Yesterday's New York Times had an article on a proposed Methodist schism, which would have separated the church's gay-friendly and anti-gay wings. Here's something I didn't know:

The conservative movement [in the Methodist Church], whose members call themselves orthodox or evangelical, has also been bankrolled by some of the same conservative foundations that give money to conservative political causes. The Institute for Religion and Democracy, which backs a move to the right for the Methodists and other Protestant churches and coordinates initiatives to influence several mainline denominations, has received funding from Richard Mellon Scaife and the John M. Olin Foundation, which also fund conservative political causes, according to a recent book, "United Methodism at Risk," researched and written by church members concerned about a conservative takeover.

Scaife. Olin. Good grief. These people are a menace. And they're everywhere.

(The church rejected the schism, by the way.)

*****

Oh, and here's an article posted today at the Times Web site about Teresa Heinz Kerry's philanthropic work. It's not particularly negative, but three times the article mentions criticism of Mrs. Kerry's work by the Capital Reasearch Center, before finally -- in the forty-fourth paragraph -- noting that

The Capital Research Center counts as one of its biggest backers the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which reports that it has donated $700,000 to the center from 1998 to 2002.

It and two other foundations that have contributed to the center have as their chairman Richard Mellon Scaife....

And even then there's no mention of Scaife's heavy involvement in right-wing causes -- all we learn is that Mrs. Kerry is a close friend of Richard Mellon Scaife's wife and that a cousin of his is chairman of one of Mrs. Kerry's foundations. If you didn't know anything about Scaife, you'd find it baffling that one of his enterprises bashes her.