c. 2006 Religion News Service

Italian Official Asked to Resign After Threatening to Wear Muhammad Shirts

ROME (RNS) A key member of Italy’s center-right government reported Wednesday (Feb. 15) that he has been asked to resign after pledging to wear T-shirts depicting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have provoked violent protests amongst Muslims.

In an interview with Italian state television, Roberto Calderoli, Italy’s right-wing minister of institutional reforms, said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi asked him to step down for saying he would personally hand out T-shirts bearing Danish cartoons that have enraged the Muslim world. Calderoli gave no indication that he would resign, but reasserted his support for the T-shirts.

“I have had T-shirts made with the cartoons that have upset Islam and I will start wearing them,” Italian news agency ANSA reported him as saying on Tuesday (Feb. 14).

It was unclear whether he actually started wearing the T-shirts. Calderoli, a leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, is running for re-election in Italy’s 2006 national elections as part of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition.

Calderoli also accused Italy of becoming too soft on Islamic extremists.

“What are we becoming? The civilization of melted butter?” he asked.

The cartoons, showing Muhammad with a bomb as a turban, were originally published by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in defense of press freedom amid increasing fear of Islamic radicals in Europe.

Tension with Islam has been high in Italy, following the murder of an Italian missionary in Italy by a 16-year-old Turkish gunman who reportedly shouted “God is great!” after the shooting. Muslim immigrants comprise 33 percent of Italy’s immigrant population.

Calderoli has also called on the Vatican to toughen its stance on Islam after it expressed support for Muslims offended by the drawings.

_ Kristine M. Crane

Canadian Publisher Defends Decision to Reprint Muhammad Cartoons

(RNS) The publisher of a conservative Canadian magazine is defending his decision to reprint some of the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, even as Muslim groups threaten civil action under the country’s hate crimes laws.

Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, has spent days on the media circuit upholding his right to reprint eight of the cartoons in his magazine, which was scheduled to hit newsstands and mailboxes this week.

“The cartoons, and the reaction to them in the Muslim world, was basically the largest story out there right now, certainly in the media criticism file,” Levant told reporters. “We thought that the cartoons were the central artifact of the biggest media story of the month.”

Levant called the cartoons “innocuous” and “bland.” Freedom of speech, he added, “trumps political correctness.”

The cartoons have not been published in mainstream Canadian media. At the University of Prince Edward Island, security guards seized copies of the student newspaper after it reprinted some of the caricatures.

The student union was able to collect the remainder of the print run of 2,000. It eventually handed those papers over as well, and later offered a printed apology to the local Muslim community.

Last week, Calgary police investigated whether replications of the cartoons in the Jewish Free Press, which is circulated among 2,000 homes, could be deemed a hate crime. But the crown prosecutor’s office said Criminal Code requirements were not met, and the city’s diversity resources officer was assigned to work with Muslim and Jewish groups.

The Jewish newspaper also published a selection of anti-Semitic cartoons printed in Muslim countries.

But Muslim leaders vowed to press their case on the Western Standard, which has a circulation of about 40,000.

“We will use every means within the Canadian legal system to stop this intellectual terrorism,” said Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

He said his group has asked lawyers to pursue civil action against publications that show the cartoons.

_ Ron Csillag

Authorities Continue Search for Arsonists in Alabama Church Fires

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) Federal authorities are continuing their plea for two arsonists to contact them so they can work together to stop the string of 10 church fires across west and central Alabama.

As of Tuesday (Feb. 14), commanders had assigned 420 leads for investigators to check out since the first fires were found in Bibb County less than two weeks ago. Some have been helpful; others haven’t panned out.

Widespread reports of an arrest Tuesday morning in Choctaw County were false, authorities said. A 21-year-old man was jailed Tuesday on suspicion of setting fire to an abandoned church building in Calhoun County, but the incident isn’t connected to the other fires, authorities said.

What authorities want most in their search for the church arsonists is something to clue them in to a motive, said Jim Cavanaugh, regional director for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“We still think, based on witnesses and our collective wisdom, that something is stressing them and causing them to do this,” Cavanaugh said. “I do think if you were to ask us what’s really causing this, simply put it’s `somebody done somebody wrong.’ Whenever we get to the bottom of what that is, we’ll know who did this.”

The spree started Feb. 3. Five Baptist churches were found burned or burning in Bibb County; three of them were destroyed. The second group of fires came Feb. 7, when four more churches were set ablaze in Pickens, Sumter and Greene counties.

The latest fire _ the 10th in less than two weeks _ came Saturday when someone torched Beaverton Free Will Baptist Church in Lamar County. The fire was quickly ruled arson.

That’s when investigators put out the word that they wanted to talk to the firebugs _ whom authorities believe are two white men between 20 and their early 30s.

Cavanaugh said it’s clear at least one of the arsonists has been emotionally hurt, whether it be family, a romantic relationship or something at work or church. Witnesses have reported seeing two white men in a dark SUV, possibly a Nissan Pathfinder. Cavanaugh said it’s important to remember cars are easily changed. The men, he said, are close buddies, likely seen more together than apart.

“If they would call us, we’d listen, we’d be understanding, we’d be tolerant and we’d be willing to understand why this is going on,” he said. “We’ll treat them with dignity and respect.”

_ Carol Robinson

Ohio Board of Education Rejects Intelligent Design

(RNS) Veteran Ohio school board member Martha Wise did her math to deep-six a controversial lesson that she and other critics believed would open the door to statewide teaching of intelligent design.

On Monday (Feb. 13), the State Board of Education member wasn’t sure she had the votes to get a disputed lesson plan removed from Ohio’s science curriculum.

But by Tuesday evening, three other board members agreed to vote with her, giving Wise the equation she was looking for.

“I’m ecstatic,” Wise declared after the board voted 11-4 to delete the lesson during its meeting Tuesday in Columbus. “It’s a win for science, a win for students and a win for the state of Ohio.”

The victory represented a stunning turnaround for Wise, a 28-year board veteran who had been on the losing side of the debate for the last four years. Just last month, a Wise-sponsored motion to delete the disputed lesson plan failed, 9-8. Even with two board members absent, Tuesday’s margin of victory makes the likelihood of the board reversing itself slim.

Supporters of the lesson plan, adopted by the board nearly two years ago, contended it encouraged critical thinking in students.

The vote Tuesday “is nothing more than a gag order on science,” said Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute.

The ruling is “a dogmatic approach to education that restricts students from learning about evolution,” Luskin said.

The Discovery Institute is a Seattle think tank that promotes intelligent design _ the belief that life is so complex that a higher being must have had a hand in its creation.

But critics of the lesson plan, including virtually all science groups, said the lesson plan was warmed-over creationism and a vivid example of the religious right’s attack on evolution, Charles Darwin’s widely accepted theory that life descended from common ancestors.

Ironically, the board’s action Tuesday comes in the wake of a Zogby Poll that shows strong support in Ohio for teaching evidence for and against evolution.

But scientists say the supposed controversy simply does not exist, and that scientific theory is not a subject of popular vote.

“The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance, but to overcome it,” said Case Western Reserve University physicist Lawrence Krauss.

_ Scott Stephens

Court Hears Case Pitting ACLU Against Boy Scouts’ Religious Beliefs

PASADENA, Calif. (RNS) In a lawsuit pitting the American Civil Liberties Union against the Boy Scouts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of a lesbian and an agnostic couple and their Boy Scout-aged sons.

Oral arguments Tuesday (Feb. 14) were punctuated by questions about belief in God, discriminating membership standards, and their relation to leasing public land.

The plaintiffs said the Scouts should not lease prime park space owned by the city of San Diego because of the organization’s pro-God, anti-gay stance.

The lawyers faced a panel of three judges who peppered them with questions, sometimes interrupting and taking on an air of interrogation. A ruling in the case is expected later in the year.

Judge Marsha Berzon questioned George Davidson, attorney for the Boy Scouts, on the organization’s mandate that members believe in God, contrasted with its position that it’s not a religious group.

“It is without theological content,” Davidson said of the Boy Scouts’ theism. “(The Boy Scouts) expect the parents and the religious leaders to provide the content for that.”

The Boy Scouts of America were appealing two district court rulings, in 2003 and 2004, that negated the leases on their Camp Balboa and Fiesta Island recreational facilities. The leases were an unconstitutional establishment of religion under federal law and violated California’s “no aid” clause, which prohibits the financial support of religion, the district court said.

The ACLU also argued that the leases violated the city’s duty to maintain public park land for the benefit of the general population.

Mark Danis, attorney for the ACLU, said after the hearing that the primary issue is whether “city land can be used as the headquarters for the head of an organization that discriminates.”

The answer is clearly “no,” Danis said.

The San Diego Boy Scouts have provided camping facilities to the public for 50 years, Davidson said. Any resident, no matter their religion or sexual orientation, can use the facilities with the same privileges of non-Scouts, he said.

“We’ve always had great confidence in the merits of our case,” Davidson said after the hearing. “We’re no less confident than before.”

The Boy Scouts are still operating the San Diego facilities pending the results of the appeal in the case, Barnes-Wallace vs. Boy Scouts of America.

_ Marshall Allen

Quote of the Day: Aldo Bernetti of Olympic Interfaith Committee

(RNS) “It’s like when you have two nation’s armies, each asking God to be on their side. How can God know which to choose?”

_ Aldo Bernetti, Catholic representative on the Olympic interfaith committee, on a priest who refused an Italian Olympic racer’s request to bless his skis. He was quoted in The Washington Times.

MO/RB END RNS