TWIRP (“The Woman Is Requested to Pay”) Day is canceled in a small Texas school district, after a parent complained that the school Homecoming Week tradition of a “social-role reversal” encouraged cross-dressing and homosexuality. The Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute issued a press statement stating that it had come to the aid of “concerned parent,” Delana Davies, who worried about such “experimentation” with cross dressing. Said Davies, “‘If it’s OK to dress like a girl today, then why is it not OK in the future?'”

In the beginning…the Bible sounded different. UC Berkeley professor, Robert Alter, discusses his major new translation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, which he intends to restore the syntax, style, meaning and numerous deleted “ands” of the original Hebrew that has been lost or mangled in standard translations.

A precedent-setting case was heard in Maine’s Supreme Court Tuesday when a former alter boy, who was molested by a bishop in Portland’s Catholic Church, asked the court to reverse a 1997 decision prohibiting religious organizations and their leaders from being sued for negligent supervision. Gerald Petruccelli, an attorney for the diocese, argued that reversing the ruling would be a violation of thr First Amendment guaruntee of freedom of religion. Judges hearing the case were concerned that ruling for the victim could create new law; that there was no guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court on the question; and whether a judge or jury could consider the question of “negligent supervision” without the state intruding on religion.