With philandering politicians dominating the headlines, said Ria Misra in Politics Daily, Jimmy Carter just provided a breath of fresh air. The former president said (in an essay in The Age) that he is leaving the Southern Baptist church because it denigrates women by refusing to ordain them and by teaching that women should defer to men. Church leaders didn't listen when Carter pushed for change from within—maybe now they'll pay attention.
Jimmy Carter is being unfair, said James Joyner in Outside the Beltway, because he goes a step further and links Southern Baptist teachings to the "depredations of radical Islam" abroad. In communities where Southern Baptists predominate, prostitution and rape are vigorously prosecuted, girls go to school and to the doctor, and women have "jobs and influence."
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