National

Move over, Tim Tebow.

Come this summer, U.S. Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones might become sports’ most famous virgin.

“I just don’t believe in it,” the 29-year-old Jones told HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.” “It's just a gift I want to give my husband. But please understand this journey has been hard. There’s virgins out there and I want to let them know that it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Harder than training for the Olympics. Harder than graduating from college has been to stay a virgin before marriage. I’ve been tempted, I’ve had plenty of opportunities.”

Jones added: “It was cute when I was 22, 24.... [At] 24 to 29 it’s not cute. You get judged a lot, a lot of guys won’t return your calls after they find out.”

In previous media interviews, Jones has shared how her Christian faith infuses all aspects of her life --not just the dating side. She told Women’s Health:

What do you do to cope with stress?

I listen to a lot of Christian music, and reading my Bible calms me down immensely. But when I’m standing in a stadium packed with 80,000 screaming fans, I can’t just whip out my Bible before I run. That’s when I start praying! It’s so loud that I can’t even hear what I’m saying, but it always helps.

“The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, however, was not meant to protect merely the right to worship, but also the right to contribute the fruits of our faith to the common good. And until now, our government had chosen to honor that guarantee. Never before has the government contested that institutions like Archbishop Carroll High School or Catholic University are religious. Who would? But HHS’s conception of what constitutes the practice of religion is so narrow that even Mother Teresa would not have qualified.

“ The church did not choose this fight. It is HHS that has departed from longstanding practice and precedent to change the law; our response merely aims to preserve our existing rights.”

Cardinal Wuerl outlines reasons behind Catholic institutions’ lawsuit challenging HHS contraception mandate.

After a conservative plan to use President Obama’s associations with Jeremiah Wright against him in the 2012 election became public (Mitt Romney has since denounced the idea), Obama advisor David Axelrodtold CNN’s Candy Crowley Sunday that the former governor Mormonism was off limits.

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announces the revamp of his contraception policy requiring religious institutions to fully pay for birth control, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP) Forty-three Catholic institutions, including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of Washington, filed 12 separate lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services Monday over new regulations requiring them to cover “drugs and procedures in direct conflict with their religious beliefs.”

The full list of litigants is below:

1. D.D.C. Lawsuit

Archdiocese of Washington

Consortium of Catholic Academies

Archbishop Carroll High School

Catholic Charities of D.C.

The Catholic University of America

2. E.D.N.Y. Lawsuit

Diocese of Rockville Centre

Catholic Health Services of Long Island

Catholic Charities of Rockville Centre

Archdiocese of N.Y.

ArchCare

3. W.D.Pa. (Erie Div.) Lawsuit

Diocese of Erie

St. Martin Center

Prince of Peace Center

"Mad Men" cast members Christina Hendricks, left, John Slattery, Jared Harris, Vincent Kartheiser, Jon Hamm, Robert Morse and Elisabeth Moss. (Frank Ockenfels - AP) Paul Kinsey re-emerged in Sunday night’s episode of “Mad Men” after a long absence — if only to remind the Heinz-hawking ad execs at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce about life’s spiritual side. (For a Mad Men recap, check out Jen Cheney in Celebritology today.)

So the former copywriter Kinsey is a Hare Krishna devotee. What is the Hindu spiritual movement and why did it surge in popularity during the 1960s and ’70s?

It’s not all Beatles songs and airport evangelizing: “Hare Krishna followers worship the Hindu god Vishnu in his earthly manifestation as Krishna,” the religion Web site Patheos explains in their religion library. Writing for Newsweek, Michael Kress explained the popular movement’s millennia-old roots in Hinduism:

“Founded in 1966 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the movement — formally known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) — became known largely for proselytizing in airports and for its influence on Beatle George Harrison. Critics called it a cult, and a sex-abuse scandal also cost it both money and members. Using the teachings of 15th-century philosopher Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Hare Krishnas worship by repeatedly chanting God’s name. They believe in simple living and are prohibited from eating meat, gambling, intoxication and sex outside marriage.”

The Hare Krishnas may have been seen as a highly visible, though fringe, movement in the ’60s, but today the ideas they worked to popularize are as mainstream as ever.