Month: February 2012

For Mormons, Baptizing the Dead Is Like Putting Them on a Guest List

Pensito Editors

Mormons think of baptisms for the dead as a service to others, almost like adding family members’ names to a guest list.

– Forrest Wickman in article for Slate Magazine titled, “Can I Get on the Mormon “Do Not Baptize” List?” and subtitled, “How to avoid being baptized after you’re dead.”

Santorum’s Charitable Record a ‘Glaring Inconsistency’

Trish

He apparently believes in church doctrine about contraception but not about tithing.

— Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger at the Washington Post, commenting on the shameful fact that the murine Rick Santorum gives less than 2% of his income to charity. Rubin called Santorum’s record a “glaring inconsistency, and added, “I focus on the charitable giving because so much of Santorum’s career and a good deal of his writing focus on faith-based charities. So why did he personally give so little to the groups he lauds?” [emphasis is Rubin’s]

Santorum’s War on Religion: In 2008, He Attacked Protestantism As ‘Gone from the World of Christianity’

Jon Ponder

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GOP frontrunner Rick Santorum is on the stump in the Midwest making inflammatory statements that are designed to grab headlines. Yesterday, for example, he asserted that Pres. Obama believes in “some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.”

Santorum is engaging in the most outrageous faith-baiting since former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion a “Satanic cult” during the 2008 presidential campaign.

In reality, the president is a mainstream Protestant, just like every president before him except one, John F. Kennedy, who was a Catholic. Santorum, an ultra-conservative Catholic who is best-known for his anti-gay rhetoric, did not identify the president’s “phony” religion by name, but since he was speaking to a tea party crowd, he was obviously insinuating that the president was not a Christian at all.

Last month, Santorum infamously stood mute at a campaign event when one of his racist supporters described the president as an “avowed Muslim.”

Santorum is engaging in the most outrageous faith-baiting since former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion a “Satanic cult” during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Over the weekend, Chris Hayes, an editor of the Nation who hosts “Up with Chris Hayes,” a weekend morning political chat show on MSNBC, published the contents of a speech Santorum made at Ave Maria College, a right-wing Catholic school with ties to Domino’s Pizza, in which he excoriated American Protestantism:

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Florida Republican Legislators Give Themselves “Absolute Shield”

Trish

sealed-lips

If you noticed an avalanche of lawsuits over your decisions, would you:

a) Take a moment to consider objectively what you’ve been doing and adjust your actions going forward, or

b) Pass legislation that says you can no longer be sued.

If you’re a Florida lawmaker, you will pick option B in a heartbeat. And so, Florida’s super-majority Republican legislature, facing court challenges to ALEC-written laws, is now shielding its members from giving testimony or depositions explaining their intentions.

Republicans on the panel [committee] said the move was necessary because more and more groups – teachers, unions, and others – are filing lawsuits against the Legislature and attempting to compel lawmakers and their staff to testify about the “legislative intent” behind what they’ve passed…

[…]