c. 1997 Religion News Service
Dozens of protesters create traffic jam near Walt Disney World
(RNS) About 75 protesters tied up tourist traffic near Orlando, Fla., Monday (Dec. 29) as they criticized the gay-friendly policies of the Walt Disney Co.
The unusual protest near the entrance of Walt Disney World caused a minor slowdown for thousands of tourists. Disney officials said the protest did not affect operations.
But the protest could be the start of demonstrations at Disney and other locations by Operation Rescue National, a Texas-based anti-abortion group that is expanding its focus to include homosexuality, the Washington Post reported.
Protesters also caused a nearly two-mile traffic jam on one of the busiest highways in Central Florida, an Osceola County Sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
The Rev. Philip”Flip”Benham, 49, executive director of Operation Rescue National, was jailed after police said he refused to comply with an officer’s order to stop distributing literature to cars stopped at a traffic light. In addition to Benham, the protest leader, sheriff’s deputies also arrested two other men.
Benham said the group was targeting Disney in part because the entertainment conglomerate had decided to offer health insurance to partners of homosexual staffers.
According to the Associated Press, Benham said the protesters may establish a”presence”at Disney’s theme parks, especially during the next Gay Days in June, when thousands of gays and lesbians are expected to visit Orlando theme parks. Their activities would include buying tickets to enter the parks, reading from the Bible and passing out literature, Benham said.
Disney spokesman Bill Warren said protesters would be asked to stop if they follow through with those plans.”We discourage anyone coming in with a personal platform or agenda, whether it’s holding a political banner or setting up something for a statement,”Warren said.”It’s not a place for making statements or political causes.”
Update: Clinton condemns vandalism of Islamic symbol
(RNS) President Clinton has”strongly”condemned the recent vandalism of an Islamic symbol displayed on a grassy area near the White House.
In what U.S. Park Police have called a possible hate crime, vandals broke the star off an Islamic star-and-crescent symbol that was displayed on the Ellipse alongside a Hanukkah menorah and the National Christmas Tree. The vandals also spray-painted a red Nazi swastika on the star.
This is the first year the Islamic symbol has been displayed alongside the Jewish and Christian December holiday symbols.”The desecretion of that (Islamic) symbol is the embodiment of intolerance that strikes at the heart of what it means to be an American,”Clinton said in a statement Monday (Dec. 29).”It is especially hurtful that such an act would occur at a time when so many committees are coming together to celebrate their respective religions.” No arrests have been made.
Meanwhile, M.T. Mehdi, president of the National Council on Islamic Affairs, the New York-based group that erected the star and crescent, continued to be criticized for saying that”fundamentalist”Jews or Christians were probably responsible for the vandalism. He offered no evidence to support his claim.
The Washington-based American Muslim Council said in a statement Tuesday (Dec. 30) that”speculation that the vandalism was the work of `fundamentalist Jews’ or `fundamentalist Christians’ is the same kind of unfound theorizing that American Muslims have been decrying for the last several years.” The reference was to speculation about the possible involvement of Muslim terrorists that surfaced, among other times, in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing.
Ramadan begins for some Muslims, but not those in the U.S.
(RNS) Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and other austerities, began officially in much of the Muslim Middle East Tuesday (Dec. 30) with the reported sighting of the new moon the previous day.
However, most American Muslims, relying on astronomical calculations and not reported sightings of the new moon, will start the Ramadan fast Wednesday (Dec. 31). Muslims in Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Oman and elsewhere will also begin the fast Wednesday.
News reports from the Middle East said Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and other Persian Gulf states officially announced the start of the fast Tuesday.
Muslims believe Ramadan is the month during which God _ Allah in Arabic _ began to reveal the Koran, Islam’s holy book, to the Prophet Muhammad in 7th-century Arabia. During Ramadan, observant Muslims do not eat, drink, smoke or have sex during daylight hours.
The majority of American Muslims _ those aligned with groups that are part of the Islamic Shura Council of North America _ will begin the fast at daybreak Wednesday, according to Imad A. Ahmad, an astronomer and Muslim activist in Bethesda, Md. He noted that some immigrant Muslims from nations that have already begun the fast would follow suit.
Ahmad said Shura council officials rely in calculations that ruled out any possibility of the new moon being spotted on Monday. He dismissed the reported sighting in some Middle East nations as”false.””Last night’s claim was not only improbable, it was impossible,”Ahmad said in an interview.”It was probably Venus they saw, which can appear to the eye very much like the new moon.”
Texas judge frees Rwandan cleric charged with genocide
(RNS) A federal magistrate judge in Laredo, Texas, has freed a 73-year-old Seventh-day Adventist clergyman from Rwanda who has been indicted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity by the United Nations tribunal investigating the mass slaughter of between 500,000 and 1 million Rwandans in 1994.
The magistrate judge, Marcel C. Notzon, said the 1996 agreement between the United States and the U.N. tribunals _ a second panel is prosecuting crimes committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia _ was unconstitutional.
Notzon’s Dec. 17 ruling freed the Rev. Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who, according to prosecutors, led an armed group of Hutu soldiers and militiamen into his church and hospital compound where hundreds of Tutsi refugees had _ at his urging _ taken shelter in the belief the church would protect them. The Tutsis were massacred.
The cleric fled Rwanda following the collapse of the Hutu-led government and was living with his son in Texas when he was arrested in 1996. U.S. government officials were moving to extradite Ntakirutimana.
According to Reuters, a number of U.N. officials said they had not heard of the Dec. 17 decision, which was first reported in Texas newspapers on Christmas Day.
In his ruling, Notzon said extraditions have historically been negotiated between nations and are covered by formal treaties made”with the advice and consent of the Sente.”Although the agreement between the United States and the tribunal was part of legislation approved by Congress, it was not a formal treaty.”It is undisputed that no treaty exists between the United States and the tribunal,”the judge ruled, according to The New York Times.”The absence of a treaty is a fatal defect in the government’s request that the extraditee be surrendered.” In Washington, State Department officials said the United States still believes Ntakirutimana should be extradited and is consulting tribunal officials about how to proceed.”We believe there is a proper legal and factual basis for surrender to the tribunal and are disappointed by the magistrate’s decision,”spokesman James Foley said.
Two L.A. synagogues hit by arson
(RNS) Two synagogues in the same Los Angeles neighborhood were hit by arson Sunday (Dec. 28) and the blazes are now under investigation by federal arson officials.
Authorities said Monday they had not found any physical evidence indicating the blazes were motivated by hatred of Jews, but they do believe the fires were set by one or more arsonists.”The feeling is that it’s not a hate crime in nature, but we’re not ruling anything out,”said Terry Manning, battalion chief of the Los Angeles City Fire Department.
Two Orthodox synagogues, Congregation Kehillas Yaakov and Congregation Shaarei Tefila, were damaged by the fires, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Members of both congregations reacted with determination, anger and sadness to the fires.”It’s outrageous,”said Rabbi Moshe Goldberg, a member of the Kehillas Yaakov congregation.”It makes you feel very sad. It’s really quite sickening.” Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan released a statement pledging to increase security in the area.”Our police and fire departments, along with the FBI and federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officers, have been on the scene and will investigate these fires thoroughly,”Riordan said.”In addition, the LAPD has stepped up patrols around synagogues in the area.” The blazes occurred on the sixth night of Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish festival that marks the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago.
Meanwhile, leaders of the American Jewish Congress condemned the desecration of a Hanukkah menorah in a public park in Scarsdale, N.Y., a community where there has been a series of anti-Semitic incidents over the past year.”The desecration of a (Hanukkah) menorah in a public park in Scarsdale is another reminder that intolerance doesn’t take a holiday _ in fact, it seems to thrive during the holidays,”reads a statement from the Westchester Region of the American Jewish Congress.
Quote of the day: columnist Robert Scheer
(RNS) Los Angeles Times contributing editor Robert Scheer writing on the highly visible and vocal athletes who contend their victories and achievements are the will of God:”Considering the variety of sports in this world, does God really have time to track all of the scores? Does the Almighty hear the prayers offered up for seniors’ shuffleboard, mixed couples’ badminton, girls’ volleyball and all those weird foreign sports? … Isn’t it demeaning to sell religion like sneakers, claiming that it provides the winning edge? Surely, if there is a God, he or she is about something more profound than fixing football odds.”
MJP END RNS