Free Republic

The diocese of Newark recently passed two resolutions with regard to the Windsor Report and human sexuality. In these resolutions the diocese makes the popular distinction between doctrine and discipline. Doctrine is unchanging and eternal, they admit, but discipline is to be applied contextually. To some extent this is true. Take the Lord’s command against lust for example. The teaching is, “do not lust.” Do not reduce a fellow human being to a mere object of sexual desire. Thus, we are obliged as believers to keep away from those situations that might evoke lust. However those situations differ according to...

MIDDLE CHEESE REPORTS IN! [ 5:24 PM] Here's an update from Middle Cheese: The "big cheeses" in GOP circles weren't worried by today's nutty exit poll scare. They know the bad, bad history of initial exit polls. In 2000, the first polls showed Bush and Gore even - Bush won by nine points. The 2000 Florida poll showed Gore winning by three, and we all know that ended with a 537 vote Bush win. Even more glaring, in 2002, the first exit polls showed Wayne Allard down by 10 in the Colorado Senate race. He won by 10. Catholic vote...

I am not certain what is happening or what happened over the weekend, but morale has dipped far further than I have seen it throughout the entirity of this campaign. I don't know why most of the weekend polls including Gallup show a Kerry push. But there is one very ugly possibility. I was certain that the OBL tape would give president Bush a huge push going into Tuesday because I assumed that the American people are made of sterner stuff than the Spanish. But, perhaps this is untrue? Perhaps 30-40 years of therapeutic counseling rather than moral instruction has...

BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS [11/01 10:56 AM] The bad news, passed on by Middle Cheese: Bush’s poll numbers in Ohio on Sunday night were terrible. Might be a bad sample, or it might be that the last minute break of the undecided is going for Kerry. Good news: Quinnipiac has Bush up 8 in Florida, and tied in Pennsylvania. In New Jersey, they have Kerry up five. (That would still be an 11-point jump for Bush from 2000, which I find plausible.) For those who will be sent into a panic (or euphoria) about the Ohio information above, I...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday November 1, 2004 Contact: Dr. Lee M. Miringoff Dr. Barbara L. Carvalho Marist College 845.575.5050 This Marist College Institute for Public Opinion poll reports: It’s stride for stride in the homestretch: President George Bush and Senator John Kerry remain neck and neck in a nationwide poll conducted Sunday night. Bush and Kerry each receive the support of 48% of registered voters. Ralph Nader has less than 1%, and 4% are undecided. Among those likely to vote, Bush has the support of 48% compared with 49% for Kerry. Nader is at less than 1%, and only 3%...

Sen. John Kerry's debate performance appears to have returned the presidential campaign to a dead heat and eroded some of President Bush's advantages on national security issues, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. Three out of five registered voters surveyed said they believe Kerry won the Sept. 30 debate in Miami, compared to 23 percent who think Mr. Bush prevailed. Kerry's performance helped boost the Democratic ticket five points to a 47-47 percent tie with the Bush/Cheney team, erasing a lead that the Republicans held for a month. One percent of likely voters surveyed backed Ralph Nader....

The American Anglican church is to be told to "repent" for consecrating a homosexual bishop and to remove him from his post or face exclusion from the Anglican Communion. A commission headed by the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, Robin Eames, and made up of senior churchmen from across the world, will tell the Episcopalian Church in America next month that it needs to apologise for creating a damaging schism in the worldwide church. Its report, to be published next month, is expected to recommend that the Episcopalian Church should be excluded from the Anglican Communion if...

Dan dives in the tank again... Tonight Dan Rather tried to defend the documents again. He repeated the claim that CBS had multiple experts authenticate the documents but still only showed footage of Marcel B. Manley. He repeated the "but everyone know George Bush sucked" line of defense. Potentially Dan's weakest moment came when he tried to argue that since one fact in the memo was true, all the memos must be authentic. He said (paraphrased), "See, right here it say Bush was suspended from flying on this date... And in this other document obtained earlier it says he was...

First off, before I start getting a lot of the wrong kind of mail: I am not a fan of George Bush. But I am even less a fan of attempts to commit fraud, and particularly by a complete and utter failure of those we entrust to ensure that if the news is at least accurate. I know it is asking far too much to expect the news to be unbiased. But the people involved should not actually lie to us, or promulgate lies created by hoaxers, through their own incompetence. There has been a lot of activity on the...

WES CLARK MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR BEFORE CONGRESS; TRANSCRIPT REVEALED **World Exclusive** Two months ago Democratic hopeful Wesley Clark declared in a debate that he has always been firmly against the current Iraq War. "I've been very consistent... I've been against this war from the beginning," the former general said in Detroit on October 26. "I was against it last summer, I was against it in the fall, I was against it in the winter, I was against it in the spring. And I'm against it now." But just six month prior in an op-ed in the LONDON TIMES...