c. 1997 Religion News Service
Court rejects Cleveland school voucher plan
(RNS) An Ohio appeals court has ruled that Cleveland’s school voucher program illegally infringes on the constitutional separation of church and state by allowing children to attend private religious school at public expense.
A Tenth District Court of Appeals three-judge panel ruled Thursday (May 1) that the program, created last fall to allow about 2,000 poor families to send their children to private secular or religious schools with their tuition supported by tax money, violates separation clauses of both the Ohio and federal constitutions.
The court noted that about 80 percent of the 53 schools receiving public funds under the voucher plan are religious. The plan gives parents vouchers for up to $2,250 per year that can then be used to pay all or part of the tuition at a private school of their choice.
The ruling will not affect students using the vouchers this year and will by appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.”This is an intermediate court ruling,”Thomas Needles, an aide to Ohio Gov. George V. Voinovich, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.”We maintain the program meets constitutional requirements, and we want it to continue.” But Carole Shields, president of People for the American Way, a church-state separation advocacy group, said she was not surprised by the ruling.”Once again we are reminded that public money is never to be used for religious instruction,”she said.
The state maintains the program is not intended to aid religious education but to give poor children the same educational opportunities as more affluent children. Children attending Cleveland’s troubled public school system were selected to participate in the program by lottery after 6,000 applied.
Pope urges Lebanese to work together to rebuild war-shattered nation
(RNS) Pope John Paul II, who will travel to Lebanon later this month, Friday (May 2) urged the religiously divided Lebanese people to join together in rebuilding their war-shattered nation.”I trust in you to find in the love for your country the necessary energy to conquer divisions and surmount any obstacles that might arise,”the pontiff said in a special message to the Lebanese people released at the Vatican.
The pope’s visit to Lebanon is scheduled for May 10-11.
Lebanon went through a devastating 15-year civil war that ended in 1990. A 1994 visit by John Paul to Lebanon was canceled after the bombing of a Maronite Catholic church killed 11 people.
John Paul is expected to use the trip to Lebanon to urge a comprehensive peace for the region.
Australian anti-gay laws scrapped
(RNS) Australia’s only anti-homosexual laws have been repealed.
The conservative upper house of the Tasmanian state legislature voted Thursday (May 1) to scrap two laws that banned sex”against the order of nature”and”indecent practice between male persons.” The laws carried jail terms of up to 21 years, but the last person to be convicted under the statutes in 1991 was only fined the equivalent of about $39.
Tasmanian Health Minister Peter McKay said the laws had helped produce a climate of hate, Reuters reported.
Australian gay activists had worked to overturn the law for 25 years.
First Muslim wins seat in British parliament
(RNS) The Labor Party landslide in Great Britain has produced the first Muslim elected to a seat in Parliament.
Pakistani-born Mohammed Sarwar, a millionaire businessman, Thursday (May 1) captured a seat in the House of Commons. He will represent the Govan area of Glasgow, Scotland.
Sarwar said his victory will help provide a greater voice for Britain’s growing minority communities, Reuters reported.
Charges against Malcolm X’s daughter officially dropped
(RNS) Charges against Malcolm X’s daughter _ who was indicted for plotting to hire a hit man to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan _ have been dismissed in accordance with an agreement she reached two years ago with prosecutors.
The government agreed to drop the charges against Qubilah Shabazz, 36, who works at a Texas radio station, in exchange for her undergoing chemical dependency treatment and committing no crimes for two years, the Associated Press reported.
The two years were up on Thursday (May 1), and that day a U.S. District Court judge in Minneapolis, where Shabazz lived at the time of her indictment, formally dismissed the charges. As part of the deal, Shabazz signed a statement taking responsibility for her role in the plot while also maintaining her legal innocence.
Shabazz was 4 years old when she, her three sisters and their mother went to the Audubon Ballroom in New York’s Harlem to hear her father speak. As she watched, he was slain by gunmen with ties to the Nation of Islam.
Farrakhan has denied involvement in the death of Malcolm X. But he has admitted that his harsh condemnation after Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam helped create anti-Malcolm X sentiment within the group.
Quote of the day: actor and comedian Dennis Miller
(RNS) In his latest book,”The Rants,”actor and comedian Dennis Miller has a few choice words for radical anti-abortionists:”Now I am sure to many of those in the radical right, I probably appear to be a bitter, cranky pragmatist with the mouth of a stevedore and the soul of a heretic. But I do, believe it or not, consider myself to be a Christian _ and I’m sorry, you just don’t go shooting doctors. If a judgment’s to be made, God gets to make it. Not you. Him. You are Barney Fife. Keep your bullet in your shirt pocket. All right?”
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