Our founding editor, Jeff Sharlet, was on NPR this week talking about religious freedom, what it means to assign the Christian label to the American population, and the long history of Christian persecution rhetoric in U.S. politics.  Listen here.

“There were never school shootings when prayer was in school.”  The Ohio school shooting, some believers have pointed out, comes on the approximate 50th anniversary of 1962′s  Engle v. Vitale, a Supreme Court decision that ended school prayer.  I would like to add that a few other laws have changed since 1962.

I’m not a done-sold Melissa Harris-Perry fan but I’ve been enjoying watching her new show, oddly named MHP, on MSNBC.  Here’s a clip of MHP, a professor at Tulane, taking on The Help, a feel good movie about the Jim Crow South.

“Debbie does Radical Muslim Fundraiser.”  Really.  Stephanie Butnick points us to the sexualized headlines Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Jewish Democrat, was subjected to last week.

“D’oh my God: faith in The Simpsons,” a piece at The New Humanist by Andrew Mueller, examines what The Simpsons, TVs longest running show, really never got right. (h/t David Farley)

“A nihilistic dictatorship of relativism.”  Mark Silk quotes Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete to get us closer to the real nature of the culture wars.

Analyzing Santorum’s “Meet the Press” back-track–he recently accused the President of having a “phony religion” and has some face to save–The New Yorker‘s James Wood, theology aside, finds something particularly secular and even–gasp!–rational humanistic in the Republican Presidential candidate’s words!

Note, too, that all this talk about making man the objective sounds quite like the supposed heresy of rational humanism. If you took away the theological context of Santorum’s screed, you would have a program for secular politics: Since we are here to serve man, then we should start getting busy with projects of political salvation, like universal health care, environmental protection, the alleviation of poverty, and so on.

Amy Levin: I’m not sure God would be too happy with Santorum lately – I mean, it’s one thing to defend religious liberty in the name of a Christian nation, but it’s another to use petty language to reference divinely ordained scripture. Despite his claim that he was not criticizing the President’s Christianity, Santorum’s Ohio speech that claimed Obama’s agenda is based on “some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible,” made serious headlines last week. Phony? I don’t think I’ve heard that verbal jab since 6th grade recess – now that’s an abomination.

By Fred Folmer

Should religious groups be allowed to worship in New York City public schools? This question is at the heart of an ongoing issue involving church leaders, congregants and public officials, who are challenging a decision by the Bloomberg administration and Department of Education to evict churches that use school buildings for their worship services. Although the churches have now been evicted from their spaces, questions about the wisdom and fairness of doing so certainly remain, and legislation to overturn the evictions is still pending.

The issue may on the surface appear to be a standard church-and-state dispute, and indeed some of the questions it raises–Should so-called religious groups be allowed to worship on public facilities as paying tenants? Does such a use violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause? What constitutes a “worship service,” anyway, and why does it entail special forms of legislative restriction?–are quite familiar to anyone who has followed such cases. But the issue also suggests something that receives far less attention from media, and is much harder to map easily onto boilerplate rhetoric about “separation of church and state”  This is so because it affects certain kinds of churches and populations, but also because the decision to evict the churches—whatever its stated intentions—could have a marked effect on the kind of religion that gets practiced in New York City.  And where it’s practiced, given that it drastically reduces the space available to nondenominational and evangelical congregations in a city in which real estate is famously hard to come by.

Nora Connor: According to Salon’s Wajahat Ali, the conversion of Oliver Stone’s son Sean to Islam last week prompted a worldwide Muslim face-palm. Why, the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are wondering, can’t we get a convert with more upside? In a nod to one of Dave Chappelle’s best skits, Ali “reports” on the first worldwide celebrity religion draft, wherein the Muslims attempt to free themselves of Shaquille O’Neal and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. If you’re looking to boost your own profile, perhaps by adopting an African country as some sort of goodwill/school building/voice for the voiceless project, this handy chart will help you avoid stepping on any fellow-celebrity toes. Hint: South Africa is Oprah’s. Looks like Gabon, Chad and Equatorial Guinea are still up for grabs, though.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has identified something that “transcends cultures, regions and ethnicities”: Muslim hatred of Christians, with Nigeria as Exhibit A. Patrick Ryan of RD takes exception to her analysis and many of her facts. Human Rights Watch observes that ordinary citizens of all confessions are suffering in Northern Nigeria, caught between Boko Haram’s attacks and the indiscriminate reactions of Nigerian security forces (also: either HRW’s Eric Gutchuss actually said Nigerian security forces must scrumptiously adhere to the law, or VOA news needs a new copy editor). Meanwhile, other news of Nigeria suggests that there may indeed be a human characteristic that transcends cultures, regions and ethnicities, just not the one Hirsi Ali thinks. Former Halliburton/KBR executive Albert “Jack” Stanley, having been sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison (rather than the recommended seven) explained what led him to orchestrate $180 million in bribes to Nigerian government officials and $10.8 million in kickbacks to himself:

Albert “Jack” Stanley told a federal court on Thursday his decision to bribe Nigerian officials in order to win enormous construction contracts was fueled by “ambition, ego and alcohol.”

Where is Jesus’ foreskin?  Listen to David Farley discuss An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town on NPR’s Rick Steve Show.

Does Daddy Know Best?  Ann Pellegrini on the nature of recent attempts to further limit women’s privacy and reproductive choice.

Are imagination and science really at war? An excerpt from Lawrence Lipking’s “Facts and Dreams” at The New Republic:

To some extent the so-called conflict seems bogus. A benevolent reading of Blake’s proverb [What is now proved was once, only imagined" from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell] might reduce it to common sense, or to a maxim that any scientist might follow in applying for a grant to test an idea. No idea, no funding; no imagined Higgs boson, no CERN. In this respect the hypothetical construct that drives attempts to prove or disprove it is not the opposite of science but its prime mover. Imagination and proof couple together as tightly as mind and body, or as Blake’s visions and the books that he makes with his hands. Great scientists are visionaries, too.

Can Romney break the Hoover Curse?

Is Obama the Devil?  Ok, ok.  Is he anti-religion?  Social conservative Steve Chapman writes at Reason, that Obama hasn’t been all that bad for faith-based organizations, critiques that he’s anti-religious freedom be damned.

Can a woman be feminist and pro-life?

How much money does the state of Indiana give to “family values” organization Indiana Family Institute each year?  Andy Kopsa does the accounting at Nuvo.

What’s so funny about the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia’s recent Fatwa?  Paul Mutter tracks journalist Hamza Kashgari’s extradition for tweeting about Muhammad.

What happens when a Catholic hospital merges with a non-denominational one?

What is informed consent?  Governor Bob McDonnell, who opposes Virginia’s mandate that all women seeking an abortion be given a sonogram (often requiring an invasive procedure), still loses points for allowing that such information is “informed consent.”  McDonnell said, “Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state.”  Sure enough.  But don’t we think pregnant women know they’re pregnant?  How much information must patients be given?  How can the state determine when a patient really understands the procedure they face?  How can a doctor?  These questions are asked and answered all the time.  Check out Thaddeus Pope’s recent notes on a “futile care” case in Canada.

By Becky Garrison

Despite recent efforts to mainstream its image, Exodus International, a network of ministries formed over 30 years ago to “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality,” appears to be on the decline. As reported by Truth Wins Out, a non-profit organization that fights anti-gay religious extremism, attendance at Exodus International’s latest Love Won Out conference, drew at most 400 people, a far cry from the 1,000 in attendance during its heyday when Focus on the Family organized these quarterly ex-gay symposiums. This drop in attendance follows a meeting convened by Exodus International President Alan Chambers on November 16, 2011 to explore how to keep the organization from social and economic oblivion.

Comment by NYU assistant professor/faculty fellow Jeremy Walton on yesterday’s New York Times article, “Koran burning in NATO Error Incites Afghans,”  (February 21, 1:39 pm):

These comments are, on the whole, atrocious and disturbing, for two reasons. First, there seems to be absolutely no interest or concern on the part of most NYTimes readers to comprehend Muslim attitudes toward the Qur’an. As a professor of Islamic Studies, I begin every class on the Qur’an by emphasizing that it should not be understood as a mere ‘book’–it is both more and less. Less because Muslims don’t read the Qur’an cover-to-cover like a novel; more because it is, along with the exemplary conduct of the Prophet Muhammad, the authoritative source of wisdom about the universe and humanity’s place within it for Muslims. Qur’anic passages suffuse Muslim life and worship. The performance of salat, the five daily prayers, is an embodiment of the Qur’an, and Qur’anic verses saturate daily speech and life in most Muslim contexts. Muslims who cannot fully comprehend the linguistic meaning of the text due to illiteracy in Arabic respect the Qur’an no less because of this fact. Is it any surprise that some devout Afghani Muslims take umbrage to the disrespectful actions of their military occupiers? Of course, dismissal of religious attitudes is a secular privilege that we all share, but this brings me to my second objection to the bulk of the comments here: Even if you choose to denigrate the actions of some Afghani Muslims, do not make the vicious mistake of all prejudice and bigotry, the substitution of the actions of a few (the protesters) for the whole.

Observations from a few hours spent at the 136th Kennel Club Dog Show

By Ashley Baxstrom

We gathered, one week ago, like so many pilgrims flocking to a holy site.

Or rather, flocking to a site where the objects of our devotion gathered. Was it the idea of a place in which generations had come together for more than a century, first in 1877 at Gilmore’s Gardens (the Hippodrome), and now here? True, most of the time Madison Square Garden plays host to feats of athletic prowess or demonstrations of theatrical and musical creation. But for this weekend, it was ours. The bright screens overhead glowed with our insignia, our group’s name. Green felt track covered the arena, an ice rink no more (though betrayed by a distinct chill in the air). And everywhere you look, we, the worshippers, and they, the worshipped.

Because it’s not about the place. It’s about the puppies. We’re all here to admire them, gaze at them with love and devotion. Me, I’d like to pet them. I’m not a member of this congregation, just a brief visitor, and I came for puppies. I came because my friend’s boss had tickets and let us borrow them for the morning. It’s like borrowing a parishioner’s pew, sitting in their seat, but the parish is so big nobody knows you don’t belong. They smile and nod at you, because you’re one of them, we’re all in this devotion together.

Amy Levin:  Last year it was Jo Calderone performing at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, and this year it was Roman Zolanski at the 2012 Grammy Awards. If these names aren’t ringing a bell, you might otherwise know them as the now famous male alter-egos of singers Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj, respectively. After Minaj, the rising female rapper, showed up at the Grammys with the Pope as her date and performed an exorcism on stage, she joined both Lady Gaga and Madonna in the line up of performers with Catholic-themed spectacles. Unsurprisingly, both pop entertainment media and Catholic organizations (namely the Catholic League) equally denounced Minaj’s performance as overboard, vulgar, disrespectful, tasteless, and silly.

Becky Garrison:  In the battle for marriage equality, a federal appeals court and the Washington State legislature delivered both a love letter for same-sex couples and a Valentine’s Day massacre on society, depending on one’s interpretation of civil liberties and the institution of marriage.

On February 7, 2012, the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared California’s Proposition 8, a ban on same-sex marriage, to be unconstitutional. By a 2-1 decision, the three-judge panel affirmed the lower court judge’s 2010 ruling that Prop. 8 was indeed a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians. (This timeline charts the legal briefs and hearings that transpired since 2008 when Prop 8 went into effect.)