c. 1999 Religion News Service
Religious, political, entertainment leaders appeal to Hollywood
(RNS) Religious leaders, politicians and entertainers are among those who issued a public appeal Wednesday (July 21) urging Hollywood executives to reduce sexual and violent content in entertainment media.”We are asking the entertainment industry to assume a decent minimum of responsibility for its actions and to take some modest steps of self-restraint,”reads”An Appeal to Hollywood.””And we are asking parents to help in this task, not just by taking responsibility for shielding their own children, but also by making their concerns known to media executives and advertisers.” The appeal, announced in Washington and released on the Internet (http://www.media-appeal.org), acknowledges the need for parents to control their children’s access to entertainment, but asks industry executives to enter”a new social compact”to help children and society.”Allowing children unsupervised access to today’s media is the moral equivalent of letting them go play on the freeway,”the appeal reads.”But today even the most conscientious parent cries out for help from an industry that too often abdicates its responsibility for its powerful impact on the young.” Signatories include religious leaders such as Episcopal Bishop Frederick Borsch of Los Angeles, the Rev. Eugene Rivers, co-chair of the National Ten Point Leadership Foundation, and Dr. Mandell Ganchrow, president, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations; former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford; Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., John McCain, R-Ariz., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; and entertainers Steve Allen, Joan Van Ark, Naomi Judd and Carol Lawrence.
The appeal has been sent to executives of such companies as Walt Disney, Nintendo of America, Time Warner, CBS, and MGM Studios.
A voluntary code of conduct suggested by the appealers would:
_ Affirm the industry’s responsibility for the cultural health of the country;
_ Establish minimum standards for sexual, violent and degrading material for each medium;
_ Commit the industry to an overall reduction in entertainment violence;
_ Ban the targeting of adult-oriented entertainment to youth markets;
_ Provide more accurate information to parents on media content while committing to”safe havens”for family programs;
_ Pledge the industry to increase development of family-oriented entertainment.
Canadian Lutherans approve full communion with Anglicans
(RNS) Delegates attending the biennial convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have voted nearly unanimously to approve in principle a declaration of full communion with the Anglican Church of Canada.
The full communion agreement, if finally approved, means the two churches will share resources and work closely together on common goals but stop short of merger.
The Anglican Church has 800,000 members in Canada while the ELCIC has a membership of 198,000.
The two churches have worked together since 1989 under an”interim sharing of the eucharist”agreement. The Lutherans must vote on the proposal for full communion again in 2001.
A somewhat similar proposal for full communion _ with the U.S. Episcopal Church _ will be before the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America when it holds its Churchwide Assembly in August. The proposal has been sharply debated in the U.S. Lutheran denomination over issues surrounding the role of the bishops in the Anglican communion.
Updated: China bans Falun Gong meditation sect after three days of protest
(RNS) China on Thursday (July 22) announced that it has banned the popular meditation sect Falun Gong after the movement staged three days of demonstrations across the country protesting harassment of its leaders.
The ban, reported by the government-run media, accused the group of spreading”superstitious, evil thinking”and of undermining social stability. It called the demonstrations the most serious incident since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The sect, which blends a variety of Buddhist, Taoist doctrines with meditation exercises, has been under scrutiny by the Chinese government since it staged a surprise mass protest of 10,000 people in April.
In the latest confrontation, some 30,000 people in 30 cities nonviolently protested government arrests of more than 70 movement leaders earlier in the week.
Falun Gong, or the Wheel of Law, was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a former government clerk who now lives in the United States. Its leaders claim that it, not the Communist Party, has the answers to make China a more stable, more moral society.”The Falun Gong Research Society conducted illegal activities, spreading superstitious, evil thinking to blind people, to stir up trouble and sabotage social stability,”the government announcement said in reporting the ban.
At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party ordered its members not to take part in Falun Gong and that it would expel members who were found to practice the sect’s beliefs.
The government also accused the sect of causing deaths and serious injuries because some members refuse to see doctors and believe their practice of the spiritual disciplines of Falun Gong can heal them.
Ex-wife says suspect admitted role in 1963 Birmingham church bombing
(RNS) A former wife of Bobby Frank Cherry, longtime suspect in the Sixteenth Street Church bombing, says that he was involved in the deadly 1963 blast.
“He admitted it,” Willadean Brogdon said in an interview Wednesday (July 21) at Birmingham’s federal courthouse. “He bragged about it.”
Brogdon, 59, the third of Cherry’s five wives, was married to him between 1970 and 1972. Brogdon and her daughter, Gloria LaDow, joined another of Cherry’s relatives Wednesday in claiming that the former Klansman was proud of participating in the Sunday-morning church bombing nearly 36 years ago. The explosion killed four young black girls.
Last month one of Cherry’s granddaughters, Teresa Stacy of Dallas, said after testifying before a Birmingham grand jury that she had heard Cherry admit his involvement in the bombing more than 10 years ago at a family gathering.
LaDow, 39, said Wednesday that her one-time stepfather was a braggart. “In certain circles, he bragged about lighting the fuse, about being a big (Ku Klux) Klan leader.”
Cherry’s oldest son, Thomas Frank Cherry, 45, who lives in Mabank, Texas, was called before the investigative panel Wednesday. He said prosecutors asked him about the morning of the bombing and whether his father ever mentioned names of people who his father said were responsible for the blast.
Thomas Cherry said he told the jury the names his father mentioned, but would not give them publicly. The younger Cherry is estranged from his father because of the renewed investigation into the bombing, he said. They haven’t spoken since the FBI reopened the case in 1997, he said.
Thomas Cherry said he testified Wednesday that he was with his father at Snow’s Sign Shop, about six blocks from the church, the morning of the Sept. 15, 1963 explosion. They heard the blast. “People came in and said the church had been bombed and the blacks were all in an uproar,” he said. Thomas Cherry was 11 years old.
Bobby Frank Cherry, who also lives in Mabank, has been a suspect in the bombing since 1963. He is now 67 and suffers from heart disease. Fellow Klansman Robert Chambliss is the only person ever convicted in the bombing. He died in prison in 1985. Other longtime suspects are Tommy Blanton, who still lives in Birmingham, and Herman Cash. Cash died in 1994.
Cherry and Blanton have repeatedly denied involvement in the bombing.
A former wife of Blanton’s, Jean Barnes, was subpoenaed to the grand jury Wednesday. She declined to talk to reporters before she was called to testify late in the afternoon. Before her testimony, she sat quietly outside the grand jury room with a companion, quietly reading from a Bible.
Lutheran university chooses first Catholic president
(RNS) A Lutheran university in Columbus, Ohio, will be led for the first time by a Roman Catholic president.
Daniel A. Felicetti, 57, will assume the post of president of Capital University in August. He will be the 13th president of the university, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Since 1989, Felicetti has been president of Marian College, a Franciscan Roman Catholic liberal arts school in Indianapolis.
Quote of the day: Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
(RNS)”The time has come to get down to the business of educating, agitating and organizing hate groups out of existence. We can no longer dismiss their activities as fringe and out of the mainstream. That does little for the victims of the violence their rhetoric inspires.” _ Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a statement issued prior to a”Journey against Hate”in which he and a coalition of religious, civil rights and anti-discrimination groups were scheduled to participate in a series of rallies and prayer vigils from July 22-24 to oppose the presence of hate groups in the Midwest.
DEA END RNS
