News Clips: October 2009 Archives

I am reminded of a scene in Les Miserables — a bunch of rabble-rousing starry-eyed students are convinced that the death of a general will spark an outcry among the people and stir them to their revolutionary cause, but the general's death comes and goes and the people stir not.

So it is with the raucous tumult among gay advocates over Proposition 8. They staged protests and boycotts and caused quite the hullabaloo (and if I recall desecrated churches and did some other nasty stuff) but they are starting to see now that the people just don't care. 'There was a cry for voter sympathy behind that rage: Feel our pain! It failed. "The activism didn't move the public," said Mark Solomon, Marriage Director for Equality California. Despite the outcry, Mr. Solomon said polling showed that voters were not swayed -- opinion stayed the same as on Election Day.'

They still seek to change people's opinions, but it will be a softer approach. (What, no more desecrating Masses?)

According to News of the Weird:

Among the ramblings on the blog of George Sodini (the gunman who killed three women in a Pennsylvania health club, and then himself, in August) was his belief that, having once been "saved," he would enter heaven even if he happened to commit mass murder. Sodini attributed the belief to one of his church's pastors, and another church official, Deacon Jack Rickard, told the Associated Press that he personally believes Sodini is in heaven ("once saved, always saved"), though Rickard somehow split the difference: "He'll be in heaven, but he won't have any rewards because he did evil." [Salon-AP, 8-9-09]

The Conservative Bible Project is employing a Wikipedia-like site to correct errors in biblical meaning in modern translations. They plan to extirpate inclusive language, return to a more literal meaning of the original text, and "utilize powerful conservative terms" (whatever that means). For example, they'll use "gamble" instead of "cast lots" to "combat addiction". (One wonders what they're going to do with the Urim and the Thummim, which Old Testament priests cast to determine God's will.) I love this part; they plan to highlight "Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning." Also they intend to remove the pesky "liberal" "go and sin no more" adulteress story, no doubt added by some 3rd century Barack Obama. All very interesting.

Interesting that I never heard in the news about the death of a pro-life protester. I bet if it was a pro-abortion protester it would have been all over the news.