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1. Amish again in spotlight after school shooting
After Monday's murder of five students at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, media outlets are full of articles about how different the Amish are. The op-ed pages, meanwhile, are full of comments about much this shooting makes the Amish just like the rest of us. ("The Amish 9/11" is a phrase we're starting to see, but this also ties into the other two fatal school shootings this week.) It's good to see so many articles on Amish belief and culture that truly try to understand what happens in a religious community and why. Of course, in this situation, "why" answers are often hard to come by. Take the shooter, Charles Roberts, for example. Reports say he was tormented by his molestation of two young relatives two decades ago (when he was about 12). And his suicide note suggests that he was also tormented by the death, nine years ago, of a daughter who lived for only 20 minutes.

"It changed my life forever," he wrote. "I haven't been the same since it affected me in a way I never felt possible. I am filled with so much hate, hate toward myself hate, towards God, and unimaginable emptiness. It seems like everytime we do something fun, I think about how Elise wasn't here to share it with us, and I go right back to anger."

"He was angry at life and angry at God," Pennsylvania state police commissioner Jeffrey Miller told reporters in a widely quoted comment.

"The man who did this today is not the Charlie that I've been married to for almost 10 years," said Marie Roberts, whom the Philadelphia Inquirer says is "involved in Christian groups," in a written statement. "He was an exceptional father. … Please pray, especially for the families who lost children. And please pray, too, for our family and children."

2. What's the Foley scandal really about?
There are any number of "Foley stories" right now. One is purely political. Here's how The New York Times phrases it: "A growing number of Republicans and conservative advocates fear the Foley scandal will cause many of the party's most conservative supporters to stay home on election day."

Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, is one of those conservative advocates. "I think this is a real problem for the Republicans as they, right or wrong, are seen as the guardians of values," he told CNN (quoted by The New York Sun). "This is going to be, I think, very harmful for Republican turnout across the country."

But religious conservative leaders aren't going to have to shift much. Their speeches in recent days have been critical of the Republican leadership, but more critical of Democratic values. "I have flat-out been ticked at Republicans for the past two years," Focus on the Family Action's James Dobson said at the September 20 Stand for the Family rally in Pittsburgh. "[But] this country is at a crisis point. Whether or not the Republicans deserve the power they were given, the alternatives are downright frightening."

Speaking on Laura Ingraham's radio program yesterday (again quoted by the Sun), Dobson didn't have to change that message. "Who can overlook what Foley has done? I mean, that is breathtaking," he said. The Sun paraphrases him saying that voters might forget about Foley by Election Day, but they don't forget that Republicans have sat on measures of interest to religious conservatives. Still, Dobson said, "I don't think we can afford to teach the Republicans a lesson that I wish they would learn on their own."

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October (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50