c. 2005 Religion News Service
Ford, Under Pressure, to Advertise Entire Line in Gay Publications
(RNS) The Ford Motor Co. said it will advertise its entire line of cars in gay magazines after social conservatives pressured Ford’s Jaguar and Land Rover divisions to pull their gay-targeted ad campaigns.
The 3 million-member American Family Association ended its boycott against Ford on Nov. 30 after the automaker, citing economic constraints, said Jaguar and Land Rover would not advertise in gay publications in 2006.
Gay groups accused Ford of yielding to pressure from “extremists.” After a meeting with gay activists Monday (Dec. 12), corporate officials said they would advertise all eight Ford divisions in gay-themed publications.
The Ford lineup includes Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mazda, Volvo and Aston Martin.
However, Ford Vice President Joe Laymon told gay groups in a letter Wednesday that it would be “inconsistent with the way we manage our business to direct” the individual ad campaigns by either Jaguar or Land Rover.
Laymon also said “the business situation” will prevent Ford from supporting some gay causes, and defended the carmaker’s decision to meet with representatives of the American Family Association.
“We expect to be measured not only by the meetings we conduct but by our conduct itself,” Laymon said. “Our record on tolerance and inclusion speaks for itself, and I am proud to be judged on that record at any time.”
Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said, “It’s important … to understand that these anti-gay groups with the deceptive names do not speak for America’s families.”
AFA officials declined to comment Thursday, but gay groups praised the decision. A coalition of 26 gay groups called Ford’s decision an “unequivocal reaffirmation of Ford’s historic commitment to our community and the core American values of fairness and equality.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
In First U.S. Appointment, Pope Names Bishop for San Francisco Post
(RNS) In his first major U.S. appointment, Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (Dec. 15) named Bishop George Niederauer of Salt Lake City as the new archbishop of San Francisco.
Niederauer, 69, succeeds Archbishop William Levada, who was named to the Vatican’s top doctrinal post last summer, the job held by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he was elected pope last April.
The affable Niederauer has served in Salt Lake City since 1995, and was a member of the U.S. bishops’ committee that hammered out new policies to prevent sexual abuse by priests.
Rocco Palmo, a Philadelphia-based veteran Vatican observer, said Niederauer and Levada are old friends, and the appointment “signals the influence of Levada as a `kingmaker’ for appointments in the doctrinal strongman’s home country.”
Niederauer will inherit an archdiocese in which church doctrine has run afoul of popular opinion, especially on gay issues. Niederauer, who headed the main seminary in Los Angeles for five years, recently told the Salt Lake Tribune that new Vatican rules on gay men in seminaries are not an outright ban, and that gay men have served the church “in every generation.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Demoted Catholic Priest Sues for $5 Million After Alleging Cover-Up
(RNS) A Catholic priest has sued the Newark, N.J., archdiocese for $5 million, contending he was removed from his position as a school director in 2003 because he publicly criticized bishops for cover-ups related to the clergy sex scandal.
The federal lawsuit by the Rev. Robert Hoatson, which was filed in New York on Tuesday (Dec. 13), also named as defendants Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, N.Y., the New York and Albany dioceses and four men from Hoatson’s former religious order who he says molested him decades ago.
Hoatson, 54, still an archdiocese priest in good standing, has been a counselor for Catholic Charities since 2004, though he spends much of his time working with people who accused priests of molesting them.
The suit claims the Newark Archdiocese violated New Jersey’s “Whistleblower Act” after Hoatson criticized Catholic bishops on May 20, 2003, at a legislative forum in Albany on a bill to help abuse victims. Hoatson’s comments came a year after the clergy sex scandal gained national attention with revelations that bishops had helped protect abusive priests.
According to the New York Law Journal, Hoatson said during the forum that church leaders had “selected evil over good, denial over admission, lying over truth-telling.”
Three days after making his comments, Hoatson received a letter of termination from his job at Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Newark.
The suit contends Hubbard and Egan, and people from their dioceses, “made repeated contact” with Myers and the Newark Archdiocese that led to retaliation against Hoatson.
Newark Archdiocese officials have said they removed Hoatson from the job only because of concerns with his management of the school and troubles involving his relationship with the school finance committee.
_ Jeff Diamant
Egypt Changes Restrictions on Repairing Christian Churches
(RNS) Christian churches in Egypt, an overwhelmingly Muslim country, will be able to carry out long-delayed repairs thanks to a decree by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The decree was made in response to appeals from Egypt’s community of 7 million to 10 million Christians, who say they are systematically discriminated against due to their status as a religious minority. International human rights group have also pressured the Egyptian government to deal with all religions in an equal manner.
Mubarak decided to reform the Hamayouni Decree, an Ottoman law dating back to 1856, which required the president’s personal approval for the simplest of repairs. The Egyptian media announced the reform, known as Decree No. 291, on Dec. 8.
In accordance with the decree, the government now has 30 days during which to approve church requests for renovations. Governors _ the officials entrusted with making church-related decisions _ must justify a rejection.
The government has approved only 12 requests for church-related construction, the U.S. State Department said in its 2005 International Religious Freedom Report.
Jubilee Campaign, an interdominational Christian human rights pressure group based in England, said in a 2004 report that Egypt’s Copts, who comprise about 90 percent of the country’s Christians, have faced an uphill battle with regard to repairs and building rights.
As an example, the organization noted that “permission has been denied for the last four years to build a toilet for St. Mary’s Church in El Kosai in Assiut Province.”
Jubilee Campaign asserted that militant Muslims have been known to set up makeshift mosques near the site of planned churches or beside churches in need of repair, thereby giving the government a legal pretext for preventing construction or repair.
Safwat El Baiady, president of the Protest Churches of Egypt, told Compass Direct, a Christian news agency, that the decree “will solve almost 80 percent of our problems, rebuilding old churches, but we have to be very frank: It doesn’t solve all our problems.”
_ Michele Chabin
German Imam Labeled `Hate Preacher’ Faces Continued Legal Battles
BERLIN (RNS) It appears the legal battles of a Berlin-based Muslim imam accused of being a “hate preacher” will continue into 2006.
Turkish-born imam Yakup Tasci won the latest legal round when a Potsdam court ruled Dec. 1 that German television station ZDF could no longer refer to him as a “hate preacher” or attribute certain quotes to him.
ZDF plans to appeal the decision and file a countersuit against Tasci in a Munich court. Meanwhile, Tasci will have to fight a legal effort in a Berlin court to keep from being deported to his native Turkey. Any of these new court battles could easily extend into 2006 and beyond, according to the Berliner Zeitung (Berlin Newspaper).
At issue is a November 2004 episode of the ZDF newsmagazine “Frontal” in which a hidden camera was used to film Tasci while he preached that non-believers were “stinking Germans” who would go to hell. The station later referred to Tasci as a “hate preacher” on its Web site. Tasci filed defamation charges, arguing that his preaching had been incorrectly translated into German.
Acting on the ZDF report, and another incident in which Tasci allegedly encouraged people to act as suicide bombers, Berlin’s interior minister began deportation proceedings to return Tasci to Turkey. Several courts have blocked efforts to force an expedited deportation, but a Berlin court still needs to decide on a standard deportation.
Tasci has lived in Germany for 30 years and has a wife and son in the country, both of whom hold German passports. He is currently on suspension from his duties at Mevlana Mosque in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin.
_ Niels Sorrells
Quote of the Day: Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver
(RNS) “Anti-Christian persecution and discrimination around the world … is ugly, it’s growing, and third, the mass media seem to generally ignore or downplay its gravity.”
_ Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, speaking Wednesday (Dec. 14) at a panel discussion on religious freedom on Capitol Hill. He was quoted by The Washington Times.
MO/PH END RNS
