c. 2004 Religion News Service
Supreme Court to Consider Ten Commandments Cases
(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear two cases relating to ongoing questions about the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments in public places.
Legal groups who have long hoped the high court would address this issue _ for the first time since 1980 _ welcomed the announcement by the court Tuesday (Oct. 12).
“The decision to review a case involving the display of the Ten Commandments is long overdue,” said Mat Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based law organization representing McCreary and Pulaski counties in Kentucky.
“The lower courts are hopelessly in confusion over the constitutionality of governmental displays of the Ten Commandments.”
Staver has argued that courthouses in McCreary and Pulaski counties have the right to display the Ten Commandments along with other historical documents.
The other case involves an Austin, Texas, man named Thomas Van Orden who has argued that the Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state Capitol in that city represents a government endorsement of Judeo-Christian beliefs above other faiths.
“This is a critical opportunity for the high court to clarify one of the most confusing areas of church/state law,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, who believes the displays are constitutional.
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, also hoped for clarification, but with a different outcome.
“Religious symbols belong in houses of worship, not courthouses, city halls and public schools,” said Lynn in a statement.
The high court also has decided to consider a case involving Ohio prisoners who believe correctional officials violated a federal law by not accommodating their religious practices and beliefs. An appeals court ruled that a portion of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act that applied to inmates was unconstitutional.
Lynn, whose Washington-based watchdog group also has followed this case, hopes the court will uphold the law.
“This is a reasonable law that requires prisons to meet the religious needs of inmates while still respecting the security concerns of correctional institutions,” he said in a statement.
The dates for oral arguments for the cases have not yet been set, but the high court will consider them by June 2005.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Muslims, ACLU Object to Intelligence Overhaul Bill
(RNS) Muslim, civil liberties and human rights organizations are voicing opposition to legislation they believe expands the Patriot Act and denies civil liberties to immigrants.
“The 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act,” which passed the House in a 282-134 vote Friday (Oct. 8), details a plan to reorganize the U.S. intelligence community in light of the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, which published its report in late August.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged its members to contact their representatives in Congress to oppose provisions in the legislation that relate to immigration, saying it “is viewed by CAIR as an expansion of the Patriot Act.”
Specifically, the group objects to provisions of the bill that would allow for immigrants to be deported without any judicial review.
The “expedited removal” provision was absent from a version of the bill that passed the Senate overwhelmingly Wednesday (Oct. 6), but passed in the House version. House and Senate leaders continue to debate the provisions as they prepare the final version that they will send to the White House for approval.
The human rights organization Amnesty International also opposes the legislation, calling it “the outsourcing of torture” because of its proposal allowing people to be deported to countries where they may face torture.
The American Civil Liberties Union also opposes what it refers to as “mean-spirited measures” in the legislation.
The group says that the legislation, in addition to proposing anti-immigrant policies that would deny civil liberties to many, is contrary to the spirit of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations.
“As in times past, immigrants have become the scapegoat,” said Timothy H. Edgar, an ACLU legislative counsel, in a statement.
“These measures have been rejected by the 9/11 commission and the Senate,” he said. “The House must not cave in to pressures from hard-line anti-immigrant groups.”
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Pope Blames Fear of Future for Falling Birth Rate in the West
VATICAN CITY (RNS)_ Pope John Paul II on Wednesday (Oct. 6) blamed fear of the future for the falling birthrate in the West and offered a special prayer for “new lives” in Spain where the Socialist government is seeking to legalize gay marriage.
The 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff raised the issue of low birthrates in an address to 13,000 pilgrims attending his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
Referring to the 45th Psalm, which he described as a “serene and joyous nuptial song,” the pope said that “fecundity” is an integral part of marriage. “The future, not only of the dynasty but of humanity, is realized because couples offer new babies to the world,” he said.
“This is a theme relevant to our days in the West often incapable of entrusting its own existence to the future through the generation and care of new babies, who would continue the civilization of peoples and realize the history of salvation,” John Paul said.
At his general audiences, the pope normally delivers his main address in Italian and then speaks more briefly on the topic in five other languages. In Spanish, he said that he prayed for married couples “to offer new lives” to the world.
John Paul’s words were taken as an indirect reference to the approval given Friday (Oct. 1) by the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to a proposed law to legalize same-sex marriages.
The Spanish Conference of Catholic Bishops warned that the law would mean that “the family is destroyed” and urged Spanish society not to “remain indifferent to this attack” on traditional values.”
_ Peggy Polk
Congress Told Saudi Religious Restrictions Foster Extremism, Hatred
WASHINGTON (RNS) Experts on international religious freedom told a House committee Wednesday (Oct. 6) that broad religious restrictions in Saudi Arabia discriminate against many Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and help foster an extreme interpretation of Islam around the world.
“In Saudi Arabia, the government rigidly mandates religious conformity,” John V. Hanford III, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom for the State Department, told the House International Relations Committee.
Hanford said that non-Muslims and “Non-Wahhabi Sunni, Shi’a, and Sufi Muslims face discrimination and sometimes severe restrictions on the practice of their faith.”
Saudi Arabia last month was included for the first time in an annual report by the Commission on International Religious Freedom as a “country of particular concern.” Hanford defined “CPCs” as countries with the worst records “where people still suffer persecution, torture, and imprisonment for their faith.”
Preeta D. Basnal, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said that she welcomed Hanford’s participation in drafting the report that included Saudi Arabia among the offending nations.
Basnal said “the U.S. government should be highly concerned” about credible allegations that the Saudi government and members of the royal family, directly and indirectly, fund the global propagation of Wahhabism, an exclusionary religious ideology. Wahhabis, she said, allegedly promote hatred, intolerance, and other human rights abuses, including violence, against non-Muslims and disfavored Muslims.
The director of the information office at the Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately return phone calls seeking reaction.
Hanford also raised concerns about restrictions on religious freedom in China, Vietnam, Iran and Sudan.
Although the commission’s report did not include Iraq this year, Paul Marshall, senior fellow at Freedom House, said the human rights policy organization is particularly concerned about ethnic cleansing and mass exodus of members of the ChaldoAssyrian community, the native Iraqi Christians.
_ Itir Yakar
Nigerian Archbishop Unveils Plan for New American Diocese
FAIRFAX, Va. (RNS) The Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, who has spearheaded global opposition to the Episcopal Church, on Tuesday (Oct. 5) unveiled plans for a parallel province to offer shelter for Nigerian Christians living in the United States.
Archbishop Peter Akinola said an estimated 10 percent of the 5 million Nigerians living in the United States are Anglicans, and said they have “drifted” out of the Episcopal Church because of its growing acceptance of homosexuality.
“We have no choice but to come out and rescue our people,” he told reporters during a visit to Truro Episcopal Church here. “A good number have already left.”
Akinola leads the world’s largest Anglican church with 17 million members, and his plan would give him a foothold in the U.S. church, which he has been quick to criticize for allowing an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.
Akinola said his plan mirrors a decades-old American diocese that is headquartered in Paris for Episcopalians living in Europe. He claimed to have the support of the archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church as its U.S. branch.
“We are merely following or copying what they have already put in place,” said Akinola, who presumably would appoint a Nigerian bishop to shepherd the U.S. convocation. “We are not creating anything new.”
Akinola said dissident Episcopal churches would be welcome to join his Nigerian federation, but insisted he did not plan to lure Episcopalians away. “They are absolutely free to join us if they so desire,” he said.
Jim Naughton, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, questioned the need for a Nigerian province. He said the 500-700 Nigerians in three churches in his diocese have not expressed a desire for a new bishop.
“It may be that the archbishop is attempting to meet a real need, but it may also be that this is a solution in search of a problem,” he said.
A statement from the Rev. Jonathan Jennings, press secretary for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, said the needs of Nigerians were addressed in meetings but Akinola’s plan was never given official approval.
“Whilst the issue and its presenting difficulties were discussed … the possibility of a Nigerian convocation in the United States and of the Nigerian House of Bishops commending, recommending or choosing a bishop was not raised and formed no part of these discussions,” he said in a statement relayed by Naughton.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Southern Baptist Public-School Debate Moves to State Level
(RNS) The discussion in Southern Baptist circles about whether children should be pulled from public schools in favor of Christian education has moved to the state level.
At least 10 state convention meetings of Southern Baptists in October and November are scheduled to consider resolutions that urge them to take students out of public schools so they can get a Christian education.
“One of the great tragedies of American Christianity has been the near universal failure of its leaders to boldly proclaim the inherent dangers lurking within America’s government-owned and controlled schools,” Roger Moran, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee from Missouri, said in a statement.
“As the educational philosophy of public schools increasingly mirrors the anti-Christian philosophy of our activist judges, the time has come to proclaim with absolute clarity that `render unto Caesar’ was never intended to include the hearts and minds of our children.”
Pastor Larry Reagan, editor of the Concerned Tennessee Baptists’ newsletter, agreed.
“This is becoming a very hot issue among Baptists and other evangelical Christians,” Reagan said in a statement. “As pastors, we need to step up to the challenge by making sure Christian children receive a Christian education 24/7.”
In June, the resolutions committee for the annual national meeting of Southern Baptists in Indianapolis chose not to recommend a resolution to convention attendees that would have rejected their involvement in public education. A proponent of the resolution made an unsuccessful attempt to amend another resolution to address his concerns.
According to the Web site of Exodus Mandate, a Columbia, S.C.-based organization, state conventions considering the resolutions include the Baptist Convention of New England and conventions in Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Virginia and North Carolina.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Graham, Recovered From Surgeries, Preaches at Kansas City Crusade
(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham, recovered from two surgeries, preached four nights at a crusade in Kansas City, Mo., that concluded Sunday (Oct. 10).
The 85-year-old preacher spoke each evening at Arrowhead Stadium to an audience that totaled almost 155,000 over the four days, crusade officials said.
Both Graham and his eldest son, fellow evangelist Franklin Graham, linked their religious messages to contemporary issues.
“There is a great move on in this country to take prayer out of the schools, take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and take down the Ten Commandments,” Billy Graham said from the platform. “As a nation it seems we are turning away from God. But Jesus Christ is coming back, and that is the future of this world.”
On Friday, Franklin Graham compared the crusade’s efforts to the presidential debate the same evening between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry in St. Louis.
“But in Kansas City it is not a debate, it is a battle for your soul,” the younger Graham said.
Billy Graham had surgeries earlier this year following two serious falls. He preached from a specially constructed pulpit where he was allowed to stand and then sit for portions of his sermon, said A. Larry Ross, the evangelist’s spokesman.
Conspicuously absent from the crusade was soloist George Beverly Shea, who, for the last six decades of domestic crusades, has sung before the elder Graham spoke. Shea, who suffered a mild heart attack in May, followed doctor’s orders and stayed home.
Billy Graham is scheduled to hold his next crusade Nov. 18-21 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., and has announced plans for a New York area crusade at Madison Square Garden next June.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Conservatives Fear Reeve’s Death Will Politicize Stem Cells
(RNS) Conservative Christian groups said they fear the issue of embryonic stem-cell research will be further politicized after the death of actor Christopher Reeve, an outspoken advocate of the research.
Reeve, 52, died of heart failure Sunday (Oct. 10) from an infection. The actor who played “Superman” became a vocal supporter of stem-cell research after he was paralyzed in a 1995 horse-riding accident.
Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, said Reeve embraced research that “not only destroys human life but has yet to provide any medical benefit.”
“We owe it to the millions of others who suffer serious illnesses to pursue cures where they can be found, not what benefits an ideology that destroys human life for political gain,” said Perkins, who opposes the research.
Supporters say stem cells from human embryos that would otherwise be destroyed could hold cures for a host of illnesses, including paralysis and Parkinson’s disease. Opponents say the procedure is immoral because the embryos must be destroyed in order to harvest the stem cells.
In 2001, President Bush banned federal money from being spent on expanding the research, while his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, said he will lift those restrictions. Kerry called Reeve a friend and “an inspiration to us all.”
The death of former President Ronald Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, also spurred a surge in support for embryonic stem-cell research when his widow, Nancy, voiced support.
“Embryo-destructive research was nowhere close to helping Mr. Reeve walk again,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Culture of Life Foundation. “To suggest otherwise does a disservice to those who suffer by raising profoundly false expectations that will not be realized.”
But June Walker, president of Hadassah, a national Jewish women’s organization, said Reeve’s death is reason No. 1 to ramp up efforts to expand stem-cell research.
“There is no more fitting tribute to his memory than for Hadassah’s 300,000 members to redouble their efforts to advocate for unfettered research on stem cells, both at the federal and state level,” she said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the week: Law professor Jonathan Turley.
(RNS) “I personally detest polygamy. Yet if we yield to our impulse and single out one hated minority, the First Amendment becomes little more than hype and we become little more than hypocrites. For my part, I would rather have a neighbor with different spouses than a country with different standards for its citizens.”
_ Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, writing in USA Today that polygamists should be allowed to have multiple spouses for religious reasons. Conservative groups denounced Turley’s op-ed.
MO END
