c. 2007 Religion News Service

Immigration reform advocates seek cooler candidate rhetoric

(RNS) Christian leaders called on presidential candidates Monday (Dec. 17) to reduce harsh rhetoric about immigration reform and to develop workable solutions instead.

“The debate is very divisive and, unfortunately, our presidential candidates are allowing themselves to be … co-opted into the divisiveness of the debate rather than offering leadership,” said Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla.

Wenski, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Policy, joined Protestant leaders in the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform movement on a teleconference with reporters on Monday.

The Rev. Derrick Harkins, senior pastor of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, said candidates who profess to be Christians should avoid speaking about the issue in any way that is destructive or dehumanizing.

“The speech that is inflammatory and destructive and hateful is absolutely counterintuitive, … I believe, to any profession of faith,” he said.

Evangelical Protestant leaders joined in the call for respectful discussion about immigration but acknowledged that evangelicals are divided on the issue.

The Rev. Luis Cortes Jr., president of Esperanza USA, a Hispanic faith-based organization, said he was mostly unsuccessful when he attempted several months ago to get “celebrity” evangelical leaders to issue statements supporting comprehensive immigration reform.

“Most of the TV evangelists avoided the controversy by saying they were not thoroughly versed on the issue,” said Cortes, whose Philadelphia-based organization is meeting with Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., said some people have left his church after he criticized some of the comments made by talk-radio personalities about immigration.

“I’ve said to my people, `Look, you got to watch where you get … information on this,” he said. “Talk radio is what really slammed the phone banks in Washington when the whole comprehensive immigration thing came up.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

A `golden’ Colosseum to hail end of death penalty in New Jersey

NEWARK, N.J. _ Rome plans to flush golden light through the Colosseum for 24 hours on Tuesday (Dec. 18) in celebration of New Jersey’s abolishment of the death penalty under a deal brokered by an international lay Catholic group.

Officials at the Italian capital agreed with The Community of Sant’Egidio, which advocates for ending the death penalty, to conduct a special run of electricity through the world’s most famous arena.

“We light it up when there is real good news, a real step forward in the campaign against the death penalty,” said Mario Marazziti, a spokesman for Sant’Egidio and coordinator of its campaign for a worldwide death penalty moratorium.

New Jersey’s legislature voted to replace the state’s death penalty with life in prison without parole. Gov. Jon Corzine signed the bill Monday (Dec. 17). The Colosseum lighting will happen Tuesday, Marazziti said.

The Colosseum, a site of executions and gladiator contests during the Roman Empire, has emerged as a symbol in organized campaigns against capital punishment. It has received the golden treatment _ its regular lighting is white _ about 20 times since 1999, most recently last month after a committee of the United Nations General Assembly approved a non-binding resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions, Marazziti said.

Other special lightings include when Albania abolished its death penalty in 1999 and in 2003 when then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted all death sentences in that state.

_ Jeff Diamant

Canada’s high court awards Jewish woman religious divorce

TORONTO (RNS) In a landmark ruling, Canada’s highest court has sided with a Jewish woman whose husband had refused for 15 years to grant her a get, or religious divorce.

Making a rare foray into religion, the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday (Dec. 14) ruled 7-2 that the civil divorce agreement Jessel Marcovitz signed, agreeing to grant his wife Stephanie Bruker a get, was a valid contract and trumps his claims of freedom of religion.

The court awarded $47,500 to Bruker on the basis that her right to remarry and have more children within her faith was unfairly blocked by her ex-husband.

The Jewish couple from Montreal were married in 1969 and had a civil divorce in 1980. While Marcovitz initially agreed to give his wife a religious divorce as part of the civil divorce agreement, he later changed his mind and refused.

Bruker sued Marcovitz, arguing that without a get, she was prohibited from marrying again in the Jewish faith or having more children.

Marcovitz finally provided Bruker a get in 1995 when she was almost 47, beyond the childbearing age for most women.

“This represented an unjustified and severe impairment of her ability to live her life in accordance with this country’s values and her Jewish beliefs,” the court held.

Protecting equality rights and “the dignity of Jewish women in their independent ability to divorce and remarry,” outweighs Marcovitz’s claim of religious freedom, it added.

In their dissent, two supreme court judges warned that Marcovitz’s promise to provide his wife with a get was a “purely moral obligation,” and that ruling otherwise will drag courts into potentially explosive cases where they have no place.

The high court ruling was closely watched by dozens of Jewish women across Canada whose husbands have refused to grant them the religious divorce they need to remarry within Judaism. They are often called agunot, or “chained” women.

_ Ron Csillag

Quote of the Day: Contemporary Christian singer Michael W. Smith

(RNS) “I do feel like the success I’ve had has given me a platform to try to let people know what’s really important in life. If you’re not feeding the poor, not looking out for the troubled kid on the block, not giving yourself away, you’ve totally missed it.”

_ Contemporary Christian singer Michael W. Smith, in an interview with The Associated Press.

DSB/LF END RNS