Religious Centrists: A New Major Youth Voting Bloc

The Washington Times is reporting on a new youth voting bloc known as religious centrists. 

College students are becoming more religious, and it's affecting their political views, according to a new Harvard University survey of this potentially influential voting bloc. "Religious centrists" rule, according to the university.
    A full 70 percent say religion plays an important part in their lives, with a quarter saying their spirituality has increased at college. Six out of 10 say they are concerned about the moral direction of the country, according to the poll of 1,200 students from across the country, conducted March 13 to 27 and released Tuesday.
    "Religion and morality are critical to how students think about politics and form opinions on political issues," said Jeanne Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor and director of Harvard's Institute of Politics, which conducted the poll.
    The Harvard study advises political parties to woo the spiritually inclined, a demographic that the popular press mostly deemed the exclusive territory of the "religious right" in the past two presidential elections.
    "This analysis foreshadows the 2008 general election campaign for president where religious centrists, nearly a quarter of the student vote, will be the critical swing vote … and likely the most influential group in American politics for years," according to the survey.

(Posted by Trask)

Will Democrats Take the House?

The Washington Post is reporting that Democrats are unlikely to take over the House of Representatives.

An 18-month recruitment drive by the Democrats has produced nearly a dozen strong candidates with the potential for unseating House Republicans, but probably not enough to take back control of the House absent a massive anti-incumbent wave this fall, according to House political experts.

Democratic leaders have been heartened by the quality of the candidates they have recruited to challenge vulnerable Republicans in congressional seats in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and they insist that there is a strong chance they can narrow the Republicans' 30-seat majority. Their efforts are being helped by widespread public dissatisfaction with Congress and with President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, a situation that has driven down the Republicans' approval ratings to less than 40 percent.

(Posted by Trask)

Islamic Violence Against Playboy

The Telegraph (London) is reporting on the response of Muslims in Indonesia to the new Playboy Magazine.

A mob of Islamic radicals yesterday stoned the offices of Indonesia's Playboy magazine five days after its first copies went on sale.

About 300 members of the Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI), clad in white shirts and skullcaps, smashed windows, the door and a gate at the premises in south Jakarta. There were no reports of injuries.

. . .

FPI regularly attacks bars that serve alcohol during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, often with impunity.

The Indonesian Playboy is tamer than the western version, with pictures of scantily clad women but no nudity. The first edition has sold out.

This article again demonstrates the difference between Christianity and Islam. Christians believe that Playboy is immoral, and some Christians even believe that it should be illegal. However, nearly all Christians respect the rule of law, and Christians rarely take the law into their own hands. You do not see even the most conservative Christians like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson advocating taking the law into their own hands.

(Posted by Trask)

Abortion in El Salvador

The New York Times Magazine has a story on the abortion policies of El Salvador. As one would expect the story is not even close to neutral in its portrayal of the issue. These few nations like El Salvador that have strong abortion laws and take them seriously truly represent the civilized world. There are some caveats to my support since El Salvador's law does not create an exception for the life of the mother, and it imposes higher penalties on the women than the abortion provider. However, it is overall encouraging to see nations that take the lives of the unborn so seriously. The implicit criticisms contained within this article in relation to the laws are non-arguments. The author points out examples of back ally abortions occurring and inequalities in access to abortion. However, both of these same objections can be made about general murder laws, and they are not a sufficient basis to justify making murder legal.

And this was why I had come to El Salvador: Abortion is a serious felony here for everyone involved, including the woman who has the abortion. Some young women are now serving prison sentences, a few as long as 30 years.

More than a dozen countries have liberalized their abortion laws in recent years, including South Africa, Switzerland, Cambodia and Chad. In a handful of others, including Russia and the United States (or parts of it), the movement has been toward criminalizing more and different types of abortions. In South Dakota, the governor recently signed the most restrictive abortion bill since the Supreme Court ruled in 1973, in Roe v. Wade, that state laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional. The South Dakota law, which its backers acknowledge is designed to test Roe v. Wade in the courts, forbids abortion, including those cases in which the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Only if an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother is the procedure permitted. A similar though less restrictive bill is now making its way through the Mississippi Legislature.

In this new movement toward criminalization, El Salvador is in the vanguard. The array of exceptions that tend to exist even in countries where abortion is circumscribed — rape, incest, fetal malformation, life of the mother — don't apply in El Salvador. They were rejected in the late 1990's, in a period after the country's long civil war ended. The country's penal system was revamped and its constitution was amended. Abortion is now absolutely forbidden in every possible circumstance. No exceptions.

There are other countries in the world that, like El Salvador, completely ban abortion, including Malta, Chile and Colombia. El Salvador, however, has not only a total ban on abortion but also an active law-enforcement apparatus — the police, investigators, medical spies, forensic vagina inspectors and a special division of the prosecutor's office responsible for Crimes Against Minors and Women, a unit charged with capturing, trying and incarcerating an unusual kind of criminal. Like the woman I was waiting to meet.

(Posted by Trask)