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1. Embryonic stem cell bill passes House, but won't beat veto
When the U.S. House passed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act in January, it did so amid news that very week that amniotic stem cells "have many of the same traits as embryonic stem cells"—potentially making embryonic stem-cell research unnecessary.

This week, as the House again passed a similar version of the bill, scientists announced a similar breakthrough, this time using skin cells.

As Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), a physician, said on the House floor, "Science is going to move beyond this discussion."

2. Surgeon general nominee under fire for writings for United Methodist Church
Frank Lockwood, who occasionally freelances for CT, was the religion reporter who got that "worst in history" Jimmy Carter comment. Now he's the first to post excerpts from James Holsinger's 1991 report for the United Methodist Church's Committee to Study Homosexuality. Holsinger is now the nominee for U.S. surgeon general.

The key quote from Holsinger's paper, "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality":

"The logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which interlocks within the other," he wrote. "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur."

Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Holly Babin is telling multiple news outlets that Holsinger doesn't believe everything in the report, and that it's outdated.

"That was not his belief. It was not his opinion," she told Lockwood. "It was a compilation of studies that were available at that time," she said.

That doesn't seem quite right, though. Holsinger has served on the UMC's Judicial Council, and voted to support a pastor who refused to allow a gay man to join the church. In 2004 he joined the council's majority opinion ruling that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching" and that practicing homosexuals should not serve as clergy.

The question now is whether someone who believes in the complementarity of the sexes and that homosexual sex is unhealthy should be barred from serving as as surgeon general.

3. McCain campaign's religious woes
"McCain spent an hour answering questions on a conference call with church pastors and antiabortion activists in Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Florida and other key states," The Washington Post reports today. The Post suggests that the campaign is trying to shore up support after two of the campaign's religious outreach staffers quit in protest.

U.S. News 's Dan Gilgoff reported last week, "The aides, who were fired in early April after roughly three months on the job, said the campaign staff declined to return scores of their phone calls and e-mail messages, denied them access to leaders of the McCain campaign, and pressed them to collect church directories—a controversial tactic—as the centerpiece of a strategy to woo 'values' voters."

4. Rowan Williams "hopeful, not optimistic" about the future of Anglicanism
Time's interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury and related article is the cover story for its Europe and South Pacific editions. It's worth a read, even if you're tired of reading about Anglican disputes.

5. Suburb may use eminent domain to keep church from building
If you remember Kelo vs. New London, then you'll definitely want to read a story in yesterday's Plain Dealer about a Cleveland suburb's efforts to keep St. Maron Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite from building a 600-seat church, youth building, and social center.

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June (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51