c. 2007 Religion News Service
Baptist Pastor Cleared on Sex Soliciting Charges
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (RNS) A former member of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee was found not guilty on Wednesday (March 7) of offering to engage in a lewd act.
Lonnie Latham, then 60 and pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church, was arrested Jan. 3, 2006, after allegedly inviting a male undercover Oklahoma City police officer to his hotel room for sex. He pleaded not guilty in February, 2006.
Oklahoma County Special Judge Roma M. McElwee ruled on the case but did not address a key part of the defense argument _ whether or not the law Latham was charged under is unconstitutional.
Latham’s attorney, Mack Martin, had argued that his client was charged under a lewdness statute that should be unconstitutional because the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 legalized consensual sex between two adult males. If the conduct is not illegal, he argued, then talking about it should not be illegal.
Martin said Latham was “ecstatic” when he learned of the verdict Wednesday afternoon.
The case drew the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend of the court brief in Latham’s defense, and of national gay rights organizations, which maintained that inviting someone to a hotel room for sex was not a crime.
If convicted, Latham could have faced a year in jail, a $2,500 fine and 40 to 80 hours of community service.
As a spokesman for Southern Baptists, Latham often defended the church’s opposition to same-sex relations. After his arrest he resigned from the SBC Executive Committee, the Board of Directors of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, and his church pulpit.
_ Bill Sherman
Graduation Ceremony in Church Spurs Lawsuit
NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) A high school graduation ceremony held last year in a Newark church has sparked a lawsuit over religious freedom.
A senior who was graduating from West Side High School says he could not attend the ceremony because his Muslim faith prohibited him from entering a building with religious icons, such a pictures of God or the cross, according to a lawsuit filed against the Newark Public Schools by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Schools should not sponsor activities that exclude some students from participating on the basis of religious belief,” said Edward Barocas, the group’s legal director.
The suit, filed on behalf of Bilal Shareef, is asking the court to grant the 18-year-old damages because both the graduation and a religious baccalaureate service violated his right not to be discriminated against on the basis of his religion.
The lawsuit alleges West Side officials told students if they attended the separate religious baccalaureate ceremony at a Catholic church, they would receive two additional tickets for the graduation ceremony.
“I worked hard throughout high school to reach the point of graduation and the school denied me the chance to be there with my friends and family for what should have been a happy, once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Shareef, who is now enrolled at Union County College in Cranford, N.J.
Perry Lattiboudere, the district’s general counsel, said the school system denies the allegations and has always prided itself in trying to balance the needs of a diverse group of kids.
Lattiboudere argued that no federal or state court has ruled a school’s decision to hold a graduation ceremony in a church violates the rights of a student or parent.
_ Kasi Addison
Church Allows Bird Flu Tests on Body of Dead Politician
LONDON (RNS) The Church of England will allow scientists to exhume the body of a British politician and diplomat who died in the Spanish flu pandemic nearly 90 years ago in hopes that it could aid research into bird flu.
British scientists believe that Sir Mark Sykes’ sealed lead coffin may contain remnants of the Spanish virus of 1918-19 that could help in their fight against today’s threat of a similar global outbreak of the new avian flu virus, H5N1.
Sykes, credited with helping to dismantle the old Ottoman Empire, was in Paris attending the Versailles peace conference after World War I when, in 1919, he became one of the 30 million to 50 million victims Spanish flu victims who died.
His body is buried in the cemetery at St. Mary’s church in Sledmere, Yorkshire, in northeast England.
Canon Peter Collier, chancellor of the Diocese of York, gave the Church of England’s approval for Sykes’ body to be exhumed, saying there were “strong grounds” for believing the diplomat’s remains might provide enough usable human tissue for researchers headed by virology professor John Oxford of Queen Mary’s College, London.
“There is a real prospect for the research they wish to carry out … (to) advance the capability of others to combat the H5N1 virus,” and that “clearly the potential value of professor Oxford’s team’s research is very significant,” Collier said in handing down his ruling.
The chancellor said the St. Mary’s church vicar, Rev. Marie Teare, had also approved the exhumation. Under the agreement, which included Sykes’ six grandchildren, the tests must be carried out within one year, with no advance publicity and out of public view.
Oxford himself rated the chances of a similar avian flu global outbreak in the early years of the 21st century as “high,” which Collier conceded had helped him to decide to allow the exhumation.
“Answers to questions about how the 1918 virus operated could have a profound impact on the approaches to the clinical treatment of avian influenza and the use of immune-suppressive drugs,” Collier said in his judgment.
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Day: Roman Catholic Bishop Dode Gjergji of Kosovo
“The dream of my predecessor shall come true, a Catholic cathedral devoted to Mother Teresa. For us, she is a sister, a member of the family.”
_ Roman Catholic Bishop Dode Gjergji of Prizren, Kosovo, on the decision to build a cathedral to Catholic icon Mother Teresa in her parents’ native country. He was quoted by Zenit News Agency.
KRE/RB END RNS