c. 2008 Religion News Service

Hagee vows never to endorse another candidate

WASHINGTON (RNS) Speaking to more than 3,000 followers gathered here, Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee said the “vicious national media firestorm” over his inflammatory remarks about Jews and Catholics has not weakened his vocal support for Israel.

“We’re stronger than we’ve ever been,” he said Tuesday (July 22) at the annual convention of Christians United for Israel, a group started by Hagee in 2006. “We’re here to stay, and we’re not going away.”

Sen. John McCain rejected Hagee’s earlier endorsement after comments surfaced where the Christian-Zionist pastor denigrated the Catholic Church and suggested the Holocaust was God’s plan to push Jews back to Israel.

Hagee has said those comments were taken out of context, and at his group’s Night to Honor Israel banquet, said the political slight from McCain’s campaign has not gone unnoticed.

“What will I say the next time I am asked to endorse a presidential candidate?” he asked the crowd. “Never again!”

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who spoke at the event despite his support for McCain and criticism from Jewish groups, got a standing ovation before declaring: “I am your brother, Joseph.”

“As you know, there has been an organized and aggressive campaign to convince me to cancel my speech this evening,” he said. “But the bond I feel with Pastor John Hagee and each of you is much stronger than that, and so I am proud to stand with you here tonight.”

Lieberman acknowledged Hagee’s “hurtful and offensive” comments and made clear that he does not “agree with everything Pastor Hagee has ever done or said.” But he defended Hagee’s behavior by likening the pastor to Moses.

“Even Moses fell short of God’s expectations,” he said.

_ Mallika Rao

EEOC issues new workplace manual on religion

WASHINGTON (RNS) Citing changing demographics and a steady increase in complaints from people of faith, a federal agency on Tuesday (July 22) released an updated compliance manual on religious discrimination in the workplace.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued the guidance after consultation with religious groups, employers, and labor organizations. The number of religious-discrimination charges reported to the agency has more than doubled over the last 15 years.

“The goal here is to promote voluntary compliance, to get everyone on the same page, to let them know what the law is,” said David Grinberg, a spokesman for the agency. “We want to stop discrimination before it starts.”

The new manual provides safeguards for workers who request time off for religious observances, and protects workers whose faith requires they wear specific religious garments, such as a hijab, a head covering worn by some Muslim women.

Muslims have faced the sharpest increase in workplace discrimination of any major religious in recent years. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of discrimination charges filed by Muslims more than doubled, from 398 to 907. That figure peaked at 1,155 in 2002, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Although religious-discrimination charges increased 13 percent nationally in 2007, Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists have both seen their total number of complaints decline in the past decade, while Catholics and Protestants have reported only a gradual increase.

The manual, which applies to any business with 15 or more employees, consolidated the results of recent litigation and policy pronouncements by the agency.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which consulted with the agency prior to the report’s release, praised the manual, but said more work still needed to be done.

“Religious Americans can spend a majority of their day in their workplaces, and the need to accommodate their religious needs is essential to each person’s freedom,” said Nathan J. Diament, the group’s director of public policy.

Allegations of religious discrimination still make a small fraction of the total number of complaints reported each year. Last year, just 3.5 percent of cases handled by the agency were religious in nature.

_ Tim Murphy

Heisman winner declines spot in Playboy lineup

(RNS) One year after winning college football’s highest honor, University of Florida star Tim Tebow was pulled from consideration for Playboy’s pre-season All-American team because the magazine conflicts with his Christian beliefs, a school official confirmed.

Tebow, who last year became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, comes from a family of missionaries and is a devout Baptist. Assistant Sports Information Director Zack Higbee said he chose not to nominate his quarterback for the Playboy spread based on what he knew about Tebow’s spirituality.

“I’ve been working with Tim since his first day here and I know his priorities and his family,” Higbee said. “He has that trust in me to make the decision.“

As a teenager, the home-schooled Tebow made annual trips to the Philippines, where his father, a minister, runs an orphanage. This year, he went on separate missions to the Philippines, Croatia, and Thailand.

Higbee said Tebow supported the move when told of it this month. Playboy Sports Editor Gary Cole downplayed the university’s decision, however, and said that Tebow would not have made the team anyway.

Tebow, 20, is not the first high-profile college athlete to reject Playboy for religious reasons. Danny Wuerffel, another Heisman-winning Gator and a childhood idol of Tebow’s, turned down a spot on the team in 1996. Georgia Tech senior Andrew Gardner made the cut for this year’s team but declined the award.

“Every two or three years, we might get someone who says `I don’t want to be on there’ or `my wife doesn’t want me to go’ or `my girlfriend doesn’t want me to go,’ or `because it doesn’t it fit with my personal religious viewpoints,”’ said Cole, who has selected the team for the last 22 years. “And that’s fine with us. We understand.”

While many Division-I schools have religious affiliations, Cole said that only the University of Notre Dame has a policy against the Playboy team. The Catholic university explicitly prohibits athletes from posing for the magazine’s photo-spread and attending Playboy’s weekend ceremony.

_ Tim Murphy

Quote of the Day: Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen

(RNS) “I never understood how this became a liberal/conservative thing. I thought gay marriage was something the religious right would try to foist on gay people. You know, so gay couples could be miserable like the rest of us.”

_ Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, discussing continued opposition by conservative groups to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts

KRE/RNS END RNS