Poll: Majority Support Same-Sex Marriage in California

More California voters approve than disapprove of same-sex marriage. In a survey completed May 17-26 among a random sample of 1,052 registered voters the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is now approved by a 51% to 42% margin statewide.


The Field Research Corporation reports

Katha Pollitt Castigates South Dakota Pro-Choice Strategy

South Dakotans have rolled out a new initiative, Measure 11, banning abortion with loopholes, in theory, for rape and incest victims who report the crime to law enforcement and allow collection of their DNA and that of the fetus, as well as to women "at serious risk of a substantial and irreversible impairment of the functioning of a major bodily organ or system." In this fight, the antichoicers have the vision, the grassroots energy and the political momentum (as well as the Catholic and evangelical churches and key legislators in both parties), while the prochoicers are left with abstract arguments and the fall-back position that the ban, if passed, will be enjoined by the courts and eventually found unconstitutional.

Katha Pollitt reports

Social Scientists Object to Pentagon Research Program

Even as the American Anthropology Association issued a formal letter opposing a social science research program led by the Pentagon, the Department of Defense says it might put the Minerva program in the hands of the National Science Foundation. Minerva would spend millions on university consortiums to study "political Islam," create an archive on "Chinese military and technology studies," and examine captured Iraqi documents for "The Iraqi and Terrorist Perspectives Project."


Insidehighered.com reports

Anchors Concede Weak Reporting in War Run Up

"I was in Kuwait for the build-up to the war, and, yes, we heard from the Pentagon, on my cell phone, the minute they heard us report something that they didn't like. The tone of that time was quite extraordinary," said Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News on the Today Show, when he was appearing with the other major network anchors to promote a the September simulcast of "Stand Up To Cancer" event. "I do think we were remiss in not asking some of the right questions," said CBS News' Katie Couric. Charles Gibson of ABC disagreed.


MSNBC.com reports

Methodists Back Episcopal Church Against Secessionists

Sixteen Protestant denominations and regional districts including the United Methodist Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church are supporting the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in contesting a Reconstruction-era state law that would allow seceding congregations to keep church property. Their amicus brief is a sign of how closely Protestants are following the multimillion-dollar battle between the Episcopal Church and 11 conservative congregations that left to join a branch of the Anglical Church of Nigeria in protest of the Episcopal Church's liberal stance on homosexuality. The post-Civil War splintering of Methodist and Presbyterian churches in 1867 prompted the Virginia law.


Ethicsdaily.com reports

Minority Doctorates Data Suppressed

Those interested in diversifying the ranks of professors lost a key source of information when the National Science Foundation stopped releasing data on racial and ethnic groups in its annual Survey of Earned Doctorates if their numbers are too small. While we know that in 2005, six black people earned doctorates in earth, atmospheric and marine sciences, the NSF won’t reveal how many earned the degrees in 2006. For Native Americans, the impact of the new policy is especially dramatic.

Inside Higher Ed reports.

Texas tops in abstinence education

Texas, which views abstinence education as its main policy to combat teenage sexual activity, now receives more money through Title V, a stream of federal funding for abstinence programs, than any other state, more than $4.5 million a year. The Texas Legislature's Education Code not only requires that abstinence be given more attention than any other approach, it allows schools to ignore condom instruction because it does not mention it.

Texas Monthly reports

Senate Committee Dangerously Singles Out Muslims in Report

The ACLU and nearly twenty other groups sent a memo to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee outlining concerns with its new report,"Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorism Threat," most notably the free speech implications of labeling the internet as a "weapon" and the unfair singling out of one religious group as possible "extremists."

"Once we begin trying to regulate belief systems, we have veered perilously far from the Constitution," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "

The ACLU statement here.

Tax rebate excludes many wed to foreigners

As many as hundreds of thousands of taxpayers - from legal immigrants to soldiers based abroad - are ineligible for the tax rebate checks that started going out last week because of a provision aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from getting rebates. The rule unintentionally snares taxpayers who would have qualified for the bonus but for having filed jointly with a spouse whose immigration status doesn't allow a Social Security number. The Federation for American Immigration Reform lobbied against a version of the bill that didn't require a Social Security number for the rebate.

Boston Globe reports

Daytime soap's gay kiss arouses boycott

The soap opera "As the World Turns" lifted its ban on gay kissing for the program's April 23 episode, during which characters Luke and Noah shared their first on-screen kiss following seven months of chastity. Proctor and Gamble Productions decided to reinstate the couple's kissing after hearing from both supporters and critics of the gay characters' daytime displays of affection. In response, the American Family Association has called for a boycott of Proctor and Gamble goods and has taken to referring to LGBT people as "g-ys" and same-sex relationships as "h-mos-xuality," as if these words were expletives.

The Advocate reports