Sexuality

The good folks at NBC, clearly wanting to avoid a "Nipplegate" replay, will not air animal rights group PETA's hyper-sexual television ad during Sunday's Super Bowl.When you see it, you'll know why. For those that have forgotten, on February 1, 2004, during the halftime festivities of Super Bowl XXXVIII, singer Janet Jackson had a "wardrobe malfunction" revealing her naked breast to a startled…

USA Today's religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman apparently has little use for Christian ministers who believe the Bible's teachings on sexual ethics. Apparently already annoyed with evangelical pastor Rick Warren's stance on California's Proposition 8, Grossman took the California preacher to task for a letter offering use of  his Saddleback Church to conservative Anglicans who have left the…

A group that "celebrate[s] the inherent goodness of adolescent sexuality" and calls for clergy to "speak out against... coercive parental notification and consent for reproductive health services" has just released a study that concludes by calling on American theological seminaries to go over the birds and bees with their students. Yet in reporting on the study by the Religious Institute on…

In the final half hour of Thursday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Bianca Solorzano reported on an increase in the teen pregnancy rate, using Bristol Palin as an example: "Teen pregnancy was on the RNC platform this year, literally, as Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was about to give birth. Jamie Lynne Spears made headlines at 16, not for her acting, but the grown-up, real-life role…

Ann Coulter made a second appearance during the 10 am Eastern hour of Wednesday’s Today show, and hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb continued the discussion about the apparent “venom” in her books. Kotb asked if Coulter’s style was “kind of like shock jock, shake the cage, freak everyone out, wake everybody up,” and later stated that she felt the tone of the conservative’s writing was “…

GMTA.  Last night I posted an item on David Shuster's hypocrisy in branding Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston "unwed parents," pointing out that the MSM would never normally use such an un-PC term, preferring to speak reverentially of "single mothers."  This morning, Ann Coulter appeared on Today to discuss her new book, Guilty, and by coincidence, an important focus of Ann's remarks was . . . the…

He stopped short of demanding they be branded with a scarlet 'U.'  But the suddenly puritanical David Shuster insists that the proper term for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston is "unwed parents."Shuster rendered his verdict on this evening's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the MSNBC show he's been hosting since David Gregory parted for Meet The Press. Shuster teased the issue at the top of the program,…

By now, many readers know the New York Times's definition of a "good Catholic."A good NYT Catholic doesn't necessarily need to go to Church very often. He or she focuses on the importance of alleviating poverty and other world problems, almost invariably through government handout programs and not individual or private charity. Despite the long standing of "just war" guidance, this person opposes…

When during its first half-hour this Christmas morning "Today" moved to a conversation between Matt Lauer and Pastor Rick Warren, I braced myself.  Don't tell me, I thought, they're going to get into the invitation Pres.-elect Obama extended him to give the invocation at the Inauguration, and the reaction of some gay-rights groups. Well, surprise!  They didn't: not in word or implication.  Warren…

Conservatives still licking their wounds over the results of the November elections finally have something to cheer about: you don't have to read Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne's articles anymore because you know he's supporting Barack Obama.So deliciously said MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart on Tuesday's "Morning Joe" with the latter actually not…

Given some of the reactions to an item I wrote yesterday about Barney Frank's objections to Rick Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration, let me state for the record that I lean libertarian on marriage.  On the one hand, I don't like courts substituting their judgment for legislatures or the will of the people.  But in the long run, I think it might be better for government to recognize…

Does Barney Frank think incest is worse than pedophilia?  The question arises because, chatting with Andrea Mitchell this afternoon, here's how Frank reiterated his opposition to Barack Obama having granted Rick Warren the honor of pronouncing the invocation at the inauguration.  BARNEY FRANK: I think Rick Warren's comments comparing same-sex relationships to incest is deeply offensive, wildly…