The impact of Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling on Propostion 8, the California ban on Same Sex Marriage continues to unfold, though with surpirsing questions from the heart of the matter San Francisco. On Monday there were two very provocative arguments by two very different types of Catholics. Andrew Sullivan the openly gay, defiantly Catholic columnist at Atlantic and the keeper of the most popular blog in America, The Daily Dish, riffs off of a column by Ross Douthat, the former Atlantic Monthly editor and 'conservative' Catholic Op-Ed columnist with the New York Times. Douthat's column on Monday is a defence of the ideal of the life long monogamous heterosexual marriage. It is nuanced, thoughtful and as Sullivan, in his comment on the commentary, puts it 'Douthat at his most Catholic'. Both pieces are truly well worth reading and are stirring up loads of further comment.

Anne Rice's decision to 'quit christianity' continues to roil observers in agreement and disagreement, as you'll note on her own webpage. She includes all the commentary that comes her way, both supportive and dismissive. There is a quite reflective piece by Lily Burana in today's Salon Magazine which tries to frame the argument in a slightly different way, asking whether disagreeing with others in the Church forces you out or keeps you in. Reflecting on Anne Rice leads to refelctions on Proposition * and vice versa.

And whenever Anne Rice or Same Sex marriage is being discussed you can win easy money by betting that the issue of sexual abuse is also going to arise. William Oddie, former editor of the Catholic Herald in Britain, takes on the issue of clerical sexual abuse with a column that examines the idea of media bias and news that doesn't make the front page: in this case yet another analysis of whether sex abuse is greater within the Church or outside it.