Briefly

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Pentagon to contribute $1 million for ‘Macbeth’

The Pentagon is contributing $1 million to help a production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” tour U.S. military bases, the National Endowment for the Arts announced Thursday.

“I think it’s safe to say that the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Defense have never before been mentioned in the same sentence,” said Dana Gioia, NEA chairman, in a statement announcing the plan. “We’re delighted to make cultural history.”

The production will come from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, one of seven companies visiting more than 100 small and middle-sized cities in all 50 states as part of a 15-month NEA project called “Shakespeare in American Communities” which opened Sept. 20 in New London, Conn.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Conservatives using gay marriage to spur voters

Conservative groups plan to use the debate over gay marriage as a catalyst to register millions of voters.

Organizers from more than two dozen groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Family Assn. and the Christian Coalition, say they want to make gay marriage the paramount social issue in the 2004 election.

The groups planned to announce the voter registration drive Thursday. They will also endorse language of a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Polls suggest the public is closely divided on this question, with just over half supporting laws against gay marriage.

The week of Oct. 12 will be designated “marriage protection week.” The groups will put out church bulletin inserts in more than 70,000 churches and Christian radio shows will schedule programming all week long on the issue.