The bigger the Big Government, the smaller everything else: In Sweden, expressing a moral objection to homosexuality is illegal, even on religious grounds, even in church, and a pastor minded to cite the more robust verses of Leviticus would risk four years in jail. In Canada, the courts rule that Catholic schools must allow gay students to take their same-sex dates to the prom. The secular state’s Bureau of Compliance is merciless to apostates to a degree even your fire-breathing imams might marvel at.

In a video that has gone viral, Long is named king by Ralph Messer, a self-described messianic rabbi from Colorado. As part of the ceremony, which has been roundly condemned, Long is wrapped in  what is purported to be a 312-year-old Torah scroll. The video also shows him, while seated in a chair, being carried around the stage of his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church to the joy of an obviously enraptured congregation.

“He now is raised up from a commoner to a kingship,” Messer shouts as he watches what seems to be a teary Long, wrapped in a traditional Jewish prayer shawl, being carried.

Long once was one of the best-known televangelists in the United States; at its peak, New Birth claimed more than 25,000 congregants, with Long’s voice and image resonating around the world through sermons and broadcasts.

When he was a child growing up in Plano, Texas – a place he describes as the “oversized, goofy buckle on the Bible belt” – he would bring his bible to science class and debate his teachers on the finer points of evolution.

“In my head, I won every time,” says Mr Griffith, now 29.

But somewhere along the way, his penchant for picking ideological fights with the non-religious got him in trouble. He found it harder and harder to argue with the points they were making. At 13, he suffered a crisis of faith.

“It was so painful. I lost my religion before I lost my first girlfriend. Nothing that big had ever happened to me, and I didn’t have any coping skills,” he says.

Mr Griffith found peace with his atheism, but he is not done sparring with the opposite team.

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow played with Bible verse numbers painted under his eyes.  After victories, he dropped down on one knee to pray and talked about his faith in the locker room.

“First and foremost, I just want to thank my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ,”  Tebow said.

The Broncos almost made it to the Super Bowl but lost to the Patriots during the playoffs, despite a winning streak with Tebow as quarterback.  But his displays of faith sparked a nationwide controversy, with many football fans inspired by it and many others mocking it.

On Thursday, the ACLU said it sent a letter to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper outlining concerns about the use of sectarian prayers to open meetings at the Legislature.

The ACLU said “several legislators and members of the community” had contacted it about the use of prayers which are “explicitly sectarian and favor one religion, Christianity.”

“We recommend that you adopt a policy to ensure that the NCGA halts the practice of opening sessions with sectarian invocations,” wrote Katy Parker, Legal Director of the ACLU-NCLF, in today’s letter to Attorney General Cooper. Parker pointed out that “the NCGA is still permitted to open its sessions with a prayer, so long as the prayer is nonsectarian.”

Say, does that include stomping on religious freedom by mandating that Catholic charities violate the basic tenets of their faith and provide contraceptives?

Injury, meet insult.

The president’s words reveal how little he understands of Christianity, beyond how he may best use it to his political advantage. Justifying his healthcare and financial reform laws, he said:

“And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’”

“And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense. But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’” Obama said, noting Jewish and Islamic teachings say much the same thing.

Where to begin?

What is important in education is making the study of religion a part of education. And that includes potential use of the Bible as a text.

An Arizona lawmaker is aiming to create through legislation a high school course about the Bible and its role in culture. South Carolina is among five other states with a similar law.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Terri Proud, R-Ariz., says students will benefit from the elective course, as biblical references are everywhere in Western culture, from Michelangelo’s paintings and Shakespeare’s plays to modern movies and television.

More than any other nation, the United States was founded on broad themes of morality rooted in a specific religious perspective. We call this the Judeo-Christian ethos, and within it resides a ringing endorsement of capitalism as a moral endeavor.

Regarding mankind, no theme is more salient in the Bible than the morality of personal responsibility, for it is through this that man cultivates the inner development leading to his own growth, good citizenship and happiness. The entitlement/welfare state is a paradigm that undermines that noble goal.

The Bible’s proclamation that “Six days shall ye work” is its recognition that on a day-to-day basis work is the engine that brings about man’s inner state of personal responsibility. Work develops the qualities of accountability and urgency, including the need for comity with others as a means for the accomplishment of tasks. With work, he becomes imbued with the knowledge that he is to be productive and that his well-being is not an entitlement. And work keeps him away from the idleness that Proverbs warns leads inevitably to actions and attitudes injurious to himself and those around him.

The court last week upheld the constitutionality of a new law in Texas requiring that abortion providers do ultrasound exams and that a woman listen to the physician’s description of her unborn child and to the heartbeat before deciding whether to abort.

The law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry in May, was blocked by a federal district court in August. It argued that the law impinged on the free-speech rights of abortion providers.

Now, Texas may become not just the nation’s largest creator of jobs, but the nation’s best protector of human life.

Riding a wave of Internet appeals, Planned Parenthood received pledges of $400,000 from 6,000 donors as of 2 p.m. yesterday, said Tait Sye, a spokesman. Three large donors also surfaced: The Amy and Lee Fikes’ Foundation, run by the head of closely-held Bonanza Oil Co. in Dallas, pledged $250,000; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he’ll match the next $250,000 given and Credo, a mobile-phone company, promised $200,000.

The decision by the Dallas-based Komen foundation has spurred a tsunami of online comment and petitions that added political fuel to the dispute and involved corporate funders for Komen, including Yoplait, the French yogurt maker, among others.

“This has been a contentious issue,” said Chief Executive Officer Nancy Brinker of Komen in a conference call.