c. 2005 Religion News Service

Religious Minorities in Iraq Worried Constitution Won’t Protect Them

(RNS) With an Aug. 15 deadline looming for completion of a permanent constitution in Iraq, the country’s religious minorities are increasingly fearful that it will create an Islamic government that doesn’t protect their rights.

In the draft constitution, the role of Islam in the state has changed from “a form of legislation” to “a main form of legislation,” said Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom. In addition, a proposal has been made to impose Shariah law, the strict and conservative Islamic law, above women’s rights and the bill of rights, Shea said.

On Tuesday (July 19) in Baghdad, a group of women representing multiple religions protested the inclusion of the law in the constitution under the sponsorship of the Christian political party, the Assyrian Democratic Movement.

“I’m fighting for the name of Christianity to be remembered in the constitution with the same rights of other religions,” said Yonadam Kanna, the only representative of the Christian party in the 275-seat National Assembly and the leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement.

Kanna made the comment in a telephone interview from Iraq.

Including the conservative Sunni Muslims in the constitution _ which many National Assembly officials had hoped would provide balanced representation _ has had its drawbacks, assembly officials have said. The Sunnis have not approved the proposed system of federalism or dual citizenship for Iraq’s exiled citizens and maintain the Kurdish language is unofficial, Kanna said.

Earlier in the week, the faith-based group World Compassion said it was launching a petition drive to urge a guarantee of religious freedom be included in the Iraqi constitution.

“We’re not asking that a specific religion be practiced in Iraq,” said World Compassion President Terry Law. “We just want Iraqis to have the freedom to choose for themselves.”

The petition, available at http://www.worldcompassion.tv, will be sent to top Iraqi officials.

In a meeting last week in Washington, three uncommon allies representing Iraq’s religious minorities urged the U.S. government to recognize their unequal treatment, particularly in the ethnically and religiously diverse north where Kurdish Muslims have been affirmed the ruling majority.

The panel was a union of Iraqi religions typically at odds: the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, which include Catholics and members of the Orthodox Church of the East; Mandaeans, who claim John the Baptist as their prophet; and Turkmen Muslims.

_ Ashtar Analeed Marcus

Despite Opposition From Faith Groups, Gay Marriage Now Legal in Canada

OTTAWA (RNS) Canada has become only the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

Bill C-38 received royal assent and became the law of the land late Wednesday (July 20). Just the evening before, Canada’s Liberal-dominated Senate, the upper chamber of Parliament, approved the bill by a vote of 47-21.

The lower house of Parliament had already passed the legislation late last month despite fierce opposition from conservative politicians and some faith groups, including the Catholic Church, who portrayed it as an attack on organized religion.

Opponents fear churches and religious officials will be sued for refusing to carry out gay marriages or for preaching against it from pulpits.

Ottawa has assured faith groups that religious officials would not be forced to marry same-sex couples, and that religious teachings will be protected by laws guaranteeing free speech.

The federal government has also stressed that its bill addresses civil marriage only in public institutions like courthouses and city halls. It says religious institutions _ churches, mosques, synagogues and temples _ and individuals can continue defining marriage as they see fit.

Nevertheless, some faith groups lashed out after the bill cleared its final hurdle.

“The fundamental and universal reality of marriage remains the exclusive union of a man and a woman for life,” said a statement from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The new law “denatures the moral values and principles,” the bishops said. “Catholics are to continue to oppose it,” and must ensure that freedom to oppose it is upheld.

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada “cannot by reason of faith, conscience, practice and teaching accept this new definition of marriage and we will continue to promote and uphold marriage as the exclusive union of one man and one woman,” stated president Bruce Clemenger.

Belgium and the Netherlands have allowed gays and lesbians to get married for years. The Spanish Cortes (parliament) approved same-sex marriage on June 30.

_ Ron Csillag

Pastors Issue Open Letter Urging Attention to Black Family `Crisis’

WASHINGTON (RNS) A group of 25 pastors has issued an open letter to black church leaders, calling on them to no longer be silent about the state of African-American families.

“There is a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the black community, one that goes to the very heart of its survival,” reads the Wednesday (July 20) letter spearheaded by the Rev. Eugene Rivers, president of the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies in Boston.

“The black family is failing.”

Updating 1965 research on black families by the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the letter cites numerous reasons for declining black families.

“At the heart of the breakdown of the family has been the failure of black marriages,” it states.

Other causes include a lack of sexual fidelity among African-Americans and a disproportionately high rate of incarceration for black males.

Although the leaders supporting the letter credit the black church for its role in the civil rights movement, they said the church needs to take a stand in helping transform the current challenges in the black community.

“The church has been largely silent on the decline of the black family, in part because a number of church leaders have themselves not led an exemplary life in this regard,” the letter said. “Even in the recent past, leading black clergymen have been caught in nationally publicized sexual scandals.”

The four-page letter, announced at a National Press Club news conference, calls on church leaders to reform their own conduct while teaching others to “live up to the biblical standards of sexual purity” by offering premarital counseling for engaged couples and other resources to help preserve marriages.

“Every black Christian man and woman must take seriously the charge to live in a sexually responsible manner, honoring the sacred nature of sexual intimacy,” the letter states. “By their fidelity to each other, parents must provide an environment of trust and emotional security in which to raise their children and teach them by example and precept to respect and honor their bodies.”

The Boston-based institute has published a 55-page volume, expanding on the premise of the open letter, called “God’s Gift: A Christian Vision of Marriage and the Black Family.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Number of Jews in Israel to Soon Pass Population of U.S. Jews

JERUSALEM (RNS) If demographic trends continue, by 2006 Israel will boast the largest Jewish community in the world, according to an Israeli think tank.

The Jerusalem-based Jewish Policy Planning Institute released a report predicting that Israel’s Jewish population, which currently stands at 5.24 million, will overtake its counterpart in the United States, where 5.28 million Jews live, within a year.

The report, released July 12, predicted that the Jewish population of Israel will reach 6.23 million by 2020, and that the number of Jews worldwide would reach 13.5 million, up from the current 13 million.

In an interview with Reuters, Avinoam Bar-Yosef, director general of the institute, called Israel’s Jewish community “the most vibrant in the world. In the U.S., the community has been stagnant by numbers for many years,” he said.

The birthrate among Israeli Jewish women stands at 2.7 children, far higher than the rate among Diaspora Jewish communities. While intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews in Israel has become more common due to the influx of hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish immigrants with Jewish roots, the rate is far lower than the approximately 50 percent of American Jews who intermarry.

The researchers predicted that Israel’s Jewish population will outpace its counterpart in the U.S., despite a sharp decline in the number of Jewish immigrants during the past few years. During the 1990s, between 70,000 to 80,000 immigrants arrived annually, the majority of them Jewish. That number fell to just 23,000 in 2003.

Jewish population growth is a lively issue in Israel, where Jews and Arabs are engaged in a heated demographic war.

The researchers noted that “over the whole territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River there is a marked trend towards the consolidation of an Arab majority by 2010.”

Arab women have 4.6 children on average, the report said, and added that for Israel to retain a Jewish majority, between 60,000 to 100,000 new immigrants would need to come every year.

_ Michele Chabin

Quote of the Day: Pope Benedict XVI

(RNS) “Terrorism is irrational. There is not a conflict between civilizations. There are only small groups of fanatics.”

_ Pope Benedict XVI, speaking during his Alpine vacation, about terrorism by Islamic militants. He was quoted by the Reuters news agency.

MO/JL END RNS