't have a seat at the tables of power and policy.

So does this indict Bravo's chronicling of such posers and wannabes?

Watch Bravo most nights, and you may think the Salahis are in good company.

I'll admit that I'm a bit of a Bravo junkie. When I'm tired, it's late, and I'm done with a long day of work, a little bit of lighthearted television at 10pm can be the relaxation I need. When I tune in, I can't help but see many of the shows to be an interesting window into modern culture, and a fascinating view into human nature.

Over the past few years, the Real Housewives franchise has chronicled coast-to-coast clueless elitism, conspicuous consumption, and catfighting more suitable for a 5th-grade playground. There are just too many examples of the impressive obliviousness of these characters to mention.

Perhaps Kim Zolciak, of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, exemplifies the lack of authenticity that some of these cast members exhibit, through her un-ironic discussions of her cascading wig, her "Big Papa" (this unknown figure is her married lover and possible source of income), and her cringe-inducing attempts to be a singer. So much attempt, so little result.

There are, to be sure, some genuine moments of human kindness and suffering that break through on the show, and even a few sympathetic characters (Jill and Bethany in New York, Jeana (maybe Gretchen) in Orange County).

Even real achievement (a fair number of them do seem to work hard for their money) and genuine care and concern for others sometimes peeks out from behind the luxurious spending and catty bickering. But most of the time, I cringe at the displays of reckless abandon for other people's dignity and well-being.

What redeems Bravo's cast of characters is another show, Top Chef, which chronicles the trials and tortures of some of the best rising chefs in America. The achievements of these chefs stand in marked contrast to the unaccomplished striving of some of the Housewives--either the real cast members, or the wannabe ones like the Salahis.

Where Real Housewives can, at times, glorify purchased fame and self-importance, the contestants on Top Chef sink or swim on the basis of how much excellence they can pull together in their skillful mastery of top-flight cooking.

The contestants--many already accomplished culinary artists--battle it out under grueling conditions to create top food, usually with some significant restrictions on time, manner, and content. Couple that with having to be judged by some of the legendary chefs of the world, and you realize why they face intense pressure. Week after week, many of them perform astounding feats of technical perfection and creative composition.

As the chef of the century Joël Robuchon said earlier in this season, (a chef not known for unwarranted praise), "I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the work of these young candidates. We saw some very successful dishes." There is no resting on one's laurels--to prevail on Top Chef comes only through the achievement of excellence.

The chefs are not all perfect specimens--there are whiners and those prone to be lazy and skate by on a limited range of techniques. There are also the petty fights and underhanded maneuvers. Some of the most talented culinary artists can, at times, show some poor behavior towards their fellows.

Top Chef, (like Real Housewives), is, after all, a show that examines important elements of the human condition. Bravo captures it all on film. The trick is that it's up to us viewers to sort out whose excellence we should emulate and who we should judge to be untalented, regrettably mean, or even baseless and petty.

The Salahis, striving as they are, exhibit some fairly base inclinations of ambition and desires to be recognized as people they don't yet deserve to be. Such inclinations are in all of us, to be sure, and the Real Housewives franchise puts a spotlight on these traits. Bravo may well include the Salahis in the Real Housewives of DC. If they don't, I'm sure there will be others who may make us cringe at times with their petty striving and inflated egos. We can learn cautionary tales by watching them.

Alternately, Bravo's Top Chef usually offers us exemplary models of talent, creativity, and achievement. Many of them even seem to be genuinely decent people. Bravo to them.

Happy Thanksgiving. Simple words that conjure images of national traditions like pumpkin pie and roasted turkey, and family and friends gathered in holiday cheer. Central to that tradition is the presidential proclamation for a National Day of Thanksgiving.

You can read each of them from the beginning, when George Washington issued the first, fulfilling the "duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor - and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Such sentiments are widely shared, deeply woven into the fabric of our civil traditions. Likewise, expressing these sentiments seems harmless.

President Thomas Jefferson, however, famously did not issue such proclamations. Was this the omission of a curmudgeonly atheist? Not at all. He was motivated by concern for the protection of religious liberty. In reply to a letter from Rev. Samuel Miller as to why he refused to issue proclamations, Jefferson espoused not hatred for religion, but concern for the dangers to religion that could result if the civil executive of the country makes statements that give the appearance of sanction to religious practices. For the President to call for fasting and prayer is to usurp their proper role and enter into the province of ecclesial authority. Even without threat of legal sanction, the possibility of public pressure that might ostracize the non-compliant was too great for Jefferson to countenance. The full text of his reply:

To Rev. Samuel Miller
Washington, Jan. 23, 1808

Sir,
--I have duly received your favor of the 18th and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with. I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U. S. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U. S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct it's exercises, it's discipline, or it's doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it.

I am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But I have ever believed that the example of state executives led to the assumption of that authority by the general government, without due examination, which would have discovered that what might be a right in a state government, was a violation of that right when assumed by another. Be this as it may, every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the US. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.

I again express my satisfaction that you have been so good as to give me an opportunity of explaining myself in a private letter, in which I could give my reasons more in detail than might have been done in a public answer: and I pray you to accept the assurances of my high esteem & respect.

While Jefferson had formal and principled reasons for not issuing a Proclamation, since the 1860s, there has been a Proclamation in one form or another each year. Some are more explicitly generic (President Ford: "Let each of us, in his own way, join in expressing personal gratitude for the blessings of liberty and peace we enjoy today. In so doing, let us reaffirm our belief in a dynamic spirit that will continue to nurture and guide us as we prepare to meet the challenge of our third century.") and others are decidedly sectarian (President Reagan: "Although the time and date of the first American thanksgiving observance may be uncertain, there is no question but that this treasured custom derives from our Judeo-Christian heritage. 'Unto Three, O God, do we give thanks,' the Psalmist sang).

Regardless, the practice is here to stay. So, take your Thanksgiving advice from the President, if you will, but remember that your cleric, your mentors, and the wisdom of your traditions are resources in which you may more deeply and richly engage for yourself to find theological and spiritual meaning about gratitude and humility.

As for me, Charles Schulz's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving captures the spirit of Thanksgiving well. Linus (my childhood hero) offers words of reflection before the Peanuts gang's feast by recalling the earliest Thanksgiving celebration:

In the year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast. They invited the great Indian chief Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great abundance of food. Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were honored guests. Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that went something like this: 'We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land. We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice.

Later, Marcie reminds Charlie Brown that the spirit of the holiday transcends the food and hubbub:

"But Thanksgiving is more than eating, Chuck. You heard what Linus was saying out there. Those early Pilgrims were thankful for what had happened to them, and we should be thankful, too. We should just be thankful for being together. I think that's what they mean by 'Thanksgiving,' Charlie Brown."

Happy Thanksgiving!

A friend's Facebook link took me to a CNN article that I thought would infuriate me. The headline was "McDonnell won't disavow Robertson's Islam remarks." What CNN failed to articulate was, to my surprise, that Virginia Governor-elect McDonnell sounded more Madisonian than Robertsonian.

You'll recall that in response to Nidal Hasan's shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, Pat Robertson sounded off in his typically ignorant and vicious way by recategorizing all Muslims as violent political actors, not faithful, religious seekers of God's mercy. He asserted:

"Islam is a violent--I was going to say religion--but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of governments of the world and world domination...They talk about infidels and all this. But the truth is, that's what the game is. You're dealing with not a religion. You're dealing with a political system. And I think you should treat it as such and treat it's adherents as such. As we would members of the Communist party and members of some Fascist group."

So at a press conference this week a savvy reporter, knowing McDonnell would be hard-pressed to disavow Robertson, put him on the spot, asking: "people in Virginia are buzzing about Pat Robertson's comments about Islam after the Fort Hood shooting. He called it...I believe 'not a religion but a violent political system bent on world domination.' He's given money to your campaign, [you've] been asked about him a lot this year, you attended his law school; you've appeared with him. Are those comments appropriate?"

Now, truth be told, I would have cheered had McDonnell said something like: "Look, I appreciate everything Pat has done for me, but these comments are wrong. I do not share them. I repudiate them."

Instead, McDonnell initially deflected the question: "You know, I've got probably 15,000 donors to the campaign. And I can't, I can't, stand to defend or support every comment that any donor might make."

Well that certainly seemed like a punt (or a refusal to acknowledge the controversy at all). What a weak, sleazy politician, you might say, who can't or won't stand up to a powerful donor when that donor has gone off the deep end.

And thus CNN's Political Producer Peter Hamby wrote that "McDonnell on Wednesday would not disavow Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson's recent claim that Islam is not a religion, but "a violent political system."

As much as I feared that McDonnell would turn out to be a right-wing theocrat, at least in this instance, he went on to give a strong statement of inclusivity that directly refuted the claim that Robertson had made. At least in the realm of theological pluralism, McDonnell appears to have flunked out of Robertson's Regent University:

"What I said is that, uh, I believe and I've reached out to the Muslim community during the campaign, went to several mosques, engaged members particularly of the Pakistani community who supported me during the campaign. Uh, I've told people before and after the campaign that I intend to have people of all faiths and all political persuasions to, uh, be part of helping me to rebuild the economy in Virginia. And that includes people of the Muslim faith who were very instrumental in helping me, particularly in northern Virginia. So, look, I think people are entitled under the First Amendment to express whatever opinions they may have. But I can only say that as governor of Virginia, I intend to have an inclusive administration where we bring people across the political and religious spectrum into the administration to help us govern."

Notice McDonnell's subtle but extraordinary refusal to engage Muslims in the way that Robertson did. While Robertson asserted that Muslims are wholly political actors, and not authentically religious ("it's not a religion" and therefore not a faith), McDonnell chose to say "people of the Muslim faith." This is precisely the manner in which he would have said "people of the Christian faith." (One example: see this conversation with reporters in which he was distancing himself from some of his earlier views in his Master's thesis and said: "...this was a 20-year-old paper that informed a lot by the readings that I had done at the time. I do believe -- again, based on my Catholic teaching, that the institution of the family goes back to the dawn of time. I think most people within the Christian faith, that's sort of an accepted understanding from the Garden of Eden"). This change of phrase is too muted, perhaps, but nonetheless using "people of the Muslim faith" clearly signals that McDonnell does not publicly view Muslims in the way Robertson does.

Wanting to press McDonnell, the reporter pushed: "But you don't believe that it's a violent political system...Islam?"

Here, McDonnell refuted Robertson more directly: "No, I think there are--no. I think that there are people in various religions that do some violent things and they ought to be judged according to their acts. Uh, but...I have believed that there are people of all the great religions that can be enormously helpful and are...[sic] multicultural Virginia to help them to benefit us in the state and I intend to bring them in and have them help us just like they did during the campaign."

It's a bit hard to fathom how some can contend that this doesn't refute Robertson: a reporter asks if McDonnell agrees with the proposition espoused by Robertson and McDonnell says that he does not, and then he goes further and makes the crucial distinction between a minority of violent adherents and the majority of the religions' adherents who are people of good will and acts. (This is, after all, precisely the kind of claim President Obama made in his Cairo speech: "Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims").

In the end, McDonnell's "non-disavowal" actually looks like a strong, albeit subtle, refutation of Robertson, and conjures up images of James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, a text that all good Virginians (and Americans) should study in our pluralistic age. As Madison put it, "the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature. If we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us." It seems that McDonnell affirms that basic proposition, in spite of his past affiliations with Robertson.

While CNN might have thought that only a clear refutation on the order of a smackdown is what would have constituted a "disavowal," I would rather put my stock in someone who truly believes--and acts on the belief--that all religious adherents who don't harm others are part of the peaceful religions that give life and breath to many people of goodwill. I hope Governor McDonnell is true to his words.

This week, Keith Bardwell quit his post as Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. This would hardly be noteworthy except that Bardwell refused to marry couples from different races. Outrageous. But did Maine just sanction discrimination of a different sort?

It was Bardwell's considered opinion that marriage is for raising children, and interracial married folks cause more trouble than they're worth. "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said in October. "I think those children suffer, and I won't help put them through it."

As the Post reported, the issue arose when Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, who is black, "called Bardwell's office on Oct. 6 to ask" about getting a license, "Humphrey said Bardwell's wife told her that the justice wouldn't sign their marriage license because they were a 'mixed couple.' When questioned, Bardwell, who is white, acknowledged he routinely avoids marrying interracial couples because he believes children born to them end up suffering. In interviews, he said he refers the couples to other justices of the peace, who then perform the ceremony, which happened in this case."

What an outrage. A lone individual making such judgments--based on his own religious convictions and personal biases--and imposing them on others.

Not only was he imposing a morally reprehensible standard, he was acting in clear violation of the 14th Amendment, as well as Louisiana state law.

Aren't we past this kind of discrimination in our society? Individuals should not be denied access to marriage because some people consider their union to be problematic, unnatural, unhealthy for children, and violating public morality, right?

Well, this week Maine voters used a ballot initiative to narrowly (53%) overturn a law the Maine legislature passed last spring that would have legalized same-sex marriage.

Some can point out that racial discrimination is clearly unlawful, while statutes and ballot initiatives are part of the legislative process where the people can speak for their views and come to majority consensus. Some will protest that there is a world of difference between denying marriage to an interracial couple and denying marriage to a same-sex couple. Perhaps there are but is there a good argument for this?

Consider one version: there are no differences between races, but there are substantial differences between the sexes. Dennis Prager, writing at Townhall.com wrote last year: "Men and women are inherently different, but blacks and whites (and yellows and browns) are inherently the same. Therefore, any imposed separation by race can never be moral or even rational; on the other hand, separation by sex can be both morally desirable and rational."

Of course, that there is an inherent difference between the races is precisely the claim that scores of people--religious and non-religious--asserted for centuries. Judges in this country for many years emphatically stated that mixing races in marriage was an aberration, without blushing and with the force of proclaiming this fact as the gospel truth. Interracial marriage was considered to be an aberration precisely because it was unnatural and against God's designs.

For example, in 1878, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia stated: "The public policy of this state, in preventing the intercommingling of the races by refusing to legitimate marriages between them has been illustrated by its legislature for more than a century...The purity of public morals, the moral and physical development of both races, and the highest advancement of our cherished southern civilization . . . all require that they should be kept distinct and separate, and that connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them, should be prohibited by positive law, and be subject to no evasion." Kinney v. Virginia, 71 Va. 858, 869 (1878).

In spite of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, many challenges to miscegenation laws were not successful until Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). The trial judge in the case below had upheld the law, asserting: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

A unanimous Court denied the legitimacy of this claim on the basis of equal protection and due process violations. Lower court judges can have their private biases, but the Fourteenth Amendment requires strict parity in treating persons the same under the law:

Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

We got past this notion that there are inherent differences between the races. (Or, most have--read the comments of many blogs and you can see this idea alive and well). Is it possible that our ideas of same-sex marriage are also changing? Are there ways to legally uphold the gender classifications that some would argue ground the institution of marriage?

People like Prager want to say that racial discrimination was a moral defect and indefensible: "The second reason the parallel between opposing same-sex marriage and opposing interracial marriage is invalid is that opposition to marriage between races is a moral aberration while opposition to marrying a person of the same sex is the moral norm." We overcame this moral aberration and now interracial marriage is accepted as morally normal--as it always was. Same-sex marriage, however, is the moral aberration. Marriage is built on the gender difference--leading to procreation. That is the moral norm.

But this has simply not been the case. Marriage divided along ethnic, social, and religious lines, particularly prohibition of marriage across those boundaries, was for wide segments of societies, the historical moral norm. Only more recently has this fact of intermingling become an accepted norm. Loving is a recent development that overturned centuries of discrimination.

Our moral, religious, and legal treatment of interracial marriage has progressed. Will similar changes occur in regard to same-sex marriage?

I am not here making a claim that same-sex marriage should become the moral and legal norm. I may believe that, but it's irrelevant for the question I pose: could someone offer up the best argument for treating same-sex marriage differently than interracial marriage. Anyone?

150 years ago--in October 1859--John Brown led a raid on a U.S. armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia. He hoped to gather arms and lead an army to fight slaveholders. Instead, he was quickly stopped and hanged for his lawless actions. Is he a hero, a martyr, or a criminal?

Or is he all three at once? Whatever you judge, his legacy of violent resistance to slavery still raises questions about when resistance to lawful authority is meritorious.

Brown was angry--angry that some of the people in his nation held slaves. He was also angry at the peaceful abolitionists who refused to advocate for forceful overthrow of the institution of slavery. Something must be done, and Brown was the man to do it. His actions helped set off a chain of events that ended in the Civil War.

Brown hoped to raise an army of the willing who would fight against slaveholding factions. He led a group of 21 other men--a mix of blacks and whites--on a raid of the Harper's Ferry arsenal in hopes of securing enough arms to pose a serious challenge. He was wounded, quickly captured, and tried for treason.

By December 1859, he was hanging from the gallows. He left a note with a prison guard that predicted the bloodshed about to engulf the nation: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood." Within a year and a half, the nation was torn asunder in bloody battles.

At his trial, he described his deeply religious convictions for the plight of his enslaved brethren and his deep sense of the injustice that slavery perpetrated. Consider his speech upon being convicted:

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted, of a design on my part to free the slaves. I intended, certainly, to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally leaving them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended to do. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite the slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.... This court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done - as I have always freely admitted I have done - in behalf of His despised poor is no wrong but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments - I say, let it be done!

It is hard to quarrel with Brown's claim: a gross injustice like slavery perpetrated under the banner of law should be stopped. Since the legislative changes had not been forthcoming, Brown considered the only option he had to be armed resistance. Disrupt the institution of slavery that God Himself finds despicable.

Indeed, Brown's conviction was borne out to be true--the gross injustice of slavery has been universally condemned for a century by all but the most ardent haters. We have many reasons for the conviction that slavery should be unlawful, most especially widely held religious convictions about the dignity and equality of each human being and rational grounds for thinking of each person as free and equal.

We still struggle, however, with the extent to which laws we judge to be inconsistent with a higher law should be followed. This is an old legacy. Thomas More's famous refusal to swear the Act of Succession and the Oath of Supremacy in 1534 left him parted with his head. His last words on the scaffold were "The King's good servant, but God's First."

Abortion is one area of contemporary debate. Even most who condemn abortion cringe at those who advocate for violence to stop abortion. The murder of Dr. George Tiller was condemned by most groups, including many who advocate for outlawing access to abortion. But when pushed, some people may consider it acceptable to commit unlawful actions in the pursuit of higher justice. The person who killed Dr. Tiller claims to be God's servant.

It's easy to make Brown a hero--he certainly fought for a worthy cause--even while he was, technically, a criminal. What do we do in other cases--like abortion--in which there is wider disagreement about the moral legitimacy of the laws in question? Can we condone people who appeal to a higher law while ignoring the civil law? Do we hold those like Brown accountable to the civil law, even while privately agreeing with their actions? If we condone their disobedience, how do we protect the social order from chaos if everyone is judging for themselves what "higher law" should be followed?

What do you think?

Columnists and bloggers toil to put words and thoughts in good order. We deliver our pieces (often late!) to anxious editors with our name and reputation on the line. And then we watch helplessly while anonymous commenters hijack threads and launch screed upon hateful screed in every direction.

There's nothing so deflating as to spend lots of time polishing off a thoughtful piece and then look at the comments to see lunatics ranting about Nostradamus-style end-times prophecy. Or conspiracy theories.

Worse are the haters and mockers who would disagree with even a simple hello. Worst are those who fail to read with any care, hurling canned insults at us, at each other, and at their political, religious, and moral opponents.

There are sometimes thoughtful kudos, careful reflections, and even vigorous disagreements, taking you to task for an oversight or a sloppy argument. I cherish these, even when I'm embarrassed by the oversights they call attention to. Unfortunately, such careful attention to my own argument is rarely paid.

Most everyone today, it seems, gets to throw around whatever accusation, or defamatory remark, or just plain vile and hate-filled snark they want. And they can do this with no transparency. Sitting in their office cubicle, coffee shop, or, as I often imagine in more uncharitable moments, their parents' basement on an old dial-up connection (depressingly middle-aged, unemployed, pajama-clad, and hating everyone for the unfortunate twists and turns their own life took), they spew out venom.

Marty Peretz called his attention to this phenomenon in a piece this week in The New Republic: "Ours is an age when the moral authority of accusers is at its height. Also the moral authority of accusations. There was a time when accusations had to be proven. That requirement has long since passed." Peretz is, of course, in his own piece hurling weighty accusations in the midst of a significant and heated debate about the divides in America's Israeli foreign policy communities. Leaving aside the other points in his piece, he's on to something important about how we engage others' ideas and thoughts.

Consider Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, who has a very thoughtful piece in today's paper on the complex nuances of shari'ah law and the way that Sheik Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, bridges the traditionalist and pragmatic paths of interpretation. As Gerson reports: "traditionalist Islam, in his view, is pragmatic in the way it applies these principles to 'current reality.' It is the job of Islamic scholars 'to bridge the gap between the sources and life today.' Some past interpretations 'may have been corrupt -- we may find a better way. What we look to in tradition is methodology, not the exact results of 500 years ago.' Gomaa focuses on 'the intent of sharia to foster dignity and other core values,' as well as 'a commitment to the public interest.'"

Gerson's piece is patient, careful, and displays a welcome refusal to lump all mentions of shari'ah into stereotypes about jihad and tyrannical societies. Indeed, the interpretive method the Grand Mufti articulates is more pragmatic and modern than a fair portion of conservative religious persons in this country, even while it shares similar views on homosexuality and drugs. One conclusion to be drawn from Gerson's piece is the world is more complex than monolithic views of Islam can describe.

Open the comments, however, and Gerson may have just as well said nothing. The comments barely address his points. Consider these examples:

"surenio31 wrote: 'The clergy in past in all religions and in Islam even today act as peddlers and pimps for crafty rulers to perpetuate their undemocratic regimes.'"

This is a fairly typical kind of comment: you want to speak about the value of a particular religious position? The commenter will simply assert that all religions are evil/wrong/about power, etc. The nuanced position you describe? Swallowed whole by the commenter's blanket assertion.

"fcs25 wrote: The 'scholar' has failed to rationalize Islam into anything except what it is...A hate filled false religion fueled by violence and murder."

This kind of comment is more common. The commenter is of the view that all of Islam is hate-filled and violent. Therefore, all Muslims have to be. Therefore, the position offered by the Grand Mufti is irrelevant. No nuance, no engagement with the reality beyond the commenter's narrow vision.

"MILLER123 wrote: Let me see you do an article on 'Rescuing Christianity from extremism'"

This kind of comment is ad hominem. Gerson often writes in a conservative vein, and the commenter is calling him out for inconsistency (presumably Gerson would champion a more liberal Christian, to be consistent with his championing a more liberal Muslim). It doesn't address the core claim Gerson makes, only tries to deflate it by pointing out performative inconsistencies.

None of these comments address Gerson's representation of the Grand Mufti's positions. None provide any criticism that can be challenged or that even addresses the issue. The commenters don't have to, I suppose, because nothing is at stake for them. Their anonymity means they can charge forth with any manner of accusations, hatred, and incendiary language.

What do "we" educated, modern, try-to-be-thoughtful people do? We laugh at these commenters for their flagrant ignorance, and we simply skip over them. Or, if we find some kernel of truth in what they say, we are uncomfortable that the position is being represented by such an extremely hostile and narrow spokesperson.

Meanwhile the hate-filled social underbelly builds up pressure. And, our rich cultures are depleted by the lack of engaged, critical reflection.

Hannah Arendt had already seen this danger, and called it out years ago in her Human Condition: "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

I hope we can check this tendency before most of us lose a grip on the differences between fact and fiction.

I wish this year's Nobel Peace Prize had gone to the people of Iran who vigorously protested an oppressive regime. Instead, President Obama got it for noble aspirations and well-directed first steps. I wish he had declined the prize, but what should he do now?

Obama, after learning that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, tried to strike a humble tone: "Let me be clear, I do not view [the prize] as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace."

He then pointed to the tireless efforts of freedom-fighters everywhere. All those who share in the aspirations of freedom and dignity deserve the award. He said: "That's why this award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity; for the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard, even in the face of beatings and bullets; for the leader imprisoned in her own home because she refuses to abandon her commitment to democracy; for the soldier who sacrificed through tour after tour of duty on behalf of someone half a world away; and for all those men and women across the world who sacrifice their safety and their freedom and sometime their lives for the cause of peace."

The true heroes, Obama tells us, are the protesters and innocents around the globe who fight for their dignity (and the soldiers, diplomats, and NGO workers who sacrifice to help them). They have already marched in the streets and trenches and built roads, wells, schools, and hospitals so that freedom might develop in far off places. Accepting on their behalf was one noble way to handle the situation.

The Nobel committee is certainly free to do as they please, and many have noted the intense political messages they conveyed by choosing to give the Peace Prize to Obama. In making the award, they pointed to the President's "'extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples' during his nine months in office and singled out for special recognition Obama's call for a world free of nuclear weapons, the subject of a major speech April 5 in Prague."

Obama has pushed our foreign policy in this direction, to be sure, and has taken some notable first steps in a grand foreign policy that just might work. But I wish he would have declined the prize. (John Dickerson and Mickey Kaus in Slate beat me to print with that thought.)

Why? Because it would have been an incredible opportunity for him to lay out his agenda of what he hopes to accomplish in the next 3 or 7 years--overcoming immensely complicated challenges around the globe, working in concert with many other countries, organizations, and freedom-seeking peoples. He has nothing more to gain from accepting the award--he already "won." But he has much to lose (see comments on any blog or news story from across the political spectrum).

Here's my wish for how this morning had played out:

The President comes to the podium and says he is deeply humbled. He then declares that he hopes in 7 years time he would deserve this recognition after tirelessly working on many fronts.

He then asks the Nobel committee to instead recognize the brave, defiant protesters in Iran who for weeks earlier this year exemplified the common human struggle for recognition of basic rights like religious freedom, political recognition, and some measure of basic dignity. They are, he declares, paradigms and models for all those who strive for the same rights as the oppressed around the world. (He invokes Desmond Tutu's speech from U2's 360 concert tour).

He then proceeds to give the speech of the century.

He lays out how he will work on multiple fronts with every willing partner to pursue security and peace in the face of global threats. He promises to continue the legacy of the past few Presidents in eradicating nuclear weapons (even the staunch, nuclear-armed Reagan did a huge amount to reduce nuclear proliferation and capacities!). He pledges to continue the immense work of President Bush on eradicating AIDS and other diseases. He commits to ensuring that he will not engage in political horse-trading for strategic goals that trump our intolerance for religious oppression, torture, genocide.

He echoes themes from his brilliant Cairo speech, laying out how hatred cannot rule our hearts, how misunderstanding and stereotyping cannot be allowed to trump our need to work together and the common humanity recognized by most people of good will. He calls on everyone to distinguish between those who use religion to lay waste to human life from those who are motivated by religion to seek peace and the betterment of their fellows.

He powerfully reiterates that those who resort to violence will not only not be tolerated, but will be stopped in their tracks wherever they may be.

And then he lays down the gauntlet: He hopes in seven years he deserves the prize and history will judge him accordingly. But he asks that we give him time. Please work with him where you can and challenge him where you disagree. Give him the space of time to analyze situations like Afghanistan so past mistakes are not repeated.

And then he goes back in the Oval Office and gets busy as a leader we can all believe in.

U2's 360 tour came to the DC region Tuesday--complete with a 164-foot tall spaceship stage and glitzy light show. The tunes were smooth and sexy; the stage was spectacular--even carnivalesque. But what stole the show was Bono's prophetic message about human dignity and rights.

The show was like a rock opera rendition of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And it was a moral call to action.

Bono, aware of his audience, shouted out to many political leaders present at the event -- Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle, and Joshua Bolten, among others. He dedicated songs to "Teddy" Kennedy and Eunice Shriver. Some have noted he "balanced" his dedications between liberals and conservatives, since later in the show he dedicated the song "One" to the U.S. Congress and President Bush's leadership "for the 4 million souls that are now very much alive because of ARV drugs paid for by the United States...God Bless America."

I interpreted the dedications not as political pandering but as praise for jobs well done. Kennedy's tireless efforts for health care and the impoverished, and President Bush's tremendous leadership on AIDS relief in Africa deserved Bono's sincere praise.

He also offered moralistic quips -- "Democracy is hard work and we know that in this city" -- whose simplicity betrayed their profundity.

But Bono's political message was not Fox News or MSNBC sniping. It wasn't about electoral politics but the need for power politics to be continually refined and transformed toward the common human good. These are too often cheap words. But with an extravagant stage and a gigantic 360-degree screen, Bono conveyed a powerful message of human suffering and hope.

Bono's mission is simple--use his music to remind us that life sucks for many, many people around the globe. As his church teaches, we are all complicitous in that, but we can do something about it. And God demands that of us. That's where the tough work begins.

Bono reminds us of the dangers of our own dull efforts to forget others toward the end of "Sunday Bloody Sunday":

And it's true we are immune when fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die
The real battle just begun to claim the victory Jesus won on

Anyone listening to U2's music has long known that the Irish band's lyrics are steeped in Catholic Christian notions of justice and love, perceiving injustice amidst global poverty, oppression, and hate. He has been advocating debt-elimination for years and urging for stepped up efforts to stamp out the worst examples of poverty. And he sings palpably religious songs before crowds of 80,000 (he introduced "Where the Streets Have No Name" with an acoustical guitar solo of "Amazing Grace"), while giving shout-outs--"We have a Cardinal at a rock show"--to his friend and co-activist Theodore Cardinal McCarrick.

The message at Tuesday night's concert focused more on political rights and powerfully united people across the spectrum (I was attending with people on the political right and left who all thought his message was spot on). He dedicated "Walk On" to Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically-elected leader of Burma who was overthrown by a military junta and has been mostly under house arrest since 1990. The song speaks against oppression around the globe and the power of the human spirit to hope and conquer:

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
Before the second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on
Walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it

Nowhere was Bono's gospel of human rights more clear than when he sang "Sunday Bloody Sunday," set against jarring images of the oppressive crackdown on protesters of the recent Iranian election. While Bono decried oppression in Ireland, the images broke down any sense that there was a difference between the denial of political and civil rights in one country or another. When will we stop fighting, torturing, oppressing, and killing?

I can't believe the news today Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away How long, how long must we sing this song? How long? How long? 'Cause tonight we can be as one, tonight

This message of unity in the face of suffering--and our unity in empathetically calling out and fighting oppression--was profoundly reiterated by Bishop Desmond Tutu in a taped message. He said:

The same people who marched for civil rights in the US...who protested apartheid in South Africa...who work for peace in Ireland...are the same beautiful people that I see when I look around this place tonight in 360 degrees. We are the same people. We are the same person. Because our voices were heard, millions more of our brothers and sisters are alive, thanks to the miracle of AIDS drugs and malaria drugs.

Bono is surely one of our greatest musicians. More than singing great tunes and putting on a glamorous show, he feels a deep responsibility to use his talents to raise awareness of global challenges and mobilize people to respond out of concern and love.

As he wrote in a 2003 essay "Challenge for Our Generation," included in a World Bank publication Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith Institutions, he sees his duty as a musician "to shape a clear melody line" lest "the public will fall asleep in the comfort of their freedom, as indeed I did for many years."

The greatest danger is not lack of capacity or resources to fight these challenges, but a simple lack of motivation. "God is on his knees, begging us to act, to get up off our behinds...and take this fight against poverty to a new level....history will be hard on us, and God will be even harder, if we fail." We do not act because we ignore the suffering of others. In the midst of multi-million dollar stage and light shows, Bono refuses to let us forget that others are in harm's way.

Rock on, Bono, Rock on.

"9/11 changed everything." It's a common trope, but it is not clear that our personal and social lives were significantly transformed by September 11.

This may be a sign, among other things, of human stubbornness, or indifference, or perhaps our ability to recover.

President Bush took his lumps from all sides for his attempt to urge calm in a shaky public: "When they struck, they wanted to create an atmosphere of fear. And one of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry, is to tell the traveling public, 'Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Go down to Disney World in Florida, take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed.'"

Looking back over the past 8 years, we seem to have taken his advice. The profound hand-in-hand gentleness and solidarity that erupted after the attacks (I thought for a moment we might actually live in the country envisioned in that Coca-Cola commercial "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke"), along with the sheer terror at another imminent attack, embraced our shocked nation (and world!) and gave a sense that we might build a more respectful society. This soon gave way to our general grumblings and annoyance at airport security lines, and frustrations (even rage) with an administration bent on protecting the nation at costs too high (or wreckless) for some to bear. Our old differences over how to protect ourselves, who to fight, and how to pay for it soon renewed the old political divisions and conflicts. We got on board airplanes, (now deprived of our toothpaste and Evian bottles) but while trusting that we might be safer from attacks, we returned to not trusting the customer service and being annoyed with chatty seat mates telling their life stories or the wrong political views.

How much has changed? Orin Kerr, a law professor blogging at The Volokh Conspiracy, recently posed the question of how much readers thought things had changed. The results were fairly evenly split across the ideological spectrum. About an even number of conservatives and liberals each indicated that everything had changed, or that nothing had changed. The one thing we truly can't seem to agree on is whether anything has changed.

But life has visibly changed in some areas.

Two visible memorials are taking shape. In the coming two years, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is rising up as a monument to the horrific attacks--and the countless ways we have recovered. Likewise, a brilliant film project, Project Rebirth will be released soon that chronicles the physical rebuilding of the site and the resilience of ten people directly affected by the attacks, struggling to rebuild their lives and find hope in the past 8 years.

At a personal level, Americans trust the Muslim doctors, shopkeepers, lawyers, taxi drivers, and engineers who are their neighbors somewhat less and discriminate against them a bit more. The most recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that "Nearly six-in-ten adults (58%) say that Muslims are subject to a lot of discrimination, far more than say the same about Jews, evangelical Christians, atheists or Mormons."

That same poll shows a split, however, in whether Americans think Muslims as a group encourage violence: "a plurality of the public (45%) says Islam is no more likely than other faiths to encourage violence among its believers; 38% take the opposite view, saying that Islam does encourage violence more than other faiths do." The trend for the view that Islam encourages violence was around 25% in 2002 and peaked in 2004 and again in 2007 at 45%.

Some of the more interesting changes can be seen in universities. Students are flocking to study Arabic language and literature. Courses exploring regions in the Middle East and Asia are booming. Students are invigorated to understand the way religious culture and practice--particularly Islam--intersects with geo-politics and social behavior around the globe.

Scholars, too, are expanding their focus to include a more sophisticated assessment of religious culture and communal life as a core component of assessing a group's economic, political, and social behavior and institutions. Assessment of geo-politics now includes sophisticated study of religious culture and institutions as forces that shape behavior and political action for good and ill.

At the same time, universities are spearheading collaborative partnerships with foreign governments in the Middle East to provide top-flight education in the region. The biggest example is Education City in Doha, Qatar.

I've had the pleasure as a scholar at Georgetown to work on some of these issues in ways that I never expected. Georgetown has built a collaboration with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Through public programs and educational endeavors, we seek the best way to portray the complex forces surrounding the perpetrators of the 9/11 Plot, particularly the various geo-political, cultural, and religious factors that contributed to the 9/11 attacks.

Likewise, I am part of a team at Georgetown working with Project Rebirth to think through the myriad intellectual issues raised by the film, including how to best use the footage for future learning, and how film in general can help promote intercultural and interreligious understanding. In particular, Georgetown and Columbia University are collaborating with Project Rebirth to develop a powerful teaching tool that uses the thousand hours of footage of persons recovering from mass trauma to help future physicians, chaplains, mental health professionals, and disaster recovery leaders respond with more effective care in the immediate aftermath of disasters.

Where our collective remembering and recovery leads us--as individuals, communities, and as nations around the globe--remains to be seen. In the here and now, there are many opportunities to learn about the many people working on creative solutions to global problems.

On Thursday September 24, Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum will sponsor a faculty panel called "After September 11th: Change in the Academy?" in the Bunn Intercultural Center ICC Auditorium that explores how scholars and disciplines have adapted or changed their approaches and topics, if at all, in the post-9/11 world. Details can be found at the Berkley Center website.

Critics of a New Jersey mosque's plans to hold a prayer event on the National Mall are wrong in their views of religious liberty.

The Star-Ledger reported last week that a mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Dar-ul-Islam, will spearhead a national prayer gathering for September 25 in Washington, D.C., "that organizers are billing as the first event of its kind--organized prayer for tens of thousands of Muslims outside the U.S. Capitol building."

My friends back home in Indiana often ask how I can stand living in the big, anonymous city, where no one pays attention to others or helps anyone else. They couldn't be more wrong about the city. When bad things happen, the neighbors in my community show the basic instinct towards compassion and protecting the dignity of others that I saw in my small town neighbors.

Just this past Tuesday, after returning from a driving trip back home, I was parking my car in front of my girlfriend's house in Georgetown. I saw her neighbor running up the street barefoot. Two other people I didn't recognize were following him.

The devil may be the father of lies, but the "death panel" deception has Sarah Palin for a nursemaid.

Instead of engaging in honest and rigorous debate about the thicket of economic and policy issues related to health-care reform, the conversation has been stuck on so-called death panels and the fear of government bureaucrats saving money by letting grandma die. There are too many legitimate concerns about reform proposals floating around to let Palin's blatant falsehoods mire down the conversation. They should be condemned universally.

Last Friday, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) revealed his strategy to obstruct health care reform, saying "if we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

For shame. The nation doesn't need a Waterloo defeat. DeMint would better serve Americans if instead he worked with Obama in a modern-day, health care reform version of the Council of Nicaea.

The confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor have so far reminded me of God's admonition in I Samuel that no one can see into the heart of humans but God.

The story goes that God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to look among the sons of Jesse for the newly-anointed King of Israel and Samuel understandably looked for the son who appeared most strong and formidable. When it is revealed that the youngest (and "ruddy") David is the chosen one, God tells Samuel: "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

Only U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa saw the problem with a plaque honoring the slaves who helped build the U.S. Capitol.

King, a Republican, was the only House member to vote against House Resolution 135, "directing the Architect of the Capitol to place a marker in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center which acknowledges the role that slave labor played in the construction of the United States Capitol." He said he was standing firm on his principles to preserve the "Judeo-Christian" heritage from being "held hostage" by the liberals running the newly-opened Capitol Visitors Center.

Independence Day is a good opportunity to take a moment to ponder how some of our forebears envisioned religious freedom--one of our most fundamental liberties.

There are many well-known examples of the Founders urging toleration about religious diversity. They argued for government restraint so that religion may thrive, particularly James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments and Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia and letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. These are worthy essays which we should contemplate and debate. Besides these luminaries, there are many other important voices in the chorus of early Americans calling for religious freedom.

"I've let down a lot of people, that's the bottom line," declared South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford on Wednesday. Thus ended the fun media game, "Where in the World is Mark Sanford?" He was in Argentina, with his lover, over Father's Day, without having any contact with his wife and four children.

There was a time--the Clinton years--when such an admission would incite a political witchhunt. Indeed, then-Congressman Sanford called vocally for Clinton to step down, "The issue of [Clinton] lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of democratic government, representative government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything." As for Clinton, Sanford thought "it would be much better for the country and for him personally" to resign.

I grew up watching PBS--especially the Victory Garden, This Old House, Julia Child, and the many ethnographic, travel, and nature programs. The antenna on my parent's house, set in the middle of Indiana's farm fields, picked up Chicago's WTTW. It was my Window to the World which offered me a view of life far beyond the short 70 miles I had ever ventured from my house.

I am not particularly religious in a church-going manner, and Sunday morning "church" is not on my television queue. I'm somewhat torn, however, by the decision of the Board of the Public Broadcasting Service, who voted yesterday to enforce its 1985 ban on sectarian programs. Affiliates who currently carry programs, about 5 of 356 member stations, can continue the practice, but new sectarian programs will not be allowed.

This means stations which try to broadcast new programs could lose their PBS affiliation. A few will not have to cancel current programs, so WHUT in Washington D.C. can continue showing "Mass for Shut-Ins," a long-running collaboration with the Archdiocese of Washington that has broadcast a weekly Mass since 1996. Yet in anticipation of the vote, the Archdiocese arranged to move the show to WDCW, a commercial channel, for a significant increase in broadcasting fees.

PBS policy, adopted in 1985, requires member stations to provide a "nonsectarian, nonpolitical, noncommercial educational program service." According to Current newspaper, these "Three Nons" are "descriptors that help define public TV's identity -- noncommercial, nonpolitical and nonsectarian. Federal law and the FCC restrict two of the "nons." The FCC is mandated to ban commercial content and limit political content on noncom stations. But PBS is on its own to define what the third "non" means to public TV."

The Station Services Committee investigating the issue was concerned that providing a forum for sectarian religious broadcasting would undercut the mission of PBS by too closely aligning with a particular religious organization. PBS "places a high value on presenting diverse perspectives, as opposed to rigidly adhering to any single political or religious point of view." Privileging the religious programming of a few groups "would cause the public's trust in PBS to erode, along with the value of the brand." The PBS Board hoped to avoid any appearance of endorsing religious views, particularly while receiving Federal tax revenues to pay for some of their operating expenses (through the Congressionally-created Corporation for Public Broadcasting).

On the one hand, I sympathize with the Board's concerns, and recognize the potential validity of some of the arguments made by supporters of the decision, like Rev. Barry Lynn, one of the nation's foremost advocates of church-state separation. Lynn's reasons are fairly straightforward: "There's no reason for PBS stations to show proselytizing or evangelistic programming, particularly with the explosion of television channels available in recent years. With PBS paid for partly with taxpayer dollars, it's perfectly defensible constitutionally to forbid religious programming. And with plenty of other broadcast opportunities for religious programming, PBS is by no means required to provide them a forum."

Lynn asserts two justifications. First, there are numerous possible forums for religious groups to transmit their message. They don't need to use the public, quasi-governmental stations. Second, since the stations receive tax money they operate as quasi-governmental agencies. As such, they should not permit religious broadcasting lest they violate Constitutional prohibitions on endorsing particular sectarian viewpoints.

The first reason doesn't hold much weight if we remember that the "explosion" of channels is largely a phenomenon of cable and satellite television. In many areas, apart from the cost-prohibitive commercial stations, the only other channels that broadcast a signal that your grandma can receive on old-fashioned rabbit ears antennae are PBS affiliates.

But this leads to the next concern. As a public station partially funded by tax dollars, is it constitutionally permissible (even required?) to allow sectarian religious programming.

This is complicated by the "quasi" governmental status of Public Broadcasting. As Justice Douglas argued in his concurrence in CBS v. Democratic National Committee 412 U.S. 94 (1973), the Corporation "is a creature of Congress whose management is in the hands of a Board named by the President and approved by the Senate" and appears to be "a federal agency engaged in operating a 'press' as that word is used in the First Amendment." If PBS is a purely government agency, then the government could not readily discriminate among particular viewpoints.

But the Court has not treated PBS as any regular government agency. Instead, PBS is treated as a broadcast station managed by editors. It is not open access TV. Editors do not allow every program on the air. PBS is not a "designated public forum" in which all persons must be allowed to speak without discriminating among viewpoints.

Further the Court has also ruled, in the context of election campaign debates, that PBS is not a public forum like others, but operates more like a journalistic enterprise. In Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes 523 U.S. 666 (1998), the Court held that a public television station who excluded a third-party candidate from a campaign debate did not violate the First Amendment because such "judgments...should be left to the exercise of journalistic discretion."

So PBS is not really a government agency in the normal sense, and it is not necessarily bound by strict requirements to maintain viewpoint neutrality. Indeed, editors and program executives have a broad discretion to determine what programs are shown. Any decision to maintain content neutrality and strive to be nonsectarian is more a product of the Board's self-constraint, not so much a constitutional requirement. As such, the Board's decision to limit the "world" they explore is their own choice. They will allow the "objective" review of religion to continue--Religion and Ethics Newsweekly is news and analysis about religion, not the practice of religion. But the local Catholics can't use 30 minutes at 7 a.m. to reach shut-ins.

I wonder if this cuts off a part of the world that we should hope flourishes, even if we don't participate in it. It's not my religion that will be fostered by the programming. And my desired programs still get the best time slots. And I can easily recognize that PBS is not endorsing particular views when they merely provide access to the airwaves for some groups to broadcast shows at odd hours. Rather, PBS is merely accommodating the local communities' needs through educating and facilitating the vast range of cultural expressions of local citizens, including religious expressions. Is Mass for Shut-Ins much different from a country-gospel singer crooning on Austin City Limits?

The danger of course is that every group will then want access. And PBS could become as irrelevant and loony as a local access station--a scary prospect. They have scarce resources of airtime and must be responsible to limit programming to the best explorations of the world around us.

There's no easy answer to this. The PBS Board was trying to be neutral--a worthy goal. I just wonder if they could have found a way to remain neutral while still letting Grandma watch Mass on Sunday.

It was refreshing to hear Joshua DuBois repeat the words "responsible partnerships" in describing President Obama's vision for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

DuBois, the talented Executive Director of the Office, was one of the featured speakers at an event sponsored by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. The event took stock of the past and future of the Office, which will build upon some of the good work accomplished in the Bush years, but reorient the Office in new directions.

DuBois' multiple references to "responsible partnerships" signaled how the new administration is seeking ways to be more attentive to some of the lurking constitutional difficulties that might stymie partnerships between government and faith organizations. While resolving issues like the "religious hiring" question will take some time, (this question will now be determined by the Justice Department and White House Counsel), the Director and the President have publicly committed to "strengthen" the legal and Constitutional basis of the Office's work.

Some of the legal challenges plaguing the Bush office did not arise from bad-faith efforts to proselytize or funnel money to sectarian groups. Rather, it came from good-faith efforts to help people as directly as possible by giving money to those working at the most local level. The tangle of government and religious groups gave rise to some unintended problems.

At the event, Professor Stephen Goldsmith of Harvard, the well-regarded former mayor of Indianapolis, outlined his own efforts in the 1990s to build partnerships between faith organizations and the city to provide services to the most needy. The programs "leveraged" the "social capital" of churches, synagogues and mosques working alongside other community groups who collaborated to revitalize urban neighborhoods. As Goldsmith described their efforts, their central concerns were not those of the beltway insider. Instead of fretting about the religious hiring issue, the mayors and faith organizations focused entirely on providing resources and services to alleviate the immediate needs of the homeless, poor, and hungry people in the local community.

But these local partnerships became nationalized. Part of the welfare reform effort signed into law by President Clinton in 1996 included a "charitable choice" provision that allowed formal grants for community development and welfare services to be paid directly to faith organizations. President Bush built on this legacy to formalize the Office, whose mission was largely focused on assisting faith-based organizations to apply for government grant money to support social service delivery programs.

An important note: the Office does not administer any grants. The grants are administered by many agencies, like HUD and USAID. The Office assists faith organizations in order to "level the playing field" and help small community groups navigate the thicket of red tape to access money that might be funneled to local programs.

Under the leadership of President Obama and DuBois, the Office is expanding its mission to become involved in gathering diverse opinions and making recommendations about some significant policy issues. Rather than focusing solely on grant-making, the Office is also aiming to build civic partnerships and connect government agencies with local community groups in the policy-making process. The Office also will help to make local community services more efficient, by building networks between local providers and distributing information about best practices that may minimize waste.

The usual concerns about the faith-based grants are the dangers that religious groups may proselytize while delivering social services. To be a "responsible" partner with government means that the faith-based organization creates a separate, non-profit corporation which receives the Federal grant and delivers the secular service, apart from the religious activities of the organization. There are many safeguards in place to achieve this goal, with perhaps some room for improvement.

One big question arises on the other side of the partnership. In promoting the grant-process to faith-based groups, the Office, DuBois, and the President himself have a responsibility to ensure that all faith-based organizations are treated equally. No favoritism should be shown to specific kinds of sectarian groups.

This favoritism was the focus of a taxpayer challenge during the Bush administration. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued the government, alleging that representatives of the Office violated the Establishment Clause by organizing conferences designed to promote religious community groups over secular ones in the grant-procurement process. They sought to enjoin the Office from targeting religious groups and providing special assistance in a manner that was not provided to secular community groups. Inflaming this concern was the practice of targeting evangelical religious organizations, in particular. The challenge was not against the grants themselves, but about the conferences the President hosted for religious groups to help them apply for the grants.

In Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation (2007), Justice Alito quickly dispatched the possibility of bringing an Establishment clause challenge to these conferences. The conferences were created by the Executive and paid for by unspecified, discretionary appropriations. How these discretionary funds are spent is a policy determination for which the Court defers to the judgment of the President and his agents. On Alito's rendering, a taxpayer challenge based on the Establishment clause has historically been possible only if it is toward a Congressionally-mandated disbursement, based on the Constitution's Art. I §8 powers, and carried out by the Executive under strict adherence to the congressional mandate. In this case, using the general office budget to help particular kinds of religious organizations better their grant applications was not open to taxpayer challenge claiming an Establishment clause violation.

As such, without taxpayers being able to legally stand guard over potential abuses of discretionary funds, the President may abuse this spending and favor some religious groups over others.

This is precisely why DuBois' multiple references to "responsible partnerships" should reassure those who think Hein might have been wrongly decided. Responsibility cuts both ways, and a President who is deeply concerned about defending the Constitution would do well to ensure the Office does not abuse the discretion it enjoys in this realm.

With the big challenges we are facing in education, housing, health care, global unrest, and economic decline, every partnership will be crucial. Providing efficient delivery of vital services through local channels--especially faith-based and community groups who are trusted in communities--can ensure resources are distributed in a timely and efficient manner. These partnerships can help our nation recover and build a brighter, more stable future.

The legitimacy of these partnerships will depend on ensuring the funds are spent on non-sectarian services. As well, their legitimacy will depend on the President and the Office truly leveling access to the grants, so that every religious group can access funds equally, and no particular kind of religious organization is shown preferential treatment.

Who is responsible for the crash of Air France Flight 447 on Sunday?

Now with confirmation that the Brazilian military has found the wreckage field, the sad recovery efforts will begin to determine a physical cause. The search will focus on the flight data and cockpit voice recorders which will help piece together why this reliably safe aircraft vanished into the water. Remote-controlled submersibles will descend into thousands of feet of water but questions will remain for months or years.

And so the circus begins.

Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Obama to fill the vacancy created by Justice David Souter's impending retirement. She would become the sixth Catholic on the Court. What does her nomination mean for religious freedom?

Even before the nomination, attack ads were ready to roll, with charges that she was a "liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written." Others contend that her record "raises serious questions about the issue of legislating from the bench." The Republican National Committee accidentally unveiled their rather muted talking points, stating generically that they "do not view this nomination without concern," and then reciting a standard litany of terrible things a liberal appointment "could" bring about.

Colleen Hauser's 13-year-old son Daniel drew a lucky card from the cancer deck. He was diagnosed with Stage II Hodgkin's lymphoma. Five-year survival rates are upwards of 95%. Treatment with basic chemotherapeutic regimens have made this disease highly treatable and survivable. While scary, his prognosis would be highly favorable if he received the standard treatments.

President Obama will soon announce his nominee for the next Supreme Court justice. We should pay close attention to how this new justice conceives of Constitutional protections for fundamental rights, especially religious liberty.

The President's criteria involve a refreshing mix of principled legal analysis and personal moral characteristics. In announcing Justice Souter's retirement, President Obama said: "I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving as [sic] just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time."

The Federal Judiciary is losing two big defenders of religious freedom.

Last week, Justice David Souter surprised few in announcing that he would prefer to not undergo another "intellectual lobotomy" and return next fall to the Supreme Court for another term, preferring instead to retire to his beloved New Hampshire.

Then on Tuesday, Judge Michael McConnell, a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals judge, announced he was stepping down after seven years to return to academic teaching and scholarship at Stanford.

In different ways, both judges left a profound mark on the nature of constitutional law about religious freedom and the intersection of religion and government.

Miss California heroically pushes back a cultural Armageddon.

I thought that would be the headline after the Miss USA pageant. In fact, the pageant was just one of several same-sex-related events this past month that must have made social conservatives think the apocalypse was hurtling towards them.

First, there was the Iowa Supreme court's landmark ruling on April 3, which held that the state's equal protection clause required the state to treat all citizens equally in applying for licenses to wed--both heterosexual and homosexual couples. The unanimous court said they were "firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective."

Three more feet of blue curtain and no one would have noticed.

Last week, Georgetown offered the stage of Gaston Hall to President Obama. The University hosts visiting heads of state innumerable times throughout the year. Policymakers of many political stripes offer speeches across the spectrum of viewpoints. Their visits enrich the academic conversations on campus and spark many debates about policy and ideas for weeks afterwards. This contributes vitally to achieving the core of any academic institution's mission.

President Obama heralded an encouraging new tone when he told Turkey's Parliament on Monday that the United States "is not and will never be at war with Islam...America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot and will not just be based upon opposition to terrorism...We seek broader engagement based upon mutual interest and mutual respect."

Perhaps lost in the swirl of reporting about the financial meltdown, there has been little news about the newly-renamed Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Other than appointing the talented Joshua DuBois (Obama's campaign faith adviser) as the new director, whatever is happening has largely been out of the public eye. This is a significant mistake.

Amid the global financial meltdown, the old debate about how much governments should regulate markets is back in the news. Is greed good because it creates value through competition, or should governments regulate markets in order to curtail greedy tendencies?

On the one side are unyielding defenders of market mechanisms. In spite of the problems created by over-leveraged banks, risky mortgages, and dissolving, unregulated funds that have decimated retirement accounts, some financial gurus and economists tell us that re-regulating the markets will only worsen the long-term success of the financial sector. Markets work their magic when the government leaves them alone. As Michael Douglas' infamous speech in Wall Street described it, shareholders, motivated by the "greed" of desiring profits, will keep managers on track to create legitimate value, which can then trickle down to everyone.

In the recent Supreme Court ruling on Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, Justice Scalia concurred with words of reassurance: "The city can safely exhale. Its residents and visitors can now return to enjoying Pioneer Park's wishing well, its historic granary -- and, yes, even its Ten Commandments monument -- without fear that they are complicit in an establishment of religion."

Should we yet breathe easily?

Barack Obama's years of service as a community organizer were disparaged during last week's Republican National Convention. Of course, the job description for a community organizer might be unknown to many Americans. But it's surprising to hear Republicans--members of the party that espouses non-governmental solutions to social problems--ridiculing a man's privately funded community work. I thought that community work like Obama's was the GOP's solution to our social ills?