August 11, 2008

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Social Initiatives on State Ballots Could Draw Attention to Presidential Race
Ian Urbina/New York Times (08/11/2008)
Divisive social issues will be on the ballot in several states in November, including constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage in Arizona, California and Florida, and limitations on abortion in California, Colorado and South Dakota. Although research indicates that ballot measures do not drastically alter voter turnout, they have begun attracting the attention of both presidential campaigns.

INTERNATIONAL
Bush presses China on religious freedom in visit
Matt Spetalnick and Jeremy Pelofsky/Reuters (08/11/2008: yahoo.com)
BEIJING - U.S. President George W. Bush pressed his case for more religious freedom in China on Sunday in frank conversations with the country's Communist leaders and by attending a worship service at a Beijing church.

Bush worships at official church in Beijing
Michael Paulson/Boston Globe (08/11/2008)
President Bush, in Beijing to attend the Olympics, this morning worshiped in an official, government- authorized, Protestant church, to the dismay of religious freedom advocates, who wanted him to do more to criticize the Chinese government's restrictions on Christianity.

Christianity taking root in the new China
Jim Landers/Dallas Morning News (08/11/2008)
BEIJING — Although the communist government still tries to choose church leaders and keep believers in line, Christianity is growing in China because freedom is growing in China. The Chinese Communist Party remains an atheist ideology that views faith with suspicion. But the Chinese government's success in delivering a better material life has left a growing number of Chinese wanting to fill a spiritual vacuum where Chinese communism has little left to offer.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
More Gay Men 'Married With Children'
Associated Press (08/11/2008: cbsnews)
The cost remains high, and a good lawyer is essential. Yet despite complications, the idea of becoming a biological dad with help from a surrogate mother is gaining allure among gay men as the status of "married with children" grows ever more possible.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Santeria priest won't let religious freedom be sacrificed
Richard Fausset/Los Angeles Times (08/11/2008)
Ernesto Pichardo, co-founder of the first incorporated Santeria church in the nation, files a lawsuit stemming from a police raid during a worship ritual in 2007.

Library exhibit a tribute to Archdiocese of Boston
Michael Paulson/Boston Globe (08/11/2008)
Shortly after Protestant rioters torched the Ursuline convent in Charlestown in 1834, the Roman Catholic bishop of Boston, Benedict J. Fenwick, took out his pen and his journal and began to write. Fenwick's contemporaneous reflections on that most famous incident of anti-Catholicism in Boston's history are among the highlights of a small exhibit now on display at the Boston Public Library, featuring a variety of rarely seen artifacts from the archives of the Archdiocese of Boston, several private collections, and the stacks of the library itself.