Here's the headline from the lead story in the business section of a nearby newspaper: "Celebrex tops Vioxx in study." PHILADELPHIA — New research suggests that top-selling pain reliever Celebrex does not carry the same heart attack risk as Vioxx, a similar drug pulled from the market in September because of safety concerns. Celebrex is a widely used drug for treating arthritis pain, so this is big news. But what's it doing in the business section? Part of the answer... Read more

Today's unsurprising headline is from The Washington Post: "Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says." Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found. Those and other assertions are examples of... Read more

I used to live at the intersection of Church & State here in everybody's hometown. Church Street actually dead-ends at State Street. On the two corners opposite my old apartment are a microbrewery that used to be a grocery, and a grocery that used to be an armory. (I'm sure there's a metaphor for something or other in all that, but I can't figure out what it is.) In other news about the intersection of Church & State: Justice Antonin... Read more

"Moral values," we are told, were the key to the Republican victories on election day. The GOP mobilized "values voters" — especially in the red states, especially in the Bible Belt. And no Bible-Belt state is redder than Alabama. But the people of Alabama didn't just cast their votes for president on Nov. 2, they also voted on a state referendum to amend their state constitution. The Washington Post's Manuel Roig-Franzia tells the whole story: On that long-ago day of... Read more

The New York Times' David E. Kirkpatrick provided some of the creepier details about Ohio's ballot measure banning same-sex marriage and civil unions: The strongest argument that Christian conservatives played a decisive role in the election came in Ohio, where a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage passed by an overwhelming margin. Conservatives said the proposal increased conservative turnout and helped Mr. Bush win a narrow, pivotal victory. Phil Burress, the veteran Christian conservative organizer who headed the effort to... Read more

Finally had a chance today to read Matt Bai's New York Times Magazine article "Who Lost Ohio?" Bai spent election day with organizers from the 527 group America Coming Together: In ACT and its partners, Democrats told me, they were building the most efficient turnout machine in political history. I returned to Ohio in the final days of the campaign to see the power of this grass-roots behemoth in action. I did — and I came to understand its limitations... Read more

The nightmare parable sketched out in the previous post illustrates what seems to be an increasingly popular version of what "religious liberty" entails. In this version, the state must play a role — sometimes a very active and aggressive role — in order to protect and preserve the religious beliefs and culture of its citizens. Religious liberty is one of the most basic and most important of our freedoms, involving fundamental matters of individual conscience. That's why this liberty —... Read more

The following is a parable and/or a nightmare and/or an attempt to understand the thinking of my state's junior senator. – – – – – – – – – – Joe is a devout, religious man. As a symbol of his piety, and in obedience to the dogma of his faith, Joe never cuts his hair. This is a personal act of religious belief and expression, freely chosen as a matter of individual conscience. Joe's wife, Jane, is a devout,... Read more