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Updated at 6 p.m. to add more links. U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker has struck down Proposition 8, California’s 2008 ban on same-sex marriages, finding it unconstitutional. It’s the latest battle lost in the conservative Christian war on gay marriage — see my July 22 post for other recent examples. The L.A. Times reports that this…

In a unanimous vote and with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s blessing, New York City’s landmarks commission has withheld historic protection from the downtown building slated to become Park51, a kind of Muslim-based YMCA. (Recently rebranded from its Cordoba House name, but still better known as the “Ground Zero Mosque,” though the 13-story building is two blocks north of Ground Zero…

I thought crossing the country with a teething toddler, while still trying to crank journalism out between major family festivities, was exhausting. Good thing I’m not a priest/pastor/minister/rabbi — they’ve apparently got it worse! (I wonder how the compensation compares…) The New York Times reports on the growing problem of clergy burnout: Members of the…

I’m a religion reporter with a personal and professional interest in interfaith families, but I was put off by the endless speculation and random weighing-in about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding ceremony these past few weeks. (Though, to be fair, what seemed like a national obsession in the Clintons’ neck of the woods, where I’ve been staying, was…

Long before Team Edward and Team Jacob, before Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was Lestat, Louis and their fellow undead frenemies, creatures of the night cooked up by author Anne Rice. After quitting the vampire book biz and spending the last 10 years publicly reembracing the Catholicism of her youth — including writing two…

Updated at 5:30 p.m. to add more links. Arizona’s controversial new law against illegal immigrants takes effect today, but at the last minute, a federal judge blocked the section of SB 1070 requiring police to check on someone’s immigration status while enforcing other laws — the portion that critics, including vocal evangelical Christians, Catholics and other faith-based leaders, have argued…

Utah’s Supreme Court has reversed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs’ conviction on two counts of rape as an accomplice and sent the case back for a new trial, saying there were “serious errors” in instructions given to the jurors considering his role in the 2001 marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin. Check…

(Updated to add the link to my Tim Brown interview and the Q&A with the Park51 developer of the Cordoba House plan.) Check out my Religion News Service story about Cordoba House, the proposed “Ground Zero mosque.” (A native New Yorker, I can’t help but channel that classic SNL “Coffee Talk” sketch: It’s neither at Ground Zero, nor a…

As France, Belgium and Spain consider laws on against face-cloaking veils (often described as burqas, but also referring to niqabs), the Associated Press reports that a Saudi Arabian cleric has just given the OK for Muslim women to obey such laws. The fatwa, or religious opinion, was issued by Sheikh Aed al-Garni (spelled al-Qarni in the AFP’s…

This week, Religion News Service revisited a Business Week story from February about Eternal Earth-Bound Pets USA, which aims to pair up responsible atheists with Christians concerned about the pets they will be leaving behind during the Rapture. The RNS update reports that only 200 pet owners have signed up for the $110 service for the next 10…
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