The Blinne Blog

Bush Backing Marriage Amendment Politically Smart

I was of the opinion that President Bush backing the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution was not politically smart. But, as always, it is dangerous to misunderestimate the President. While most Americans are not in favor of the amendment, those who are most likely to vote favor it. Note the following poll by the Barna Group:

The survey also showed that the adults most likely to vote in November favored the amendment by a comfortable margin, 52% to 43%. That margin may not be enough, however, to persuade two-thirds of the members in each house of the Congress to pass the proposal, and then to generate passage in three-quarters of the states. [Note: this survey was taken prior to the Senate voting down cloture for the amendment.]

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The survey showed that President Bush has more to gain from supporting the amendment and opposing the ordination of gay clergy than Senator Kerry does by opposing the former and supporting the latter.

Among people likely to vote in the election and who support the President, 54% strongly favor the marriage amendment and 17% strongly oppose it – a gap of 37 percentage points. Among Mr. Kerry’s supporters, a plurality (43%) strongly opposes the amendment and 20% are strongly in favor – a gap of 23 points. Among the undecided voters, 35% strongly support the amendment and 32% strongly oppose it – a difference that is not statistically significant.

Although neither candidate is likely to mention his views on the ordination of gay clergy, 65% of the President’s likely supporters in the November election strongly oppose the ordination of gay clergy while just 4% strongly support it. Among Mr. Kerry’s supporters, on the other hand, only 18% strongly favor gay ordinations while nearly twice as many (33%) strongly oppose it.

Space Probe Finds Life (Maybe)

Nature is reporting that NASA may have found current life.

Church of England Considers Heresy Trials

The Guardian is reporting a new plan for introducing heresy trials:

The Church of England's general synod at York will today discuss whether the church should reinstitute what would in effect be heresy trials to discipline errant or unorthodox clergy for the first time in nearly half a century.

The move comes with the church still in a febrile state over issues of homosexuality and whether it should ordain or promote gays and lesbians in the ministry.

But both liberals and evangelicals fear any move to discipline clergy in the church over teaching, ritual or ceremonial issues could rebound on them.

There is historical precedent for the fear. Pilgrim's Progress was written in the Bedford Gaol because Bunyan's worship services were not in conformity with the Church of England. Patrick Henry's speech, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, stemmed from witnessing a pastor being flogged for not being licensed.

AME Votes to Bar Same-Sex Unions

The Kansas City Star reported AME votes to bar ministers from performing same-sex unions

COLUMBIA, S.C. - (KRT) - Delegates at the national convention of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church voted unanimously Wednesday not to allow any of the church's ministers to perform same-sex unions.

The 2.5 million-member, mostly black denomination is the most recent Christian group in the nation to address the hot-button issue of gay marriage.

Delegates at the AME convention in Indianapolis used a unanimous voice vote to pass the motion, which made it illegal within the denomination for any minister to perform a same-sex marriage or civil union.

The vote came without any debate, said the Rev. Joe Darby, pastor of Charleston's Morris Brown AME, who attended the conference. He said it went smoothly because members consider other issues, such as civil rights, education and the presidential election, more urgent.

"This was not a matter of major contention. We have greater fish to fry than the same-sex marriage thing," he said. "I think this vote was done so that those who would try to use it as an issue wouldn't have it as a tool." [emphasis mine]

Translation: Same-sex marriage is not considered a civil right in the African-American church. Don't use African-Americans to make it into one.

Review of news@nature.com

Now that the site has gone live, I can give my review of news@nature.com. As promised, the site gives not only the news that was at Nature Science Update but also the news articles found in all of the Nature publications. I can confirm that the articles are exactly the same as what is found in the journals. There is also an archive that is available.

There are three levels of access: free, premium, and premium plus. Free access is the same as what was the case for Nature Science Update. Premium allows you to see the news articles in the Nature publications for the previous five weeks and also to customize what kind of news (e.g. physical sciences) you want to see. Premium plus allows you to access the archives back to 1998. Subscription to a Nature publication gives you premium plus access to the site. Premium access is $7.99 per month and Premium Plus is $15.99 per month. Premium Plus is a waste because you can get an individual subscription to Nature cheaper. Having a Nature subscription allows you to get their News and Views review articles (not included in the above subscriptions). You get both a paper copy and full online access to the journal. What this new service provides that is new to the Natures ubscriber is the news articles from other Nature publications. Nature is also testing a Newstand version of their journal. This is the paper version optimized for online reading.

In short, Nature is providing you the same resources that the science journalists have. The next time you see a wire story that references Nature, go to news@nature.com and you will find except for maybe a couple quotes the exact same article. Furthermore, it will come out before you see the wire story. Check Thursday mornings midnight GMT which is when the electronic version of Nature comes out.

Nature Magazine Updates News Service

Starting tomorrow Nature will be updating their news site to include the wide range of news found in all of their publications. This will be replacing Nature Science Update. I will give a review once it goes live. Here's the announcement in tomorrow's Nature:

Now more than ever, people need good news coverage about science. Most media organizations are cutting back on budgets for journalists, including science journalists, who are becoming less and less able to spend time digging into stories, or even searching for them in the first place. Lots of money is being spent on new platforms for disseminating journalism, as the use of news feeds grows and as we head towards electronic replacements for newspapers. But quality, diversity and depth are increasingly in short supply.

This week, Nature and its sister journals strike a blow against this trend. Simultaneous with the publication of this week's issue of Nature, we are pleased to launch our new online news service, news@nature.com. It delivers free daily stories — a revamped version of Nature Science Update, which it replaces. It also provides all the news and other journalistic content provided by Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, BioEntrepreneurand Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, as well as career news from Naturejobs.

Subscribers to any of the participating journals get all of this online content at no extra charge and before it is printed. Others can subscribe to the news service directly, receiving the free daily service and the rest as premium content. But for an introductory season over the next two months, the entire service is free of charge for all. It can be found at http://www.nature.com/news.

Quality? We intend it to be of the highest, in keeping with the values of the Nature name. Diversity? Our site will bring you hard-hitting daily coverage of all the big developments in research, as well as the science and technology issues that increasingly affect our lives. But there's room too for the scientific fun that lies buried in specialist journals and meetings, and for a more personal view from our team in the form of blogs and columns. And depth? All the journals provide in-depth coverage of their territories issue after issue.

The team that brings you all this is unmatched in its geographical coverage and award-winning talent. We are confident that your supply of the news of science will be greatly enriched by their efforts.