Pope Francis faces church divided over doctrine, global poll of Catholics finds

Most Catholics worldwide disagree with church teachings on divorce, abortion and contraception and are split on whether women and married men should become priests, according to a large new poll released Sunday and commissioned by the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision. On the topic of gay marriage, two-thirds of Catholics polled […] Read more »

My Evolution on Gay Rights

As recently as a decade ago, the marriage-equality movement looked like a long, tough slog. Today, about 55 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage; it is now legal in 17 states, seven of those having acted in the past year alone. … Recently, a very high-level GOP operative confided that […] Read more »

America is becoming more liberal

… The country is getting more diverse, and as the proportion of white voters shrinks, so, too, does the conservative base. As demographics shift, so do political preferences — in this case, toward the left. A close examination of U.S. attitudes in the past decade-plus reveals that the United States […] Read more »

Polling for a new federalism

Several items in the news lately demonstrate that our nation’s current strain of federalism is straining. State-legal marijuana vendors in Colorado and Washington cannot use banks because of federal rules. The federal and some state governments are vexed over handling tax and other legal matters for same-sex couples married in […] Read more »