c. 2008 Religion News Service

Huckabee decries effort to `ghettoize’ him as former pastor

WASHINGTON (RNS) Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday (Feb. 12) that critics have unfairly focused on his former career as a Southern Baptist pastor rather than his role as a former Arkansas governor.

“It’s been fascinating to me that people have tried to marginalize me as a candidate of the fringe,” said Huckabee at a breakfast meeting with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

“How many other candidates are most depicted by what they were 20 years ago? Last time I was a Baptist minister was 1991. … The attempt to ghettoize me into a small, arcane part of my biography has been remarkable.”

Huckabee said he has served in “an executive capacity” longer than others in the presidential race.

The former governor had highlighted his role as a “Christian leader” in advertisements in Iowa, a state where he won the Republican caucuses, but said it was “a soft spot” and that his gubernatorial service was also mentioned.

In an interview with Religion News Service last fall, he said his role as a pastor helped him understand a range of societal problems, such as unwanted pregnancies and personal debt.

“I think it’s the greatest preparation that a person can have for public service,” he said. “There’s not any social pathology that I couldn’t put a name and a face to.”

Huckabee reiterated Tuesday he is resisting any talk about getting out of the race despite Sen. John McCain’s big lead among pledged delegates. Huckabee suggested he may use his delegates _ 241 as of Tuesday _ to force the Republican Party to include socially conservative items on its platform, such as a “human life” constitutional amendment.

His stances on that issue and on stem cell research are different from McCain’s, Huckabee said.

“I support a human life amendment. He does not. He supports human embryonic stem cell research. I do not.”

_ Bill Walsh and Adelle M. Banks

UpDATE: Turkey approves amendments to allow hijabs

(RNS) The Turkish Parliament passed two constitutional amendments on Saturday (Feb. 9) granting Muslim women the right to wear Islamic head scarves in universities, despite protests from thousands of secular Turks.

The first amendment grants equal treatment to everyone by state institutions, Speaker Koksal Toptan told the Associated Press. The second amendment states, “No one can be deprived of (his or her) right to higher education.”

Turkey, which is predominantly Muslim, was founded as a secular country by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who prohibited wearing religious attire in public. Secular Turks fear lifting the ban on hijabs, or Islamic head scarves, is the first step toward allowing religious symbols in all aspects of public life.

“This law will create chaos in universities and will lead to the disintegration of the nation,” said Kamer Genc, an independent lawmaker, according to the Associated Press.

Some secular women worry that if head scarves are allowed in universities, they may also be pressured to cover their bodies elsewhere. However, the government plans to create laws specifying how the hijab is to be worn and forbidding full-length chadors or burqas.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Action Party have agreed scarves should be tied beneath the chin, leaving the woman’s face exposed.

The main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, said it will appeal the decision in the courts.

“We are experiencing a constitutional amendment brought by imposition, not by social consensus,” said Kemal Kilcdaroglu, the deputy chairman of the party’s parliamentary group, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The government claims the measure will expand democracy and freedoms to help Turkey become accepted into the European Union, according to the Associated Press.

The amendments still require the signature of President Abdullah Gul, an observant Muslim, to be made official.

_ Brittani Hamm

Anglican bishop fined for refusing to hire gay man

LONDON (RNS) An Anglican bishop has been ordered to pay a gay man about $92,000 in compensation for refusing to hire him because of his sexuality.

John Reaney accused Hereford Bishop Anthony Priddis of discrimination “on grounds of sexual orientation” in blocking his appointment as a Hereford diocese youth officer nearly two years ago.

An employment tribunal awarded the compensation and ordered the bishop to undergo equal-opportunity training.

Reaney, who testified that the bishop questioned him about a homosexual relationship before telephoning three days later to reject his application, insisted that “lesbian and gay Christians working within the Church of England are entitled to be treated with humanity.”

In his appearance before the tribunal, the bishop claimed that Reaney’s sexual behavior was contrary to official church teaching, something that had “the potential to impact on the spiritual, moral and ethical leadership within the diocese.”

Diocesan spokeswoman Anni Holden said after the tribunal’s verdict that “we are glad we can draw a line under this unhappy situation.”

But, she argued, the youth worker’s position was one that “should believe in and uphold the Christian belief and ideal of marriage, and that sexual relationships are confined to marriage.”

That, she insisted, “is the crux of the matter, not sexual orientation.”

_ Al Webb

Quote of the Day: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

(RNS) “Part of both the burden and the privilege of being the Church … is that we are often looked to for some coherent voice on behalf of all the faith communities living here. And that is a considerable privilege, and I hope we can use it well _ however clumsily it may have been deployed in this instance.”

_ Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England, defending his remarks regarding the introduction of aspects of Sharia, or Islamic law, in England. Williams spoke Monday (Feb. 11) at the Church of England’s General Synod.

KRE/RB END RNS