Religious

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status. Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity.

Cheerleaders in a small Texas town can continue to display their Bible verse banners at football games, after a district judge ruled Wednesday that their actions did not violate the Constitution. The cheerleaders in the football-dominated town of Kountze garnered national attention when they sued the school district in a case that pitted free-speech rights and religious freedom against the doctrine of separation of church and state. Hardin County 365th Judicial District Court Judge Stephen Thomas said the banners that included religious messages - such as "If God is for us, who can be against us?

Merry Clayton's spine-chilling vocal on the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" is one of the most famed in '60s rock. But the 1969 classic brings painful memories to Clayton: The physical strain of the intense duet with Mick Jagger resulted in a miscarriage after the session. So audiences' frequent requests for "Gimme Shelter" might sting like salt in an old wound. Clayton, who performs at the Gardenia Room on Friday, says she was buoyed by her religious upbringing in combating the loss.

Obstacles to legal equality for gay and lesbian Americans are crumbling fast. Congress has repealed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevented gay service members from being open about their sexuality. Nearly a dozen states have legalized same-sex marriage, and a stampede of U.S. senators - including two Republicans - has endorsed marriage equality. Activists are hopeful that the Supreme Court will overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

With more than 4 million people visiting Yosemite National Park last year ? and that number expected to increase this year ? it's no wonder lodging inside the park is snatched up quickly. "We typically sell out during the summer season," Delaware North Cos. spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro said of its Yosemite accommodations (Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, Curry Village and the housekeeping camp on the Merced River; the Wawona Hotel, and in the back country, Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, White Wolf Lodge and the High Sierra camps)

Is faith losing its grip on the young? That would be one way to read a new report by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that more than one-quarter of Americans age 18 to 29 have no religious preference or affiliation, and fewer than one in five attend services regularly. That makes them easily the least religious generation among Americans alive today, perhaps the least religious ever. Or does it? The Pew study found that, although young adults -- the so-called Millennial generation born after 1981 -- are shunning traditional religious denominations and services in unprecedented numbers, their faith in God and the power of prayer appears nearly as strong as that of young people in earlier generations.

The religious right should be renamed the religious wrong. CHARLES W. LeCOMPTE Santa Barbara

IN Tim Rutten's article on former Fox News Channel producer Charlie Reina's memo about alleged conservative bias at that network ("Miles From 'Fair and Balanced,' " Nov. 1), I am identified as a "conservative religious commentator." I'm not sure what that means since my syndicated column (in 557 newspapers and distributed by Tribune Media Services, which is hardly a "religious" organization) mostly deals with secular subjects others write about. So does my "After Hours" show on Fox, which includes liberals, Democrats, pagans and, occasionally, a "religious" person.

Were it not for the setting in a stately Romanesque cathedral near downtown Los Angeles, the gathering might have been mistaken for a political rally. Many of the 90 people present signed cards to California's two U.S. senators urging them to support legislation to roll back greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Others pledged to oppose efforts by oil companies and conservative activists in California to suspend the state's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

"Home Run" is the heartfelt and deeply religious story of a baseball star's struggle with alcoholism and the Christian faith-based recovery group that gets him through. The first moments seem promising as images of a peaceful stretch of farm country fill up the screen. A weathered red barn sits in the distance next to a sprawling white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. But as the camera goes in close, something is wrong - the red is too red, the worn spots too worn. The metaphor is seriously overplayed and we are only in the first inning.

ROME - Pope Francis has backed the Vatican's doctrinal crackdown on a major group of American nuns, reasserting the Roman Catholic Church's conservative approach to various social issues in a move that could cool the warm reception he has received from some liberal Catholics since taking office last month. The Vatican said in a statement Monday that Francis had reaffirmed the doctrinal evaluation and criticism of U.S. nuns made last year by the Holy See under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. The assessment accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents most U.S. female Catholic orders, of promoting "radical feminist themes" and ignoring the Vatican's hard line on same-sex marriage and abortion.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, says his party needs to be retooled. Republicans, he says, need to reach out to minorities, show a willingness to work with those who do not agree with them 100% and find a way to convince young people that the GOP does not stand for Goofy Old Paranoids.  He is not the only Republican leader to worry about the future of the party. If a course correction is not made, they fear, there are many more lost elections to come.

Foreign auteurs tend to enjoy a good metaphoric image or three. And few like them more than Chan-wook Park, the South Korean filmmaker behind violent cult hits such as "Oldboy. " In "Stoker," Park's English-language debut starring Nicole Kidman that opened in Los Angeles last weekend, there are a number of memorable images. They're all there for a reason. "Stoker" centers on the loner India (Mia Wasikowska), her aloof and at times rivalrous mother (Kidman) and India's affectionate but mysterious uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode)

ALLAHABAD, India - Saraswati Devi shivers in the dirt near a small fire, tears streaming down her face, her tattered sari wrapped tightly around her small frame. The 73-year-old farmer from a small village in the central state of Madhya Pradesh had arrived earlier in the day with her younger sister-in-law at the Kumbh Mela, a massive Hindu religious festival on the edge of the sacred Ganges River. But in the crush of the crowd, which is expected to number about 100 million this year, they had become separated.

WASHINGTON - Judges across the country are increasingly split over whether private employers and their companies can cite their religious beliefs as a valid reason for denying birth control coverage to their employees. Earlier this month the Obama administration proposed a compromise for some nonprofit religious organizations, such as Catholic hospitals and colleges, that would allow them to avoid paying directly for such insurance. But the administration refused to consider a similar exemption for private, for-profit employers.

ALLAHABAD, India - It's dusk, and the sun's rays succumb to the twinkle of amber streetlights at the sacred confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. The day's last bathers, intent on washing away sins and purifying their souls, take a dip in the cold, dirty water and then relax on blankets and launch boats covered in marigolds. This is as close to peace and quiet as it gets at India's Maha Kumbh Mela, a once-in-a-lifetime (well, this lifetime) Woodstock-gone-viral event billed as the world's largest religious festival.

Stanford researchers have discovered that the introduction of Western religions is changing hunting patterns in the Amazon and affecting the region's biodiversity. The biologists extensively questioned members of the Makushi and Wapishana tribes in the Guyanese Amazon about their eating habits and which animals they hunted. They found that in areas where Western religions had gained a foothold, hunting and eating animals that had been banned by traditional shamans increased. Likewise, consumption of other animals increased in areas that had been protected by shamanic practice.