As Some Officials Exempt Religions Gatherings from Stay-at-Home Directives, Medical and Legal Experts Respond to "Incredibly Bad Idea"

St. Ambrose of Milan, Cain and Abel, book 1, chapter 1, 3-4, from "Advice on Prayer — Ambrose," at Crossroads Initiative 

Here's some commentary for you from the last day or so on the move of some US officials to exempt religious gatherings — they provide "essential services," we're being told — from stay-at-home directives that apply to everyone else.

Pope Francis, Pretty Words, and My Medicare Nightmare: An Update

While Pope Francis was in the U.S., I reported to you from the real world about my ongoing nightmare with Medicare — a nightmare that has everything in the world to do with the fact that Steve and I married in May 2014 when a judge in Arkansas knocked down the ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, and then I became Medicare-eligible in April 2015 while the Arkansas Supreme Court was maintaining a stay on same-sex marriages that called the legality of all the marriages that had occurred in May 2014 into question.

Pope Francis, Pretty Words, and My Medicare Nightmare: A Report from the Ground

I am poped out, folks. And you?

Coming Soon to a Political Theater Near You: Expansion of the "I Believe" Argument to Justify Refusal to Have Children Vaccinated

Coming soon to a political theater near you: an expansion of the "I prayed about it" and "I believe" and "I have a personal relationship with Jesus" argument to justify the refusal to have children vaccinated against infectious diseases. In fact, as Catherine Thompson reported for TPM several days ago, we're already there.

The Vaccination Thing: Interplay of Issues of Freedom and Common Good — Valuable Commentary

It's entirely possible not everyone in the world (or in the U.S.) shares my near-obsession with the "debate" about vaccination that has suddenly emerged from some dark undercurrents of American culture to become a real political thing. I'm interested in this topic because it illustrates so clearly, I think, a fatal propensity of many Americans across party, ideological, and regional lines to fetishize "liberty" in a way that's dangerous to the well-being of all of us, and of the whole planet. I tried so say some of this several weeks ago as we were discussing the Charlie Hebdo massacres and freedom of speech, and got the same kind of fierce pushback I get anytime I mention guns here — pushback against my insistence that no freedom of any kind is an absolute value, and that in a sane society, liberties must always be measured against the common good to be meaningful.