Republicans Concerned Over State Focus on Social Issues – NYTimes.com

Fiscal issues and union rights were front and center in many Republican-controlled legislatures last year. But this year, with the nation heading into the heart of a presidential race and voters consumed by the country’s economic woes, much of the debate in statehouses has centered on …

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Catholic Fund Heightens Scrutiny of Recipients’ Ties – NYTimes.com

For three years now, Compañeros, a small nonprofit organization in rural southwestern Colorado, has received thousands of dollars from the Roman Catholic Church to help poor Hispanic immigrants with basic …

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Obama Backs Student in Furor With Limbaugh on Birth Control – NYTimes.com

The election-year fight over the administration’s birth control policy escalated Friday, with two unlikely figures — a Georgetown University law student and the conservative radio host …

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Rick Santorum Blinks in the Spotlight : The New Yorker

After ten months of ruthless culling, has the Republican “base”—an excitable, overlapping assortment of Fox News friends, Limbaugh dittoheads, Tea Party animals, war whoopers, nativists, Christianist fundamentalists, à la carte Catholics (anti-abortion, yes; anti-torture, no), anti-Rooseveltians (Franklin and Theodore), global-warming denialists, …

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Rick Santorum, Meet Hamza Kashgari : The New Yorker

President Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religious freedom makes Rick Santorum “throw up.” “What kind of country do we live in that says only people of nonfaith can come into the public square and make their …

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Growth of Catholic Hospitals May Limit Access to Reproductive Care – NYTimes.com

As Roman Catholic leaders and government officials clash over the proper role of religion and reproductive health, shifts in health care economics are magnifying the tension. Financially stronger Catholic-sponsored medical centers are increasingly joining with smaller secular hospitals, in some cases limiting access to treatments like …

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Barack Obama, Catholics and contraceptives: The accommodation | The Economist

IT IS not every day that Republicans can seize on an issue that encapsulates everything they hate about Barack Obama. The recent scandal over contraception comes close. Mr Obama had ordered that all employer-sponsored health insurance cover …

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Empiricism in politics: On opinions beyond the reach of data | The Economist

DAVID FRUM quotes the following passage of Charles Murray’s new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010″, in the midst of a …

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The Komen Foundation Makes a U-Turn on Planned Parenthood Funding | Julian Brookes | Rolling Stone

Leading breast-cancer charity the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, which earlier this week drew a ferocious backlash when it announced it was pulling funding for Planned Parenthood, on the grounds that the family planning organization was …

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Daily chart: Fewer birthers | The Economist

THE pregnancy rate among America’s teenagers fell to 67.8 per 1,000 women in 2008, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, an advocacy group. This translates to 7% of all 15-19 year olds, compared with nearly 12% (116.9) at the peak in 1990. The downwards trend is evident in all racial and …

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Komen Foundation Urged to Restore Planned Parenthood Funds – NYTimes.com

The nation’s leading breast cancer advocacy organization confronted the growing furor Thursday over its decision to largely end its decades-long partnership with Planned Parenthood, with rising dissension in its own ranks and a …

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Komen Reverses Stance on Planned Parenthood Grants – NYTimes.com

When the nation’s pre-eminent breast cancer advocacy group, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, decided to stop most of its financing of Planned Parenthood in December, Komen’s leaders hoped to quietly distance the foundation from a politically controversial …

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