The Vermont state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday (March 23) to allow same-sex marriage, putting the state one step closer to becoming the first to approve same-sex marriage by legislative means. The Democratic-dominated state Senate voted 26 to 4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democrat, predicted to USA…

New York — In the wake of an embarrassing Vatican response to a Holocaust-denying bishop, French Catholic cardinals on Monday (March 23) publicly and unambiguously expressed their opposition to Holocaust denial. “Let this be another opportunity to recall — whether the time is right or not — that being a Catholic is radically incompatible with…

Virginia Beach, Va. — It’s not as daring as, say, Pat Robertson’s Republican run for the White House in 1988. But there’s no denying that starting a Democratic student group at Robertson’s Regent University seems a bit audacious. “Here, it is definitely a startling idea,” said Kalila Hines, a government major and one of the…

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A church in Ashland, Ore., can import and brew a hallucinogenic tea for its religious services, under a federal court ruling issued March 19. Judge Owen M. Panner issued a permanent injunction that bars the federal government from penalizing or prohibiting the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen from sacramental…

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