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Dungy Supports Gay-Marriage Ban

What do U.S. Marine Gen. Peter Pace and Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy--the first black head coach to win a Super Bowl--have in common? They're both openly Christian. At an Indiana Family Institute gathering this week, Dungy said he supports an amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriages. Does Dungy have a problem with gay people? He says no--these are his personal, faith-based views. NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello issued a statement explaining that the organization does not regulate the political and/or religious views of team or league employees. Read more.

Mystery Creator of Anti-Clinton Video Ad Identified

The mystery has been solved. Philip de Vellis acknowledged on The Huffington Post's blog site that he was the creator of the Orwellian YouTube video ad portraying Sen. Hillary Clinton as Big Brother. (See also: Who Slammed Hillary? Source of Internet Attack Ad a Mystery) Who is this guy? De Vellis was a Democratic strategist who worked for Blue State Digital, a digital consulting firm with ties to Clinton's competitor, Sen. Barack Obama. A spokesperson for the Obama campaign said they had nothing to do with the ad and that de Vellis had not worked on the Obama campaign account. Blue State Digital, however, designs Obama's web site. Vellis has since resigned from the firm. Read more.   

Black Teen Gets Jail Time for Pushing Hall Monitor

How is it that a white teenager who burns down her family's home gets nothing but a slap on the wrist and a black teenager of the same age receives seven years in prison for shoving a 58-year-old hall monitor? It happened in Paris, Texas, a town that prides itself as being "the best small town in Texas." Unbeknownst to some, Paris actually is the center of where several of the most villainous public lynchings of blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries took place. Brenda Cherry, a local civil-rights activist, believes the town's disturbing past is not yet behind them. She said the isolated town was still living in the 1930s. The hall-monitor incident has the president of the Texas NAACP branch describing the racially driven charge as "a signal to black folks." Why? Read more.

Church Leaders' Stand-Off Over Gay Bishops Comes to a Head

Bishops of the Episcopal Church have rejected an ultimatum from leaders of the Anglican Communion to set up a parallel leadership structure that would serve those who oppose the church's liberal stand on gays and lesbians. Bishops from the Anglican Communion said they are unwilling to compromise with the Episcopal Church's practices of--and commitment to--ordaining openly gay bishops and blessing same-sex couples. At a special hearing, the bishops from the Communion called for an urgent face-to-face meeting in the United States with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, leader of the Church of England. Read more.

Military Reports Increase in Sexual Assaults

Reports of military sexual assault increased by 24 percent last year, according to a 17-page report issued by the Pentagon. Nearly 3,000 sexual-assault reports were filed in 2006 compared with 2,400 in 2005, and more than twice as many offenders were punished. Legal action was taken against a total of 780 people, ranging from court martials and discharges to other administrative remedies, reports CNN.com.

Black/White Life-Expectancy Gap Narrows

A new report issued by Dr. Sam Harper and his colleagues from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, illustrates that the black/white life-expectancy gap has narrowed significantly since 1993, largely because homicide rates, HIV mortality, accidental deaths and heart-disease mortality among women have declined. The study found that on average, heart disease remains the primary reason white men live 6.3 years longer than black men, while white women outlive black women by 4.5 years. While declines in homicide, HIV infections, and infant deaths have narrowed the gap, they remain disproportionately prevalent in the black community and continue to keep the black/white gap "unnecessarily large", according to CNN. 

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