c. 2005 Religion News Service
`Miss Canada Pakistan’ Pageant Comes Under Fire From Muslims
TORONTO (RNS) The organizer of a beauty pageant that will pick Miss Canada Pakistan this weekend says she will not be deterred by Muslim conservatives opposed to the event on religious grounds or moderates who say it demeans women.
The contest, now in its third year, was the target of hate mail and bomb threats when it was held in Ottawa, where police and private guards were stationed around a one-block perimeter of the venue.
Police in Toronto, where Saturday’s (March 19) event will take place at a banquet hall, are preparing to beef up their presence.
The Toronto Star reports that when Sonia Ahmed, the pageant’s Karachi-born coordinator, recently appeared on a local Pakistani radio show, she was bombarded by angry callers.
“They basically told me: `You’re doing something dirty. Don’t do this … or else.’ They have a misconception about the show that it’s about showing off flesh. It’s not. It’s 50 percent beauty, 50 percent brains,” she said, pointing out that the contest will not include a swimsuit competition.
“We’re not saying we don’t want women in hijab or we don’t respect the religion, but this is the 21st century,” said Ahmed, 26. “Women have the freedom to do what they want.”
But Haroon Salamat, head of the TARIC Islamic Center of Toronto, argued such contests have no place in Islam. “Any exhibition of women’s beauty is not permissible. External beauty is not something to celebrate on stage. It’s for your spouse.”
The imam at one of Toronto’s largest Islamic centers agrees. “Women are degraded by being paraded in front of hundreds of men who are at liberty to cast their lustful gazes,” says Husain Patel, spiritual leader at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto. “I would urge my sisters to find better ways to compete against each other.”
Moderate voices also condemned the pageant.
“It trivializes women and objectifies them in a sexual context,” said Tarek Fatah of the relatively progressive Muslim Canadian Congress. Alia Hogben of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women called the contest “a bit silly.”
Ahmed says calls to cancel the pageant are “intimidation tactics” and won’t deter her.
In 2003, the wife of Pakistan’s high commissioner (or ambassador) to Canada was slated to be a judge but pulled out due to protests.
Despite the controversy, The Star reported that the $75 tickets to the pageant are selling well.
Of the 40 women who applied to be contestants this year, Ahmed picked 13 to compete, some from as far away as Montreal and Halifax.
_ Ron Csillag
Habitat for Humanity Board Reaffirms Firing of Founder
(RNS) The board of Habitat for Humanity has unanimously affirmed its decision to fire Millard Fuller, the founder of the house-building organization.
Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, board members made their second decision on Tuesday (March 8) after Fuller and his supporters had attempted to pressure them to change their minds. The board originally voted on Jan. 31 to terminate both Fuller and his wife, Linda, after months of differences over alleged inappropriate conduct by him.
“The vote by the board demonstrates our resolve to put this matter behind us and to move confidently and faithfully ahead in the mission that unites us,” said Habitat board chair Rey Ramsey in a statement. “No longer can we stand silently while people question our dedication to this ministry or to its Christian principles.”
A loose-knit group of volunteers called Habitat Partners had urged the Habitat board to reconsider its January action. The volunteer group called on supporters to pray that board members “be given the courage to put an end to the tragic series of events that have brought us to this unfortunate place.”
Fuller, 70, denied wrongdoing after being accused of inappropriate behavior with a former female employee of the organization based in Americus, Ga. He said that if he wasn’t reinstated, he would like to start another organization that would continue to support Habitat projects.
While Ramsey said Fuller’s “founding vision” would always be appreciated, Habitat CEO Paul Leonard said Fuller’s ideas about the future are unwelcome.
“Millard’s threat to create a new organization is very harmful,” Leonard said in a statement. “Staff, volunteers, affiliates all have grown weary of Millard’s behavior and want to move on. So does this board.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Churches Call Off Taco Bell Boycott After Agreement
(RNS) Churches that endorsed a boycott against Taco Bell declared victory after the fast-food giant agreed to increase payments to migrant tomato pickers in Florida.
Taco Bell agreed to a penny-per-pound increase in wages. The Tuesday (March 8) agreement between Taco Bell’s parent company, Yum Brands, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers ends the boycott.
“The success of this struggle illustrates that when committed, faithful people come together to work for justice, even in the face of powerful opposition, there may be nothing we cannot achieve,” said Edith Russell of the United Church of Christ, the first church to endorse the boycott.
Other churches that joined the boycott were the United Methodist Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Presbyterian Church (USA) and the National Council of Churches.
“We recognize that Florida tomato workers do not enjoy the same rights and conditions as employees in other industries, and there is a need for reform,” said Emil Brolick, president of Taco Bell.
Tomato pickers earn about 40 cents for each 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, according to The Washington Post, and must pick 2 tons of tomatoes to earn $50.
Yum Brands also owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, A&W and Long John Silver’s. Labor leader Lucas Benitez said the agreement issues a “clear challenge” to other restaurants to improve worker conditions.
“This is an important victory for farmworkers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an immediate material change in the lives of workers,” Benitez said.
Last year, several churches agreed to end a similar boycott of the North Carolina-based Mt. Olive Pickle Co. after it agreed to push for higher wages and better conditions for cucumber pickers.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
New York launches online registry for kosher product certification
(RNS) The state of New York has implemented an online registry to enable consumers to verify the kosher certification of products on the market.
The searchable database, available at http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/kosher, is the result of the state’s Kosher Law Protection Act of 2004, which passed last July and took effect Jan. 9. The law is intended to provide consumers with information to assure them that products marked “kosher” do adhere to Jewish law.
Different groups of Jews have different standards regarding dietary laws, however, and that issue led a Brooklyn judge to declare a previous law unconstitutional in 2000 because it forced the state to determine a uniform standard of kosher food.
The new law requires producers, processors, packers, distributors and retailers of kosher products to register with the database and provide a mailing address and phone number for whoever certified the food as kosher. Kosher restaurants must also register their certifying information with the database.
If a producer or restaurant does not comply, the company can be fined between $1,000 and $10,000, depending on the number of times they have violated the law.
“By requiring vendors to disclose the basis for their representation that such foods are kosher, we have taken a crucial step in restoring the confidence of the kosher consuming public in the food purchases made,” said state Sen. Martin J. Golden of Brooklyn.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
U.S. and South African Church Leaders Call Focus on Sex the Devil’s Work
WASHINGTON (RNS) The leaders of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church in South Africa said a global schism over homosexuality is the devil’s work and distracts the church from its real mission in the world.
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and his counterpart from Cape Town, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, blamed U.S. conservatives for making sexuality the “international focus” of the church.
“I think the endless fixation on sexuality is the devil’s work,” Griswold told Religion News Service in a recent interview. “So much psychic energy goes into this one area that issues of hunger and disease, poverty and civil war get overlooked.”
Ndungane, in Washington to push for action on international poverty relief and development programs, agreed.
“It’s of the devil, actually, that we are sort of detracted from what is the essential in terms of our mission, and it’s about time that we … be energized as Anglicans in faith and action seeking to do God’s mission in the world,” he said.
Ndungane is one of the few African archbishops who has stood beside the U.S. branch of Anglicanism as it faces global condemnation for the consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire. Ndungane, the successor to famed Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said, “Our God is not a single-issue God.”
Ndungane’s comments stood in stark contrast to those of Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria _ Africa’s largest Anglican province _ who said the election of Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire went against the Bible and was a “satanic attack upon God’s church.”
Griswold, who presided at Robinson’s consecration in 2003, said there are greater issues facing the 77 million-member Anglican Communion than an obsession with North American policies towards gays and lesbians.
“It is not very life-giving and it leaves the poor and the diseased exactly where they were before,” he said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Canadians Angry About `Snub’ by Archbishop of Canterbury
TORONTO (RNS) The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has rejected an invitation to attend a joint meeting of Canadian and American bishops next month, resulting in uncharacteristically pointed accusations by the Canadian church of a snub over the issue of homosexuality.
“It does send a very, very negative symbol to the Canadian church, no question,” said the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison. “The message it sends to us is that at the moment he does not want to be associated with the Canadians.”
The refusal of Williams, the spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, widens a global rift among Anglicans. At a closed-door meeting last month in Northern Ireland, primates of the 38 autonomous branches asked Canadian and U.S. churches to “voluntarily withdraw” for three years from the communion’s Consultative Council because of their acceptance of gay marriage and the ordination of gay bishops.
Employing unusually harsh language, Hutchison told Canada’s national Anglican newspaper that Williams’s decision not to meet with North American bishops has left him “very upset because it goes against what I believe is his own personal position (on homosexuality) and he has expressed it pretty publicly in other circumstances.”
More than a year ago, Williams was invited to the joint bishops meeting, set to take place in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, April 27 to May 1. On Wednesday (March 9), the Globe and Mail newspaper quoted a spokesman as saying Williams could not attend because of a conflicting meeting of the senior council of the Church of England.
“That makes it [the North American meeting] not doable,” the spokesman said, adding, “I can see why Archbishop Hutchison is miffed.”
But Hutchison was unimpressed with the explanation, telling the Anglican Journal, “I’m sure (it’s) not something (Williams had) committed (to) before our invitation.”
Canadian bishop Bruce Howe, in whose diocese the meeting will take place, said Williams “should have made more of an effort to come, to make a pastoral visit to the Canadian and American bishops.”
_ Ron Csillag
Catholic Leaders Take Steps to Strengthen Cooperation With Laity
WASHINGTON (RNS) Three years after a sexual abuse scandal damaged the Catholic Church’s credibility with parishioners, Catholic lay and religious leaders launched a new group Monday (March 14) to address financial and management challenges faced by the American church.
In their “Report on the Church in America,” several dozen educators, business leaders, lawyers and others recommended a larger role for clergy and lay people in the selection of bishops, and outside reviews of diocesan finances.
One result of the report is the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, a new organization seeking to strengthen church finances, staff recruitment and leadership. It will be based in Washington and led by Ana Villamil Kelly, associate director of the office for laity with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Geoffrey Boisi, a retired businessman and founding leader of the roundtable, said recent research has shown church attendance and financial support in the Catholic Church are decreasing. He also said the average age of Catholic Church leaders and members of religious orders is over 50.
“We have to act now,” Boisi said, encouraging Catholic leaders to improve communication and transparency among Catholic groups. The Catholic Church also needs to “accelerate outreach to young people,” Boisi said, to attract the next generation of leadership.
Bishop Dale Melczek of Gary, Ind., said the roundtable will allow the “gifts of the laity” to be incorporated into church leadership, promote dialogue and identify the best practices among dioceses.
“We welcome this project and what it holds for the church,” Melczek said.
Among the long-term recommendations of the report are improved outreach to Hispanic and Asian communities, establishing a new training program for bishops and the creation of a U.S. Catholic Career Service and Youth Corps to train young people for lifetime careers in the church.
Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Savannah, Ga., said he supports greater collaboration with the laity to seek constructive responses to struggles facing the church.
“In years to come I hope history will give credit to the church for a positive response to the sex abuse crisis,” Boland said, referring to recent reports of diminished trust among Catholic parishioners as a result of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
The steps taken with the report’s 48 recommendations and the new organization come after two years of meetings and discussion among 12 bishops, one archbishop and dozens of other Catholic leaders _ including Christopher Anderson, executive director of the Washington-based National Association for Lay Ministry; U.S. Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi; and Mary Bendyna, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Frank Butler, president of FADICA (Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities), a Washington-based watchdog group for Catholic donors, said he hopes getting priests’ councils involved in the national leadership roundtable will increase a sense of ownership among Catholic clergy.
The report’s findings were produced during a two-day discussion held at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia in July 2004.
_ Celeste Kennel-Shank
Focus on the Family Claims Victory in `SpongeBob’ Video Flap
(RNS) Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group, is praising the removal of references to sexual orientation from materials accompanying a children’s video starring SpongeBob SquarePants and about 100 other television characters.
The organization, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., says earlier versions of a teacher’s guide for the video included lesson plans teaching children about discrimination against gays and lesbians. The We Are Family Foundation, based in New York City, produced the video, which was sent to 61,000 elementary schools last week.
“We can only assume The We Are Family Foundation removed those references after realizing the majority of American parents do not want such material to be foisted on their children,” said Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, in Citizen Link, a Focus on the Family online newsletter.
Focus on the Family also claims links to gay and lesbian rights organizations, such as the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, were also removed from the Web site after James Dobson, founder of the conservative organization, complained about the video and the materials that went with it.
“We Are Family: A Musical Message for All,” is a video produced by Nile Rodgers, writer of the disco song by the same name. Rodgers is also the head of the “We are Family Foundation.” The video celebrates diversity.
Thirteen other companies collaborated to create the video and materials, including Nickelodeon, Scholastic Entertainment and FedEx, which shipped the videos for free.
Of particular concern to some conservative Christian groups was the teacher’s guide packaged with the video, created by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based human rights organization.
Caryl Stern, associate national director of the league, said the lesson plans referring to same-sex parents were edited out to shorten the guide.
She denied that changes were made under pressure by Dobson, saying, “Obviously, that wasn’t the reason”
Stern said the video celebrates American family values.
“We’re all people and we’re all God’s children,” she said.
_ Celeste Kennel-Shank
Quote of the Week: Dr. Kenneth Stevens of Physicians for Compassionate Care
(RNS) “We’ve always been concerned that the dose would not always be lethal and that there would be complications. In this situation, living is considered a complication.”
_ Dr. Kenneth Stevens, vice president of Physicians for Compassionate Care and chairman of the radiation oncology department at Oregon Health and Science University, reacting to the failed assisted suicide of David E. Prueitt. After ingesting a supposed lethal dose of doctor-prescribed medicine, Prueitt went into a coma. He later awoke and lived more than two weeks longer before dying of cancer.
