I didn’t think we had reached the point in America where providing free contraception would be seen as a risky political maneuver, but here we are. Last month, the Administration agreed to universal access to birth control as part of the Affordable Care Act. Insurance companies would need to provide coverage for contraception in both employer plans and on the insurance exchanges without a co-pay.

During the Christmas mass, the Pope urged the faithful to see through the superficial glitter of the season. At the same time, he wants to continue the Roman Catholic Church’s anti-gay pogrom, but you wouldn’t expect him to sell a ring or a scepter to pay for the discredited ex-gay “therapy”, the ballot attacks on marriage equality and the forthcoming anti-choice and anti-equality campaign dressed up in a cloak of “religious liberty”, now would you?

Evangelical preachers and leaders who want to herd their flocks to support converted Catholic Newt Gingrich have a tough sell: Newt’s thrice-married, with nasty well-publicized divorces — and his current marriage began as an adulterous affair.

What is the leadership, who appear to badly need to avoid having their faith-Occupied party anoint scary cultist Mitt Romney or anti-Israel extremist Ron Paul, to do?

I guess my first question is “When did Jesus speak Latin?” But it really goes far beyond that. It goes to the heart of the various interpretations and various bibles that are extant in the world today. It is the very problem I have with folks who look to any bible as the literal word of God (and Jesus). I am asked to believe that people writing hundreds and thousands of years after the fact or are using translations of translations (ancient Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek to Latin) can accurately convey the meanings of words said or written over two thousand years ago.

Why anyone listens to Catholic bishops on any aspect of morality is entirely beyond me. Protecting pedophiles? Check. Profiting off porn? Check. Politicizing their parishioners? Check. Blaming Woodstock for their own moral and organizational failings? Check. This world-wide operation needs to be shut down for the criminal enterprise and exploitative gang that it is.

The Vatican has expressed an opinion on financial reform, and the Pope is on the side of the 99%…the left side in fact. This may come as a bit of a surprise to some, specifically XTC fans.

Minnesota’s Archbishop has directed priests to organize efforts to create a ballot initiative that would make same-sex marriage unconstitutional in that state. The pattern looks similar to efforts in California to pass Proposition 8.

In something which should be remembered – because I have a feeling that it may be the opening salvo to something huge and sinister – NY Archbishop Timothy Dolan has sent a letter to President Obama claiming that he is alarmed about recent actions by the President’s administration that supposedly “escalate the threat to marriage and imperil the religious freedom of those who promote and defend marriage.”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed an International Criminal Court (ICC) complaint case that calls on the ICC to investigate and prosecute the Vatican for crimes against humanity. The complaint details what the two groups call “systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.”

Tonight’s film, Question 1 impartially follows the 2009 election campaign to keep same-sex marriage legal in Maine. It is an honor to have the film here tonight in discussion as the filmmakers, Joe Fox and James Nubile are currently completing the final cut.