Great news: 50% think it’s wrong for Obama to force religious organizations to violate their conscience

Bad news: ONLY 50% think it’s wrong for Obama to force religious organizations to violate their conscience.  Rasmussen, February 8:

Half of voters do not agree with the Obama administration’s action forcing Catholic institutions to pay for birth control measures that they morally oppose. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the government should require a church or religious organization to provide contraceptives for women even if it violates their deeply held beliefs. Fifty percent (50%) disagree and oppose such a requirement that runs contrary to strong beliefs, while 10% more are undecided.

Sam Elliot: It’s our duty to reward filmmakers who actively seek to attack our faith

Actor Sam Elliot just knows who is to blame for the fact that the film adaptations of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy will likely never go beyond the first part, The Golden Compass.  Catholic News Agency reports:

Actor Sam Elliot has blamed the Catholic Church for stopping sequels from being made to the Golden Compass movie based on the first book of Philip Pullman’s atheistic trilogy His Dark Materials. The film, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Eva Green, grossed more than $380 million worldwide after its Christmas 2007 release, but took in only $85 million in the U.S. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film had a budget of $180 million.
The 65-year-old Elliot, who played a Texan “aeronaut” in the film, charged that a Catholic-led campaign against the movie stopped its sequels from being made.

Of course, the film’s horrible domestic box office take had nothing to do with the fact that the movie was based on the first novel of a trilogy that goes out of its way to deride the faith of Christians in general, and Catholics in particular.
The Golden Compass is the most benign book in the trilogy, and the film adaptation was cleaned up even more. However, it would be hard to cleanse the remaining books sufficiently:

According to CinemaBlend.com, the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy is the most mild “by far” and the movie had most of its anti-religion references stripped.
“That kind of sanitization would have been impossible when adapting later books,” the movie website continued, noting that the series “quite literally” becomes a story about homosexual angels trying to kill God.

So, Mr. Elliot, tell us more about how the Catholics managed to scuttle what promised to be a beloved film series.

UPDATE: So, is Sam Elliot a Democrat or a Republican?

Do foster parents have a duty to PREVENT the religious conversion of children in their care?

At least one town council in England appears to think so, as The Telegraph reported February 8. After removing the young woman from foster care, they even tried to persuade her to convert back to her former religion:

A foster mother with 10 years' experience was struck off after a Muslim girl in her care converted to Christianity, it has emerged.
The woman has been banned by her local council for failing to prevent the teenager from getting baptised, even though the girl was 16 and made up her own mind to change religion.
The carer, a churchgoer in her 50s who has fostered more than 80 children, has now been forced to move out of her home.
She has lost the farmhouse she rented to look after vulnerable teenagers, due to the loss of income.
[...]
The foster mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, insists that she did not pressurise the teenager to convert, and actually tried to discourage her initial interest.
The girl, who is now 17, was taken into care after being assaulted by a family member, saw baptism "as a washing away of the horrible things she had been through and a symbol of a new start," the woman said.
"I offered her alternatives. I offered to find her places to practise her own religion.
"I offered to take her to friends or family. But she said to me from the word go: 'I am interested and I want to come [to church]'."
The carer claims that social services were aware that the girl was attending her evangelical church, and council bosses only objected when she they found out she had been baptised.
[...]
Officials advised the teenager to reconsider her decision and stop attending Christian meetings, and in November struck the carer off their register, claiming she breached her duty of care as a foster parent.
"They consider that in some way she should have taken steps to prevent the conversion," said solicitor Nigel Priestley, who is representing the carer.
He is demanding a judicial review into the council's decision, claiming they have breached Article 9 of the Human Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of religion for both the carer and the girl.
He said that the teenager, who is now back with her parents, was "distressed" that her private faith had had such repercussions, and is supporting her former carer's legal bid.

It is clear that the teen does not regret her decision to convert, but no matter.

Remember: it's not discrimination unless it happens to a politically-favored victim group. Britain's government, bending over backward to show how tolerant it is, takes just about every opportunity it can to atone for the centuries of Christianity's dominance there. It's just not fair that Christianity should continue to dominate -- so the government aims to do all it can to help level the playing field.


(Image stolen from Searching for Liberty)