c. 2005 Religion News Service
Clarification: Graham Remark on Hillary Clinton Was Not an Endorsement
(RNS) Evangelist Franklin Graham has responded to concerns about brief remarks his father made about former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., during his recent New York crusade.
On the second night of his three-day crusade, Billy Graham said of the former president: “I told him before an audience that when he left the presidency, he should be an evangelist, because he has all those gifts, and he could leave his wife to run the country.”
Those comments on Saturday (June 25) prompted more than 100 inquiries to the North Carolina offices of Samaritan’s Purse, Franklin Graham’s relief organization, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for Franklin Graham.
Franklin Graham sent an e-mail clarifying those comments.
“Recently at my father’s New York Crusade, he made comments in jest concerning the Clintons, which may have been misunderstood,” the younger Graham said in the e-mail. “My father, of course, was joking. President Clinton has the charisma, personality, and communication skills, but an evangelist has to have the call of God, which President Clinton obviously does not have, and my father understands that. For a long time, my father has refrained from endorsing political candidates and he certainly did not intend for his comments to be an endorsement for Senator Hillary Clinton.”
A. Larry Ross, Billy Graham’s spokesman, said Graham had made similar comments about the former president when the two men addressed a memorial service for victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The New York crusade continued a tradition of having political officials welcome Graham to the community.
“Prior to the Clintons’ arrival, we had Republican Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg welcome Mr. Graham as well,” Ross said in an interview. “Even though it was nonpartisan and nonpolitical, I think there was that equal representation of officials welcoming the crusade to New York.”
DeMoss said he thinks the part of the elder Graham’s remarks about Hillary Clinton “was unique to the New York audience” but he said the comments about both Clintons prompted the response.
“I think it’s one of those things that could be taken one way if you heard it live and taken another way if you just read it somewhere,” DeMoss said in an interview. “I would say virtually everybody present in the park in New York would have taken it largely in jest.”
_ Adelle M. Banks and Jason Anthony
Congressman Introduces `Religious Freedom Amendment’ to Constitution
WASHINGTON (RNS) Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., introduced a constitutional amendment in the House of Representatives Thursday intended to reverse a recent (June 27) Supreme Court ruling that bars the display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses.
The Religious Freedom Amendment would “preserve the original balance of the First Amendment, protecting religious expression by Americans while preventing the establishment of any official religion,” Istook said.
The Religious Freedom Amendment, which has 107 co-sponsors, would need the support of two-thirds of the House and Senate in order to pass as well as ratification by three-fourths of the states in order to become a part of the Constitution. Istook introduced the same amendment in 1998, when it failed to win the required two-thirds majority in the House.
“Intolerant people have been attacking the Ten Commandments, the Pledge of Allegiance, voluntary prayers at school and other religious expression, but this amendment will halt those attacks,” Istook said. “The courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion when they should be using it to protect religion. Unfortunately, only a constitutional amendment can fix this problem.”
The text of the Religious Freedom Amendment says: “To secure the people’s right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: The people retain the right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage and traditions on public property, including schools. The United States and the States shall not establish any official religion nor require any person to join in prayer or religious activity.”
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, argued that Istook’s proposed amendment would in fact threaten Americans’ religious liberties.
“Istook’s scheme is a direct attack on individual freedom,” Lynn said. “It would allow government officials to meddle in religion, and it would take away church-state safeguards that have given Americans more religious freedom than any people in history.”
Lynn said that public school students already are allowed to pray in school and that Istook’s proposed amendment would give politicians free reign to “decorate our public buildings like churches.”
_ Hugh S. Moore
Civil Liberties Groups Allege Scores of Muslim Men Jailed Without Charge
(RNS) Two human rights and civil liberties organizations have published a report alleging that the U.S. Department of Justice has detained at least 70 men since Sept. 11, 2001, all but one of whom is Muslim, without ever filing formal charges.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) released the report, “Witness to Abuse: Human Rights Abuses under the Material Witness Law Since September 11.” It was made public Monday (June 27) after interviewing 70 men over the course of one year.
The men all had been detained as “material witnesses” at various times during the period since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The men were detained in the U.S. prison system under what the report called a “narrow” law that permits the arrest and detention of possible witnesses to a crime or terrorist activities if there is a fear that those witnesses might flee the country.
Seventeen of the witnesses the groups interviewed were U.S. citizens, and 64 were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent.
The report alleges that the Justice Department “relied on false, flimsy or irrelevant evidence” in making the detentions, and that almost none of the men detained was ever charged with a crime or even provided useful testimony.
“Haste, incompetence and prejudice played a role in these detentions,” said Anjana Malhotra, a fellow at both the ACLU and HRW and the author of the report.
“Muslim men were arrested for little more than attending the same mosque as a Sept. 11 hijacker or owning a box-cutter,” she said in a statement announcing the report’s release.
On Wednesday (June 29), President Bush signed an executive order creating a new National Security Service within the Federal Bureau of Investigations, with the goal of improving the intelligence community’s effectiveness. The order specifically mentioned that civil liberties must be considered in the course of national security and intelligence operations.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Gay Rights Group Hires New Director of Religious Outreach
WASHINGTON (RNS) The nation’s largest gay rights organization has launched a new outreach department for faith and religion, and hired a United Church of Christ seminary graduate as its first director.
Harry Knox, a graduate of Lancaster Theological Seminary who at one time pursued ordination in the UCC, will direct the new office for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay rights organization.
“A vocal minority is falsely promoting the notion that religious people stand in opposition to equal rights,” Knox said in a press release. “Our job is to promote the truth that a majority of people of faith believes strongly in fairness and justice.”
Knox’s office will work with churches and other faith groups in the battle over gay marriage, as well as link with gay-friendly religious groups and provide speakers to discuss gay-lesbian issues “in a religious context.”
“(We hope to be) providing a louder megaphone for the many diverse religious voices out there who are willing to speak out on behalf of lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender equality,” he said in a phone interview.
Knox originally planned to be a United Methodist minister but left to join the UCC because of his sexual orientation. When Georgia UCC leaders said in 1989 they could not ordain an openly gay minister, Knox took a job at the American Cancer Society.
Most recently, Knox, 44, was program coordinator at Freedom to Marry, a gay marriage advocacy group, and director of a Georgia gay rights group.
Two other groups that advocate for gay rights, People for the American Way and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, both have outreach departments that deal with issues of homosexuality and religion.
“It’s important to ensure that our voices are part of the nationwide discussion that’s happening around faith and justice,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Chabad Officials Oppose Planned Withdrawal of Israeli Troops from Gaza
JERUSALEM (RNS) Officials from Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish religious movement with hundreds of thousands of members around the world, have met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to express their disapproval of Israel’s planned withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza and northern Israel in mid-August.
During the Tuesday (June 28) meeting, which took place in the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, Chabad representatives told Sharon that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, the longtime spiritual leader of Chabad, “opposed any concession over any part of the Land of Israel.”
Religious Jews view both Gaza and the West Bank as parts of the bibilical Land of Israel, and the thought of relinquishing even a small piece of sacred territory is inconceivable to them on religious grounds.
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner, who served as the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s secretary, told Sharon that “it is forbidden to make concessions over even the tiniest speck” of land, but added that “it is also important to uphold the (civil) law.”
Chabad spokesman Menachem Brod told Sharon that “while we do not have your experience and knowledge, we do have the Rebbe, and we are certain that he is right. Therefore our public is in so much pain and is so upset. It is difficult for us to control the storm within Chabad but we say that we are against violence and incitement.”
Since Sharon announced his intention to enact the disengagement plans, some prominent rabbis have urged religious soldiers to disobey orders to forcibly remove settlers from their homes. A small but vocal number of religious activists _ including some Chabad members _ have vowed to fight any soldier who tries to uproot the settlers.
The issue of land is particularly sensitive in Israel, where, in the 1990s, an Orthodox Jew murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for fear that he would relinquish parts of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian.
According to the prime minister’s office, Sharon told the Chabad delegation that Sharon had “no intention to try to persuade them” to back the disengagement.
Instead, he said, “it is important for me to explain to you that incitement and developing hatred and the threats are leading towards a great danger.”
Rabbi Shimon Elitov, a regional council rabbi in Israel, assured Sharon that Chabad officials are “against” the “harsh remarks” of some of its members, who have vowed to use violence.
_ Michele Chabin
International Worship Institute Promises Many Voices, One Song
(RNS) Christian organizers refer to it as the “United Nations in Worship” the 19th annual International Worship Institute set for July 5-8 at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas.
From 8 a.m. to after midnight, rock, gospel, jazz, ethnic drums and alternative Christian music will be played before a crowd expected to be in the thousands, said Lamar Boschman, dean and founder of the Worship Institute.
This year, for the first time, people from around the world can listen on the Internet through a webcast at http://www.KVTT.com, a Web site operated by KVTT, a Christian radio station that broadcasts in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
“Across the world, whether you are in the jungles of Guatemala, cathedrals of Europe or wooden pews of America’s heartland, the advent of the digital world has made it possible for people to experience the same songs of worship with their own unique expression,” Boschman said.
The Christian event provides more than 100 workshops, master classes and general sessions. Singers, musicians and leaders may receive specialized training in a variety of leadership areas and participate in sessions as they choose.
A 140-voice choir comprised of musical leaders worldwide is a highlight of the conference, Boschman said.
Evening conferences begin at 7 p.m. each day and feature artists such as Rita Springer, Darrell Evans, Morris Chapman and James Robinson and Bob Sorge. Extreme youth worship sessions are planned from 10:30 p.m. to midnight.
_ Bobby Ross Jr.
Quote of the Day: Episcopal Priest James Tramel
(RNS) “In that moment it felt like my whole life was coming into focus. It felt like I was right where I was supposed to be.”
_ James Tramel, an inmate at California State Prison-Solano, reflecting on his June 18 ordination as an Episcopal priest. He was quoted by Episcopal News Service.
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