c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Legislation designed to ease the plight of persecuted religious minorities abroad Thursday (May 14) passed the House with broad bipartisan support, despite the Clinton administration’s continued opposition to the measure.

The bill, the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act, passed on a 375-41 vote with 169 Democrats joining 206 Republicans in support of the measure. The bill has the support of a host of evangelical Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders.

The lopsided support prompted Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., the bill’s principle House sponsor, to proclaim”this is a message of religious freedom that all those who are persecuted around the world can take great heart from.” Despite Wolf’s optimism, however, the measure faces an uncertain future.

The White House has signaled its intention to veto the bill and a competing Senate measure introduced by Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., has the support of the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.

The House measure establishes a State Department Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring and authorizes economic sanctions against nations that engage in systematic religious persecution. Among the listed sanctions are the denial of all non-humanitarian aid and the export of military hardware.

The bill also makes it easier for refugees claiming religious persecution to gain entry into the United States. In addition, the bill singles out Sudan for its alleged egregious persecution of Christians and continues indefinitely sanctions already levied against that nation by the White House.

A last-minute amendment to the bill offered by Rep. Michael Bilirakis, R-Fla., urged the Turkish government to give greater protection to the Ecumenical Orthodox Christian Patriarch Bartholomew, whose Istanbul compound has come under violent attack.

The bill, said Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, R-N.Y.,”sends a long-overdue signal to repressive governments that their repulsive behavior will not be tolerated and that we’re not just going to talk about it.” The president has the option under the bill to waive all sanctions if they are deemed counterproductive in a particular case or out of national security concerns. The White House has noted some minority religious leaders facing persecution in their homelands have warned passage of the bill could make their situation worse by angering foreign governments.

Despite the waiver option, the White House continues to oppose the bill, saying its diplomatic options would be limited just by having to deal publicly with embarrassing allegations of religious persecution in nations that are among America’s key allies or major trading partners.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations that take a dim view of conversion to other faiths are often cited by bill opponents as examples of foreign policy complexities overlooked by the measure.

The White House has also argued making the bill law would complicate its efforts to get China to ease its current heavy-handed approach toward religious expression.

The bill, argued Rep. Lee Hamilton, R-Ind., a leading House opponent of the measure”will do very serious harm to the United States’ national interests by forcing the conduct of foreign policy to conform to a single standard.” White House national security adviser Samuel R. Berger Thursday dismissed the bill as a”one-size-fits-all approach.”He said”the more the United States is perceived as making unilateral, pre-emptory judgments on the performance of other countries, the less we will be able to work with those countries _ including on issues of religious freedom.” The Nickles bill _ the International Religious Freedom Act _ is viewed as less restrictive than the House version and offers a greater menu of sanctions the president may choose from.

The Nickles bill also carries a broader definition of religious persecution than does the House measure, which limits itself to the worst cases of religious intolerance, such as physical violence and forced conversion.

During a hearing on the Nickles measure Tuesday (May 12), Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck noted the administration’s opposition to the Senate bill as well.

Wolf said Thursday he foresaw an eventual compromise between his bill and the Nickles measure going to the president for his signature.”I’m sure we can work something out that will have such such broad support that the Clinton administration will be hard pressed to not give its support,”he said.

DEA END RIFKIN