Anglicans opposed to the ordination of women bishops have been refused concessions they say would secure their place in the Church of England.

The General Synod defeated a bid to increase the autonomy of male bishops looking after traditionalist parishes.

But the Synod did opt to back possible further amendments to legislation introducing women bishops in a bid to avoid a split over the issue.

A final vote on the creation of female bishops will be held in the summer.

Legislation as it stands would allow traditionalist parishes to have the right of access to an alternative male bishop - one who would intervene in the diocese of a woman bishop only at her discretion.

Let me explain. Abortion rights organizations, pro-choice Democrats, and the media have all characterized the debate over this contraception coverage rule as a struggle between the White House and the Catholic bishops. In its editorial supporting the decision, the New York Times praised the Obama administration for “with[standing] pressure from Roman Catholic bishops and social conservatives.” But that’s not accurate.

The list of Catholics who have lobbied the administration to consider a broader definition of “religious employer” than now exists—one that would cover institutions like Catholic universities and hospitals—includes politically progressive Catholics who have been close allies of the White House, like Father John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame who stood up to conservatives who wanted Obama disinvited from giving the school’s commencement address in 2009. It includes pro-life Catholic Democrats like Senator Bob Casey, who now faces an even tougher reelection campaign in Pennsylvania because of his vote in favor of Obama’s health reform plan. And it includes precisely those Catholic hospital officials and progressive nuns whose support of health reform provided reassurance and cover for the holdout Catholic Democrats who voted to make it law. In doing so, they made possible the largest expansion of contraception access in U.S. history.

Without the work of women like Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, and Sister Simone Campbell of the Catholic social justice group NETWORK, there would be no health reform and therefore no contraception coverage mandate to argue over—not just for the employees of Catholic hospitals and universities, but for the estimated 24 million other women who will benefit from this aspect of the law.

So, yes, a little gratitude from women’s health advocates and other liberals would be appropriate. Instead, when these Catholic sisters and others asked for some flexibility with regard to the mandate, the advocates pooh-poohed as irrelevant their concerns about religious liberty and insisted that “the bishops” were the only ones who had a problem with contraception coverage.

In a 49-page brief filed today with the Texas State Supreme Court, attorneys for the Diocese, Corporation, and congregations asked the Court to uphold several previous Appellate Court decisions and establish Neutral Principles as the method for resolving church property disputes in the state.

Neutral Principles, accepted in 36 states and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1979, is a method of settling questions of church property ownership using the same rules that govern ownership of other types of private property, and it removes courts from wading into doctrinal disputes.

The brief also asked the Court to reverse the Fort Worth trial court’s February 2011 decision in favor of the Episcopal parties’ claims to diocesan property, and instead to uphold well-established state codes on trust instruments and non-profit corporations. The brief asks the Court to grant the Diocese’s summary judgment claims and prevent a hostile takeover of diocesan property by outside parties.

Moreover, while the mandate does not apply to employers that meet the legal definition of religious organizations (churches for example), the HHS will require even exempt employers to provide information to employees about where they can obtain contraceptive (including abortificient) coverage.

Last week Catholic leaders denounced the mandate from pulpits across the United States.

But this is not a “Catholic” issue. As Archbishop Duncan writes:

“The Anglican Church in North America stands by our Catholic brothers and sisters as followers of Christ in a nation whose Constitution guarantees ‘the free exercise’ of religion.  As Christians, our faith and doctrine are at the very heart of our service to others in our community.  Therefore, it is extremely troubling to see our government mandate services contrary to Catholic Church teaching.  I call on all members of the Anglican Church to stand by our Catholic brothers and sisters, and pray for our elected officials to have the courage to stand up for religious freedom and overturn this mandate.”

If the mandate stands “free exercise” falls. The Archbishop is absolutely right. We must oppose this tyranny with every political fiber.

We must also flatly refuse to follow it.

The New Testament commands Christians to submit to and obey the authorities set over us.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.(Romans 13:1-3)

Paul wrote his letter to the Romans during Nero’s reign. God who inspired and superintended Romans 13 is blind neither to systemic injustice nor to the moral depravity of rulers. But government, even bad government, is a divine gift to fallen humanity, restraining the most vile and violent passions of human nature. To defy the laws of the state, then, is to defy the law of God.

There are only two exceptions to this rule of faith: 1. when a government commands Christians to do what God forbids (Daniel 3) or 2. when a government forbids Christians to do what God commands (Acts 4:18-20).

The HHS mandate requires Christian charities to directly contribute, not only to contraception, but to the killing of unborn babies. It also requires churches that employ staff to provide staff members with information about where to go to kill their babies cheaply.

Both requirements clearly fall within the first exception which means that there is only one faithful response: respectful but unyielding disobedience.

So long as I am rector of Good Shepherd we will never provide information about contraception or abortion to any employee. I pray that Anglican pastors, bishops, archbishops and Christian leaders across the country will make similar commitments.

From the Washington Times, where there is more:

The 2012 Republican primary race has passed well beyond the rabbit hole into some extra-dimensional bizarro world where up is down, black is white and the allies of the candidate who disavowed Reaganism would have us believe that the leader of the “second stage of the Reagan Revolution” is somehow insufficiently Reaganesque.

It’s no secret that the GOP establishment backs Mitt Romney. The same folks who gave us John McCain and Bob Dole have picked their winner. When Mr. Romney is down, their panic shows. They start floating desperate ideas like late-entry candidates or a brokered convention. They also pull out the long knives for Newt Gingrich. After the former speaker’s decisive victory in South Carolina, insiders launched an all-out assault upon him. Unmasked and panicked, the GOP establishment unleashed the tactics of the left upon the right.

GOP insiders first dredged up 2-decade-old debunked partisan ethics charges that damaged Mr. Gingrich’s reputation until the Internal Revenue Service finally exonerated him. Mr. Romney couldn’t resist seeking cheap points by joining the discredited Democrats who started the whole sordid mess. Mr. Romney featured, of all people, Nancy Pelosi with her innuendo of Mr. Gingrich’s supposed wrongdoing, ironically blasting out an email slur just as Mrs. Pelosi was backing away from it. Then came something even worse: the salacious insinuation that Mr. Gingrich somehow betrayed former President Ronald Reagan.

The anti-Gingrich onslaught reached an apogee on the Drudge Report as Romney allies fed one negative story after another, amassing an impressive 10 pieces on the influential website at one point. A screaming headline claimed that Mr. Gingrich had repeatedly insulted Reagan. The unseemly issue of Mr. Gingrich’s second marriage managed to resurface. To cap it off, Ann Coulter, the surprising new head cheerleader for the moderate movement, enjoyed seeing her latest anti-Gingrich missive prominently featured.

I’ve jumped to more of the middle of this article, but do take the time to read it all, from the National Journal, where there is more:

Dole and Gingrich have a history, and it bears a quick summary. When Dole was a member of the Senate Finance Committee and urged then-President Reagan to raise taxes to cope with rising budget deficits, Gingrich memorably branded him a “tax collector for the welfare state.”

When Dole challenged President Clinton in 1996, Gingrich negotiated the deal with Clinton over welfare reform-–removing a potent issue of contrast from Dole’s campaign quiver. Dole told me later that when he heard welfare reform would be signed before his nominating convention, he knew his campaign had no chance.

It probably didn’t anyway, but Dole viewed Gingrich’s decision to get welfare reform signed into law–-allowing Clinton to campaign on it as he did in his convention renomination speech–-as a political and personal affront. Dole also knew he would face an onslaught of Clinton ads linking him to the unpopular Gingrich. He did. Vice President Al Gore put a cap on this at his convention speech, when he declared “Americans will reject this Dole-Gingrich approach and all this déjà voodoo.”

In that summer of 1996, Gingrich was terrified that Republicans would lose their majority-–in part because of two government shutdowns that Gingrich engineered in pursuit of a balanced budget (which was, it bears saying, eventually achieved). In that atmosphere of panic, Gingrich pointedly advised swing-district Republicans to leave conservatism aside and do whatever it took to hold their seats.

“For the marginal members, being speaker of the House, I’d say to them: Talk to your pollsters, do what gets you reelected, and call home afterward,” Gingrich told The New York Times editorial board.

Dole and other Republicans are now telling GOP primary voters to avoid what Gingrich was forced to advise when he led the party as speaker–-a mad race toward political expediency created by an agenda that had grown unpopular and threatening to the party’s long-term health.

This is not the only line of attack Gingrich has had to confront. Now brought into question is Gingrich’s fidelity to Reagan. There are several print and video examples of Gingrich trafficking in allegedly anti-Reagan apostasy. Some are contrived. For instance, a 1988 clip of Gingrich predicting that then-Vice President George H. W. Bush would lose if he ran like Reagan was actually advice for Bush to develop an authentic conservative platform of his own and distinguish himself as a new leader for a new time. In fact, Gingrich in that clip-–circulated by the Romney campaign to suggest Gingrich was abandoning Reaganism–-specifically praises Bush for his “no new taxes” pledge. He made that pledge while campaigning for the New Hampshire primary–-in which he defeated Dole.

Wanna make money in Hollywood? Release patriotic movies that promote conservative values and do not denigrate Christianity.

For two decades, that has been the message that Movieguide has been pushing, and on Friday when it celebrates its 20-year-anniversary with an awards show airing on The Hallmark Channel, the organization will present a 76-page report designed to back up its assertions.

This year’s annual report sells for $1,000 and the price includes tickets to the Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala at the Universal Hilton Hotel. The report praises such 2011 releases as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Battle Los Angeles, Moneyball, We Bought a Zoo and Hugo while heaping scorn on the likes of Super 8, Red State, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Bad Teacher and Happy Feet Two.

  By Jove - that bears repeating.- Release patriotic movies that promote conservative values and do not denigrate Christianity.

A counseling student who declined to advise a gay client might have been expelled from her university because of her faith, a federal appeals court ruled on Jan. 27.

Citing her evangelical Christian religion, Julea Ward disagreed with professors at Eastern Michigan University who told her she was required to support the sexual orientation of her clients. When the graduate student was assigned a client who sought counseling on a same-sex relationship, she asked to have the client referred to another counselor.

Ward was then expelled from the school.

If a student counsellor who happened to be a devoted, practicing Muslim was faced with counseling someone which went counter to Islam, would they be expelled? 

Hat tip:  Veritas2007

Forget the fratricidal warfare between two establishment soldiers so harmonious on substance that their contest, inevitably, has descended into a poisonous, personal food-fight. The problem is not the GOP infighting. The problem is the GOP. Republicans are simply not interested in limiting government or addressing our death spiral of spending.

My weekend column was about the dog-and-pony show that congressional Republicans just put on to snow you into thinking they oppose the $2.4 trillion debt-ceiling increase they actually approved only six months ago. Now, get ready for House Republicans to unveil their $260 billion transportation bill.

The federal government should not be in the transportation business at all. A federal role was rationalized in the mid-Fifties to finance the construction of interstate highways. As National Review’s editors observed in 2005, that project was completed in the early Eighties, at which time the fuel tax that funded it should have been repealed and the upkeep of highways left to the states. “Instead,” they wrote, “Congress morphed the program into a slush fund for some of its most indefensible pork-barrel spending.”

The cover story for this permanent spendathon is that we now have a national highway “system” that ought to be financed by its main users. “Systems” is the abracadabra chanted by the progressives who run both parties when they’re about to pick your pocket. We don’t have a highway “system.” We have 50 states, whose widely varying transit needs are best known, and can be best addressed, by the affected local communities.

Plus, see how easily a “highway system” morphs into a “transportation system.” The taxes that Leviathan confiscates from drivers, purportedly for road construction and maintenance, are actually redistributed to subsidize other forms of transit preferred by progressives — including walking. For that, you can thank Republicans. With a compassionate wink from President Bush, the Republican Congress enacted an obscene $286.5 billion transportation bill in 2005, assigning the act one of those precious Washington acronyms — SAFETEA-LU (who cares what it stands for?). The editors accurately described it as a “monstrosity of wasteful spending.”

I nearly passed it by, but I was struck by the, um . . . sweeping generalization of the headline.  See, when you’re trying to spin something as successful, but want to be vague on the details, you say stuff like [name of person you want to pump up] [verb indicating achievement] and “throughout [an entire continent].”

Here’s an example of how this would work if Matt Kennedy had a public relations flack who wasn’t very good [but was trying really hard.]

“Famed New York Preacher Matt Kennedy Launches North American Tour”

You could even say “Famed Acknowledged Well-Respected Preacher Matt Kennedy Launches Grand North American Tour.”  For the novice reader, this could be considered really neat, even if he doesn’t know Matt Kennedy.  After all, if he’s made it in New York, then he can make it anywhere, right?

But upon reading the article, one discovers that “New York” means “New York State” not “New York City.”  And the “North American tour” consists of preaching stints in Georgia and Texas.

Technically speaking, all of the things mentioned in the headline are correct.  Matt Kennedy is famed, acknowledged, and well-respected in his circles.  And Matt is in New York.  And were Matt to preach in Georgia and Texas, one could truthfully say that he is engaged in a “North American Tour.”

But . . . the sweeping vague grandiosity of the headline gives the game away.  And it does an actual disservice to who Matt Kennedy is because it attempts to inflate someone who needs no inflation.  The only thing such a headline would demonstrate is that either 1) Matt Kennedy seeks recognition beyond his current standing—he wants to leap a rung or two in public recognition and credibility before he is ready or 2) he hired a klutzy pr person.

That’s my general thesis.

But let’s dig a bit more into the details of this actual news release.

First off, this is announcing an “achievement” received from a particular set of people—leaders of Anglican Communion provinces who have, in theory, issued invitations [I have my own speculation even about the idea that they were “issued” but that’s for my own musing].  So immediately one recognizes—from the headline of the news release—the goal: to tout an achievement given by a certain niche segment of Anglitania.  You’ve got someone who is quite desperate to rid herself of the taint of “anathema”—which has apparently led to someone news releasing tea with Primates of Provinces!

Note how carefully the release is phrased too.  We are informed that KJS “has accepted the invitations of Primates of Anglican Communion provinces in Asia to visit, address diocesan gatherings, celebrate Eucharist and preach during February and early March.”

But . . . but . . . where precisely will she be addressing “diocesan gatherings,” and where precisely will she “celebrate Eucharist and preach”?

Ah . . . perhaps that is answered by the list of four Anglican Communion provinces in the third paragraph: the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong.

But no . . . because we are told that what she will be doing in those four provinces specifically is “visit and meet with the Anglican Primates” there.

Now—it may be that our Presiding Bishop will “address diocesan gatherings, celebrate Eucharist and preach” in all four of those Anglican Communion provinces and if so, that’s an achievement . . .  for her.

But we don’t know that from this news release.

So.

We know that she is having tea with the Primates of four Anglican Communion Provinces.  And we know that she will “address diocesan gatherings, celebrate Eucharist and preach” . . . somewhere or other . . .

But the most important thing we know is that Katharine Jefferts Schori needs to announce publicly that she is invited to go to some Anglican Communion provinces.

Matt Kennedy helpfully points us to another excellent model for this kind of news release:

Day of Shining Star to Be Commemorated in Foreign Countries

Pyongyang, February 6 (KCNA)—Events to mark the 70th birth anniversary of General Secretary Kim Jong Il (the Day of the Shining Star) were held in different countries.

They included a meeting and film show in Pakistan on Jan. 28 and a lecture in Benin on Jan. 30.

The chairman of the Pakistan Association for Self-Reliance Studies and other speakers highly praised the exploits performed by Kim Jong Il for the noble cause of ensuring the prosperity of the country and wellbeing of the people and peace and security of the world, adding that it is quite natural for progressive humankind and Juche idea followers to commemorate his birth anniversary.

He would be always alive in the hearts of the Korean people and global progressive humankind forever and his exploits in the international working class movement and global independence would shine forever, they noted, and continued:

The chairman and secretary general of the Benin National Committee for the Study of General Kim Jong Il’s Works said Kim Jong Il pursued original Songun politics, putting forward the Korean People’s Army as a mainstay of the defense capability for self-defence and a main force for building a thriving nation. He was, indeed, a peerlessly illustrious commander of Songun.

Socialism has won victory after victory in the DPRK and the invincibility of the Juche idea has been strikingly demonstrated worldwide despite the U.S.-led imperialist allied forces’ persistent moves to stifle the DPRK for several decades thanks to the treasured sword of Songun provided by him.

The revolutionary cause of Juche is sure to triumph as long as the dear respected Kim Jong Un follows the Songun politics, they concluded.

Upon our Presiding Bishop’s return we can sit back and wait for more news releases about all of her triumphs while taking the continent of Asia by storm. 

Despite the ruling, it could be a while before same-sex couples can resume marrying in the state. Prop 8 backers plan to appeal to a larger Ninth Circuit panel and then to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose in the intermediate court. Marriages would likely stay on hold while that process plays out.

Slate’s legal affairs correspondent Dahlia Lithwick said many cases involving gay marriage have been burbling up.

“At this point, we’re almost in a foot race as to which one gets to the Supreme Court first,” she said on the Madeleine Brand Show. “It’s fair to say both sides do eventually want this to get [there].”

The Ninth Circuit ruling comes 18 months after federal judge Vaughn Walker struck down the ban. Walker found Prop 8 violated constitutional rights under two provisions: the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the constitution to marry.

In other words, gay marriage has actually been legal since we ratified the 14th Amendment in 1868, but we’re just now figuring that out.

It would also seem to imply that if gay marriage bans are unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, then so are bans on possessing and carrying firearms, which California has in spades. Where am I wrong here?

We can all agree that this is a challenging and deeply unsettling situation for all involved in the fight against breast cancer. However, Komen’s decision to change its granting strategy and exit the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and its grants was fully vetted by every appropriate level within the organization. At the November Board meeting, the Board received a detailed review of the new model and related criteria. As you will recall, the Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization’s real or perceived challenges. No objections were made to moving forward.

I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.

What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.

The Church of England is failing gay Christian couples and must rethink the traditional, biblical portrayal of homosexuality as “idolatrous, promiscuous and exploitative”, according to one bishop.

In remarks that reveal deep divisions in the church hierarchy, the Right Rev Nicholas Holtam said there were gay couples who were living faithfully and lovingly for life and that the quality and nature of their relationships meant it was appropriate to use the language of marriage.

The theory holds that creation began some 14 billion years ago with a colossal explosion in which space, time, energy and matter were created, and galaxies, stars and planets – which are in continual expansion – came to be.

“We know that God is the creator,” he added, “that He is a good Father who has a providential plan for us, that we are his children, and that we everything we can learn by reason about the origin of the universe is not in contradiction with the religious message of the Bible.”

Fr. Funes said that as an astronomer and a Catholic, he is open to this explanation of the creation of the universe, despite “some yet unanswered questions.”

He noted, for example, that while there is no proof of other intelligent life in the universe, “we cannot rule it out,” since studies show that there are nearly 700 planets orbiting other stars.

“If in the future it was established that life, and intelligent life, exists, which I think would be very difficult, I don’t think this contradicts the religious message of creation because they would also be creatures of God,” he said.

The truck-stop hooker is no Julia Roberts, the trucker in the cab with her no Richard Gere, and this truck stop off the highway could not be any farther from Beverly Hills, the staging ground for “Pretty Woman.”

The woman sports baggy shorts, a white T-shirt and frizzy hair. Her fat middle-aged pimp sits in a beat up red Honda, watching as his “lot lizard” moves from truck to truck, in broad daylight.  If this pimp has a cane it is for substance, not style.

She moves through the parking lot, occasionally opening a cab’s passenger-side door and climbing in.

The trucker and hooker disappear in the back for 10 minutes.

Danielle Mitchell watches from the other end of the parking lot and shakes her head.

“We know from talking to other victims and other agencies that girls are taken to truck stops and they’re actually traded,” she says, sitting in her car, a shiny silver sport utility vehicle, keeping a healthy 50-yard distance from the pimp.

What’s Ms. Jones’ beef with Erickson? Only that he told it as he saw it.

Oh - and that the subject is Christianity.

Commenting on President Obama’s comments on who Jesus would tax, in the context of his health care plan’s requirements regarding contraception and abortifacients, Erickson wrote:

The President this week chose to pervert God’s Word to make the case for a tax increase, but he also chose to ignore God’s word on life and is ordering Christians, while he claims to be one, to violate their Christian conscience on abortion — requiring Christian organizations to provide health insurance that will cover the cost of drugs that induce abortions.

He is trying to have it both ways. He is trying to use God’s Word to defend a tax policy that dissuades individuals from giving gladly and charitably to the poor as God instructs and is ignoring God’s Word in order to force fellow Christians into violating their Christian conscience — something about which God cares a great deal.

This cannot end well for him, particularly doing this claiming to be a Christian. And it might not end well for the rest of us either. Barack Obama has gone to war with Christians’ consciences and he is perverting God’s word in the process to get his way on public policy.

At this, Ms. Jones becomes unhinged:

...my concern today is the rhetoric of hate coming from someone who works for CNN. CNN hired Erickson in 2010 because he is allegedly in touch with small town America. Really? This is how small town America thinks? Sorry, but no. I will not stand for America to be tarnished thusly. I have friends who live in very small towns and they do not run around accusing people of perverting God’s word like a crazy carnival con artist.

The post is full of the usual liberal mischaracterizations of Christianity, logical failures, and hateful rhetoric that are on display whenever someone in a supposedly “friendly” news organization goes off the plantation - and especially when the topic is Christianity - but I recommend it to you for comic relief if nothing else.

This might seem a strange thing for a Catholic to say, but I often think that the Queen is the most impressive religious leader in Britain. She says little in public about her Christianity, but what she does say – usually at the end of her Christmas Day broadcast – is powerful in its directness.

Having discussed the celebrations, tragedies and anxieties of the past year, the Queen affirms, naturally but unflinchingly and with no attempt at religious relativism, her faith in Jesus Christ.

3. A masculine ministry brings out the more rugged aspects of the Christian life and presses them on the conscience of the church with a demeanor that accords with their proportion in Scripture.

This is strange language indeed: “the more rugged aspects of the Christian life”. What about the more tender aspects of the Christian life? What about the more refined aspects? Why are we putting a filter on the whole counsel of God? Do we want a masculine Christianity or do we want Christianity? Surely our aim should be to understand the scriptures as best we can in our cultural context. Is Piper asking me to filter out the parts of scripture which command us to be compassionate, tender, gracious because they might be deemed effeminate? I don’t want to deliberately cut the revelation of God in Christ down so that it echoes my cultural bias or my preference for a certain style of Christianity. Dr Piper is very vocal about his love for the scriptures so I struggle to understand why he would encourage this deliberate distortion of God’s word.

Piper concedes that women could do this, but he claims the theme of Christian warfare and other rugged aspects of biblical theology and life should draw the men of the church to take them up in the spirit of a protective warrior in his family and “tribe,” rather than expecting the women to take on the spirit of a combatant for the sake of the church. This language of protective warrior reminds me of John Eldridge’s book Wild at Heart rather than the scriptures which actually happen to have quite enough examples of rugged and fierce women. Perhaps Piper’s words would have more biblical tenacity if he had said “the spirit of a protective warrior like Deborah, or Jael or Queen Esther?”

Komen was unprepared for Planned Parenthood’s reaction. Go back and review Jill Stanek’s post on Komen’s initial decision. According to her, Komen wanted to make its grant criteria decision quietly and move on. Komen did not anticipate that Planned Parenthood would make sure the decision was not only not quiet, but that it would become a firestorm for an organization that, up to now, has enjoyed decade after decade of positive press. Komen might have been complacent, but more importantly, it was naive. Today’s statement, in which Komen reiterates its desire to move on, suggests that that naivete has not been punctured. Given Planned Parenthood’s history and leadership, there was no way it would take any adverse decision lying down. No one should have expected it to do anything but fight, so Komen should have gamed out Planned Parenthood’s likely reactions, and planned its own counter actions.