1/ I finally got around to reading that letter from the Seymour Institute. The black pastors make some good points, and I'm sympathetic to their dismay at the abortion rate in the black community but ultimately at odds with their paternalistic demand that Clinton present a solution specific to black women. Like the Catholic Church, the black church fails to persuade women to reject abortion and so turns to the government to coerce. As you know, I reject that approach.

The letter also features the standard conservative overreaction to Clinton's remarks about changing religious norms. These have been decontextualized from a speech concerning educational opportunities for girls (a point that has been made repeatedly in these threads and predictably greeted with crickets). It is simply histrionic to decry efforts to improve education and opportunities for girls and women as "totalitarian."