Even as public attention focuses on the legalization of gay marriage in New York and related battles across the country, religious communities are continuing to struggle with the role of homosexuals. Presbyterians voted in May to allow openly gay clergy, and in June a Methodist church court convicted a pastor for performing a same-sex union.
Americans are confronting challenges in bioethics every day and in every venue, from hospital rooms and research labs to Congress and the Supreme Court. Developments in genetics, debates over the beginning of life and the fate of embryos, and technologies that extend and even create life are raising complex questions in medical decisions and treatment.
Feb. 12 marks the birthday of Charles Darwin and the celebration of Darwin Day, an observance aimed at highlighting the theory of evolution set forth in Darwin’s seminal 1859 work, “The Origin of Species.” Even today, evolution remains a flash point in the debate between faith and science, believers and nonbelievers.
After organized worship, athletic competition is perhaps the oldest communal impulse known to mankind, and today sports and religion mirror each other as never before, experts say. Nowhere will that be more evident than on Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 7 and during the Winter Olympics that run from Feb. 12-28.
Homeschooling is booming, with religious and moral motivations pushing the trend. According to a National Household Education Surveys Program study, more than 1.5 million students were being homeschooled in 2007 — up from 850,000 in 1999 and 1.1 million in 2003. That accounts for nearly 3 percent of the country’s school-age population.
A landmark hate-crimes bill expanding federal statutes to include protections for homosexuals was signed into law on Oct. 28, 2009 by President Barack Obama. The law is a landmark achievement for the gay community but a dividing line for some religious groups.
The Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins on or about Aug. 22, and the fasting and abstaining and feasting that accompany the observance are among the most prominent markers of North America’s growing Muslim population. But few may realize how diverse the Muslim community is.
The federal minimum wage takes another jump this month, in what proponents say is a step toward economic justice for society’s most vulnerable workers. But with unemployment nearing 10 percent and teen joblessness twice as high, others argue that a delay would have been wiser — and more righteous than putting additional jobs at risk.
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