The Boy Scouts have been under sustained attack for the organization’s policies that, for example, require some belief in God for its members and exclude homosexuals from serving as scouting leaders. In a recent dust-up, the Scouts lost the use of the Berkeley marina for the Sea Scouts program.

I know this question has been bugging some of you for years — was George Washington a Deist? Some want to present him as an evangelical churchman (not an easy task) and others want to claim him as the father of American secularism (an even greater challenge). Many history books and biographies simply refer to Washington, along with many of the other Founding Fathers, as a Deist. While this may well have applied to a character like Benjamin Franklin, it does not fit Washington, whose words and deeds presuppose a God who intervenes in human affairs.

Last week Rev. Jane Adams Spahr was found not-guilty of ministerial misconduct, even after the openly lesbian Presbyterian minister had defied the teachings of her church by performing “marriages” for two lesbian couples. Given the current state of mainline Protestantism, the actions by the trial court were not completely unexpected. Nevertheless, this act of rebellion against the church’s law and the clear teachings of Scripture sets the stage for an even larger conflict when the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) holds its General Assembly in June.

Before the week ends, I want to draw attention to what many (but not all) in the mainstream media have missed — President George W. Bush’s brave and strategic support for religious liberty during his recent visit to Asia.

The holiday police are at it again–looking for violations of the nation’s new policy of separating faith and civic celebrations. The same folks who will soon be trolling courthouse squares looking for manger scenes are now calling on Americans to have a happy Thanksgiving . . . but leave God out of it.

The New York Times editorializes on the Internal Revenue Service’s investigation of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, concluding that “it would seem to be hard to justify picking on a church that has a long record of opposition to wars waged by leaders from both parties.”

Over the past half century, the U. S. Supreme Court has accomplished a feat America’s founders would surely have found to be inconceivable–they have created a perverse cloud of confusion over the question of religious liberty and the place of religious language and symbols in the public square.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to evict all New Tribes Mission personnel from the South American nation, describing the missionary group as “a true imperialist infiltration that makes me ashamed.”