News Articles in Culture Digest

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Conservative Christians are upset over comments made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a State Department ceremony to install Mark Dybul, an open homosexual, as the nation’s new global AIDS coordinator.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--During her short tenure on the ABC talk show “The View,” Rosie O’Donnell has made several comments that are offensive to conservatives, including her highly publicized assertion that “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--A new Catholic activist organization is distributing more than 1 million copies of a voter guide nationwide with the goal of helping Catholics evaluate candidates and their positions. But the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization is warning voters not to take the guide too seriously.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Some Hollywood-based movie producers more frequently are screening their films with faith and family groups and removing offensive material after realizing the conservative, evangelical demographic can deliver a needed boost for box office success, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Fierce opponents of President Bush have exercised their freedom of speech by comparing him to Hitler and Mussolini and by calling him names such as “evil maniac,” “terrorist” and worse. A head of state even referred to Bush as “the devil” and received applause at the United Nations.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Mohammad Khatami, a Shiite cleric and president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, was invited to visit the United States by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and embarked on a two-week tour in which he spoke at various venues including the Washington National Cathedral Sept. 7.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Amid Iran’s tension with the international community over nuclear weapons comes a controversy over the historical accuracy of the Holocaust, with Iran displaying caricatures of victims and planning to host a conference dismissing the event as “exaggerated.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Georgetown University (D.C.) abruptly kicked out several long-established evangelical campus ministry groups at the beginning of this semester.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has taken another step away from its family oriented roots by entering a partnership with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, a move the chamber’s president said Wal-Mart initiated.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The U.S. Department of Defense reports that 726 service members were discharged from the military for being homosexual in 2005, which represents an 11 percent increase over the previous year.