In the span of a few months,

1. New York City's very own Archbishop Dolan becomes a Vatican-ordained Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

2. New York City's Jeremy Lin, the biggest breakout of the 2012 NBA season, is deemed The New Tim Tebow.

and now...

3. Tim Tebow, friend of Jeremy Lin, professional sports' most notoriously devout Christian, is coming to play for the New York Jets. ESPN Reports:

Unusually quiet in recent weeks, the New York Jets shattered the calm Wednesday by completing a trade for polarizing quarterback Tim Tebow, the team confirmed. The Jets will send a fourth-round pick to the Denver Broncos, a source said. Tebow, a former first-round pick, went on the trading block Monday when the Broncos secured free agent Peyton Manning, who signed a five-year, $96 million contract.

In other news, the New Testament is having quite a year in the five boroughs. While bookies have yet to set odds on the Jets' potential success with Tebow on the team, needless to say, watching the interactions between New York Jets coach Rex "Let's Go Get a Goddamned Snack" Ryan and one of the most popular figures of Good Christianity in the Western World will be nothing short of phenomenal.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Frankly, this critique is hardly new, as far as it goes. But Mr. Santorum actually goes further in his assaults on modern life. He has attacked the very idea of birth control, an issue that many Americans probably regard as having been settled 50 years ago.

Ordinarily, Mr. Santorum’s views could be dismissed as those of a crank. The problem is, it’s becoming clear that his growing numbers of supporters apparently agree with his implicit contention that contraception should be outlawed—in the name of Christianity.

Mr. Santorum, to his credit, hasn’t tried to hide this knuckle-dragging world view. “Many of the Christian faith have said … contraception is O.K.,” the former senator said last fall. “It’s not O.K. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” With some pride, Mr. Santorum noted that “no president has talked about” the evils of birth control. Well, he’s right about that.

What started as a debate over abortion rights a generation ago—a debate in which principled people can and do have reasonable differences—has deteriorated into the spectacle confronting us now, when a major presidential candidate can argue not simply that abortion is wrong, but that birth control is “not O.K.”  If a candidate made such a declaration even a decade ago, he or she would have been dismissed as a laughing stock. But the intolerance of the religious right has become only more stringent in this, the second decade of the 21^st century. It is fair to argue, as many liberals and Democrats should, that the religious right is determined to criminalize contraception. Yes, they’re coming after your birth control.

At long last, has it really come to this? It is one thing for a religious organization to demand an exemption to health-care insurance mandates regarding abortion services or access to contraception. But when a presidential contender argues that birth control is “not O.K.,” it’s time to check the calendar to make sure that it really is 2012.

This debate has no place in presidential politics. How horrifying that it is actually taking place.

Naturally, the meme is now being used to spread the Gospel.

At the recent Christmas Coffeehouse at Liberty U.—the same school with the unexpectedly kick-ass debate team—a "Glee"-like teen choir performed an a capella cover version of the song that is now predictably burning up the web.

Don't you just love it when teens perform?

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