RH Reality Check

Religious right leaders announced Friday that they won’t abide by laws that support gay marriage or abortion. One hundred and twenty-five members of the religious right and leaders from the Catholic church signed the Manhattan Declaration. Only one signer was from Minnesota: Archbishop John Nienstedt (pictured) of the Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

While abortion politics dominated conservative opposition to the health care reform package that barely passed the U.S. House on Saturday evening, several measures in the bill that are beneficial to LGBT Americans largely went unnoticed — especially by conservatives.

The religious right has long railed against Halloween, condemning its pagan roots and claiming it promotes witchcraft and the occult. This year some groups are embracing the day as a time to reach kids with a pro-life and Christian message, while others use the day to burn “wicked” books and CDs. And one writer for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network warns parents that witches curse Halloween candy.

Minnesota’s largest anti-abortion group, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, is vigorously opposing all of the health reform proposals being offered by Democrats in Congress — and it’s not just about abortion. Several Republican talking points have crept into the group’s campaign, and most of them have been debunked by the very fact-checkers the group uses [...]

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is one of several female Democratic senators demanding that health insurance disparities that impact women be eliminated as part of the health reform packages being debated in Congress. For the past two weeks, the senators have been ensuring the issues unique to women don’t get last in the vigorous debate.

An amendment that would ban federal funds going to companies that require arbitration in the case of sexual assault passed the Senate on Tuesday. The amendment was offered by Sen. Al Franken and was added to the defense appropriations bill by a vote of 68 to 30.

Twenty-one-year-old Lila Rose is a superstar of the anti-abortion right, rubbing shoulders with conservatives like Gov. Tim Pawlenty and speaking at national events like last week’s Values Voter Summit. But her tactics — secretly videotaping visits to Planned Parenthood offices and presenting edited footage without context online — raise serious questions about journalistic ethics.

On the House floor Wednesday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann warned that the health insurance reform package currently being debated by Congress would set up “sex clinics” in schools where students “taken away” to have abortions.

Rep. Michele Bachmann will be headlining a fundraiser in November for controversial ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide. The Minnesota group has made a name for itself as an anti-drug Christian punk rock band that organizes motivational student assemblies to bring Christ to public schools. But over the last several years, parents and school administrators have complained that the ministry misrepresents itself, claiming that the group is not transparent about its Christian mission. And since schools pay using public funds, some are concerned that the group is violating the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state.

A report by the Guttmacher Institute released on Wednesday shows that women are choosing to delay having children due to the recession. At the same time, the cost of family planning and reproductive health services have put a strain on those women’s finances.