c. 1998 Religion News Service
GOP, Democrats uphold order barring discrimination against gays
(RNS) House Republicans, angered by the staunch anti-gay sentiments of some in the GOP, joined Democrats Wednesday (Aug. 5) to uphold President Clinton’s executive order barring discrimination against homosexuals in federal government jobs.”I speak strongly in my outrage that someone on my side of the aisle, my leaders in particular, have sought to make this a political issue,”said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., in voting against an amendment sponsored by Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., that sought to block the White House order.
The executive order, signed by Clinton on May 28, adds sexual preference to an order by former President Richard Nixon against employment discrimination in federal jobs based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, physical disabilities and age.”I’m concerned that the party to which I belong, which sprang out of an individual rights tradition, primarily to end slavery, may be in the process of denying its own heritage,”said Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, of the amendment, which was defeated 252-176, Reuters reported.
But House Republicans who opposed Clinton’s order said it could pave the way for establishing affirmative action and quota programs for gays.”President Clinton was out of step with the majority of Americans who oppose quotas based on one’s behavior or lifestyle,”said Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., the Associated Press reported.
Heather Farish, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group, agreed.”We’re disappointed the Congress did not keep the president in check,”she said, adding Clinton was pushing”an agenda most Americans object to.” The House victory for gay rights advocates comes on the heels of several crushing defeats of late.
Last week, the House voted to block federal funds to San Francisco or any other city requiring companies it contracts with to provide benefits to same-sex partners. And the confirmation of James Hormel, a businessman that some GOP leaders say”actively promotes”homosexuality, as ambassador to Luxemburg has been stalled in the Senate for months.
Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, called homosexuality a sin.
Update: Rwandan pastor in Texas ordered to face war crimes tribunal
(RNS) A Rwandan pastor, who is accused of leading a group of soldiers to his church where hundreds of mostly Tutsis seeking refuge were slaughtered in 1994, was ordered by a federal judge in Texas Wednesday (Aug. 5) to surrender to a war crimes tribunal.
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, 73, had been living with his son in Laredo, Texas, when he was arrested in 1996. Ntakirutimana spent 14 months in a Texas jail until he was released in December by a U.S. magistrate who said a 1995 law allowing the return of alleged war criminals to tribunals in Rwanda and Bosnia was unconstitutional.
But on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John Rainey ordered the retired Seventh-day Adventist minister to face the Tanzania-based U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for Ntakirutimana’s alleged involvement in the massacre at his church, the Associated Press reported.
In 1994, some 500,000 Rwandans _ mostly Tutsis and Hutu moderates _ were systematically slaughtered by extremist Hutus during fierce ethnic fighting.
Ntakirutimana, described by human rights groups and victims’ relatives as the senior person responsible for the complex where the slayings took place, denies the charges.
Ntakirutimana has 30 days to appeal the ruling.
Carter, Gorbachev call for elimination of nuclear weapons
(RNS) Former President Jimmy Carter and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev have joined two Nobel peace prize winners, a Roman Catholic bishop and former members of Congress in calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the world’s arsenals.”The nuclear tests in South Asia (India and Pakistan) have jarred the world into an awareness of nuclear danger,”the statement signed by Carter, Gorbachev and the other leaders said.”They have also cast harsh new light on the persistence of the arsenals of the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France, who jointly possess some 35,000 nuclear weapons,”the statement added.
The leaders said that proliferation on the one hand and the remaining cold war arsenals on the other can no longer be considered in isolation but must be addressed together.”To this end we call for negotiations to rescue and eliminate nuclear weapons in a series of well-defined stages accompanied by increasing verification and control,”the statement said.”We direct our appeal especially to the nuclear powers, to confirm and implement their existing commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons in … the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.” Joining Carter and Gorbachev in signing the statement were Roman Catholic Bishop Walter R. Sullivan of the diocese of Richmond, Va.; Oscar Arias, former Costa Rican president and Nobel Peace Prize winner; Joseph Rothblat, also a Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs; and former Senators Alan Cranston, D-Calif., and Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., as well as foreign policy experts and leaders of the disarmament movement.
The statement was issued to coincide with the anniversary of the Aug. 6 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the first use of atomic weapons in war.”Growing concerns about emerging nuclear states such as India, Pakistan, and Israel, and the spread of nuclear capability to other countries are long overdue,”said David Cortright, president of the Fourth Freedom Forum, a Goshen, Ind., think tank specializing in international security issues.”It is now possible to end proliferation by assuring threshold states that established nuclear powers will reduce their arsenals over time, while they reverse their drive for nuclear weapons,”he said.
Cortright said the statement, Appeal for Negotiations to Eliminate Nuclear Arms, will be used as a moral and policy foundation for the emerging campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.
Russian regulation further limits foreign religious groups
(RNS) A new Russian regulation restricts foreign religious workers to three-month visas, it was reported Thursday (Aug. 6).
The regulation appears to be the latest step in efforts by Russian hardliners to limit the influence of foreign religious groups, which have gained numerous converts at the expense of the Russian Orthodox Church since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
The new regulation will require missionaries and other religious workers to leave Russia after three months to receive a new visa from a Russian embassy or consulate. Until now, most foreigners could receive a one-year visa, the Associated Press reported.”It will make it all much more expensive,”said Donald Jarvis, a Mormon Church official in Yakaterinburg in central Russia.
Mikhail Osadchev, an official of the Russian parliament’s Committee on Public and Religious Organizations, said the visa regulation was”indirectly inspired”by the law limiting religious expression signed into law last year by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
That law enshrined the Russian Orthodox Church as the nation’s predominant faith, while giving a lesser status to Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and”Christianity.”The law also put restrictions on the activities of religious groups who have less than 15-years official recognition in Russia _ including many foreign-based organizations.
Update: Poland bows out of Auschwitz crosses dispute
(RNS) An Israeli request that dozens of crosses be removed from outside the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz has been turned down by the Polish government, which said it was leaving the matter up to Roman Catholic Church officials.
The Israeli government request Wednesday (Aug. 5) followed similar requests by Jewish organizations in the United States and Israel. Israel and the Jewish groups argued that the crosses detracted from the character of the site where more than one million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.
More than 50 crosses have been erected in the past two weeks outside Auschwitz _ which is near the Polish town of Oswiecim _ by conservative Catholics and Polish nationalists. The groups maintain they should have the right to publicly mourn their dead at Auschwitz with their symbols.
While the Polish Catholic Church has called the crosses divisive, it has not called for their removal. Reuters reported that Polish church officials were concerned that conservative Catholics would be outraged by such a call.
Jews and Polish Catholics have clashed over Auschwitz since the late 1980s. In 1993, Jewish complaints prompted Catholic nuns to abandon a convent they had established at the site.
Reaction to Presbyterian gun resolution called `vicious’
(RNS) Reaction to a call by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for its members to voluntarily remove handguns and assault weapons from their homes has been running 9-1 against, according to a church spokesman.
Nearly 300 phone calls and e-mails _ most of which blasted the nonbinding resolution _ have been received at the church’s Louisville, Ky., headquarters, said church spokesman Jerry Van Marter.
Kathy Lancaster, a church worker who deals with criminal justice issues, characterized the reaction as”vigorous, vicious and universally negative,”according to a report by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
The resolution, approved 393-120 in June at the church’s General Assembly, called on the denomination’s 2.6 million members to”intentionally work toward removing handguns and assault weapons”from homes in an effort to protect children from violence.
Church officials said they do not believe the highly negative reaction is reflective of Presbyterians since many responding to the resolution did not mention their religious affiliation.
Instead, Lancaster told ENI she believes the response may be part of an organized protest against the measure since many of the messages contained the same language.
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association told ENI he knew of no organized campaign against the church.
South Africa proposes regulating nation’s 350,000 witch doctors
(RNS) South African lawmakers are trying to spruce up the image of its 350,000 witch doctors by establishing a council to regulate the traditional healers.
The government proposal recommends giving them medical certificates, allowing them to claim costs from their patients’ medical insurance, and developing a witch doctor code of conduct, the Associated Press reported.
The council would also standardize treatments and prices, and promote training, research and the creation of a traditional medicine database.
The report also recommends classifying healers into four categories: herbalists, diviners, birth attendants and surgeons who primarily perform circumcisions.
Traditional medicine is still widely used in South Africa. Up to 80 percent of South Africans will at some point consult a witch doctor, according to government estimates.
Quote of the day: Horace King, South Carolina Ku Klux Klan leader
(RNS)”If I had any way to have known or prevented this tragedy I would have. The senseless destruction of God’s house was wrong.” _ Horace King, grand dragon of the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, in an apology released Wednesday (Aug. 5) to a lawyer for the predominantly black Macedonia Baptist Church. King had earlier been found guilty of inciting Klansmen to torch the church and was ordered to pay the church $15 million.
END RNS