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Focus on the Family can sue over rejected ads, court says
In 2001, a Florida bus company refused to post advertisements for a Focus on the Family conference on homosexuality called "Love Won Out." Focus sued, but the case was thrown out.

Now it's back in, thanks to a decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (the same court that Focus on the Family founder James Dobson castigated for its decision against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments monument).

"This is a great victory—not just for us, but for the Constitution," Focus vice president Tom Minnery says in a press release. "With the many examples of judicial tyranny we routinely see across the country, it is nice to be involved in a case in which a court upholds the integrity of the First Amendment."

Smallville 's passion play
It's not news that Superman and Jesus have a lot in common. Both were sent to Earth by their fathers, grew up in the backcountry, lived in relative obscurity until their 30s, died to save the world, rose from the dead, and were tempted to use their power to satisfy their own immediate desires. There's a lot more that can be said about this, including thoughts about what Superman's Kryptonian name, Kal-El, means in Hebrew, the iconography of Superman, and the use of religion in the comic books themselves. But that's not news.

What is news is that at least one part of the Superman world is consciously drawing the connections between Clark and Jesus.

"It's the Christ story for an American audience, with a lot of action," Smallville producer Alfred Gough told USA Today last week.

So does this mean we should chalk up one more show among the many this season delving into overt spiritual messages? The show's season premiere is Wednesday, October 1, on WB.

More television news:

• Hey, God, it's me, Joan | 'Joan of Arcadia' offers a two-for-one deal: a clever teen soap and a cop drama. Can CBS take one back? (Newsweek)
  
  
• Bakker has new show, old theme | On "The New Jim Bakker Show," the TV evangelist sits beside his perky wife, pleads for money, occasionally cries and closes the show with "God loves you. He really does." (Ken Garfield, The Charlotte Observer)
  
  
• Gee, Davey, you're making a comeback | It took Mountain Dew to wake up the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (The Dallas Morning News)
  
  

Oops!
Yesterday's Weblog included links to several newspaper remembrances of Johnny Cash. But the paper of record on the legendary singer was accidentally deleted. Anyone even slightly interested in Cash should check out The Tennessean, which today also includes coverage of Cash's funeral.

More on Johnny Cash:

• A tribute to the legacy of Johnny Cash in word and song | Mr. Cash was depicted as a man of genius but also of many contradictions, of unending compassion and of tremendous Christian faith (The New York Times)
  
  
• Man in Black brought rebel's spirit to music | Legend: He attracted fans of country and rock with an earthy, poignant and honest approach to his craft (Baltimore Sun)
  
  
• Farewell to the man in black (The Orlando Sentinel)
  
  
• Black was cool again | With a career that spanned 47 years, Cash found new, younger fans in the 1990s (The Charlotte Observer)
  
  
• Seattle visits fed legend of the Man in Black | Johnny Cash helped attract the biggest indoor crowd in area history when he visited in 1976 to sing at a Billy Graham crusade in the Kingdome (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
  
  

Politics and law:

• God help the Democrats | The Democrats cannot afford to be perceived as the party of irreligion or as inhospitable to committed persons of faith (John H. Bunzel, Los Angeles Times)
  
  

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September (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47