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The Globe editorial claims that Romney is trying to turn church-state separation "on its head." But it's the Globe that doesn't understand that such separation as articulated in the Constitution and interpreted by the courts means the church's practices really do trump the state's in matters like this. Arguments like those made by Healey would essentially create a state religion, and force organizations to choose between compromising their mission and compromising their message. If you have a Bible that claims that true religion is "to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world," then that's awfully troubling.

"Corporal works of mercy are no less important to the life of the Church than its sacramental ministry," writes Garvey. "Forbidding the Church to perform them is a serious blow to its religious liberty. Why would the government do that?"

3. The New York Times Magazine examines "wrongful birth"
"The practice of terminating specific pregnancies, as opposed to aborting pregnancies so as not to have a child at all, is seldom discussed in its baldest terms. It is also poised to rise," writes Elizabeth Weil in a troubling but important article in this week's New York Times Magazine. "Should it be O.K. to terminate a deaf child? What about a blind one? How mentally retarded is too mentally retarded?" Also poised to rise are wrongful birth lawsuits "if a doctor's poor care leads to the delivery of a child the parents claim they would have chosen to terminate in utero had they known in time of its impaired health." Fear of such malpractice suits may mean that doctors will be more eager to push for selective abortions, but Weil focuses more on the personal. "The moral quandary we find ourselves in pits the ideal of unconditional love of a child against the reality that most of us would prefer not to have that unconditional-love relationship with a certain subset of kids," she writes, noting that she herself had to face the decision on whether to abort her "unborn son," who had been diagnosed with cytomegalovirus.

4. Billy in the Big Easy
It's your modern Billy Graham template story. The focus on his age and frailty, the assertion that this could be the last time he preaches to an audience like this, the crowds coming down for the altar call. It's awesome, even if there's not much news to report.

5. Pat doesn't like Islam
Pat Robertson shoots his mouth off more frequently than Billy Graham preaches evangelistic sermons, and yet papers around the country keep treating it like news. For some reason, reporters and editors think there's something newsworthy in Robertson disliking the radical Muslims who are calling for the death of those who published Muhammad caricatures. The papers are shocked that he thinks radical Islam is "satanic." The news story here, folks, is that he's actually saying something that most evangelical and Pentecostal Christians agree with for once. Usually it seems he's just saying crazy stuff.

Quote of the day:
"He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians. … [We] never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50