c. 2004 Religion News Service
Pope Urges Renewed Efforts to End “Plague” of Land Mines
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II on Thursday (Dec. 2) urged universal agreement to a convention banning anti-personnel land mines, which he called a “terrible plague of modern times.”
The Roman Catholic pontiff made his “fervent appeal for the universalization of the Ottawa Convention” in a message to a conference under way in Nairobi to review action under the Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Land Mines.
The convention, signed by 121 nations in the Canadian capital in 1997, has been in effect for five years.
“I rejoice in the pertinent decisions which have been taken and the actions that governments have already pledged for the eradication in a definitive manner of this terrible plague of modern times,” the pope said.
The Vatican city-state was among the first signatories to the convention. The United States, along with Russia, China and a number of Middle East countries, refused to sign, but Washington promised funds for the removal of mines after conflict ends.
John Paul said that as well as offering financial aid the international community must “educate for peace” by informing people in affected countries about the danger of land mines and rehabilitating land mine victims. Victims must, he said, be given psychological support and reintegration into society.
Supporters of the convention said that an estimated 60 million to 100 million mines in place in 69 countries kill or maim more than 25,000 people every year, the equivalent of one victim every 22 minutes.
_ Peggy Polk
Israeli Women Still Cannot Get a Divorce Without Husband’s Approval
JERUSALEM (RNS) The Israeli parliament on Wednesday shot down a bill that would have enabled Jewish women to get a divorce if their husbands cannot or will not agree to ending the marriage.
Several thousand Jewish women around the world are believed to be “chained” to their husbands. A minority of these women, called “agunot,” are married to men who disappeared during a war, terror attack, or natural disaster. The remainder are married to men who simply refuse to grant them a divorce.
Many husbands try to extort exhorbitant amounts of money from their wives or demand full custody of their children in return for a “get,” a Jewish divorce contract.
Without this document, Jewish women are unable to remarry or bear children outside their marriage, according to Jewish law.
The bill would have provided an automatic divorce within a year for Israeli agunot, provided a rabbinical court had first ruled that the husband must grant her a divorce. Israel has no civil marriage or divorce, so all Jewish couples seeking a divorce must do so through the Orthodox-run rabbinical courts.
The bill was defeated by 48-24, largely because the two ultra-Orthodox political parties in the Knesset said it did not adhere to Jewish law. According to most top rabbis, a man cannot be forced into granting a woman a divorce, although sanctions can be placed against him.
In a surprise move, some secular Jews also voted against the bill. Two prominent members of the secular Shinui Party rejected it because their objective is to introduce civil marriage and divorce to Israel and thereby wrest control of life-cycle events from the Orthodox establishment.
In an interview with RNS, Alice Shalvi, a prominent religious Israeli feminist and former chairwoman of Israel Women’s Network, criticized both religious and secular parliamentarians for not “sufficiently taking into account the plight of these women, who are living in a limbo of being neither married nor divorced, and at the same time totally unable to remarry and continue living a normal life.
“While I realize that the ultimate aim must be to achieve the possiblity of civil marirage and divorce for those who want it,” Shalvi continued, “until that goal is achieved _ which may take many years _ the best thing would be to alleviate the current unbearable situation.”
_ Michele Chabin
First U.S. Muslim Cable Network Debuts
(RNS) With American Muslims an untapped television market and heightened interest in Islam among non-Muslims, the first-ever American Muslim television network has begun broadcasting nationwide.
Many American Muslims have anxiously awaited the debut as a signal that Muslims are gaining recognition and acceptance on the American cultural landscape.
“Bridges TV,” the brainchild of New York businessman Muzzammil S. Hassan, is directed at English-speaking Muslims or those of Muslim descent. Hassan claims that there are 8 million such Muslims, evenly divided among those of Arab, South Asian, African-American and “Other” descent.
Other statistics cite figures of between 2.5 and 6 million Muslims in the United States.
The network launched Tuesday (Nov. 30) with a news program, “Bridges News,” which is hosted by a former NBC producer, and will offer other shows including sitcoms, cooking shows, movies and talk shows.
More than 10,000 Muslims paid a monthly fee over the past year to support the nascent network before it began broadcasting, says Hassan. They are motivated, he said, by a desire to be considered part of the cultural mainstream. He said they also want to challenge commonly held misconceptions about the world’s second-largest religion.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Toronto School Board Won’t Exempt Muslim Students From Tolerance Training
TORONTO (RNS) This city’s largest public school board has refused to bow to demands from Muslim parents to exempt their children from instruction on tolerance of same-sex families.
At a stormy meeting on Nov. 16, the Toronto District School Board rejected excluding Muslim students at Market Lane Public School from what the board calls “anti-homophobia education.”
Exempting some students from the instruction would violate the rights of children of same-sex parents, board officials said.
“Religious beliefs do not trump human rights,” said Patricia Hayes, a rights expert with the school board, adding that if Muslim children were to leave the room when the film was going to be shown, “we would be creating a very toxic learning environment for those other children.”
Some Muslim parents had called on the downtown school to excuse their children from the mandatory discussions, saying the classes infringed on their religious beliefs.
The parents were upset that their children were shown videos depicting the feelings of students who get taunted because their parents are gay.
About 150 parents attended the meeting, and some stalked out, saying they felt their religious beliefs were receiving less respect than homosexual families.
“They showed a gay lifestyle to the kids without the knowledge of the parents,” Mohamed Yassin, a father of three, told the Toronto Star. “They’re willing to help gay students with support. Gay people have their rights. I have my rights.”
Board officials said the instruction is not about sexual activity but families. The board said it allows children to be excluded from sex education in health classes.
Nothing is stopping individual parents from removing their children from the classes on diversity and tolerance, the board said.
Between 10 percent and 15 percent of the school’s 560 students are Muslim.
_ Ron Csillag
United Methodist Lesbian Minister Convicted of Breaking Church Law
(RNS) A lesbian minister was convicted Thursday (Dec. 2) of violating United Methodist Church law by living openly with her partner in a committed relationship.
The verdict in the case of the Rev. Irene “Beth” Stroud, associate pastor of Philadelphia’s First United Methodist Church of Germantown, came on the second day of her church trial, the Associated Press reported.
The jury of United Methodist clergy voted 12-1 to find Stroud guilty of violating the law that bars “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” from ministry. Nine votes were needed for a conviction.
Stroud, 34, had expected to be convicted. She told reporters before the jury returned that whatever the outcome, “this case has shown how divided we are” over the role of gays in the church.
Stroud announced last year that she and her partner, Chris Paige, were living in a committed relationship, setting in motion the events that led to the trial.
The presiding judge, retired Bishop Joseph Yeakel of Smithsburg, Md., declined to let the jury hear expert testimony from six defense witnesses who believe the church’s ban against gay clergy violates its own legal principles.
He told the jury “constitutional issues are not before this court” when Stroud’s senior pastor, the Rev. Alfred Day III, tried to raise a similar argument.
“The heart of the issue is whether all United Methodists, regardless of status, are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities,” said the Rev. J. Dennis Williams, Stroud’s defense counsel, in closing arguments.
The Rev. Thomas Hall of Exton, Pa., the prosecuting attorney, told jurors they had an obligation to “hold a good pastor accountable to the standard with which we all live” under the Methodist Book of Discipline.
Stroud said before the trial that her church has offered to make her a paid lay member of the staff if she loses her ministerial credentials in the trial.
Quote of the Day: Mormon Visitor Center Director Ralph L. Cottrell Jr.
(RNS) “I would love to hear what the bus drivers say: `Don’t go in there! They’ll try to trap you!’ Some of them just go by slow or they stop, but they don’t open the door.”
_ Ralph L. Cottrell Jr., director of the visitor center at the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Laie, Hawaii. Cottrell, who was quoted by The New York Times, hopes a renovation of the visitor center will attract more people.
MO/JL END
