Carolina on their mind

The Southern Baptist Convention decided Wednesday not to back a plan for denomination members to pull their children en masse from public schools, opting instead to urge members to work within the system to get what they want. A sponsor of the failed measure had argued that public schools "are no longer allowed ... to even acknowledge the God of the Bible," which may come as a surprise to the hundreds of Alabama schoolchildren who enroll in Bible-related electives each year.

Despite their differences on education policy, SBC members did reach broad agreement during their Greensboro, N.C., meeting on a resolution that drinking is very bad and you probably shouldn't try to be a national Southern Baptist leader if you do it.