In my Nov. 5 Gazette story here, I write about views of officials at Focus on the Family on the repeal of the gay-marriage law in Maine. Basically, they are lovin’ it.

Well, in a news release from Focus, officials talk about the Republicans winning the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey. And they are lovin’ that, too.

Read the news release here.

Do Tuesday’s election results suggest a resurgence of the Christian-Republican right? Please comment below.

In my Nov. 1 Pulpit column at www.gazette.com, I write about sweat lodge tragedy Oct. 8 at an Arizona retreat center that claimed the lives of three participants and hospitalized dozens of others. The sweat lodge had more than 50 participants and was run by New Age guru James Arthur Ray.

In my column, Laguna Pueblo Indian Jacob Anaya talks about what may have gone wrong at the Arizona sweat lodge. Below are edited excerpts from my interview with 49-year-old Anaya.

Anaya  has run a Native American sweat lodges for 25 years. Currently he has one in Peyton where he conducts lodge ceremonies every other Saturday. He never charges a dime to people who want to participate. If you would like more information on it, contact him at allmyrelations16@earthlink.net.

MARK BARNA: What went wrong at the Arizona sweat lodge?

JACOB ANAYA: Many things. For one, they used plastic rather than blankets and cotton for the lodge’s walls. That caused the steam to become and trapped, the lodge was unable to breath, and that rose temperatures. There were also too many people taking. I never conduct a lodge with more than 10 people.

The people were seated in three rows. This meant that the people in the first row closest to the rocks and those in the last row would be the hottest [that's because those in the first row are closest to the red-hot rocks and those in the third row would be where the hot air circulated].

BARNA: Was Ray qualified?

ANAYA: For him it was a moneymaking opportunity. Most of these people go on a weekend retreat where someone says they have the right to teach this and have a certificate. But in the Native American community, you go for years to learn this.

BARNA: You’ve said organizer of the Arizona sweat lodge suffered from a “warrior mentality.”

ANAYA: “The New Agers want to see how hot they can get it. And if you make it through, you are a warrior. They are doing a macho lodge. That’s how they understand what a warrior is.

BARNA: What should people watch out for with sweat lodges?

ANAYA: Be careful if the person running the lodge is charging money. Also, if they want you to come exclusively to theirs, that is not right. We were always told  to go to other lodges to (gain a broader understanding of lodge ceremonies). Another thing is if the man running the lodge has women around him other than his wife. A traditional man will have his wife there or  a helper and a singer around him. Through this he is backing himself up, saying nothing wrong happened here. There’s been lodges where women have been molested and naked lodges. We don’t stand for any of that.

BARNA: Are there any lodges in the Pikes Peak are being run the wrong way.

ANAYA: Yes. Some are charging money and don’t understand (the Native American way.) They don’t have any understanding of community. They don’t have any humility and no respect.

BARNA: You say that people should be wary when spiritual leaders charge for their knowledge, and that Native Americans believe spiritual knowledge is to be freely given.

ANAYA: If they charge, the best thing to do is walk away

Some years ago, Hell Houses became popular at evangelical churches around Halloween. These were based on traditional Haunted Houses but portrayed Dante-like scenes of a fiery underworld. Other scenes depicted women in pools of blood after a botched abortion, and bloody bodies and empty whiskey bottles strewn about after an auto wreck.

Scary stuff.

But some people criticized Hell Houses for being sensational and sometimes, yes, erotic. It was like a pastor railing against fornication while giving his congregation all the sensual details.

So now we have Judgement Day (the “e” is always included). This is a less sensational Hell House with emphasis on, you guessed it, God judging whether people are going to heaven or hell.

Sadly for me as religion reporter here, Judgement Day never caught on in Colorado Springs; it would have been fun to tour one of these. But in other conservative cities they did catch on, one being Laurel, Miss.

Laurel has a few Judgement Day Halloween houses, and you can read about one of them here.

Happy Halloween!

Two surveys this year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life show that support for abortion and traditional marriage has slipped.

Americans are now pretty much equally divided on whether abortion should remain legal. In Pew Forum polls in 2007 and 2008, slightly more Americans were opposed to abortion. Read the complete poll results here.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of Americans favor civil unions, up from 45 percent in 2003, according to the Pew Forum. Even so, 53 percent of Americans continue to be against same-sex marriage. Read the poll results here.