One Hundred Third Congress of the United States of America AT THE FIRST SESSION Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, the fifth day of January, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-three An Act

TITLE: To protect the free exercise of religion.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993’.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF PURPOSES.

(a) Findings: The Congress finds that— (1) the framers of the Constitution, recognizing free exercise of religion as an unalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution;

(2) laws ‘neutral’ toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise;

(3) governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification;

(4) in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990) the Supreme Court virtually eliminated the requirement that the government justify burdens on religious exercise imposed by laws neutral toward religion; and

(5) the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.

(b) Purposes: The purposes of this Act are— (1) to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) and to guarantee its application in all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened; and

(2) to provide a claim or defense to persons whose religious exercise is substantially burdened by government.

SEC. 3. FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION PROTECTED.

(a) In General: Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b).

(b) Exception: Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person— (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

(c) Judicial Relief: A person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.

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Supreme Court to consider religious freedom (CNN, 970218)

WASHINGTON (AP) — What began as a landmark preservation squabble in a small Texas town has become a constitutional test of religious freedom.

The original question that led to Wednesday’s argument in the Supreme Court was whether a Roman Catholic church could tear down most of its structure and build a larger sanctuary. The city of Boerne, Texas, blocked the demolition, arguing that the church is a historic landmark.

But the case has become, according to the Rev. Oliver Thomas of the National Council of Churches of Christ, “the most important religious-freedom case the Supreme Court has ever had to decide.”

“It affects every single religious organization and individual in the United States, no matter their belief,” said Thomas, one of many religious leaders with a vital interest in the outcome.

Possible governmental interference

At issue is the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law aimed at curbing governmental interference with Americans’ spiritual lives.

A Catholic archbishop sued after Boerne, Texas, officials thwarted a church’s attempt to tear down all but the facade of its 1920s building and erect a larger sanctuary.

Archbishop P.F. Flores’ lawsuit invoked the 1993 law, which Congress enacted in response to a 1990 Supreme Court decision that said laws otherwise neutral toward religion are not unconstitutional simply because they may infringe on some people’s religious beliefs.

The 1990 decision came in an Oregon case about American Indian rituals. The court found no constitutional right to take the hallucinogenic drug peyote as a religious practice.

Religious and civil rights groups who pushed for congressional action contended that the court, in the rationale used to decide the peyote case, had turned its back on vigorously protecting religious rights.

A tougher legal standard

The groups traced Supreme Court rulings back to 1963 that established a much tougher standard. Those rulings said government could not pass or enforce laws restricting religious liberty unless it showed a “compelling state interest” and used the “least restrictive means” for achieving the goals.

In the 1993 law, Congress restored the tougher standard. It said the federal, state and local officials had to show a “compelling reason” before they imposed a “substantial burden” on someone’s religious beliefs.

Officials in the Texas city are asking the Supreme Court to rule that the law violates the 10th Amendment rights of states and local governments by forcing them to allow more protection for religious beliefs than the Constitution requires.

A federal appeals court rejected those arguments. But what if the Supreme Court, in a decision expected by July, agrees with Boerne officials?

“It would be a devastating blow,” said Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

But the law also has many opponents, including 13 states that want the court to strike it down.

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Supreme Court Weighs Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Christian American, 970400)

(Washington, D.C.) - The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in June. Congress passed RFRA in 1993 as an effort to protect religious freedom in the face of government regulation. The act was motivated by a 1990 Supreme Court decision which held that government did not need to show a compelling interest to restrict a religious practice if the regulation in question was broadly worded and generally applicable to activities beyond religion. That decision had an immediate impact on religious people. Orthodox Jews were forbidden to wear their yarmulkes in government buildings; Catholic teaching hospitals lost their accreditation for refusing to provide abortions; and Evangelicals were prohibited from building a house of worship in city areas zoned commercial. “A yarmulke is not a baseball cap, and a church is not a dry goods store,” Oliver Thomas wrote in the Washington Times. “Religion is different and should be treated as such. Catholic hospitals should not have to perform abortions, and evangelical churches should not be forced to hire gays and lesbians.”

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What’s so scary about religious freedom? (Christian American, 970400)

It was 1974 and Jeff Cline (today the art director for Christian American) was president of the Bible club at George Wythe High School, in Wytheville, Va., a community of about 6,000 people. Jeff and his fellow club members wanted to give believers at the school a chance to pray together for their classmates and the community. They decided the best way would be to meet once a week at the school building before classes began. Club members were shocked when the school board insisted that if group members wanted to pray, they had to do it off campus.

“I was surprised and offended,” Jeff remembers. “We could have met in the cafeteria, the smoking area or anywhere. We wouldn’t have interfered with preparations for the school day.”

The group didn’t have much recourse at the time. Today several legal groups specialize in defending religious rights, but in 1974 students like Jeff were on their own. The Equal Access Act was still 10 years away, and the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to clarify what level of religious activity was acceptable in light of its 1962 and 1963 decisions against state-sponsored prayer in school.

“I was a ‘good’ student and didn’t push them for the reasoning behind the decision,” Jeff says. “I now wish we would have been more persistent.”

The incident opened Jeff’s eyes to religious freedom issues. It’s part of the reason he’s at Christian Coalition today. And it has made he and his wife Susan more vigilant about the education of their children.

“We’ve decided to home school for the first few grades at least,” Jeff says. “Children can’t even celebrate Christmas in many schools today, and we want ours to be well equipped before facing that.”

Despite the opposition he faced in 1974, Jeff knows students who want to express their faith in public school today face even more hostile resistance. The First Amendment, designed to protect religious freedom, more often is used to restrict it. And while society grows increasingly more accommodating of some lifestyles, behaviors and choices, it seems less tolerant of those who choose to live out their faith. (See “Does religious freedom have a prayer?” pp. 12-13.)

A Religious Freedom Amendment (RFA) will not establish state religion. RFA will not force nonreligous people to worship against their will. RFA will not establish a theocracy in America.

Government has marginalized faith in public life and has in effect banned public expressions of faith. RFA would help bring that practice to an end.

Simply put, RFA would ensure Jeff Cline that his children won’t face the same unfair rules he did.

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California Court Says Scouts Can Enforce Standards of Conduct (Christian Coalition, 980400)

(Los Angeles, Calif.) -The California Supreme Court in a pair of unanimous decisions declared the Boy Scouts of America a private organization free to set its own membership policies. The March 23 rulings let stand a Contra Costa County scout organization’s decision to reject an 18-year-old former Eagle Scout as an assistant scoutmaster because he is homosexual, and an Orange County Cub Scout den’s decision to bar two brothers who refused to declare their faith in God. “We are very pleased, obviously,” said Gregg Shields, Scouts spokesman. “Since its inception in 1910, the Boy Scouts has been a voluntary association, and those who meet the standards of membership are welcome.” Because the California decision did not turn on federal constitutional law, it cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, challenges to the Scouts are pending in other courtrooms across the country. A New Jersey appeals court in early March declared the Boy Scout troops “places of accomodation” that “emphasize open membership” and therefore must adhere to New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law and admit homosexual members and leaders. In February, the city of Chicago formally distanced itself from the Scouts because they recite a pledge that includes the phrase,”On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country.”

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RFA Clears First Hurdle, Needs Continued Support (Christian Coalition, 971200)

(Washington, D.C.) -Members of the House Constitution Subcommittee approved language for the Religious Freedom Amendment in an 8-4 vote. The amendment will most likely face a vote in the full Judiciary Committee in early 1998. RFA is aimed at correcting U.S. Supreme Court misinterpretations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In part, the amendment states “Neither the United States nor any state shall establish any official religion, but the people’s right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed.” During the hearing, subcommittee chairman Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla., said, “The First Amendment, as interpreted by the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, has strayed both with respect to the meaning of the establishment clause and the free-exercise clause.” An aide to the primary House sponsor of the amendment -Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook -told Religious Rights Watch that the amendment could get to the House floor for a vote in March 1998. So far, more than 150 members of the House have signed on as amendment co-sponsors.

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Guidelines for Holiday Celebrations in Public Schools (Christian Coalition, 971200)

(Virginia Beach, Va.) -The American Center for Law and Justice publishes a booklet outlining students’ rights in public schools. Included is a section on holiday celebrations.

Students may express their beliefs, providing they do not disrupt fellow students.

Students may distribute Christmas cards or religious tracts on the “true meaning of Christmas” during non-instructional time.

Students may express their beliefs during classroom discussions, and in the context of appropriate class assignments.

School officials may allow religious songs and symbols if they “are presented in a prudent and objective manner and only as part of the cultural and religious heritage of the holiday.”

School officials may teach the religious significance of a holiday as long as it is presented objectively as part of a secular program of education.

Schools are under no legal obligation to rename “Christmas vacation.”

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Meanwhile, in China On persecution of Muslims, Christians, and the Falun Gong. (NRO, 011109)

By Ann Noonan, Laogai Research Foundation

China’s subdued but inevitable acceptance into the WTO has taken a backseat to more immediate concerns involving the war against terrorism. As the Bush administration focuses on building coalition partners, the State Department has dutifully issued its congressionally mandated Report on International Religious Freedom. Press coverage of religious-persecution issues in Afghanistan has overshadowed the attention given in this annual report to so many of the other countries that tolerate and sponsor religious persecution — like China.

Though signing on with the antiterrorism coalition, China has only stepped up its own persecution of Muslims. It has intensified suppression of Muslims in Xinjiang by claiming that doing so will keep Islamic extremists from gaining a foothold in China’s backyard. The report states, “After a series of violent incidents in Xinjiang beginning in 1997 and continuing into 2000, including reported bombings in Xinjiang and other parts of the country attributed to Uighur separatists, police cracked down on Muslim religious activity and places of worship accused of supporting separatism in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.”

Turdi Ghoja of the Uyghur American Association insists, “China wants to take advantage of the global war on terrorism to legitimize its indulgence in killing, torturing and imprisoning Uyghurs. Beijing has already unleashed a terror campaign against Uyghurs to ‘stamp out the separatist elements in Xinjiang.’ Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Communist Party boss Wang Lequan was quoted by the China News Service on October 24 as saying a high-pressure, strike-hard campaign in which the government would maintain the ‘attack initiative, strike early, and deal with the punishment later’ would continue. Apparently, China saw the international climate as an opportunity to make the execution list longer this year, without causing too much criticism from the international communities.”

One example of the blurring of the PRC’s suppression of Islamic militants and religious persecution was reported in a September 26 article in the Times of London, “Alcohol is final insult for the condemned.” The ongoing fight for an independent Islamic state in the predominantly Turkic province of Xinjiang, in northwestern China, resulted in a death sentence for two prisoners. Before arriving at the execution site, hundreds of PRC officials conducted a political rally before truckloads of Islamic prisoners — a scene described as a “ghoulish spectacle.” “Islamic militants faced the execution squad yesterday, stupefied by drink and driven to their deaths on an open lorry past laughing crowds... They did not realise they would face the executioner within the hour. As a final insult to their faith, they had been fed alcohol with their last meal.”

Under the subheading of Restrictions on Religious Freedom, the report confirms: “During the period covered by this report, the Government’s respect for religious freedom and freedom of conscience worsened, especially for some unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements such as the Falun Gong. The Government intensified its repression of groups that it determined to be ‘cults’ in general, and of the Falun Gong. ...Separately, under the guise of urban renewal and cracking down on unregistered places of worship, authorities in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Providence, razed an unknown number of churches and temples in late 2000. However, official persecution of underground Catholic and Protestant groups in southeastern China eased somewhat over the past year.”

The report states that the Chinese government continued, and in some places intensified, a national campaign to enforce 1994 State Council regulations (and subsequent provincial regulations) that require all places of religious activity to register with government religious-affairs bureaus and come under the supervision of official, “patriotic” religious organizations. In many parts of the country, the atmosphere created by the nationwide campaign against Falun Gong had a spillover effect on unregistered churches, temples, and mosques.

Media coverage of horrific prison conditions for Falun Gong members confirms the report’s findings. The Chinese press reported about Mr. Yau, a 50-year-old man who was arrested and imprisoned on April 28 for distributing Falun Gong material. While in prison, “He was forced to assemble leaves for Christmas trees and inmates would be hit five times for every leaf that failed to pass the quality inspection test. He said he witnessed an inmate being slapped in the face 25 times for making five substandard leaves and an additional two slaps for forgetting to say ‘thank you’ after receiving the punishment.”

One Falun Gong practitioner, Chen Gang, worked for the Beijing office of Carlsberg Brewery. He was arrested, tortured, and remains in prison for being a Falun Gong practitioner. In response to the State Department report, Mr. Chen’s sister, Ying Chen — a native-born Chinese woman who now lives in New Jersey-stated: “The appalling crimes that have been committed toward Falun Gong practitioners, and that have gone unpunished and actually rewarded have been far more horrendous than the notorious acts of the Japanese soldiers when they invaded China!”

The government of China has arrested many leaders of the unofficial Roman Catholic and Protestant “house church” movements. Provincial officials confiscated or destroyed up to 3,000 unregistered church buildings and Buddhist shrines in one district alone, in southeastern China last November. Government control over the official Protestant and Catholic churches has increased, as officials interfere in the training, ordination, and assignment of clergy.

Continuing efforts to negotiate with the Vatican also ignore the blatancy of the continued persecution of Roman Catholics inside China. “The Government’s refusal to allow the official Catholic Church to recognize the authority of the Papacy in matters of faith and morals has led many Catholics to reject joining the official Catholic Church on the grounds that this denies one of the fundamental tenets of their faith. Catholic priests in the official church also face dilemmas when asked by parishioners whether they should follow Church doctrine about birth control or State family planning policy. This dilemma is particularly acute when discussing abortion.”

Father Matthew Koo is a Chinese priest who spent ten years in China’s prisons, followed by 19 more years in China’s laogai camps, for his dedication to the Vatican. Now living in the United States, Father Koo reflected on the state of religious affairs in China and explained how Roman Catholics in China still have no freedom to worship God publicly. He compares the celebration of Mass in China to that of the early Church. Yet he is hopeful that Communism will not be forever: “We must wait and pray and work at our ministry,” he stated.

Some Protestant house-church groups reported in mid 2000 that police detentions and raids of worship services were more frequent than in previous years. In early August, 2000, police detained 31 members of an underground Protestant church in Hubei’s Guangshui City. A week later, twelve members of an underground Protestant church in Henan were arrested. In late August, 2000, police arrested 130 members of a house church headquartered in Fangcheng City, Henan, after they held services with three American members of a Protestant fellowship organization.

Earlier this year, California’s Channel One program, “Faith in Hiding,” documented hundreds of ministers and Evangelical Christians inside China demonstrating the power of faith. They believe that China’s government sees religion as a threat and that it presumes the possibility of revolt. Under China’s laws, no one under 18 is permitted to practice religion, and preachers must neither speak of the Second Coming of Christ, nor evangelize. House-church Christians expect that preaching the Gospel risks persecution; they risked their lives to appear in the video. Five underground church leaders told the story of a 21-year-old minister who was arrested for preaching, severely beaten, then suspended in air with his hands tied behind his back. He died on October 15, 2000.

In February, 2001, the Tibetan Information Network published a comprehensive study listing a total of 197 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns detained in China, a majority of whom were imprisoned in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). In April, 2000, the director of the TAR Prison Administration Bureau told a visiting foreign delegation that there were over 100 monks and nuns in the TAR’s three prisons, of whom 90% were incarcerated for “endangering state security.”

In March, 2001, Chinese officials refused to meet with U.S. diplomats from the Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom, during their visit to China to examine the situation of religious liberty. Nevertheless, U.S. officials in Washington and Beijing continued to protest Chinese government actions to curb religious freedom, including the destruction of unregistered places of worship in Wenzhou, the arrests of followers of Falun Gong, the crackdowns on Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, and the arrests of Christian ministers and believers. The lack of improvement in religious freedom in China was a key factor in the United States’s decision to introduce again a resolution critical of China’s human rights record at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

At a time when the world’s attention is focused on Afghanistan, we must hope that this administration will not forsake its principles elsewhere. As President Bush said earlier this year, “It is not an accident that freedom of religion is one of the central freedoms in our Bill of Rights. It is the first freedom of the human soul — the right to speak the words that God places in our mouths. We must stand for that freedom in our country. We must speak for that freedom in the world.”

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Republicans Boycott Civil Rights Commission ‘on the Road’ (Foxnews, 020913)

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

WASHINGTON — The four Republican members of the now equally divided U.S. Civil Rights Commission are boycotting Friday’s monthly meeting because they say the panel’s controversial chairwoman is trying to hijack the meetings by holding them out of town.

“It’s very clear that she’s thwarting the Democratic process here,” complained Republican member Russell Redenbaugh, whose seat was vacant for six months before Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., finally re-appointed him in July. His return to the committee brought the once Democrat-dominated panel to a 4-4 split.

He and the three other Republican commissioners say they will not be attending the planned meeting in Delaware Friday, contending that they never got a chance to vote on the measure, and that Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry, a Democrat, is trying to make meetings more difficult to attend because she resents the loss of her control.

And, said Republican Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom, Berry and her staff “don’t want the Washington-based media around or the House Oversight Committee around,” referring to the spate of bad publicity surrounding the commission this year due to Berry’s reluctance to accept the appointment of Republican Peter Kirsanow until a judge forced her hand in a ruling last spring. In April, the commission was the target of a congressional oversight hearing about whether the panel’s leadership systematically squashes dissent, mismanages its budget and pushes the majority Democratic agenda.

Last month, the commission held a field hearing in Detroit, for what the staff called a forum on discrimination with the strong Arab-American community there. This month, it will be meeting with state advisory committee officials from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware in Wilmington, Del., on regional racial issues. At the same time, they will be listening to concerns from a panel of community members.

Nathea Lee, a spokeswoman for the panel, said members who suggested that Berry was diverting the panel on these trips were flat-out wrong, that the panel voted in the spring to conduct meetings “on the ground” and that members who planned to boycott were just hurting themselves.

“This is something that commissioners agreed to in May,” said Lee, who works for McKinney and Associates, the private firm that handles public relations for the commission. “The commissioners are free to raise whatever issue that want at the meeting; when they’re not there they won’t be able to raise their issues.”

(The hiring of the Lee’s firm was also a source of consternation this year from Congress, which Staff Director Les Jin defended by saying the $180,000 fee was money well spent even though the commission has its own internal public affairs department.)

Berry, nor Vice Chair Cruz Reynoso, returned calls for comment.

Redenbaugh and Thernstrom complained that the meetings “in the field” were sparsely attended, and that the members were only notified a month in advance where and when they would be held. They were just told that the October meeting is to be held in Jackson, Miss., they said.

“They aren’t the meetings that allow us to do the work our statute compels us to do,” said Redenbaugh. “Sure, it’s more fun go around and talk to people, do a Bill Clinton, feeling everyone’s pain. You don’t have to prepare or study, just show up. I don’t think we should spend our time doing that.”

Republican members said the panel voted in May to take the commission out on the road throughout the year, but it was never established how many times, where or when.

“No one told us why were going to Wilmington. All they said was [we] were going to Wilmington because the chairwoman and staff director said we were going,” said Redenbaugh.

He believes that if the same vote were taken today, “it would not get a majority,” particularly since Republican members were in a 4-3 minority in May. The commission vote to hold field hearings was a 4-3 split down party lines.

Lee said members should not fear any neglect of the commission’s official business, which will be taken care of during the early part of Friday’s Wilmington meeting. As for the notification, she said: “There is no conspiracy to keep Republicans out of the loop. The commissioners get a month’s notice on where the meetings will be held. The panel gives them as much advance notice as possible.”

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission was established in 1959 by the Eisenhower administration to protect the voting rights of blacks. While it has a $9 million annual budget, the panel has no enforcement powers. Instead, it has the authority to call hearings and subpoena witnesses, hear discrimination complaints and publish reports. It meets 11 times a year.

So far this year, the commission has traveled to Florida twice to hear complaints about alleged racial discrimination in the election system, to Detroit and now to Wilmington, at a hefty price tag, say Republican members.

“We’ve got a fiduciary responsibility to Congress,” said Thernstom, who said she might join other members in teleconferencing into tomorrow’s meeting, but will protest by not voting.

“It is extremely expensive having the staff running around like this,” she added, noting that it would be cheaper in most cases to have witnesses come to Washington to testify.

Les Jin, staff director for the commission, did not return phone calls Thursday requesting information on the cost of the trips.

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Incivility at the Commission on Civil Rights (Weekly Standard, 021122)

There she goes again: Mary Berry is up to her old tricks.

EARLIER THIS WEEK, four commissioners of the United States Commission on Civil Rights vehemently objected to a draft of a report made public by their own agency. The commissioners, Abigail Thernstrom, Jennifer Braceras, Peter Kirsanow, and Russell Redenbaugh, said they were not consulted in the writing process and that they disagreed with the report’s findings. The document, “Beyond Percentage Plans: The Challenge of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education,” was produced by commission staff and is available at www.usccr.gov.

On Monday, a Supreme Court ruling forced commission chairwoman Mary Frances Berry to seat Bush appointee Kirsanow. Kirsanow, a conservative, was nominated to replace a Clinton appointee serving an abbreviated term. So now the commission is deadlocked 4-4 between liberals and Republicans (Berry considers herself independent). Though this ideological split would appear to hamper Berry’s race-baiting agenda, she has organized the office to be able to continue the fight. Berry has made a practice of relying on her appointed staff to perform commission functions, such as publishing reports, and she works to restrict other commissioners from contacting the staff, thereby preserving her fiefdom.

In a memo sent to The Daily Standard, commissioner Abigail Thernstrom wrote for the other three commissioners that “we had no idea the staff was working on the topic; it was written without input from us; it went up on the Commission website before we received copies; the Commission is not voting on the report and we are barred from writing a dissent.”

Berry’s ideological opponents on the commission accuse her of expanding staff power at the expense of commissioners’ authority. On July 10, 2001, commissioners received a memo from the staff director stating that “it is neither envisioned nor proper for individual commissioners to research or write reports,” despite the fact that appointees are selected because of their expertise in civil rights.

Coming from Mary Berry’s U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, this fiasco is unsurprising. Berry, a Carter appointee who was promoted to the chairmanship by Bill Clinton, had the commission declare that former Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris kept African Americans from voting in the 2000 election (despite Thernstrom and Redenbaugh’s objections). And as David Tell reported in the pages of The Weekly Standard, she told White House counsel Al Gonzales it would take armed federal marshals to remove the commissioner Kirsanow was replacing.

The commissioners who are dissenting publicly (though they are unable to respond officially) are all Republicans. President George W. Bush appointed Braceras and Kirsanow in 2001, and Thernstrom and Redenbaugh are congressional appointees. Sources confirm that the report did indeed appear on the commission’s website November 14, the day before a scheduled commission meeting. And a cover letter that accompanied drafts sent to commissioners earlier in the month stated that the staff was not asking for commission approval. Thernstrom and company insist that though the draft report was not from the commissioners, their names are associated with any work done in the name of the agency.

The report, “Beyond Percentage Plans,” examines public college admissions in Texas, California, and Florida, where affirmative action has been disallowed—through court order, referendum, and executive order, respectively. Each of these states has replaced affirmative action with a plan that allows a given percentage of top high school graduates automatic admission to a state university (specific rules vary from state to state).

The report’s pro-affirmative action agenda is clear: After demonstrating that minority representation at some of these states’ best state universities has declined slightly, it concludes, “Percentage plans will only have a positive effect if affirmative action and other supplemental recruitment, admissions, and academic support programs remain in place.” It goes on to discourage the use of traditional aptitude tests like the SAT and expresses support for more “holistic” approaches to evaluation.

The draft report is also riddled with misrepresentations of fact. The fact that Asians, who are overrepresented on many of the best campuses, are minorities who contribute to campus diversity is downplayed. Perhaps more seriously, the report asserts that the Supreme Court in the 1978 Bakke decision “buttressed affirmative action in admissions policies by establishing that race could be one factor considered in admissions decisions for the purpose of promoting diversity,” although only one justice held this position.

“Beyond Percentage Plans” comes at a point when the Supreme Court is imminently expected to announce whether it will review an affirmative action case involving the University of Michigan law school. Some experts consider percentage plans an alternative approach for keeping minority enrollment in state universities from dropping too dramatically in the event that the Supreme Court abolishes affirmative action.

While they agree with the staff report that percentage plans are not the solution to improving minorities’ representation at elite state universities, the commission’s conservatives say the numbers aren’t as disturbing as the report claims. And they think continued devotion to affirmative action won’t solve the problem. “Only better K-12 education can level the playing field,” Thernstrom writes. “Neither racial double-standards nor X-percent plans solve the tragic problem of non-Asian minority students entering college unlikely to succeed. . . . X-percent plans, like preferential admissions, are an ineffective effort at damage control.”

“There are serious moral and legal problems with preferential policies,” she continues. “And we would argue they do not work as advertised. The dropout rate for preferentially admitted students is disproportionately high; every member of the group is stigmatized as academically inferior; and race-consciousness is heightened in an already race-conscious society.”

Beth Henary is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.

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Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Cross Burning (Foxnews, 030407)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld a state ban on cross burning, ruling Monday the history of racial intimidation attached to it outweighs the free speech protection of Ku Klux Klansmen or others who might use it.

A burning cross is a particularly powerful instrument of terror, and government should have the power to stamp out or punish its use as a weapon of intimidation, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote.

The protections afforded by the First Amendment “are not absolute,” she wrote.

The court split 5-4 to rule that the ban does not violate the constitutional guarantee of free speech, but the vote was 6-3 to uphold the ban overall.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only black member, agreed that cross burning is abhorrent but said the court didn’t even have to consider the First Amendment implications because the state had a right to bar conduct it considered “particularly vicious.”

“Just as one cannot burn down someone’s house to make a political point and then seek refuge in the First Amendment, those who hate cannot terrorize and intimidate to make their point,” he wrote.

At issue was a 50-year-old Virginia law that makes it a crime to burn a cross as an act of intimidation. A lower court ruled the law muzzled free speech.

“While a burning cross does not inevitably convey a message of intimidation, often the cross burning intends that the recipients of the message fear for their lives,” O’Connor wrote. “And when a cross burning is used to intimidate, few if any messages are more powerful.”

O’Connor was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented on free-speech grounds.

“The symbolic act of burning a cross, without more, is consistent with both intent to intimidate and intent to make an ideological statement free of any aim to threaten,” Souter noted.

The Virginia law does not draw enough of a distinction, especially since it explicitly calls cross-burning “prima facia evidence” of an intent to intimidate, Souter wrote for the three.

That provision “has a very obvious significance as a mechanism for bringing within the state’s prohibition some expression that is doubtfully threatening though certainly distateful.”

The Supreme Court historically has been protective of First Amendment rights of unsavory or unpopular groups and causes, including the Klan, flag-burners, pornographers and strippers.

More than a decade ago, the court struck down a local law in St. Paul, Minn., that prohibited placing symbols including a burning cross or a swastika on someone else’s property out of racial, religious or other bias.

The cross-burning case in Virginia evoked a mostly bygone era in the South, when “nightriders” set crosses ablaze as a symbol of intimidation to blacks and civil rights sympathizers. Virginia and other states tried to outlaw the practice, but the laws have run into trouble on free-speech grounds.

During oral arguments in the case in December, Thomas recalled what he called a centurylong “reign of terror” by the Klan and other white supremacy groups, and called the flaming cross “unlike any symbol in our society.”

“The cross was a symbol of that reign of terror,” Thomas said in apparent exasperation that a government lawyer was providing only tepid, legalistic justification for the Virginia law.

“My fear is ... that you’re actually underestimating the symbolism of, and the effect of, the cross, the burning cross,” Thomas said.

The moment was electric, in part because Thomas almost never speaks during the court’s oral arguments, and because of his race.

The case began five years ago, with two separate prosecutions.

In one case, two white men in Virginia Beach, Va., ended a night of partying by trying to burn a 4-foot cross in the yard of a black neighbor, James Jubilee. Jubilee later moved his family out of the neighborhood because of concern for their safety.

In the other case, a Pennsylvania man was convicted of burning a 30-foot cross on private land in rural southern Virginia during a 1998 Klan rally.

Lawyers for Virginia told the court the Klan rally was held after whites became angry about mixed-race couples.

In addition to Virginia, anti-cross burning laws are on the books in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state and the District of Columbia.

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Because dictators have human rights too (National Post, 030430)

UNITED NATIONS - For human rights advocates, yesterday’s session of a UN council on rights was like a nightmare come true.

Members elected or re-elected a slew of countries with appalling human rights records to the UN Human Rights Commission, the world body’s foremost rights watchdog.

The election comes four days after the commission ended its annual six-week session, during which members formed blocs to prevent discussion of alleged rights violations in Zimbabwe.

They also ended scrutiny of Sudan and rejected a resolution condemning Russia’s record in Chechnya.

Presented with a resolution on Cuba, they failed to approve an amendment criticizing the country’s crackdown on the opposition, and only narrowly approved a call for Havana to receive a human rights investigator.

The final day of the session saw Muslim countries band together to block the commission’s first-ever consideration of rights for homosexuals similar to those already won in Canada and other Western countries.

Among those retaining their seats in yesterday’s election were Russia and Cuba, which have a habit of ignoring the commission’s rulings against them. New members with equally questionable backgrounds include Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Egypt.

The United States walked out in protest at the re-election of Cuba, suggesting it was “like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security.”

“It was an outrage for us because we view Cuba as the worst violator of human rights in this hemisphere,” said Sichan Siv, U.S. ambassador to the the UN Economic and Social Council, which conducted yesterday’s election.

As the Human Rights Commission met in Geneva a few weeks ago, he noted, Cuban authorities “rounded up 78 opposition leaders, independent journalists, librarians, and put them in jail and sentenced them to up to 20 years in prison.”

At the same time, Cuba arrested three alleged hijackers seeking to escape to Florida and put them before a firing squad within a week. “No trial, no justice, no nothing,” Mr. Siv said.

Even before the latest elections, Human Rights Watch, the New York-based monitoring group, described the UN Human Rights Commission as a “who’s who” of rights abusers.

Canada, the United States and several European countries are among the commission’s 53 members, but are frequently outvoted.

“Cuba and Russia each have very serious human rights problems and have failed to co-operate with the commission despite many resolutions against them,” said Joanna Weschler, UN representative for Human Rights Watch. “It’s outrageous that they should be rewarded for this performance with another term on the commission.”

Yesterday’s election was conducted by the UN’s 54-member Economic and Social Council, which is responsible for improving the quality of people’s lives.

The commission has urged Cuba to admit a UN rights investigator for years, to no avail. Cuba responded to the latest request by again refusing, then claiming a “moral victory” for having avoided a stronger condemnation.

Russia’s avoidance of criticism this year is an indication of how a strategy of winning a seat on the commission along with other abusers can render it ineffective.

The commission is meant to identify human rights abuses, then pressure governments into changing their behaviour.

Canada, which will seek re-election in 2004, had backed a Brazilian initiative to have the commission express “deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights in the world against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation.”

While Western countries have ended laws criminalizing private consensual gay sex, most Muslim states and some non-Muslim developing countries have not followed suit. Penalties range from imprisonment to death.

The Brazilian proposal was too much for Libya, Pakistan, Malaysia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

With Libya chairing the session, the group engineered a filibuster that resulted in the debate being postponed until next year.

“We will not allow this commission to impose that value system,” said Shaukat Umer, the Pakistani ambassador. “You can defeat our amendments. We have a hundred others.”

Muslim countries frequently use their seats on the commission to push through rulings against Israel, but rejected Canada’s proposal to have the session resume in a few weeks to debate homosexual rights.

“At least it will be on the agenda for next year,” said a Canadian official optimistically.

Observers said the Muslim states came up with any excuse to play for time.

“It was a circus,” said Andrew Srulevitch, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, another monitoring group.

“The Libyan chair accepted no end of questions about procedure. What does this rule mean? What does that rule mean? When someone suggested shortening the lunch break from two hours to one hour to give more time to debate, the Malaysians said that the Muslim delegates had to go and pray, because it was a Friday.”

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Issues: Civil Liberties, Immigration, Technology, Environment (PEW Research Center, 031118)

Civil Liberties and Terrorism

For the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, half of Americans say it will not be necessary for the average person to sacrifice civil liberties in the struggle against terrorism, while 44% believe such steps will be necessary. In three previous surveys since Sept. 11, 2001, majorities or pluralities felt it would be necessary for people to give up some civil liberties to curb terrorism in the U.S.

As noted above, there is growing partisanship on this issue, as a declining percentage of Democrats feel that people will need to sacrifice civil liberties in the fight against terrorism. Only about four-in-ten (39%) Democrats say that today, a decline from 48% in June 2002 and 52% in a survey conducted that January. The shift among Republicans has been far smaller: 54% of Republicans believe the average person will have to give up some liberties to curb terrorism, compared with 56% in June 2002 and 60% in January of that year.

The partisan gap is even larger over the government’s policy of holding suspected terrorists without trial. Overall opinion on this issue has been stable since June of last year 55% continue to support the policy. Partisan differences remain as substantial as they were then: Fully seven-in-ten (72%) Republicans favor the policy, compared with about half of independents (51%) and even fewer Democrats (46%).

Support for National ID Card

A majority of the public supports an antiterrorism measure that would require all citizens to carry a national identity card at all times to show a police officer upon request. But support is lower now than in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Just over half today (56%) support the idea, while 40% oppose it. In mid-September 2001, 70% were in favor. Opinion about this issue does not break cleanly along partisan or ideological lines.

Republicans (60%) and Democrats (59%) both support the idea of a national identity card, while independents are somewhat less supportive (52%). Conservative Republicans (at 58%) are a bit less enthusiastic than moderate-to-liberal Republicans (65%); liberal Democrats (at 50%) are less supportive than conservative and moderate Democrats (63%). College graduates are split on the idea, while more than six-in-ten of those who did not go to college favor it.

Public Divided on Immigrants’ Cultural Impact

While there is broad support for tighter curbs on immigration, the public is divided about the cultural impact of newcomers from other countries: 46% believe immigrants threaten traditional American customs and values, while 49% disagree.

Education is a major factor in attitudes on this issue. A solid majority of those with a high school education (56%) say immigrants threaten traditional American customs. Half as many college graduates (27%) agree.

Age also shapes these views. More than six-in-ten (63%) of those age 65 and older feel that immigrants threaten American values compared with 39% of those under age 30. In addition, negative views toward immigrants are greater in the South and Midwest than in the Northeast or West.

There is a modest partisan gap in attitudes toward immigrants, but it increases noticeably when ideology also is taken into account. Roughly twice as many conservative Republicans as liberal Democrats say immigrants threaten traditional customs (54% vs. 27%); among all Republicans and Democrats the gap is much smaller (55% of Republicans, 48% of Democrats).

Science and Technology

American science and technology are admired by people around the globe. Most Americans also view advances in science and technology as beneficial rather than harmful, though some fears are evident.

A large majority (71%) disagrees with the statement that “technology is making life too complicated for me.” Concern about the complexity of technology is expressed most often by the less educated, and especially by older women. Among women age 65 and older, 58% say technology is making life too complicated far more than any other age group among men and women. There also are significant differences among religious groups: Nearly twice as many white evangelical Protestants (43%) as non-evangelicals (22%) think technology is making life too complicated.

The public expresses greater anxiety about whether science is going too far and hurting society rather than helping it. More than four-in-ten Americans (42%) worry that this is happening compared with 54% who are not concerned. Concern is greater among the less educated and among non-whites.

Environmental Protection

There is broad agreement among the public with regard to the value of environmental protection. More than eight-in-ten (86%) agree that there needs to be stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment, and about two-thirds (65%) agree that people should be willing to pay higher prices in order to protect the environment.

Aside from a small increase in the willingness to pay more for environmental protection (just 56% agreed in 1999), there has been little change in overall agreement with these statements since they were first asked in 1992. Similarly, 71% say the U.S. should put more emphasis on energy conservation than on developing new oil supplies, about the same level of agreement as last year.

Despite general agreement, partisan differences in the intensity of these opinions are evident. Over half of Democrats (58%) completely agree that stronger laws are needed to protect the environment; just 32% of Republicans feel this strongly. Twice as many Democrats as Republicans completely agree that energy conservation should take priority over increased oil production (38% vs. 19%). The gap in intensity is especially notable when partisanship and ideology are taken into account. Over half (52%) of liberal Democrats completely agree that the priority should be energy conservation over increased oil production; just 16% of conservative Republicans agree.

Crime and Punishment

Seven-in-ten Americans (72% ) think the criminal justice system should try to rehabilitate criminals and not just punish them, while nearly three-in-ten (29%) completely agree with this statement. Blacks are more likely than whites to agree (78% vs. 71%), with Hispanic opinion on par with whites.

Large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans endorse the idea of rehabilitating criminals, as well as punishing them. But liberal Democrats are more than twice as likely as conservative Republicans to completely agree (47% vs. 21%).

Tax System Unfair?

Half the public feels that “the tax system is unfair to people like me,” while 45% disagree. Despite their strong support for tax cuts, fewer than half of Republicans agree with this statement. By comparison, significantly higher percentages of Democrats and independents feel the tax system is unfair to people like them (55% and 53%, respectively).

Criticism of the tax system is widespread among African Americans and people with relatively low family incomes. Fully 72% of African Americans say the tax system is unfair to people like them, compared with 46% of whites. Among people with annual household incomes of $30,000 or less, more than half (56%) complain about the fairness of the tax system; just 39% of those with annual incomes of at least $75,000 agree.

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Censoring Christmas (Christianity Today, 031211)

Public Christmas displays, like the Ten Commandments, are allowed—as long as they don’t mean anything religious.

In Connecticut, a library is refusing to display paintings of Jesus’ nativity and resurrection as part of its rotating display of local art. In Queens, New York, a woman is suing a school because it would not allow her child’s nativity scene to be part of its holiday display, though it allowed a menorah and an Islamic crescent. The Indiana University School of Law caused a ruckus when it removed a Christmas tree and replaced it with a generic winter scene. Outside Detroit, the city of Troy has decided to forbid private citizens from placing Christmas displays on city property. Around the United States, it’s the annual “December dilemma”: how do you celebrate a religious holiday without being sued?

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Calvary Chapel wanted to participate in a two-mile long Holiday Fantasy of Lights and submitted a design that read, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” When the county rejected it, Calvary sued. John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, who represented the church, said, “We argued that the festival had all these other displays, and they were discriminating against the Christian symbol. Just a couple years ago in a case that we argued and won, the court said that’s illegal. Once you open a forum, you cannot have religious viewpoint discrimination.” In late November, a judge ruled in favor of Calvary Chapel saying the county could not prohibit Calvary Chapel’s message if it allowed others.

The plastic reindeer test

Though similar instances still abound, Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, said there is little dispute over the law. “If the government is involved in putting up a religious display, the courts are likely to see that as unconstitutional,” Haynes said. “However, if a government body decides to put up a display that includes a religious message or symbol but is overall a more general message, either a historical or a holiday message, that’s likely to be upheld as constitutional.”

Such guidelines can put municipalities in an awkward position because there is no clear line between the religious display of a crèche, and the seasonal display of Christmas trees, Santa Clause, reindeer, and candy canes. “It’s laughingly sometimes called the plastic reindeer test,” Haynes said. “How many reindeer do you need to make Jesus secular?” Colby May, senior counsel and director of the Washington office of the American Center for Law and Justice, said, “I know that sounds a little goofy, but the truth is all these cases really are in the details.” The test is whether a reasonable observer would find a Christmas display religious. If so, it’s unconstitutional.

Whitehead noted two Supreme Court cases that helped define regulations on public nativity displays. In one, the Supreme Court ruled that a nativity scene on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County courthouse in Pittsburgh was unconstitutional because standing alone it endorsed Christianity. In the Lynch v. Donnelly case “there was a nativity scene in a park and the court ruled that it was constitutional because there was Santa Claus and the reindeer, things that diminish the religious significance of it. They ruled that it had a secular purpose.”

Similar to the Ten Commandments

Haynes said there are similarities between Christmas display cases and Ten Commandments cases. “If it’s constitutional to have a city put up a holiday display that might have a nativity scene, a menorah, and maybe Santa Claus, and if the overall impression is that this is just a celebration of the season, then it’s possible the Court would say that a display about the historical roots of our laws that includes the Ten Commandments would also be constitutional.”

Haynes said court holiday rulings suggest guidelines for Ten Commandments displays. “I think that the Ten Commandments movement has read these decisions very carefully. One strategy that’s being tried in a number of places is to do it in the context of a historical display. That is, I think, clearly modeled on the Supreme Court decisions on holiday display cases.”

While a Christmas display may be controversial, the ACLJ’s May says, when done properly, either by a municipality or privately, courts will uphold such displays. Similarly, the ACLJ is winning the vast majority of Ten Commandments cases it has handled, said May.

The cases are related in another way according to the May. “We have actually seen a slight up tick in the number of inquiries we receive on the propriety of how to do it. We believe this is driven by the exposure that the Ten Commandments posting and monuments issue has created.” The ACLJ has posted information on its website and sends letters to those who ask about the constitutionality of religious holiday displays.

The next battleground

The ACLJ has also received many inquiries from school choir directors and teachers responsible for Christmas concerts. May said, “When they look to the repertoire of the music of the season, the 95 plus percent of it is all religious in history. And they ask ‘can we do that?’ And the answer is ‘of course certainly you can do that.’ “ Though the ACLJ has dealt with religious expression cases in schools, May said he has not seen an increase in antagonism.

However, Whitehead believes schools are the next battleground. He said last year they were besieged with cases where students were forbidden from saying “merry Christmas” or even wearing red or green. Whitehead expected to receive more this year when schools began performing Christmas concerts, and by Thanksgiving, they were dealing with a similar situation.

“A kid was asked to paint something that reminded him of Thanksgiving, something that he was thankful for, and he drew God on a cloud,” Whitehead said. “And the teacher wadded it up and said you can’t do that, it’s illegal here.” He said school cases are more difficult to argue because schools often have dress policies to prevent gang activity, and often students and teachers are not willing to stand up and fight to wear a cross or say “Merry Christmas.”

Defending Christmas

As part of their Christmas Project Initiative, the Alliance Defense Fund has organized 700 attorneys who are willing to fight religious censorship in public schools. Barry Arrington, an ADF allied attorney, is representing a school in Elbert County Colorado that recently received a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Anti-Defamation League asking the school to remove any reference to Christmas, including secular ones. The ACLU and the ADF represented parents who didn’t want their child exposed to Christmas references.

“The school is faced with a decision at this point to fight for its rights and the rights of the students and the parents and the teachers, or just make the whole thing go away by caving in. Usually the cheapest thing to do is cave in.” Arrington said. “That’s always been the ACLU’s big ace-in-the-hole. Even if they’re wrong, and they’re wrong in this case, in order to vindicate that right, they must take someone to court, and money has to be spent on attorneys.”

Currently, the ADF is dealing with 25 similar situations in schools around the country, and Arrington believes there are many more unreported cases. Jordan Lorence, senior counsel at ADF said, “The ACLU uses fear and intimidation and disinformation to get school districts and other government entities to censor Christmas in ways no court has required.” Lorence said the ACLU typically will send a letter to a school saying a certain activity is unconstitutional, and often, the school complies with the letter to avoid a lawsuit. “People need to know the truth that the censorship of Christmas is not required by the constitution,” Lorence said. “I find it maddeningly frustrating, that the ACLU writes these letters.” According to Lorence, the Colorado appeals court has already ruled in a situation similar to the one at Elbert County Charter School. The ACLU lost that case in which a student objected to singing a religious Christmas carol, and though the student could opt out of the program, the ACLU asked the school not to sing the song. Lorence said the 10th circuit unanimously rejected the ACLU’s position, yet the ACLU wrote a letter to Elbert Charter School saying the law forbids references to Christmas. Lorence said. “The Establishment Clause is not a weapon to be wielded to censor others.”

Authentic displays

Whether it’s singing Christmas carols in school, or posting the Ten Commandments in a courtroom, media attention tends to distort the real issue, said Hayes. “It’s confused with whether or not religion is being kicked out of the public square, and it’s a deeper question than that. This is an old theme in American history.” Haynes said there is an anxiety particularly among evangelicals that the nation has fallen away from acknowledging its dependence on God. In response, there is an attempt to restore official acknowledgment.

“To me one of the lessons there to people of faith is that pushing the government to put up religious displays does not end well for religion. It often ends in trivializing religion, or worse yet, making the crèche a secular symbol,” said Haynes. “It’s better for private citizens to put up nativity scenes and the Ten Commandments, thereby they can do it in a way that’s authentic.”

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Weblog: Federal Judge Says City Shouldn’t Have Banned ‘Jesus Is Alive’ Sign (Christianity Today, 031231)

More peachy news

‘Tis the season for battles over religious displays (see the myriad related links below), so it’s nice to see one such battle finally coming to an end after a decade.

Back in January 1994, a neighbor asked the city of York, Pennsylvania, to force Sybil Peachlum to remove her illuminated sign of a happy peach holding a newspaper with the headline, “Peachy News. Jesus is Alive.” Peachlum pursued a permit for the sign, but the city rejected her request. She couldn’t afford the $350 appeal fee, and the city again refused to waive it. She sued, but courts dismissed her claims.

In June, the tides began to turn. The 3rd U.S. District Court of Appeals reinstated her lawsuit, even joining in on her penchant for puns. “Peachlum’s claim,” the court said, “is clearly ripe.”

Friday (031226), U.S. Middle District Court Judge Yvette Kane ruled in favor of Peachlum’s sign, saying York’s ordinance on signs “imposes discriminatory restrictions based on the signs’ content.” (As of this morning, the decision hasn’t been posted on the court’s web site, but is quoted in the York Daily Record and Associated Press.)

“God wins,” Peachlum told the York Daily Record. “I’ve been harassed to the nth degree. I’ve faced multiple charges. This decision tells me I was right.”

But wait a second. Yes, Peachlum won the case, but the newspaper says that Judge Kane ruled that York’s sign ordinance did not violate or restrict Peachlum’s freedom of religion, only her freedom of speech. That should temper some of the celebration. (But again, Weblog hasn’t seen the full opinion, so Kane’s logic may be sound.)

The other cloud to the silver lining: Peachlum didn’t display the sign this year. She’s apparently in financial distress, and lost her home in a foreclosure.

“If I ever get to that point [of having a home again], the sign is definitely going back up,” she said. “I will use my home as an expression of my faith.”

Theft of Jesus just a prank?

While we’re on the subject of Christmas displays, it’s worth noting that every year, many figures of Jesus are stolen from Nativity displays around the country. (It’s not a new occurrence: Dragnet twice dramatized a stolen Jesus case reportedly from San Francisco in 1930. The first such episode, which aired Christmas Eve, 1953, was the only color episode during the series’ first run. The second episode, from 1967, starred Barry Williams, who would later be known as The Brady Bunch’s Greg.)

This year, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church decided to use such incidents as the backdrop to its Christmas Eve drama, titled Stolen Jesus. Then somebody (apparently unaware of the play production) stole the church’s own Jesus figure.

Baby Jesus was returned this week, painted dark brown. The thief left a note, explaining, “Sorry I took your baby Jesus. It was a childish prank. As far as his new color, I thought I would point out that Jesus was not an Aryan but actually a man of color. Although you probably knew this but would rather not be reminded.”

The Toledo Blade and other news outlets take the thief’s side, quoting church scholars who “said the dark-skinned Jesus is probably more historically accurate than the light-skinned image commonly seen in the United States.”

Even the church’s pastor is nonplussed. “I think we ought to leave it, personally,” Roger Miller told the Blade. “There’s something poignant about this Jesus coming to us like this, representing another race. It’s a reminder to us all that Jesus came for all people.”

Uh, but then again, let’s not forget that someone stole and defaced church property because he (presumably a male) didn’t like its color, then left an note ignorantly criticizing the church as racist. Isn’t such behavior often categorized as a hate crime?

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Understanding the First Amendment (WS, 040115)

The Justice Department is finally taking religious discrimination seriously.

MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES AGO, when the framers decided to amend the Constitution to protect religious liberty, they wanted to constrain the federal government. So in the amendment that became our first, they told Congress to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Today, the framers might be surprised to learn that the federal government no longer is suspect when it comes to religious liberty. Indeed, the government now has a lead role in advancing that fundamental freedom. Consider the settlement reached last week in a case involving Balch Springs in southeastern Dallas County.

In August, the city improvidently decided to deny religious freedom to the citizens who use its senior center. According to the new policy, seniors no longer could say grace before meals, sing gospel songs, or listen to a weekly devotional message given by a Protestant minister who also frequented the center. The city didn’t sponsor the activities, all of which were conducted by the seniors themselves. And participation was voluntary. With its policy, the city singled out only religious activities, as it continued to permit seniors to engage in speech on a variety of other topics.

A group of seniors complained to the city and then filed a lawsuit. Just before Christmas, the Balch Springs City Council voted unanimously to lift the ban on religious activity at the center and to adopt a new policy under which speakers may address members of the center without regard to the content of their speech.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs credit the Justice Department’s investigation of the matter with helping to produce the welcome outcome. In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Alexander Acosta said senior citizens shouldn’t be forced to check their faith at the door in order to participate in city-run programs and facilities.

The Justice Department opened its investigation under Title III of the Civil Rights Act, which authorizes federal action when someone is denied “equal utilization of any public facility” because of the individual’s race, color, religion or national origin. Title III has been around for 40 years, but only now has the Justice Department become vigilant about enforcing it with respect to religion.

Nor is it the only statute affecting religious liberty that is being aggressively enforced. So are the other laws prohibiting discrimination based on religion (in education, housing and employment, among other areas).

There is an untold story here, for the stepped-up enforcement effort reflects a conscious decision made early in the Bush administration. Three years ago, those managing the transition at the Justice Department noticed that responsibility for enforcing the various laws touching on religious liberty never had been firmly established. Predictably, enforcement had been erratic. So the decision was made to create a special counsel for religious discrimination. The job is held by Eric Treen, a lawyer experienced in First Amendment litigation.

Thanks to the new emphasis, the Justice Department has engaged in a wide variety of cases involving people of diverse religions. In one case, Muslim girls were told by their public-school principal that they may not wear their hijabs to school. In another, a rabbi was cited for operating a house of worship in a residential zone because he held prayer meetings in his home with 10 to 15 people. In yet another, a Christian resident of an apartment with a room that residents may reserve for various events was informed that she may not use the room to hold a Bible study with friends.

Friday happens to be “Religious Freedom Day.” As in years past, the president will issue a proclamation. But the real story will be over at his Justice Department and in places like the Balch Springs Senior Center, where, happily, the First Amendment now governs.

Terry Eastland is publisher of The Weekly Standard. This column originally appeared in the Dallas Morning News.

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Civil Rights Undermined by Antidiscrimination Laws (FN, 040205)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The accomplishments of the civil rights movement in achieving a more just and equal society are undoubtedly well worth celebrating.

However, these achievements have not come without costs. In particular, it’s worth pausing to consider the growing threat more recent and draconian anti-discrimination laws pose to American civil liberties.

While the civil rights laws of the 1960s were generally sensitive to civil libertarian concerns, contemporary antidiscrimination laws often are not. For example, in deference to freedom of association and privacy considerations, the 1964 Act prohibited discrimination only in public facilities such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters. Newer laws, however, often prohibit discrimination in the membership policies of private organizations ranging from large national organizations like the Boy Scouts of America to small local cat fanciers’ clubs.

The framers of the 1964 Act also were sensitive to religious freedom, and wrote into the law a limited but important exemption for religious institutions. Many recently enacted state and local laws, however, contain no religious exemption. Moreover, courts have unnecessarily stretched the definition of “discrimination” to force religious groups and individuals to conform to secular social norms. For example, courts have required conservative Christian schools to retain teachers who become pregnant out of wedlock. The schools’ attempts to ensure their teachers are proper religious role models have been interpreted as invidious sex discrimination.

The authors of early federal civil rights legislation also cabined the laws’ intrusions on civil liberties by limiting coverage to race, national origin, religion, and, sometimes, sex. In the past two decades, however, the federal government has prohibited discrimination based on family status, age and disability in a variety of contexts. Meanwhile, state and local antidiscrimination laws go even further, covering the obese, the ugly, and the body-pierced, cohabitating unmarried couples, and even (in Minnesota) motorcycle gang members.

In yet another show of concern for civil liberties, Congress exempted landlords from the 1968 Fair Housing Act if they rented four or fewer units and lived on the premises. This “Mrs. Murphy exception” is a reasonable compromise between the goals of antidiscrimination law and privacy concerns. Recently, however, the laws of several jurisdictions have been interpreted to ban discrimination in the selection of roommates. And the Fair Housing Act’s ban on discriminatory advertising has been interpreted so broadly that it’s almost impossible to convey useful information in a real estate advertisement.

It’s illegal, for example, to advertise that a house is in a neighborhood with many churches, lest the advertisement be interpreted as expressing an illicit preference for Christians. For fear of liability, some realtors even avoid using such phrases as master bedroom (either sexist or purportedly evocative of slavery and therefore insulting to African Americans), great view (allegedly expresses preference for the nonblind), and walk-up (supposedly discourages the disabled).

Federal civil rights laws were once intended to ban only actual discrimination. Modern law, however, attempts to ensure that no member of a protected group is subjected to a “hostile work environment,” a “hostile educational environment,” or even a “hostile public environment.” The result has been a wild proliferation of speech and behavior codes throughout the nation’s workplaces, universities, and other public spaces. Surely the authors of the 1964 Civil Rights Act never imagined that the law could be used to ban all “sexually suggestive” material from a workplace. But that’s exactly what a federal judge did in one of the leading “hostile environment” cases.

Forty years ago, Congress responded to the moral urgency of ending Jim Crow and bringing African Americans and other minorities into the American mainstream by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then, the primary justification for antidiscrimination laws has shifted from this relatively limited goal to an authoritarian agenda aimed at eliminating all forms of supposedly invidious discrimination. Such a goal cannot possibly be achieved-or even pursued-without grave consequences for civil liberties.

Today, we need to accept that attempting to totally eradicate discriminatory attitudes and actions is not feasible if we want to preserve civil liberties. Preserving the liberalism that defines the United States, and the civil liberties that go with it, requires Americans to show a certain level of virtue, including a phlegmatic tolerance of those who intentionally or unintentionally offend and sometimes—when civil liberties are implicated—even of those who blatantly discriminate.

Admittedly, asking Americans to display a measure of fortitude in the face of offense and discrimination is asking for a lot. But in the end, it is a small price to pay for preserving the pluralism, autonomy, and check on government power provided by civil liberties.

David E. Bernstein is a professor of law at George Mason University and the author of “You Can’t Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws” (Cato Institute, 2003)

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UNICEF’s ‘Rights’ Focus Is All Wrong (Foxnews, 041221)

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has just released its annual “The State of the World’s Children” report for 2005.

Using words like “catastrophe,” UNICEF’s Executive Director Carol Bellamy warns that the “triple whammy” of AIDS, conflict and poverty has reversed previous gains on children’s survival, health and education.

But critics of UNICEF claim the agency and Bellamy have contributed to the crisis by focusing on political causes and steering UNICEF away from the “core business” of ensuring children’s survival.

Richard Horton, editor of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, has published a blistering editorial, which calls Bellamy’s direction “shameful.”

Bellamy’s “rights-based approach” (focusing on children’s “rights” as opposed to their simple physical survival), Horton said, has also been devastating to children, an estimated 10 million of whom die from preventable causes before the age of five every year.

Horton noted, “All the indications are that the fourth Millennium Development Goal of reducing by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate will not be met in many countries.” No sub-Saharan country in Africa, he said, appears to be “on target to reach that MDG.”

What is the “rights-based approach”?

UNICEF was created in 1946 to provide emergency aid to the children of Europe who were starving after World War II. In 1989, however, the U.N. adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding, international document that extends to children “civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights.”

The CRC launched a fundamental shift away from UNICEF’s original role of ensuring children’s raw survival. This steady drift away from UNICEF’s core purpose can be seen in two protocols added to the CRC in 2002. One addresses the issue of war; the other, child prostitution and child pornography.

Horton said the “language of rights means little to a child stillborn, an infant dying in pain from pneumonia or a child desiccated by famine.”

He urged a “reorientation” toward the child-survival policies of Bellamy’s American predecessor James Grant. Grant’s “Child Survival and Development Revolution” stressed “four simple interventions: growth monitoring, oral rehydration therapy, breastfeeding, and immunization.”

The Lancet credits Grant with saving the lives of over 20 million children.

UNICEF’s implementation of its “children’s rights” vision is also vulnerable to criticism. Indeed, UNICEF’s Medium Term Strategic Plan is more of a blueprint for social engineering along radical feminist lines. The plan states, “UNICEF will advocate for legal reforms and adoption of policies and programs that will raise the status of girls and women both in the family and in society.”

Often, the programs it champions seem to have little connection to basic rights.

A specific example of how UNICEF’s vision is being implemented under Bellamy is the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting. This program includes:

— Alli Sotak (Speak Up), a two-hour weekly program created by and for Palestinian young people.

— A 20-member programming board for India’s newest kids’ TV channel, which convenes for “board meetings”; all members are between 8 and 15 years old. (For an in-depth analysis of UNICEF’s social engineering, please see The United Nations Children’s Fund: Women or Children First? by Douglas A. Sylva.)

There is clearly a conflict in Bellamy stating, “We believe AIDS is the worst catastrophe ever to hit the world,” yet having UNICEF focus on programs such as ICDB.

In a world of unlimited options and bottomless pockets, there would be no conflict between pursuing children’s health and children’s rights. But UNICEF’s new report cries out for increased funding precisely because money is limited and all goals cannot be pursued in tandem. Indeed, overall funding to the U.N. may well tighten due to the backlash surrounding recent corruption scandals, especially the Oil-for-Food one.

Horton’s criticism of UNICEF is not merely a statement of conscience. It is also a matter of strategy. Next year, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will appoint a new leader for UNICEF. Traditionally, the appointment has gone to an American. (Even though the U.S. is not a signatory to the CRC, it is the U.N.’s largest donor.) The appointment is made basically at Annan’s discretion and the selection process is not publicized.

As Horton commented, “This mysterious procedure leaves open the possibility of crude political deal-making in identifying an acceptable candidate.” Clearly, Horton wishes to surround the appointment with a debate heated enough to melt away mystery and permit no deal-making.

Bellamy’s appointment was controversial and occurred only after a campaign on her behalf by President Clinton. Then-Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali had preferred a European candidate.

Next year’s appointment may be the most controversial in UNICEF’s history. In part, it will be a struggle for the soul of the agency. But, as in all things U.N., it will also involve jockeying for political position. Members from the European Union seem particularly eager to diminish America’s role in UNICEF without, of course, diminishing its funding.

Horton’s concern that “the next executive director of UNICEF is likely to be an American, irrespective of the person’s skills or experience” is understandable given how ill-equipped Bellamy was for the job. But it would be easy for the goal of saving children to become lost in the politics of the U.N., especially with its increasingly anti-American atmosphere.

It will be interesting to watch events unfold.

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, “Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century” (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.

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Are All Humans Persons? A New Assault on Human Dignity (Christian Post, 050314)

America has been involved in an intense and culture-shaking debate over abortion that has now lasted into its fourth decade. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court did not settle the issue at all. Far from it. That landmark exercise in judicial activism has led to the death of millions of unborn babies and left a scar across the nation’s soul that will not heal until America regains its moral sense and defends the unborn.

Few genuinely new arguments have emerged from abortion advocates. Ever since the Supreme Court gave them the Roe v. Wade decision—handing them more than they had ever dreamed could be accomplished through legislation—the abortion rights movement has been stuck in an essentially defensive posture. After all, abortion on demand is now legal in all fifty states, and the nation’s highest court shows no signs of a willingness to revisit the basic assumptions of the Roe decision.

Yet something more is going on here, and polls indicate that a fundamental shift in the nation’s conscience on the issue of abortion is taking place. Most worrisome to the abortion rights defenders is the fact that younger Americans are increasingly inclined to express a pro-life worldview and to acknowledge significant qualms about abortion.

In the face of this shift in public opinion, abortion advocates are currently engaged in an internal debate over how to reframe the question and answer pro-life arguments.

Andrew Johnson, an American bioethicist currently living in Germany, now argues that the pro-abortion movement has been barking up the wrong tree. Writing in Free Inquiry, Johnson asserts that abortion defenders have been arguing falsely, disingenuously, and unproductively. Don’t get him wrong—he is an ardent supporter of abortion rights. His proposal for a new defense of abortion sounds like something right out of the annals of the Third Reich.

“Looking at the arguments usually deployed by defenders of abortion rights, it is striking how ill-conceived most of these arguments are from a rhetorical point of view,” Johnson observes. “Every student of debate knows the importance of rebutting the opponent’s principal claims, but the common pro-choice arguments manifestly fail to undermine the contention at the very basis of the pro-life position: that, from the moment of conception, the unborn human being has a full-fledged right to life.” As Johnson sees it, “Until this contention is regularly addressed head-on in public defenses of abortion rights, pro-choice forces are unlikely to gain significant ground, or even to hold their current ground, in the national debate over abortion. After all, they cannot plausibly deny that the moral status of the fetus at least impinges on the question of the morality of abortion.”

Those last words are especially worthy of note. Johnson argues that the moral status of the fetus is directly relevant to the question of the morality of abortion itself. The abortion rights industry has steadfastly refused to address the moral status of the fetus because it has seen this as a losing proposition.

Johnson sees it otherwise, arguing that “the status of the fetus is not an issue about which pro-choicers ought to be apprehensive.” Amazingly, he calls for abortion rights proponents “to change the question from whether the fetus is a human being to whether the fetus is a person.” This question, he argues, “is crucially relevant to the morality of abortion.”

Johnson then turns to consider the traditional pro-abortion arguments commonly articulated in the public square. Some argue that an unborn child “is not yet a living human being, and, thus, it is not wrong to kill it.” He sees this particular argument as untenable and politically disastrous, since it falls right into a logical trap.

Johnson’s rebuttal of this pro-abortion argument is both fascinating and insightful. He acknowledges that the pro-life movement has “assembled an incontrovertible scientific case” in support of the fact that the fetus is a live human being. “In premodern times, it was perhaps justifiable to pinpoint the beginning of life at quickening,” Johnson observes, “this being the first externally observable sign of life. Modern technology, however, has revealed to us that even the zygote formed by the union of sperm and egg is an organism that is continuously growing and developing.”

Amazingly, Johnson goes further and argues that the fetus is indeed a human being since the unborn child is in “possession of a complete human genetic code” from the moment of conception.

Next, Johnson undermines the abortion rights argument based in claims that early and mid-term fetuses “lack moral standing because they are not yet viable.” This argument lacks cogency, Johnson argues, because “it makes the moral standing of the embryo or fetus hinge (in part) on a factor external to it.” Viability is not an independent factor, since it is related to the fetus’s stage of development and factors related to the mother.

Essentially, Johnson argues that viability is a factor related to medical technology more than morality. “The moral standing of a being properly depends . . . only on the characteristics intrinsic to it,” he observes. “A twenty-eight-week-old fetus had no hope for surviving outside its mother’s womb in 1900, but by 2000, technological advances had given it quite favorable prospects in such a circumstance. Yet it cannot plausibly be thought that the moral standing of a twenty-eight-week-old fetus was different in 1900 and 2000.”

Johnson also dismisses the argument that abortion should be legal so that it will be “safe.” He is undoubtedly correct in seeing that this argument “begs the question of whether the deleterious effects of an abortion ban on pregnant women are morally graver than the larger number of abortions that would take place without such a ban.”

The common argument that abortion must be legal in order to protect a woman’s “right to privacy” also comes under Johnson’s scrutiny. Here, he delivers a devastating blow to abortion proponents. Abortion is simply not just a private matter, he affirms. “From the point of view of abortion-rights foes, abortion is the murder of an innocent human being, and as such, is anything but a purely private matter, since the state always has an interest in proscribing murder.” Those who make such an argument assert “the moral inconsequentiality of abortion,” Johnson understands. The vast majority of Americans are unwilling to see abortion as morally inconsequential, even if they indicate guarded support for abortion rights.

The claim that elective abortion is derived from a woman’s right to equality is also found lacking, since Johnson observes that this “right” will come into conflict with “another human being’s inviolable right to life,” at least as seen by abortion opponents.

Lastly, Johnson also dismisses claims that a right to abortion “follows from a woman’s right to control her body.” He understands that there is more than one body involved in an abortion. The pro-life movement argues, rightly in Johnson’s view, that “in contrast to other modes of exercising control over one’s body, an abortion impinges not just on the body of the pregnant woman, but also on another body and, indeed, on another human life.”

With incisive logic and intellectual honesty, Johnson has thus dismissed the traditional pro-abortion arguments as either “question-begging,” “patently unsound,” or flat unconvincing.

But the next turn in Johnson’s essay is truly frightening. He argues that abortion-rights defenders should draw a “distinction between the moral status of a human being as such and the moral status of a person as such.”

In cold prose, Johnson acknowledges that the “vast majority of human beings are persons,” but he defines a “person” as one who demonstrates “the qualities generally thought to be characteristic of persons: intelligence, autonomy, self-awareness, emotion, future-regarding intentions, and moral responsibility, among others.”

Using his definition of the human person—a definition that centers on the achievement of certain psychological and relational capacities—Johnson argues that there are nonhuman persons and human non-persons. Animals, such as dolphins and chimpanzees, who could demonstrate the criteria he cites, could, he argues, be recognized as persons. Unborn human beings—and those too young to have developed his list of criteria—would be recognized as human beings, but not as persons.

“Mere membership in the species Homo sapiens, no more accords moral standing to human beings than mere membership in Culex pipiens accords moral standing to common house mosquitoes,” Johnson boldly asserts. “The fundamental difference in the moral standing of these two species lies not in their taxonomic classifications but in their possession or lack of possession of characteristics conferring personhood, characteristics such as intelligence, emotionality, and self-awareness, which human beings typically possess and mosquitoes never do.”

Johnson acknowledges that his argument is not “uncontroversial.” Yet, he sees his personhood-centered argument as the way forward for the abortion-rights movement.

Johnson’s proposal must be taken seriously, for it is hauntingly similar—if not identical—to arguments put forth by the Nazi doctors and the genocidal Third Reich. Consider these sentences: “The denial of fetal personhood incidentally is not a denial that a healthy, late-term fetus has developed a number of mental capacities, among them a degree of perception, memory, and susceptibility to pleasure and pain, capacities that pro-lifers are fond of pointing out. What pro-lifers fail to notice, however, is that these capacities don’t elevate the moral status of the fetus above that of a typical farm animal, which is clearly not a person. Indeed, on account of their greater intelligence, mature farm animals resemble persons more than fetuses do.”

Johnson’s proposals echo those of Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University, a fact Johnson readily acknowledges. Singer, who infamously argues that the killing of babies and young children should not be considered murder in all circumstances, is the modern godfather of this species of argument.

Clearly, the very fact that these arguments are seriously proposed indicates that the Culture of Death is, if anything, growing in assertiveness.

Once we accept any moral distinction between a human being and a human person, we embrace the logic of death and inch our way toward an inevitable embrace of murder. It doesn’t get much scarier than this.

_______________________________________________

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Lawrence Summers and the left’s thought gulag (Townhall.com, 050318)

David Limbaugh

It’s time we call political correctness what it is: a liberal code of thought, speech and conduct. Anyone who thinks conservatives are behind any of this lunacy is either uninformed or being dishonest.

The Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS) at Harvard University issued a no-confidence vote this week condemning university president Lawrence H. Summers. The stated reasons for the censure, according to the New York Times, were “longstanding dissatisfaction with his management style and, to a lesser extent, his remarks in January about women in science.”

To a lesser extent? Right. How many believe Dr. Summers would have incurred the wrath of the academics had he not opened his mouth in a closed meeting in which he threw open for discussion the theory that women, in general, have less aptitude in science and math than men?

Do you not remember the uproar that ensued following his remarks: the outrage of women and the emotional response of one female academic leaving the room in a huff? Are you aware that Dr. Summers has been spending the last several weeks, perhaps months, groveling to the individual members of the FAS, trying to prostitute himself back in their favor?

The action of the FAS is disgraceful and serves as a damning indictment of the state of academic inquiry among our universities today. We are not talking about some ragtag junior college here, folks, but the most celebrated, august, nonpareil Ivy League university in the universe: Harvard.

The FAS just could not abide the suggestion that women might have different intellectual strengths from men. It not only wouldn’t accept Summers’ apology, it virtually demanded his head and permanently tarnished his reputation.

The dirty secret — at least it’s a secret to liberals — is that political correctness, emanating as it does from a liberal mindset, is not open-minded, it’s not inviting, and it’s not progressive or enlightened. It is the antithesis of what liberalism claims to be all about.

No, the liberal code is illiberal, it’s close-minded, censorial, tyrannical, oppressive, uncompassionate, intolerant, anti-libertarian, anti-intellectual, anti-academic inquiry, arrogant, proud and unforgiving.

One outspoken professor, J. Lorand Matory, a professor of anthropology and African and African-American studies, was quite clear to reporters following the meeting that the beleaguered Summers should step down. “There is no noble alternative for him but resignation,” said Matory.

But not all the condemning FAS members were willing to go on the record, or even to disclose their position publicly. These FAS paragons of free and open debate insisted on having a secret ballot, making it that much easier for the cowardly thought police to affect their dirty work.

If they felt so strongly and justified about their stance, why couldn’t they do so out in the open? Don’t give me any “fear of administrative retribution” garbage. It’s obvious that Summers isn’t the one doing the intimidating here, though you wouldn’t know that by listening to the faculty bullies.

In an ironic twist, one of those faculty members lambasted Summers for “intimidating faculty members and squelching debate.” “There is a widespread dissatisfaction with his substantive decisions as well as style,” said Professor Waters.

Now isn’t that special: the intimidating faculty condemning Summers for squelching debate when they just got through blistering him for trying to open academic debate on a subject they unilaterally deemed to be so offensive as to be beyond discussion. I wonder if it ever occurs to them that they work against their own purposes when they adopt this smothering, patronizing attitude about women, treating them as if they’re just too delicate to be discussed. Their hypocrisy and lack of self-reflection knows no bounds.

Yet William C. Kirby, the dean of FAS, had the audacity to suggest in a statement that the last few weeks had demonstrated “how willing we are to engage in a process of self-examination, for the betterment of this institution., I value the views of the faculty, and of President Summers, and I believe we are all committed to moving forward in a constructive fashion.”

How can anyone take such people seriously? They not only don’t value President Summers’ views (or those of anyone else who runs afoul of the “code”), they won’t even let him bring certain subjects up for discussion. This isn’t just thought control, it’s thought prison.

The Left is increasingly intellectually bankrupt and delusional. But worse, it has become boorishly dictatorial, not even sparing would-be allies, like Clintonite Lawrence Summers, from its hellish wrath, if they dare not just to disagree with their dogma, but to express a willingness to consider ideas the “code” forbids.

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Amnesty International and moral idiocy (townhall.com, 050607)

Dennis Prager

Sometime in the 1970s, I sent a donation to Amnesty International. As soon as I heard that a group had been formed to combat torture, I knew I had to support it.

Unfortunately, like almost all international and most domestic groups, the Left took over Amnesty International, and it devolved into another predictably anti-American, morally destructive organization.

That devolution was most apparent years ago when Amnesty International listed the United States as a major violator of human rights because it executed murderers. The organization’s inability to morally distinguish between executing murderers and executing innocent people means that Amnesty International is worse than ineffectual; the good it has done notwithstanding, it is becoming harmful to the cause of human rights.

Amnesty International reached its nadir two weeks ago when the secretary general of the organization, Irene Khan, branded the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our times.” And rather than fire her, Amnesty International has defended her. Among her defenders is the American head of Amnesty International, William Schultz, who apparently loves America as much as he loves moral clarity. He said on Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” that he acknowledges that there is a difference “in scale” between Gulag and Guantanamo, but otherwise the comparison is apt.

For the record, at Guantanamo there are about 520 prisoners, the vast majority, if not all, of whom have been rounded up in anti-terror warfare. They were non-uniformed terrorists who are not subject to Geneva Convention rules on prisoners. But even if they did wear uniforms, they would await release at the end of hostilities. They are, even according to Schultz, provided with medical care and a fine diet that honors their religious codes, and they are allowed to practice their religion.

Now compare the estimated 20-30 million prisoners sent to the string of camps across the Soviet Union. They obtained no medical care, were served portions of food inadequate to human survival, and were frozen and worked to death by the millions. Moreover, virtually everyone sent there was entirely innocent of any crime. Every prisoner of the Gulag would have given anything to be a prisoner in Guantanamo.

Calling Guantanamo “Gulag” smears America and trivializes the suffering and deaths of millions upon millions of innocent people. But this does not matter to leftist organizations and their defenders in the mainstream media. What matters is hatred of President Bush.

The apotheosis of liberal moral confusion, the New York Times editorial page, wrote: “What Guantanamo exemplifies . . . may or may not bring to mind the Soviet Union’s sprawling network of Stalinist penal colonies.” Guantanamo “may or may not” be compared to Gulag! What a courageous stand.

The rare exception to the mainstream media silence (other than the Wall Street Journal editorial page — the one major conservative editorial page) was the Washington Post. And the reason the Post condemned Amnesty International was that Anne Applebaum, author of the most definitive work yet on the Gulag, sits on the Post’s editorial board. She knows how immoral the comparison is.

She knows what happened at Gulag. But I believe that most members of the press do not. Leftist moral confusion and animosity toward America and President Bush are not the only reasons for the widespread acceptance of the Amnesty International libel of America and its trivialization of Stalin’s horrors. The other is the simple ignorance of history — especially concerning Communist atrocities — among many of the world’s journalists. An Associated Press report of May 26th (printed in the Washington Post and countless other newspapers) described the Gulag thus: “Thousands of prisoners of the so-called gulags died from hunger, cold, harsh treatment and overwork.”

Thousands? This is our mainstream news media. I am certain the average journalist has little idea about how many people Stalin murdered in the Gulag.

So, for the record, here are some comparisons between the Gulag and Guantanamo, courtesy of David Bosco and published in The New Republic:

Individuals detained: Gulag — 20 million. Guantanamo — 750 total.

Number of camps: Gulag — 476 separate camp complexes comprising thousands of individual camps. Guantanamo — five small camps on the U.S. military base in Cuba.

Reasons for Imprisonment: Gulag — Hiding grain; owning too many cows; need for slave labor; being Jewish; being Finnish; being religious; being middle class; having had contact with foreigners; refusing to sleep with the head of Soviet counterintelligence; telling a joke about Stalin. Guantanamo — Fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan; being suspected of links to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Red Cross Visits: Gulag — none that Bosco could find. Guantanamo — regular visits since January 2002.

Deaths as a Result of Poor Treatment: Gulag — at least two to three million (Bosco understates). Guantanamo — no reports of prisoner deaths.

If Amnesty International does not fire Irene Khan and retract her obscene comparison, it is unworthy of respect or support. A new non-leftist anti-torture organization must be built.

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Situational libertarianism (townhall.com, 050812)

Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON — In 1977, when a bunch of neo-Nazis decided to march through Skokie, a suburb of Chicago heavily populated with Holocaust survivors, there was controversy as to whether they should be allowed. I thought they should. Why? Because neo-Nazis are utterly powerless.

Had they not been — had they been a party on the rise, as in late-1920s Germany — I would have been for not only banning the march, but for practically every measure of harassment and persecution from deportation to imprisonment. A tolerant society has an obligation to be tolerant. Except to those so intolerant that they themselves would abolish tolerance.

Call it situational libertarianism: Liberties should be as unlimited as possible — unless and until there arises a real threat to the open society. Neo-Nazis are pathetic losers. Why curtail civil liberties to stop them? But when a real threat — such as jihadism — arises, a liberal democratic society must deploy every resource, including the repressive powers of the state, to deter and defeat those who would abolish liberal democracy.

Civil libertarians go crazy when you make this argument. Beware the slippery slope, they warn. You start with a snoop in a library, and you end up with Big Brother in your living room.

The problem with this argument is that it is refuted by American history. There is no slippery slope, only a shifting line between liberty and security that responds to existential threats.

During the Civil War, Lincoln went so far as to suspend habeas corpus. When the war ended, America returned to its previous openness. During World War II, Roosevelt interned an entire ethnic group. His policies were soon rescinded (later apologized for) and shortly afterward America embarked on a period of unprecedented expansion of civil rights. Similarly, the Vietnam-era abuses of presidential power were later exposed and undone by Congress.

Our history is clear. We have not slid inexorably toward police power. We have fluctuated between more and less openness depending on need and threat. And after the 9/11 mass murders, America awoke to the need for a limited and temporary shrinkage of civil liberties to prevent more such atrocities.

Britain is just now waking up, post-7/7. Well, at least its prime minister is. His dramatic announcement that Britain will curtail its pathological openness to those who would destroy it — by outlawing the fostering of hatred and incitement of violence and expelling those engaged in such offenses — was not universally welcomed.

His own wife had made a speech a week after the second London bombings loftily warning against restricting civil liberties. “It is all too easy to respond in a way that undermines commitment to our most deeply held values and convictions and cheapens our right to call ourselves a civilized nation,” declared Cherie Blair. You need only read Tony Blair’s 12-point program to appreciate how absurd was his wife’s defense of Britain’s pre-7/7 civil liberties status quo.

For example, point 3: “Anyone who has participated in terrorism, or has anything to do with it anywhere will be automatically refused asylum in our country.” What sane country grants asylum to terrorists in the first place?

Point 5, my favorite, declared “unacceptable” the remarkable fact that a man accused of the 1995 Paris metro bombing has successfully resisted extradition across the Channel for 10 years.

Blair’s proposals are progress, albeit from a very low baseline — so low a baseline that the mere announcement of his intent to crack down had immediate effect. Within three days, the notorious Sheikh Omar Bakri, a Syrian-born cleric who has been openly preaching jihad for 19 years, skipped the country and absconded to Beirut.

Not only had Bakri been allowed to run free the whole time, but he had collected more than 300,000 pounds in welfare, plus a 31,000-pound gift from the infidel taxpayers: a Ford Galaxy (because of a childhood leg injury).

It took 52 dead for at least the prime minister to adopt situational libertarianism. Or as Blair put it, “The rules of the game are changing,” declaring his readiness, finally, to alter the status quo in the name of elementary self-defense.

Before departing Britain, Bakri complained that it would be unfair to have him deported from the country he reviled: “I have wives, children, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law. It would be hard on my family if I was deported.”

Wives, no less. Point 10 of Blair’s plan would establish a commission to try to get immigrants to adopt more of the local mores.

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Expanding Rights vs. Protecting Rights: Why the judicial branch should not be deciding our culture wars. (Weekly Standard, 050919)

JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS’S Senate confirmation hearings last week were only the opening salvo in a broader war over the future of the Supreme Court. Most observers expect Justice O’Connor’s replacement to generate far more contention than Judge Roberts did, since that nominee could substantially change the Court’s ideological composition. As the war for the Supreme Court heats up, it’s important for conservatives to understand why the nominations matter. Many conservatives have seized on issues where the Court has played, or might play, a decisive role—such as abortion, gay marriage, or the separation between church and state. While these issues are important, they’re only part of a broader trend: The left has been fighting the culture wars through the courts for more than three decades. Its agenda has been advanced not through sound legal reasoning, but through political philosophy masquerading as constitutional interpretation. Unless conservative jurists can change our country’s legal trajectory, the left may win the culture wars through clever use of the least democratic branch of government.

While the left agrees that the culture wars are being fought through the courts, its portrayal of how this is occurring clashes with reality. For example, an editorial in the September 19 issue of the Nation claims that Judge Roberts “has established a twenty-five-year track record as foot soldier in a legal revolution profoundly destructive to the public interest. Indeed, his views are among the most extreme to emanate from a cohort of partisan Republican activists intent on reversing decades of settled policy on civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, privacy rights and access to justice.”

The two major misleading portrayals in this passage are that Judge Roberts has been part of a destructive “legal revolution” and that Republican activists have been scrambling to reverse “decades of settled policy.” The real legal revolution was led by the Warren Court, which began interjecting the Supreme Court into policy questions in an unprecedented manner. That revolution continues to this day, and the agenda it has advanced is decidedly left of center. And while the Nation can legitimately claim that decisions such as Roe v. Wade have been “settled policy” for decades, that fact, too, is deployed in a misleading way. That the Supreme Court “settled” an issue does not make it good law, and leftist publications are not known for defending policies simply because they’re “settled.” After all, prior to Lawrence v. Texas it was settled policy that states could constitutionally pass legislation outlawing homosexual sodomy, but the left hardly decried Lawrence.

THE PAST THREE decades provide ample demonstration of how the left has used the courts to advance its social agenda. A large number of opinions by the Supreme Court and the lower courts that have touched on controversial social issues during this period have been based more on the jurists’ political philosophies than on a careful examination of the Constitution and a respect for the framers’ intentions. In this way, the courts have been busily constitutionalizing a left-liberal agenda.

Many recent cases demonstrate this trend. Lawrence held that states could not outlaw homosexual sodomy, even though the Supreme Court had affirmed the constitutionality of such laws less than two decades earlier in Bowers v. Hardwick. Both the Supreme Court (in decisions such as McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky) and lower courts have restricted the permissibility of public displays of religious symbols, the most remarkable instance being the Ninth Circuit’s holding that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it contained the phrase “under God.” On the state court level, the Massachusetts Supreme Court held that gay couples must be allowed to marry. But Roe v. Wade is the most prominent example of the constitutionalization of a left-liberal agenda. Justice White, in dissent, had the case right when he stated:

I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand.

Justice White lucidly explains why it’s pernicious for the courts to constitutionalize their policy preferences: The act of doing so eliminates the possibility of democratic deliberation. When a constitutional right is not found, on the other hand, that is not the end of the discussion. Rather, the lack of a constitutional right means that the legislatures are free to consider the issue.

This fact explains why the Nation’s depiction of Judge Roberts as a “foot soldier . . . intent on reversing decades of settled policy” is inaccurate. Conservative reaction to activist decisions does not amount to an effort to win the culture wars through the courts. Instead, it’s an attempt to get back on equal footing, to return highly controversial issues like abortion to the legislative arena.

To be sure, an issue should be removed from the realm of democratic debate when a constitutional right actually exists. But the courts have not been faithfully applying

the law through an honest reading of the Constitution and an examination of the relevant history. Instead, they have engaged in political philosophy exercises, where they desperately seek legal justification for their political predispositions.

THE COURTS HAVE EXPANDED the Constitution’s reach steadily, and the doctrine of stare decisis (holding that prior decisions must be recognized as precedent) ensures that the legal system will move further in a left-liberal direction. Through stare decisis, lawless decision-making becomes self-reinforcing. This is how, for example, the Supreme Court created abortion rights. The 1965 opinion Griswold v. Connecticut found unconstitutional a Connecticut law prohibiting married couples’ use of contraceptives. Griswold is difficult to penetrate; it asserts that the Supreme Court should not be limited by the text and history of the Constitution because “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” Through these “penumbras,” Griswold created a constitutional right to privacy that had never been recognized before. Justice Stewart pointed out at the time that the right to privacy could be found nowhere in the Constitution:

What provision of the Constitution, then, does make this state law invalid? The Court says it is the right of privacy “created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.” With all deference, I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court.

Yet, less than a decade later, that lawless opinion blossomed into Roe v. Wade. The Court constitutionalized the right to an abortion based not on the text and history of the Constitution, but instead on Griswold’s highly questionable “right to privacy.” Thus, stare decisis lets courts move further and further from the Constitution’s text and traditions.

LIBERALS HAVE A CLEAR VISION for the Constitution, one in which unelected judges are expected to expand our pool of “rights,” regardless of how shaky the footing. Conservatives have a competing vision in which courts enforce those rights that can be found in the Constitution’s text and history or which are provided statutorily, and do not engage in political philosophy. In the conservative vision, policy debate is reserved for democratically-elected officials.

While Judge Roberts has been derided as an extremist, the real judicial extremism is liberal jurists’ tendency to over-constitutionalize society’s problems. If someone had warned right after Griswold that the newly-created right to privacy would eventually cause abortion to become a constitutional right, he would have been disregarded as an alarmist. Yet, less than a decade later, that is precisely what happened. This fact should be kept in mind, as should Justice Scalia’s Lawrence dissent, in which he wrote:

State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, . . . bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of [the] validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision.

Without more conservatives and originalists on the Court, social issues that were contemplated by neither the text of the Constitution nor the framers will continue to be decided by the least democratic branch of government. Conservatives now have the opportunity to make their stand, and explain why the judiciary is the worst branch to resolve such issues.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is an attorney and counterterrorism consultant. He graduated from the New York University School of Law and clerked on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Spoiled brat politics (townhall.com, 051011)

by Thomas Sowell

An editorial in a recent issue of the National Geographic’s “Traveler” magazine complained that kayakers in Maine found “residential development” near national parks and urged its readers to use their “influence” to prevent such things.

“You are the stakeholders in our national parks,” it said.

Really? What stake do kayakers and others of like mind have that is not also a stake held by people who build the vacation homes whose presence offends the kayak set? Homeowners are just as much citizens and taxpayers as kayakers are, and they are even entitled to equal treatment under the 14th Amendment.

The essence of bigotry is denying others the same rights you claim for yourself. Green bigots are a classic example.

The idea that government is supposed to make your desires override the desires of other citizens has spread from the green bigots to other groups who claim privileges in the name of rights.

In California a group of golfers in wheelchairs are suing a hotel chain for not providing them with special carts that will enable them to navigate the local hotel’s golf course more comfortably and play the game better.

According to a newspaper account, the kinds of carts the golfers in wheelchairs want “have rotating seats so a golfer can swing and strike a ball from the tee, the fairway and on the green without getting out of the vehicle.” If golfers want this kind of cart, there is nothing to stop them from buying one — except that they would rather have other people be forced to pay for it.

One of the golfers in this lawsuit has been confined to a wheelchair as a result of a diving accident and another as a result of a gunshot wound. Apparently the hotel had nothing to do with either.

There was a time when people would have said that the hotel is not responsible for these golfers being in wheelchairs and therefore it has no obligation to spend additional money for special carts in order to help their scores on the links. But that was before the Americans with Disabilities Act, under which the hotel is being sued.

If the government wanted to do something for the disabled or the handicapped, it could have spent its own tax money to do so. Instead, it passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which created a right to sue private institutions, in order to force them to spend their money to solve the problems of individuals with special problems or special desires, whether serious or frivolous.

It was a lawyer’s full-employment act, creating another legally recognized victim group, empowered to claim special privileges, at other people’s expense, in the name of equal rights. Nor could such legislation make the usual claim that it was coming to the defense of the poor and the downtrodden. Golf courses are not the natural habitat of the poor and the downtrodden.

One of the plaintiffs in the golf-course lawsuit is a former managing partner in a large law firm. He says, “I just want the same opportunity as everyone else” to “get out and play 18 holes with my friends and colleagues.”

Equal opportunity does not mean equal results, despite how many laws and policies proceed as if it does, or how much fashionable rhetoric equates the two.

An example of that rhetoric was the title of a recent New York Times column: “A Ticket to Bias.” That column recalled bitterly a time before the Americans with Disabilities Act, when a woman in a wheelchair bought a $300 ticket to a rock concert but was unable to see when other people around her stood up. This was equated with “bias” on the part of those who ran the arena.

Even now, decades after this incident, the woman in the wheelchair declares, “true equality remains a dream out of reach.” Apparently only equality of results is “true” equality.

A recent publication of the American Historical Association shows this same confusion when it says that doors “are largely closed” to people who want to become historians if they didn’t graduate from a top-tier college. In other words, unequal results proves bias that closed doors, according to this rhetoric.

Confusion between equal opportunity and equal results is a dangerous confusion behind many kinds of spoiled brat politics.

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The Right to Refuse vs. The Right to Abort (Christian Post, 051219)

A clash between interests – namely the interest of a medical professional who feels he or she should not be forced to perform procedures or dole out drugs that violate his or her personal beliefs, and the interest of the one seeking the procedure or drugs – has escalated in recent weeks as officials in several states mount efforts to make the controversial “morning-after pill” easier to get.

“Doctors are pitted against pharmacists and the FDA, druggists are fighting their employers, drugstores are fighting state regulators, and states are challenging the federal government,” noted Daniel C. Vock of the Kansas City infoZine.

Last month, Illinois pharmacist Rich Quayle lost his $100,000-a-year job at a Walgreen Co. pharmacy in Madison County when he refused to sign a pledge for his employer promising to dispense the morning-after pill, also known as Plan B, in accordance with a new state rule. He made no apologies for refusing to violate his religious beliefs and dispense emergency contraception.

“People try to paint us as being religious zealots,” said Quayle recently, according to the Associated Press. “I have firm religious beliefs, and I choose not to destroy a human being. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad moral stance to take.”

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall, in a recent column playfully titled “The War Over Our Genitals” and subtitled “Pharmacists and Doctors Turn Judgmental,” addressed the question of how society can reconcile two competing, “yet equally compelling interests.”

In discussing the issue, Rall – who seemingly attempted to give a neutral suggestion on the matter – compared the decision of Quayle and those like him to a doctor’s decision to refuse to perform optional cosmetic surgery.

“If I were a doctor, I would refuse to perform these operations or refer patients to a physician that did,” he wrote, describing such operations as “degrading and obscene, symptoms of a shallow society’s contempt for natural beauty and aging.”

However, Rall also said those on the other hand should be able to walk into a clinic “with the reasonable expectation” of getting the help they seek.

While it may be true that optional cosmetic surgeries – such as face lifts, “tummy tucks,” and breast enlargements – are questionable over their superficial worth, they are certainly not comparable to the dispensing of drugs engineered to put an end to an unborn child. Life is not something so trivial.

It is one thing to distort a creation of God; it is another to abort a creation of God.

If anything, it should be the freedom to cut off life that should be put on trial, not the freedom to protect it.

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Do we deserve it? (townhall.com, 051228)

by Walter E. Williams

Philosopher David Hume warned that, “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” That’s why we should guard against any encroachment on liberty, no matter how small. Let’s look at a couple of instances where, at our peril, we’ve failed to do so.

The Christmas season reminds many Americans of the attack on religion. A number of stores have caved in to pressures to ban Christmas celebrations, greetings and symbols, among them: Target, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears, Costco, Kohl’s, Barnes & Noble, Toys ‘R’ Us, and Walgreens. Cities have banned nativity scenes. Some schools have banned the singing of Christmas carols.

Much of the attack on religion had its birth with the 1963 Supreme Court decision in Murray vs. Curlett, which banned organized school prayers. For a moment, let’s ignore the debate on whether that decision was right or wrong and instead focus on tactics. Suppose, in 1963, America’s atheists had revealed and demanded their complete agenda: elimination of religious Christmas symbols in public places, elimination of the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, elimination of “In God We Trust” from our currency and elimination of caroling in public schools. There would have been so much resistance that they wouldn’t have achieved any of their agenda, including the ban on prayers in school. Given our weak resistance, you can bet the day will come when the attack on religion will include demands that crosses be removed from Arlington and Normandy cemeteries and bans on religious television or radio broadcasts.

While many Americans are disturbed by the ongoing attack on religion, they applauded the identical strategy when it was the attack on cigarette smokers. In the 1960s, when the anti-tobacco zealots started out, they only demanded “reasonable” things like no smoking sections on airplanes. Suppose they started out revealing their complete agenda: no smoking in airports, restaurants, places of employment and parks, confiscatory taxes on tobacco products, and multibillion-dollar suits against tobacco companies. There would have been so much resistance that the anti-tobacco zealots wouldn’t have succeeded with no smoking sections on airplanes.

The institution of private property offers the liberty-oriented solutions to both the school prayer and the smoking issues. I believe it’s a parental right to be able to decide whether one’s child will, or will not, say a morning prayer. Conflict emerges because of government-produced education. While there might be an argument for government financing of education, there’s absolutely no argument for government production of education. Therefore, if each parent were given an education voucher to pay for education, those parents wishing prayers, or those against prayers in school, could enroll their children in the school that meets their preference. Thus, conflict would be eliminated. Of course, a superior solution would be getting government entirely out of education.

Private property would solve the smoking issue. Suppose you owned a restaurant, and you didn’t wish to permit smoking. How would you like it if people used the political system to enact laws that forced you to permit smoking? I’m sure you’d consider it tyranny, and I’d agree. But there’s symmetry. It’s just as much tyranny to use the political system to enact laws to force a restaurant owner who wished to permit smoking to ban smoking. The liberty-oriented solution might be to post a sign saying you don’t permit smoking, and customers wishing otherwise wouldn’t enter. The same principle would apply to restaurant owners who wished to permit smoking.

I fear that too many Americans have contempt for the principles of liberty and opt for solutions that employ the political arena to forcibly impose their wills on others. If that’s the preferred game, then those Americans shouldn’t whine when others employ the same tactic to impose their wills.

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Whips in turmoil as Blair’s no-show castrates hate Bill (Times Online, 060201)

[KH: looks like a miracle]

Ministers today admitted embarrassment after a disastrous miscalculation by the Chief Whip led to a double defeat of the Government’s Bill to combat religious hatred.

Tony Blair failed to stay in the Commons to vote against a Lords’ amendment to water down a series of key clauses, which was then lost by a majority of just one.

In another humiliating blow to Mr Blair’s grip on his 65-seat Commons majority, 21 Labour rebels voted with Opposition MPs while at least 40 more were absent or abstained.

It soon emerged that Mr Blair had returned to Downing Street after being told by Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, that there was no point in staying for the vote after an earlier measure was lost by a majority of ten.

As the Tories accused Labour of arrogance, Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, admitted today that the Government had been taken by surprise.

Asked if the Prime Minister’s non-attendance at the vote made it personally embarrassing, he told the BBC: “Well, yes, maybe.

“Nevertheless, we have got pretty tough legislation on the statute book - not as tough as we would have liked, but tough nevertheless.”

The narrow defeat means that the Bill will become law with a series of amendments passed by the Lords designed to safeguard freedom of speech and meet the concerns of campaigners such as the comedian Rowan Atkinson.

The amendments restricted the new offence of inciting religious hatred to “threatening” words and behaviour rather than a wider definition covering insults and abuse.

They also required the offence to be intentional and specified that proselytising, discussion, criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice would not be an offence. Ministers had urged the Commons to back a government compromise.

Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney General, denied suggestions that MPs’ opposition to the Bill had been designed to damage the Government.

“We were genuinely trying to improve this legislation and prevent the Government from making a big mistake,” he told the BBC.

“The Government was very foolish. They failed completely to read the mood of Parliament and once again showed a tendency to believe that they could simply push it through. They came unstuck and to that extent I think they were entirely the authors of their own misfortune. If they would only listen a little bit more.”

Last night’s reverses will have far-reaching consequences for Mr Blair and may hasten his departure from Downing Street. They will give heart to Labour rebels on the flagship Education and ID Cards Bills, making Mr Blair’s task of pushing through his reforms and ensuring his legacy even tougher.

To add insult to injury, George Galloway, the Respect MP expelled by Labour, voted for the Government while Mr Blair was absent.

Labour sources said last night that 20 to 25 Labour MPs had been dispatched to the Dunfermline and West Fife seat to campaign in next week’s by-election and were not recalled by whips because they thought the majority was secure. The revelation will increase pressure on Ms Armstrong, especially as Mr Blair is considering a Cabinet reshuffle.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was heavily watered down by 283 votes to 282 in the second most serious defeat for Mr Blair after the rejection of 90-days detention without trial last autumn. In an earlier vote, the Government was defeated on a technical measure by 288 votes to 278.

To a chorus of “resign” from Conservative MPs, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that he accepted its verdict and the Bill would become law. But it was stripped of measures to outlaw “abusive and insulting” language and behaviour as well as the crime of “recklessness” in actions that incite religious hatred.

Had Mr Blair not left and the crucial vote been tied, the final decision would have fallen to the Speaker, who by convention would be expected to vote with the Government.

Home Office sources last night put a brave face on events. An aide to Mr Clarke said: “I still think we can get prosecutions, but obviously it does raise the bar.”

Earlier, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside Parliament to complain about the legislation’s impact on freedom of expression.

Early in what was a passionate and often chaotic debate, Bob Spink, the veteran Tory MP for Castle Point, raised the treatment of the protestors by police in his statement to the Commons.

He said: “In the precincts of Parliament, the police have been deployed in extraordinary numbers to watch and to herd into a corner a peaceful group of Christians who are singing hymns.”

To cries of “shame!” from colleagues, he asked: “Is this restriction of people’s right to come to this place and peacefully demonstrate a good or a decent advert for our Parliament - or does it foretell how this Act might be used in future?”

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The Sum of Its Parts: The U.N. cannot lead on human rights — it’s full of human-rights abusers. (National Review Online, 060202)

The United Nations has an admirable history of promoting the concept of basic human rights. Member states pledge in the charter “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.” U.N. treaties, such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights passed by the general assembly in 1948, form the core of international standards for human rights. Despite this history and the fact that each U.N. member state is party to at least one of the seven major human-rights treaties, the U.N. in recent decades has failed miserably to promote basic human rights in practice.

Perhaps no institution illustrates this more than the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. As the premier human-rights body in the U.N. system, the commission “holds public meetings to review the human rights performance of States, to adopt new standards and to promote human rights around the world.” Sadly, the commission has devolved into a feckless organization that human-rights abusers use to block criticism or action promoting human rights. Six of the fifty-three members of the commission in 2005 were considered among the world’s “worst of the worst” abusers of human rights by Freedom House. China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe were members of the Commission in 2005. Libya chaired the commission in 2003. Even Secretary General Kofi Annan has acknowledged, “We have reached a point at which the commission’s declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system.”

Leaving aside the question of just how sullied the U.N. reputation is in the wake of Oil for Food, peacekeeping abuses in the Congo, and the recent procurement scandals, there is no dispute that the Commission needs to be replaced.

Last fall, the U.N. General Assembly agreed to create a Human Rights Council to replace the commission. The U.S. and other countries have sought to make this council a smaller, more effective advocate for human rights, with standards for membership to make it more difficult for human-rights abusers to serve. They have been strongly opposed by countries seeking to minimize the effectiveness of the new council.

While it is too early to predict with confidence the outcome of negotiations, it seems likely that the resulting council will fall far short of the reformed, effective body sought by the U.S. This is hardly surprising. After all, every nation claims membership in the U.N., regardless of its dedication to upholding basic human-rights and freedoms. According to Freedom House, less than half of the U.N. membership is politically free. According to the Index of Economic Freedom, co-published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, less than half of the U.N. membership if economically free or mostly free. The U.N. reflects the lack of freedom among its membership.

The unfortunate reality is that the 191 member General Assembly — strongly influenced by China, Cuba, Libya, Zimbabwe, and other nations opposed to an effective human rights body — will not create an independent Human Rights Council capable of taking strong actions on human-rights abusers. It is unrealistic to expect the U.N. to lead the effort to confront human-rights abusers among its membership.

When asked about the negotiations over the Human Rights Council, U.S Ambassador John Bolton declared, “We want a butterfly. We’re not going to put lipstick on a caterpillar and declare it a success.” Such a position indicates a willingness to walk away from the Council if the chrysalis does not yield a butterfly. The question is, what is there to walk toward? Another round of fruitless negotiations in the U.N.? Indisputably, the effort to strengthen basic human rights and representative government could be greatly bolstered by an effective human rights body in the U.N. Sadly, such a body does not exist today, and news reports on the Human Rights Council negotiations indicate that such a body is unlikely to be created soon.

As Benjamin Franklin noted, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” It is time to reject the U.N.-centric international human-rights system. Why must a U.N. beset by human-rights abusers be the central focus of efforts to promote human rights? It does not have to be so.

Governments, non-governmental organizations, and others seeking to strengthen observance of basic human rights should not let affection for the U.N. blind them to its inability to hold abusers to account. As noted by the bipartisan U.N. Task Force, “[U]ntil the United Nations holds its members accountable for their failure to observe well-established human rights norms, the United Nations is not the best forum for the proposed Human Rights Council.” Instead, advocates should seek to establish a human rights body that is independent from the U.N. and open only to democracies that respect political and economic freedom. Because representative governments already practice political freedom and basic human rights, they are most likely to promote those standards.

Human-rights advocates should not shy away from uncomfortable truths. Perhaps the U.N. will one day be dominated by democratic states that respect the freedoms of their citizens and demand similar standards from all U.N. member states. But that is not the U.N. of today. The likely failure of the U.S. and other nations to create a smaller, more effective Human Rights Council that excludes human-rights abusers and non-democracies from membership should be a clear sign that the U.N. cannot serve as the focal point for human-rights abuses. If the U.N. cannot serve as the primary vehicle in pursuit of that goal, the U.S. and like minded countries should pursue alternatives.

— Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at the Heritage Foundation and served as an expert on the Task Force on the United Nations.

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Relativism and Rights: Utopian illusions are preventing practical reforms of the Human Rights Commission. (National Review Online, 060202)

Earlier this month the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, chafing over a U.S. plan to salvage the discredited Human Rights Commission, exemplified why the very idea of U.N. reform looks more and more like a gothic fantasy. The ambassador was indignant at the notion that states under U.N. sanction for rights abuses should be kept off a newly created Human Rights Council. “The presumption that a country is a violator of human rights is very subjective,” complained Munir Akram. “If you want to create criteria...that exclude certain countries, why not those that don’t support trade liberalization or that don’t implement foreign aid targets? The knife cuts both ways.”

Apologists for repressive governments, of course, love to talk this way: Farm subsidies are the moral equivalent of women being brutalized by militias in Congo or sold into sexual slavery in Cambodia. Or, in the case of Pakistan, of religious minorities being jailed and assaulted for allegedly violating blasphemy laws. In other words, no nation’s political culture is better or worse than any other’s.

It is not just problematic regimes that debase the concept of human rights with this kind of evasion. This is the logic of multiculturalism, an ethos that infects the United Nations from top to bottom. Echoed endlessly in U.N. reports and resolutions, this ethos has helped create a deep-seated cynicism about the nature of human rights. More than any other factor, it threatens to derail the current effort to reform the Human Rights Commission before its March meeting in Geneva.

Indeed, the ethic of multiculturalism has finally shredded the legitimacy of the U.N.’s premier human rights organization. Even the Office of the Secretary-General has awakened to the problem. Last year Kofi Annan complained that the Commission has “cast a shadow on the reputation on the U.N. system as a whole.” Mark Malloch Brown, his chief of staff, now calls the performance of the organization “the litmus test of U.N. renewal.”

They only hint at the enormity of the crisis. It’s bad enough that repressive states make up about a fourth of the 53 nations with a seat on the Human Rights Commission — states such as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. The same states use their position to mute criticism of their thuggish treatment of journalists, political opponents, women, and religious minorities. Worse still, with a wink and a nod they manipulate the U.N. system to block meaningful action against the world’s most despotic regimes.

The Bush Administration has suggested that it will not return to a human rights body that changes in name only. “We’re finished with the Human Rights Commission in Geneva,” vowed Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, at a briefing last fall. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that a new Human Rights Council “should never — never — empower brutal dictatorships to sit in judgment of responsible democracies.”

It’s unclear, though, whether any initiative could overcome the institutional inertia to reform. The White House is pushing a package of measures to improve the composition — and the deliberations — of the proposed Council. Members would focus on “gross and systematic” violations of human rights; be elected by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly; be required to get letters of endorsement from at least half of the candidate’s regional group; and be excluded from membership if they faced U.N. resolutions for terrorism or human rights violations. Taken together, it’s a modest but sensible proposal.

Nevertheless, some U.N. watchers rightly worry that a General Assembly vote would still allow dictatorships onto the Human Rights Council, while keeping the United States off the body. (The Islamic Conference, for example, is composed of 56 nations, enough to block U.S. admission.) John Bolton, American Ambassador to the United Nations, angered some human-rights activists recently when he suggested that the permanent five members of the Security Council be guaranteed a slot. That would fulfill a White House goal of keeping the United States engaged in the process. But the inclusion of Russia and China is a bridge too far: It almost certainly would quash the larger objective of having stable democracies dominate the U.N.’s human rights machinery.

Perhaps it’s time for a thought experiment: Would any or all of these reforms produce a human rights organization that actually prodded the United Nations to confront a human rights catastrophe — the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Sudan, for example?

Consider the African Union, the organization formed to promote democracy on the continent and which regularly sends member states to the Human Rights Commission. AU troops have provided a measure of security in war-torn Darfur. But, until recently, its commitment to African solidarity made it unwilling even to criticize the Sudanese government publicly. Over the objections of human rights groups, the AU held its annual summit in Khartoum last week — and debated whether or not to turn over leadership of the organization to Sudan.

Likewise, the Arab League, which also has members on the Commission, has opposed tough measures against the government of Sudan out of sympathy with the Islamic dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. Meanwhile, a Security Council resolution to implement sanctions against Sudan has gone nowhere, thanks in part to China, whose largest oil company, PetroChina, is heavily invested in the country. China, of course, is a regular presence in Geneva. Any human rights organization embedded in the U.N. system would face this culture of real politik.

A U.N. working-group on the Human Rights Council is negotiating the future of the organization, but — based on the debate so far — it likely would include governments with strong political, financial, or sectarian motives to preserve the status quo. Even the U.N. Democracy Caucus (UNDC), created to promote democracy and human rights, is having trouble shaking free of this dynamic. A study released last year by the Democracy Coalition Project showed a “persistent propensity” among democratic states to cling to regional alliances and avoid confronting human-rights abusers. Says executive director Ted Piccone, “There is little consensus among UNDC members to condemn even some of the worst violators of human rights.”

U.N. defenders shrug all this off by claiming that the United Nations is only as good as its member states. That’s a half-truth: By giving dictatorships equal voting power with democracies, the system almost guarantees that no meaningful agreement can be reached as to what counts as a violation of human rights. John Prendergast, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, emphasizes the political will of the Security Council: “All the reports and speeches of these U.N. bodies count for nothing,” he says, “if the Security Council is not prepared to fulfill its responsibilities.” True enough. Yet it’s hard to conceive of non-democratic states — and there are plenty of them on the Security Council — eager to fulfill their human-rights obligations, especially when there are no serious consequences for failing to do so.

Shouldn’t the task of defending fundamental human rights be limited to democratic states with a measurable record of success? And if such an alliance can’t function effectively within the United Nations, isn’t it time to consider operating outside of it?

A growing number of scholars, it seems, believes it is. Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and James Lindsay at the Council on Foreign Relations have called for the creation of a new coalition of democracies “to confront common security challenges.” Ruth Wedgewood, professor of international law and organizations at Johns Hopkins University, argues for a U.S. policy of “competitive multilateralism” — that is, creating informal coalitions outside of the United Nations to tackle issues of mutual concern. “There still seems to be no momentum for change at the United Nations,” she writes. “If things can’t be changed from within, members may need to vote with their feet, one issue at a time.” Joshua Muravchik, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is equally blunt. “The effort to be a proto-world government is the crux of the U.N.’s worst failings,” he writes in The Future of the United Nations. Rather, he argues, a group of democracies could form a committee on human rights to “forthrightly condemn and publicize egregious abuses.”

U.N. officials bristle at these suggestions, but their failure to speak and act unambiguously to defend human dignity has invited them. Kofi Annan’s 2004 High-Level Panel Report on U.N. Reform, for example, argued that no country — for any reason — should be denied membership on the Human Rights Commission. In the same breath, the panel insisted that “the United Nations was never intended to be a utopian exercise.” Yet, with regard to its core mandate of human rights protection, that’s exactly what much of the organization has become. Even at this late hour, U.N. negotiators can’t seem to agree on any criteria for membership; some even want to do away with resolutions that name and shame offending nations.

It’s a far cry from the organization that gave the world a universal declaration of human rights. Having begun by asserting the inviolability of fundamental rights, the Commission now deliberates as if such rights are endlessly negotiable. Having once held as absolutely binding the claims of a universal moral code, the same body treats these claims as mere preferences — and easily disposable preferences at that. Charles Malik, the Lebanese diplomat who succeeded Eleanor Roosevelt as president of the Human Rights Commission, warned against this trend. “Either there is a common morality about man that can be codified and not only respected but also actually observed under a rule of law,” he said, “or we are on the verge of chaos.”

The moral chaos of the Commission ranks as one of the worst scandals in a scandal-ridden United Nations. Thus the spectacle before us: The U.N.’s politicization of human rights is diverting attention from atrocities occurring under our noses. Its obsession with multiculturalism drains enormous energy into fights over frivolous resolutions. Its refusal to judge between democracies and dictatorships empowers demagogues to repress and murder their own citizens. The U.N.’s quixotic vision of a “parliament of humanity” blithely ignores the tragic realities of human nature.

This is the problem with utopians: They pretend that the world is as they wish it were, not as it actually is. A dose of moral realism — informed by conscience, common sense, and religious conviction — seems to be in order. Politically speaking, that means allowing for the possibility of unilateral action by the United States or joint action by a democratic coalition of the willing.

At least on the issue of human rights, moral realism now means a willingness to work largely outside the U.N. system. Too many political leaders are too trusting in paper promises, too enamored with soft talk and sweet reason. They don’t spend enough time actually hearing from the victims of tyranny and terror. Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, warning about the brutalities of Nazi Germany, fiercely criticized the impulse to ignore or appease aggressors. “When the mind is not confused by utopian illusions,” he wrote in 1941, “it is not difficult to recognize genuine achievements of justice and to feel under obligation to defend them against the threats of tyranny and the negation of justice.”

At this hour of judgment for the United Nations, Niebuhr’s insight seems especially poignant. A sense of our moral obligations to others depends on minds that are clear. The sooner the fog of illusions is lifted, the better.

— Joseph Loconte, the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion at the Heritage Foundation, is a commentator for National Public Radio and editor of The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm.

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U.N. hypocrisy on human rights (Washington Times, 060213)

Pakistan’s Mukhtar Mai became an inspiration to human rights defenders throughout the world when — after being publicly gang-raped by order of a village council for an alleged act by her brother, which she was not involved — she bravely defied the council and got a higher court to overturn the verdict. On Jan. 20, she was scheduled to be interviewed at the United Nations, but, as the New York Times reported, the United Nations canceled her appearance.

At the U.N. television studios, she was to appear in “An Interview with Mukhtar Mai, The Bravest Woman on Earth.” But Pakistan protested because Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would be at the United Nations that very day, and accordingly, the U.N. officials didn’t want to embarrass this dignitary. Said U.N. undersecretary-general for communications, Shashi Tharoor: “We are obliged to take into account the views formally expressed by member states.” But it was only after news accounts of what happened that Secretary-GeneralKofi Annan, very embarrassed, offered to reschedule Mai, to be cosponsored by Pakistan.

Then, recently, for only the second time in U.N. history, a movie, “Che,” glorifying the ruthless presiding executioner in Castro’s Cabana prison from 1957 to 1959 was permitted to be filmed in the U.N.’s General Assembly, with Mr. Annan’s authorization.

While he was commander of that notorious Havana prison, Che Guevara ordered and often personally executed (according to the Free Society Project’s Truth Recovery Archive) more than 200 Cubans. As the archival project’s director, Maria Werlau, said to the Jan. 30 New York Sun, “Che stood for the opposite of what the U.N. charter upholds.” The glowing promises of the U.N. charter, however, have often been betrayed. Steadily increasing numbers of black Africans in Darfur, for example, have been murdered, gang-raped and torn from their villages by the government of Sudan, while the veto power of China on the SecurityCouncil, where this celebration of Guevara was filmed, precludes any meaningful intervention by the United Nations.

Not only the United Nations honored the murderous Che Guevara. In the Dec. 25 New York Sun, William Meyers reported on the continuing exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York of “Che! Revolution and Commerce.”The wall text speaks reverently of the “classical, even Christ-likedemeanor”ofthis”youngand charismatic idealist who gave up the security of his middle-class world for his convictions.”

The one time I met Guevara,atthe Cuban mission to the United Nations, he expressed one of his convictions. Guevara professed not to understand English. So, looking at him and his interpreter, I asked this idealist: “Can you conceive however far into the future a time when there will be free elections in Cuba?” Not waiting for his interpreter, Guevara broke into laughter at my naively ignorant question. He made it clear that I had no understanding of a true people’s revolution, firmly guided by Maximum Leader Castro.

While being hospitable to the further mythicizing of Guevara in a movie though initially turning away Mai, “The Bravest Woman on Earth,” the United Nations continues to undermine its potential to live up to its charter by its failure so far to change the repellent composition of its ludicrously named Human Rights Commission.

To his credit, Mr. Annan is trying to get the support of enough U.N. members to create a smaller human rights commission,whichthe world’smostbarbarous human-rights abusers would not to be qualified to join. But, as a Jan. 20 Washington Post editorial, “Impasse on Human Rights,” points out, among the so-far effective resisters to this vital change are Egypt and Pakistan, along with “several Caribbean countries.” Unless Mr. Annan’s changes go through, when this grotesque parody of a human rights commission meets again in Geneva next month, its decisions will still be made by such chronic crushers of human rights as Sudan, Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

In its newly published World Report 2006, Human Rights Watch ends its grim report on Zimbabwe with this telling paragraph: “Western governments, in particular the United Kingdom and United States, have failed to convince other (African) influential governments (especially those in the South) to take a stronger stand on Zimbabwe...China, Russia and other African countries state that Zimbabwe does not warrant discussions at the Security Council because they claim it is not a threat to international peace or security.”

Zimbabwe is only a monstrous daily threat to its own people, but the United Nations is indifferent to the brutally repressed people of Zimbabwe.

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Reason to Rejoice: Three Strikes against Human Trafficking (townhall.com, 060221)

by Chuck Colson

As President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union address, human trafficking is one of the great evils of our age. Although the president concentrated on international trafficking in his speech, the sad truth is that trade in human beings is alive and well right here in the United States as well. Every year, thousands of people are brought here and forced into various kinds of slavery, including sexual slavery. This practice would be a disgrace to any nation, let alone a nation that stands for freedom and justice.

But the good news is, after too many years of brushing it under the rug, our government is beginning to face the problem. Although the president may have targeted foreign trafficking in his speech, I know from conversations with him that he is very much aware of trafficking’s presence at home. And in recent months, we have struck several blows against this ghastly evil.

One of those government actions is something we have worked on in the Wilberforce Forum for years: the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, signed now by the president. Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a great defender of human rights, sponsored the bill. He explained that it “strengthens the nation’s current trafficking law . . . and authorizes new funds for investigation and prosecution of domestic trafficking within the United States. . . . For the first time, programs [aimed at] reducing the demand for commercial sex in the United States and preventing human trafficking of U.S. citizens within our own borders [have been] authorized . . . the Federal Bureau of Investigation [will be funded] to combat both domestic and international trafficking.”

That is no small thing. Never before has the elimination of human trafficking been made such a high priority in this country.

And that isn’t all. A few months ago, the president issued an executive order making it a crime for members of the military to patronize prostitutes. This is a step that we have urged on “BreakPoint,” and it is desperately needed. Until now, prostitution was referred to only vaguely in the military courts-martial manual as an act “of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.” Well, that is true enough, as far as it goes. But now, for the first time, it’s specifically listed as a punishable offense. As many have pointed out, this will go a long way toward destroying the culture of tolerance in the military where prostitution is concerned.

And there’s yet another piece of good news. Last month, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2003 law that prohibits U.S. citizens abroad from patronizing child prostitutes. American Michael Clark was convicted under this law for preying on young boys in Cambodia and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison. In upholding Clark’s conviction, Judge Margaret McKeown wrote that sex with minors “might be immoral and criminal, but it is also commercial.” Therefore, it is permissible to regulate it under the commerce clause of the Constitution. The decision makes it easier to prosecute Americans who commit this heinous crime.

Well, you have often heard people say you can’t “legislate morality.” And there are those who say the culture is so bad that we can’t change it. Well, they are wrong. Here are three strikes that have been called against human trafficking in just a matter of a few months. And while there still plenty of work to be done, for all the victims of human trafficking and for all those who have been fighting for so long to help them, this is truly a reason to rejoice.

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The Fire This Time: The curious evolution of America’s free-speech movement. (Weekly Standard, 060224)

IN 1917, Charles Schenck was convicted of encouraging American draftees bound for Europe’s trenches to disobey their orders. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court on the grounds that our constitutional right of free speech is inviolate. And he lost unanimously.

“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the Court. “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”

Schenck was imprisoned, as was his fellow Socialist, Eugene Debs, who had committed more or less the same crime, a violation of the then-new Espionage Act.

To modern Americans who consider the First Amendment the foundation of our liberties, this seems incomprehensible. After all, Jane Fonda was not arrested for broadcasting incitements to desert from Hanoi. Nor was Joan Baez, who encouraged young men to burn their draft cards. Nor have any speakers at recent antiwar rallies, not even those who accuse the Bush administration of stifling dissent and disappearing our civil liberties. As far as the government is concerned, we are free to voice our constitutionally-protected thoughts.

And yet free speech has never been more imperiled, because today it’s not the government strangling the First Amendment. It’s the putative guardian of that freedom—the press—which has done so by capitulating to the demands of a mob inflamed by . . . free speech. The irony is hard to bear.

IN THE PAST, our most powerful news outlets spent millions on legal fees and saw reporters imprisoned on contempt charges in order to defend the publication of news that the government argued would compromise national security—the Pentagon Papers, for example. In the recent past they have printed stories that inarguably do compromise national security, such as the recent revelations about electronic eavesdropping and CIA-run rendition programs for suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. (Justice Holmes’s less famous words from Schenck: “When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”) News outlets run photos and political cartoons which offend, at one time or another, every American—particularly Christians. They eagerly publish each new batch of yesterday’s-news photos from Abu Ghraib. And last week, arguing the people’s right to know and the First Amendment’s future, they threw a hissy fit after the vice president waited 18 hours before notifying them of a hunting accident that history will forget.

But when Muslims around the world rioted, torched embassies, killed dozens, and threatened others with fatwas in response to a Danish newspaper’s cartoons of Mohammed, nearly all of our major press outlets refused to run the offending cartoons under the guise of “respect” for the “Prophet Mohammed”—whose honorific is now suddenly capitalized sans scare quotes. (Christians will have to burn down a few buildings if they want Jesus Christ referred to as the Son of God.) The New York Times, for one, was less bothered by the violence than by the cartoonists’ exercise in free speech which provoked it, and to prove it the paper bravely re-ran a photo of the painting of the Virgin Mary slathered in elephant dung. [KH: It was published just two days after the Times editorial page justified its decision not to reprint the cartoons as “a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.” How hypocritical!]

Apparently, it hasn’t occurred to the media poo-bahs that the prohibition against likenesses of Mohammed should apply only to Muslims, not to the rest of us. (As Dennis Prager noted, “It’s like Jews rioting when someone else eats pork.”) The cartoons should’ve been printed and broadcast as widely as the bruised face of Cheney’s hunting partner when he got out of the hospital. That would’ve resolved the matter overnight, by giving cover to every news outlet and reasserting the primacy of free expression in a free society.

And that’s what makes the press’s abject cravenness so consequential. It implies that, for all intents and purposes, we are living under sharia.

Any parent knows that giving your child everything he wants is a guarantee that he’ll never stop demanding more—and reacting more angrily when he doesn’t get it. Now that blowing up and beheading innocents in the name of Islam is considered less offensive than some pen-and-ink drawings, militant Islamists can pretty much take their pick of insults to be offended by—and our press will have to again respect their “sensibilities” in order to keep them from burning down the presses. So what will offend them next time? Pornography? Caricatures of bin Laden? Reports on female circumcision in Islamic Africa? Will & Grace?

Justice Holmes set the border of free speech at the line where false cries of fire would lead to panic. But after seeing the West abandon our most cherished freedom and cower in fear of retribution, Muslims now have only to falsely hear fire shouted to get what the most violent of them want—our panic.

Joel Engel is an author and journalist in Southern California.

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Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy (Weekly Standard, 060601)

The indiscriminate promotion of various social groups’ desires and preferences as “rights” has drained the moral authority from the civil rights industry.

THE MOVEMENT TO REDEFINE MARRIAGE to include same-sex unions has packaged its demands in the rhetoric and images of the civil rights movement. This strategy, though cynical, has enormous strategic utility. For what reasonable, fair-minded American could object to a movement that conjures up images of Martin Luther King Jr. and his fellows campaigners for racial justice facing down dogs and fire hoses? Who is prepared to risk being labeled a bigot for opposing same-sex marriage?

As an exercise in marketing and merchandising, this strategy is the most brilliant playing of the race card in recent memory. Not since the “poverty pimps” of 35 years ago, who leveraged the guilt and sense of fair play of the American public to hustle affirmative action set-asides, have we witnessed so brazen a misuse of African-American history for partisan purposes.

But the partisans of homosexual marriage have a problem. There is no evidence in the history and literature of the civil rights movement, or in its genesis in the struggle against slavery, to support the claim that the “gay rights” movement is in the tradition of the African-American struggle for civil rights. As the eminent historian Eugene D. Genovese observed more than 30 years ago, the black American experience as a function of slavery is unique and without analogue in the history of the United States. While other ethnic and social groups have experienced discrimination and hardship, none of their experiences compare with the physical and cultural brutality of slavery. It was in the crucible of the unique experience of slavery that the civil rights movement was born.

The extraordinary history of the United States as a slaveholding republic included the kidnapping and brutal transport of blacks from African shores, and the stripping of their language, identity, and culture in order to subjugate and exploit them. It also included the constitutional enshrining of these evils in the form of a Supreme Court decision—Dred Scott v. Sandford—denying to blacks any rights that whites must respect, and the establishment of Jim Crow and de jure racial discrimination after Dred Scott was overturned by a civil war and three historic constitutional amendments.

It is these basic facts that embarrass efforts to exploit the rhetoric of civil rights to advance the goals of generally privileged groups, however much they wish to depict themselves as victims. Whatever wrongs individuals have suffered because some Americans fail in the basic moral obligation to love the sinner, even while hating the sin, there has never been an effort to create a subordinate class subject to exploitation based on “sexual orientation.”

It is precisely the indiscriminate promotion of various social groups’ desires and preferences as “rights” that has drained the moral authority from the civil rights industry. Let us consider the question of rights. What makes a gay activist’s aspiration to overturn thousands of years of universally recognized morality and practice a “right”? Why should an institution designed for the reproduction of civil society and the rearing of children in a moral environment in which their interests are given pride of place be refashioned to accommodate relationships integrated around intrinsically non-marital sexual conduct?

One must, in the current discussion, address directly the assertion of discrimination. The claim that the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman constitutes discrimination is based on a false analogy with statutory prohibitions on interracial marriages in many states through much of the 20th century. This alleged analogy collapses when one considers that skin pigmentation is utterly irrelevant to the procreative and unitive functions of marriage. Racial differences do not interfere with the ability of sexually complementary spouses to become “one-flesh,” as the Book of Genesis puts it, by sexual intercourse that fulfills the behavioral conditions of procreation. As the law of marital consummation makes clear, and always has made clear, it is this bodily union that serves as the foundation of the profound sharing of life at every level—biological, emotional, dispositional, rational, and spiritual—that marriage is. This explains not only why marriage can only be between a man and a woman, but also why marriages cannot be between more than two people—despite the desire of “polyamorists” to have their sexual preferences and practices legally recognized and blessed.

Moreover, the analogy of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage disregards the whole point of those prohibitions, which was to maintain and advance a system of racial subordination and exploitation. It was to maintain a caste system in which one race was relegated to conditions of social and economic inferiority. The definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman does not establish a sexual caste system or relegate one sex to conditions of social and economic inferiority. It does, to be sure, deny the recognition as lawful “marriages” to some forms of sexual combining—including polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, and same-sex relationships. But there is nothing invidious or discriminatory about laws that decline to treat all sexual wants or proclivities as equal.

People are equal in worth and dignity, but sexual choices and lifestyles are not. That is why the law’s refusal to license polygamous, polyamorous, and homosexual unions is entirely right and proper. In recognizing, favoring, and promoting traditional, monogamous marriage, the law does not violate the “rights” of people whose “lifestyle preferences” are denied the stamp of legal approval. Rather, it furthers and fosters the common good of civil society, and makes proper provision for the physical and moral protection and nurturing of children.

Well-intentioned liberals shudder upon hearing the word “discrimination.” Its simple enunciation instills guilt and dulls their critical faculties. But once malcontented members of any group—however privileged—can simply invoke the term and launch their own personalized civil rights industry, the word has been emptied of its normative and historical content.

Defending the civil rights legacy should prove cold comfort to its historic advocates, because the loss of its distinctive nature is our own fault. It was our failure, philosophically and politically, to develop a compelling historiography of the movement that contributed to its decline and decay. From the teaching in schools, to the use of the phrase in political discourse, the notion of civil rights has been diluted, ahistoricized, and nearly emptied of content in relation to the lived historical experience of black Americans.

It is especially sad and disturbing that many self-proclaimed civil rights leaders have failed to resist corruption and co-optation by the homosexual movement. People who should be vitally concerned with promoting marriage and rebuilding the institution of marriage in African-American communities are either silent or complicit in a campaign which, if successful, will trivialize marriage.

In light of the prospect of judicially mandated homosexual marriage, we believe that black leaders—and especially black clergy—need to speak forcefully in favor of President George W. Bush’s proposal for a Federal Marriage Amendment. If their support for true marriage alienates them from their white liberal friends, so be it. No community has suffered more than has ours from the weakening of the institution of marriage at the hands of purveyors of the doctrines of the sexual revolution. It is our sons and our daughters who have paid the costs imposed by a cultural elite that seeks to overthrow cultural and Biblical principles of sexual restraint and responsibility. Leaders of our community should therefore be in the vanguard of the movement to prevent further moral erosion and begin reversing historical declines.

Eugene F. Rivers is Founder and President of the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies (www.siacs.org) and is a pastor of the Church of God in Christ, the nation’s largest historically Black Pentecostal denomination.

Kenneth D. Johnson is Senior Fellow for Social Policy and Civil Society at the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies.

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The Deplorable Speech of Westboro Baptist Church (Christian Post, 060607)

“You might go to church And sit down in a pew. Those humans who ain’t human Could be sitting next to you.”—John Prine

On April 11, 2006, the family and friends of recently deceased Cpl. David A. Bass gathered in a Nashville church to pay their final respects to the 20-year-old Marine who was killed in Iraq when his 7-ton truck rolled over in a flash flood. While those at the funeral mourned, however, a small group of protesters celebrated his death across the street, holding signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “Thank God for I.E.D.’s.”

Insisting that God is killing American soldiers in order to punish the United States for its openness to homosexuality, these protesters from Westboro Baptist Church believe that fallen servicepeople should not be mourned. “You turned the country over to fags,” church members have proclaimed. “These soldiers are coming home in body bags.”

Most recently, members of this group staged a protest over the Memorial Day weekend at Arlington National Cemetery. Singing “God hates America” to the tune of “God Bless America,” they held signs that read “God is America’s terror,” “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “You’re going to hell” and “Bush killed them.”

Westboro’s funeral protests, which many find morally repugnant and unpatriotic, have garnered a great deal of publicity—which Westboro clearly loves—and given rise to a national furor.

Reacting to the church’s graveside activities, nine states have now passed laws limiting demonstrations at funerals. Kentucky’s law has already been challenged by the ACLU, which insists that the law is so broad that it makes it a crime to whistle while walking within earshot of a funeral or to stop for a conversation on a public sidewalk adjacent to a funeral home or place of worship while a funeral service is in progress.

On a national level, President Bush has recently signed legislation that essentially bars free speech demonstrations within certain distances of cemeteries. This over-reaching law bans “any picketing, any speech, the display of any banner, flag or the distribution of any handbill, pamphlet,” etc., at funerals. What this means is that any citizen even engaged in such nondisruptive expression as carrying an American flag while mourning the death of a slain soldier could also be in violation of the law. Moreover, anyone violating this law would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison. However, in the opinion of Westboro’s pastor Fred Phelps, Congress and President Bush, who signed the legislation into law, are the ones “blatantly violating the First Amendment.”

Fred Phelps started the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church in 1955. Consisting mainly of him and his extended family, the church became infamous in 1991 for its “God Hates Fags” message, which is also the name of its website. As the website explains, “By the time a person reaches the state of hard core, defiant, unrepentant, homosexual lifestyle, God has washed His hands of that person. God does not hate them because they are homosexuals; they are homosexuals because God hates them.”

Devoted to its anti-gay campaign, Westboro’s pastor claims that since 1991, Westboro has carried out 40 pickets a week, every week. And that may be a conservative number. However, it was not until the controversial death of Mathew Shepard in 1998 that Westboro attained a level of public notoriety. Shepard, a 21-year-old Wyoming college student, was brutally beaten and left for dead, reportedly because he was gay. Westboro members picketed his funeral and the murder trial of the men who had killed him with signs stating that Shepard was in hell for being gay.

Westboro not only condemns those who are openly homosexual but also those who do not speak out against homosexuality. For example, accusing Chief Justice William Rehnquist of not protecting the United States against homosexuality, they picketed his September 2005 funeral with signs reading “Judge in Hell.”

In fact, Westboro sees nearly every national disaster, act of human depravity and natural disaster as God punishing the U.S. for its stance on “fags”—and they go so far as to thank God for these tragedies. They insist that the Space Shuttle Columbia crashed as a way to punish the U.S., NASA and the astronauts for not using their position to speak out against homosexuality. They offered prayers of thanksgiving after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and even traveled to New York City to protest rescue efforts, mock victims and urge that those who were still alive should be left there to die. They also praised the devastation resulting from the tsunami in Asia and Hurricane Katrina as God’s way of punishing those who have let the “fags” take over the world.

There may be some individuals who see Westboro Baptist Church as representative of Christianity. But they really have nothing to do with true Christianity or with spreading a Christian message. As Jesus Christ proclaimed, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”

In rejecting Christ’s admonitions, Westboro has chosen instead to focus its efforts on spreading hate. Their actions are deplorable, particularly their protests at military funerals.

Whether their actions are illegal, however, is another matter altogether. The legal dispute centers on whether such tasteless protests can be considered protected free speech under the First Amendment. Indeed, James Madison, who authored the First Amendment, noted that the purpose of the Amendment was to protect the minority against the majority. And as Madison knew very well, the minority is often made up of extremists who have nothing better to do than foam at the mouth.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.

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University refuses Christian groups: Insists non-believers must be allowed in leadership (WorldNetDaily, 060809)

University of Wisconsin officials are being warned their refusal to recognize Christian student groups is illegal.

In recent weeks, the University of Wisconsin-Superior has denied recognition of the school’s InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison has derecognized the Knights of Columbus.

The officials allege the groups violate school’s “anti-discrimination policy” by not allowing non-Christians to serve in leadership positions, according to the Arizona-based public-interest legal group Alliance Defense Fund, which notes non-recognized groups are denied access to campus facilities and student funding.

“Christian student groups shouldn’t be treated differently from other student organizations,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David French, who issued the warning to school officials in a letter.

“The University of Wisconsin has decided to force campus student organizations to violate their core beliefs, even in the face of controlling federal case law that bars them from doing so,” French said.

The lawyer charged the school is engaging in a double standard, marginalizing Christian speech while enthusiastically claiming the First Amendment protects professors such as Kevin Barrett, who claims the government staged the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Even worse, French declares, the university appears willing to “defy binding court decisions for the sake of excluding Christians.”

In his letter to university officials, French cited the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in which the court reinstated the official recognized status of the student Christian Legal Society chapter at the Southern Illinois University School of Law.

The University of Wisconsin, French points out, is in the same federal circuit as Southern Illinois University.

As WorldNetDaily reported, officials at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco rejected the Christian Legal Society student chapter two years ago because they believed the group’s requirement that officers and voting members subscribe to the group’s Christian beliefs constituted “discrimination” in violation of school policy.

The student group is appealing a decision in April by a California district court which ruled the college had not violated its constitutional rights.

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New Virtual Source Defends Christian Student Rights (Christian Post, 060904)

Georgia Tech proscribes what is appropriate speech in various speech codes on campus, limiting students from expressing views that may seem “intolerant,” according to the Alliance Defense Fund.

The University of Mary Washington denies recognition to any student group that is religious or political in nature.

And Georgetown University now bans evangelical Christian ministries and other outside religious groups from its campus.

Amid the escalating attacks on religious freedom, Christian students are now being backed with an online source to help defend their rights on college campuses.

The Alliance Defense Fund recently launched a virtual ministry called the Center for Academic Freedom to provide Christian college students an understanding of their constitutional rights and to ensure that “faith has a voice.”

“America’s colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights as all other students,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David French, director of the Center for Academic Freedom, in a released statement. “Unfortunately, Christians are increasingly being treated like second-class citizens unless they bow at the altar of political correctness that exists at many of our nation’s public university campuses.”

The new website, centerforacademicfreedom.org, features statements on students’ rights, an explanation of current cases ADF is involved in, and an opportunity for discussion and submission of individual requests for defense.

The Christian legal firm newly picked up a case involving Georgetown University, which had banned six evangelical campus ministry organizations from campus. While the renowned Catholic school had been open to various religious groups, the university’s Protestant chaplaincy said that Georgetown now wants to focus its ministry efforts through the school rather than through outside groups, according to Agape Press. Outside ministries, including InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, were thus banned from holding on-campus events and associating themselves with the Georgetown name.

“They do have legal obligations to honor their contracts with their students and to keep their promises,” said ADF’s French who is representing the evangelical ministries. “And if they promise students and parents when they apply that Georgetown is going to be open to a wide variety of faiths and different religious points of view, then they need to keep that promise.”

And the attacks on more conservative religious students and groups is not unique to Georgetown, French pointed out.

“Our desire is to defend Christian students from having their religious expression marginalized by university officials, but we also desire to educate those officials so that they understand what the Constitution really says about the free religious expression rights of students. We do not oppose universities themselves; we simply oppose unconstitutional policies and treatment,” he added. “This new website will provide students and officials with the information they need, as well as offer support to those students and ministries experiencing difficulties exercising their constitutional rights on campus.”

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University Drops Effort to Restrict Christian Fraternity (Christian Post, 061229)

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - The University of Missouri-Columbia has dropped its opposition to a Christian fraternity that restricts membership to students who “share the common bond” of Jesus Christ.

The university’s decision regarding Beta Upsilon Chi - its Greek letters stand for Brothers Under Christ - follows a similar decision by the University of Georgia earlier this month to exempt the fraternity from campus nondiscrimination policies.

The fraternity, which began two decades ago at the University of Texas in Austin, had filed a civil rights lawsuit against the University of Georgia in an Athens, Ga., federal court.

“The threatened exclusion of a faith-based fraternity at the University of Missouri makes no sense,” said Timothy Tracey, a lawyer with the Christian Legal Society, one of two legal advocacy groups to represent the Missouri and Georgia students in their disputes. “Religious student groups like Beta Upsilon Chi contribute to the health and diversity of campus life and should be encouraged, not discouraged.”

The 10-member Missouri chapter was formed in April and previously approved by campus leaders, Tracey said. But on Dec. 7, an administrator advised the chapter’s president by e-mail that the fraternity must comply with campus rules forbidding discrimination based on “race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability” and status as a Vietnam War veteran.

The university reversed course after Tracey responded with a letter noting several legal precedents protecting religious student groups’ First Amendment rights of free association.

In response, a university attorney acknowledged that the campus nondiscrimination policy “shall not be interpreted in such a way as to violate the legal rights of religious organizations.”

Nick Evans, the university’s coordinator of student organizations, said his department wasn’t initially aware of that exemption. “At the time, we were unaware of that clause,” he said. “That’s why we pressed the issue.”

Christian fraternities and sororities have blossomed on U.S. campuses since Beta Upsilon Chi’s formation in 1985.

Among the groups: Sigma Phi Lambda sorority, or Sisters for the Lord; and Kappa Upsilon Chi fraternity, or Keeping Under Christ. Eleven of the 18 Beta Upsilon Chi chapters are at Texas schools.

While modern Greek groups on campus are largely defined by their parties and charity fundraisers, many were established with a strong foundation of Christian fellowship, said Tracey.

“A lot of fraternities had a religious basis,” he said. “The Greek system was originally established to promote Christian virtues such as charity and service.”

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Let Freedom Ring! (070108)

By Chuck Colson

Religious Freedom Day 2007

In too many cases, Christian children in public school classrooms are being forced to act like atheists. After all, that is effectively what is happening when they are told not to talk about Jesus, not to sing about Jesus, and not to write about Jesus.

A very small but vocal minority pound away at teachers and school officials, intimidating them into thinking that the public school must be a “religion-free zone.” Their attacks have resulted in the religious aspects of even Christmas being banned, Christian students being silenced, and teachers being censored. A climate of fear about religion surrounds too many schools.

But you and I have a great opportunity to stop this discrimination against our children who want to express their faith at school. January 16 is Religious Freedom Day, and President Bush’s special proclamation will ask schools to commemorate the day.

While many public schools are denying students’ rights to freely express their faith, the U.S. Department of Education has issued guidelines that clearly list and explain those rights. For example, students have the legal right to express their faith in their assignments; they can witness to their classmates; they can read their Bibles at school; and they can pray. But many teachers have never seen these guidelines and believe they cannot allow these or any other religious expressions in their classrooms.

It’s fitting that Religious Freedom Day comes on January 16, the day after we commemorate Martin Luther King’s birthday. After all, King’s religious faith was the foundation of his fight for civil rights. And it was religious freedom in America that allowed him to express his faith against a dreadful evil and move the entire nation.

While many people will commemorate Martin Luther King Day, few even know about Religious Freedom Day. That’s why an organization called Gateways to Better Education is leading a national campaign to raise awareness about Religious Freedom Day. Gateways helps public schools teach Judeo-Christian history, thought, and values. It has also developed a website, ReligiousFreedomDay.com, to provide you everything you need to commemorate the day in your church, your home, and your school.

Other organizations have now joined with Gateways to bring greater awareness to Religious Freedom Day. These include the Beckett Fund, which is a great religious liberties firm defending us in our case with the IFI, the Association of American Educators, the Institute for Religion and Democracy, and the Council for America’s First Freedom, headed by Ambassador Robert Seiple.

You can help promote religious freedom in our schools. Why don’t you educate your children’s teachers about the Department of Education’s guidelines? Or ask them to spend a few minutes to talk with their students about their religious freedom, or to discuss with them the president’s proclamation? And in your church next Sunday, why not distribute information on students’ religious liberties to the Sunday school classes and youth groups? The law is on our side.

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The Scary Logic of Peter Singer (Mohler, 070126)

Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University, is one of the most controversial academics in the world — and deservedly so. His views on human dignity, infanticide, and animal rights are some of the most radical to be found.

In an opinion column published in today’s edition of The New York Times, singer addresses the case of a severely disabled girl known only as Ashley. Ashley has been described by her devoted parents as a “pillow baby.” She is unable to communicate, to walk, or even to change her position in bed. Even her parents are not sure that she recognizes them. Her mental age has been estimated at three months, even though she is now nine years old.

In an effort to keep her size manageable and to prevent puberty, doctors recently removed her reproductive organs and are treating her with hormones to prevent further growth. These treatments have raised a host of complex ethical issues. Nevertheless, in raising the case of Ashley, Peter Singer is not primarily concerned with those questions of bioethics — he wants to deny her human dignity.

For many years, Singer has argued that membership in the human species should not imply any particular set of rights. He denies that all members of the human species should be recognized as possessing human dignity. He has pushed this argument to the point that he suggests that some animals should possess more rights and be recognized with greater dignity than some humans.

He is an advocate of primate rights and animal rights. He suggests that a pig with its limited pig consciousness may possess greater claim on rights — including a right to live — than an unconscious human being. He has argued that human infants, lacking the ability to communicate or to envision their own future, do not possess any non-negotiable right to life. Therefore, he has argued that infanticide in some cases may be fully appropriate.

In his column published today, “A Convenient Truth,” Singer argues that the moral considerations of what is right for Ashley should not be based on the assumption that she possesses human dignity:

Here’s where things get philosophically interesting. We are always ready to find dignity in human beings, including those whose mental age will never exceed that of an infant, but we don’t attribute dignity to dogs or cats, though they clearly operate at a more advanced mental level than human infants. Just making that comparison provokes outrage in some quarters. But why should dignity always go together with species membership, no matter what the characteristics of the individual may be?

Here is how I summarized Singer’s position in an earlier article:

Consider this chilling statement: “If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant.”

Singer’s point is clear—a dog that is able to communicate in a rudimentary way is superior to a human infant who lacks an equal ability to communicate.

In his book Practical Ethics, Singer argues, “The fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings.”

Ponder that statement carefully, for it is a manifesto for killing human infants. Furthermore, Singer presses his case to make clear that he is not limiting his argument to the killing of infants who lack the potential to develop such qualities. “This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings,” Singer clarifies. As in his argument for abortion, Singer asserts “that the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics.”

This is precisely where the Christian worldview runs into direct and inescapable collision with the postmodern worldview of Peter Singer. In Singer’s world, “defective” infants would have no inherent right to live, but a primate might. As his words make clear, this argument is not actually limited even to “defective” infants but to all infants at early stages of life and development.

Christians believe that every single human being possesses full human dignity because every human being is made in the image of God. A worldview that denies the existence of God and thus denies the reality of the image of God has to come up with some other explanation for human dignity — one that lacks essential dignity. Thus, in this worldview, the humans that are thought to deserve dignity are recognized as having it, while others are denied the same.

It is not as though we have not seen this logic at work before. Just think of any effort to divide human beings between those who deserve to live and those who do not. Remember the Third Reich?

This is the stuff of nightmares. What does it say that Peter Singer teaches bioethics at Princeton University and that his column was published in today’s edition of The New York Times. Someone out there thinks that Peter Singer’s ideas should be the shape of our future. Nightmare anyone?

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When can clerks refuse to serve, citing religion? (Washington Times, 070329)

By Jen Haberkorn

Can a cashier or clerk wish a customer “Merry Christmas”?

Must a pharmacist dispense birth control devices if his faith forbids it?

Can a Muslim clerk refuse to touch a whisky or beer bottle, or a pork chop?

Disputes between retailers and employees over religious beliefs in the United States can be traced back to the Puritans, who established laws that retail stores must not open on Sundays. Hundreds of years later, retailers are still dealing with how to address an employee’s religious practices.

Religious discrimination complaints to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have been rising over the past 10 years. Last year, the EEOC received 2,541 complaints, up 48% from 1,709 in 1997.

The commission has found that about 60% of the cases have “no reasonable cause” and about 4% to 10% do have a reasonable cause.

In Minnesota, Target has been the subject of scrutiny since a Minneapolis Star Tribune reported earlier this month that some Muslim supermarket cashiers ask non-Muslim co-workers or customers to scan pork products for them. They’re following a strict interpretation of the Koran, which forbids touching pork products.

Unlike the Puritans, today’s workers are armed with Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits religious discrimination in the workplace. Under it, employers are required to make “reasonable accommodations” for an employee’s religious beliefs. “Reasonable” is defined as something that doesn’t create “undue hardship” on the employer or co-workers.

The law leaves room for interpretation. When an accusation of religious discrimination is filed against a company, it often becomes news.

“The wording of Title VII is pretty broad. It’s up to the courts to decide in many of these issues,” says Matthew McReynolds, a staff attorney at Pacific Justice Institute, a Sacramento, Calif., legal-assistance group that represents individuals in civil liberties cases, including religious discrimination issues.

Other recent incidents, which haven’t all led to lawsuits, include:

• Former employee Alicia Hedum sued Starbucks earlier this year, saying she was scrutinized and fired for wearing a Wiccan cross. She says co-workers in the Oregon coffee shop were allowed to wear Christian crosses. Starbucks, in court filings, denied the claim.

• A Christian woman in California says her religious beliefs prevented her from using alcoholic beverages so she couldn’t handle alcohol in a Rite-Aid warehouse. The case was settled by the woman with the help of Pacific Justice Institute. Mr. McReynolds, of Pacific Justice Institute, says he couldn’t discuss the settlement because there’s a strict confidentiality clause.

• Drugstore chains such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid and recently, Kroger, have had to clarify company policy on dispensing contraceptives after newspapers reported that some pharmacists refused to fill the prescriptions because of religious or moral principles.

• In 2005, Wal-Mart instructed employees to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” prompting boycotts from Christian groups. Last year, Wal-Mart reversed its decision.

• Kimberly M. Cloutier sued her employer, Costco, saying the company wrongly fired her for refusing to remove a facial piercing. She said she was protected as a member of the Church of Body Modification, which cites “spirituality” in altering the body. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upheld a lower court’s ruling for Costco in 2005.

• In Minneapolis, the airport authority is considering tightening restrictions on taxi drivers who refuse to take passengers carrying liquor, wine and beer. Taxi drivers who serve the airport, roughly three-quarters of whom are Muslim, say “facilitating” alcohol use is against their religious beliefs. Drivers refuse to take about 100 passengers each month at the airport, many for carrying alcohol. The Metropolitan Airports Commission plans to vote next month on suspending a taxi driver’s license for 30 days for refusing a passenger carrying alcohol and revoking the chauffeur’s license on the second occurrence, spokesman Patrick Hogan says.

The most common religion-related request to retailers is a day off for religious holidays, followed by requests to break dress code, says Dan Butler, vice president of merchandising and retail operations at the National Retail Federation, a Washington trade group.

“Retailers certainly want to accommodate legitimate religious beliefs,” Mr. Butler says. “But it’s also something that the employee should cover with managers — ideally during the interview process. If you don’t bring up an accommodation you may need, they may not be legally bound to accommodate it once you’re in the job.”

In the Minneapolis case, Target said Tuesday that religion is not an issue for most of its stores. “As we become aware of situations, we will address them on a case-by-case basis,” spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear says. Employees are given options including working in another position in the store or at another store.

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Hate Crimes, Thought Police, and Religious Freedom (Christian Post, 070509)

Richard Land

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (H.R. 1592), which passed in the House of Representatives in a veto-susceptible vote of 237-180, could well lead to serious infringements of our First Amendment freedom of speech protections in the United States. Such legislation has had a very chilling effect on free speech in Canada, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe.

The act would establish a new federal offense for so-called “hate crimes” and add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes, as well as mandate a separate federal criminal prosecution for state offenses for crimes motivated by “the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person.”

In essence, it would codify into federal law that certain types of people—homosexuals and “transgenders,” for example—deserve greater protection under the law than others.

It’s worth noting in this bill that discrimination on the basis of sex will become discrimination on the basis of “gender.” But that’s a whole different story.

We should not condone any act of violence against person or property—incidental or major—for any reason. There is no place for crimes of violence against homosexuals in America.

It is not new news that speech that leads to violent behavior can be penalized. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court said that the “constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press” prevent the state from forbidding speech unless it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

And it is not novel that one’s speech prior to the commission of a crime can be used to determine the intent behind the criminal act.

From Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993): “The First Amendment, moreover, does not prohibit the evidentiary use of speech to establish the elements of a crime or to prove motive or intent. Evidence of a defendant’s previous declarations or statements is commonly admitted in criminal trials subject to evidentiary rules dealing with relevancy, reliability, and the like.”

What is new with this bill is that is seems to draw a very dubious and dangerous line from the innocent free expression of religious beliefs to an act of violence against someone from a protected class.

Mike Pence, congressman from Indiana, said the legislation threatens to criminalize religious speech. Pence was rebuffed in his efforts to tighten the section of the bill that says “any expressive conduct” secured by the First Amendment would remain protected under this bill.

Pence’s amendment stated, “Nothing in this section limits the religious freedom of any person or group under the Constitution.”

Also, attempts to amend the bill to include policemen, members of the military, and pregnant women as a special class deserving protection under this act failed on party line votes.

It appears from the bill and from astonishing comments made during the April 25 Judiciary Committee hearing that a pastor who preaches against homosexuality could be charged with inciting a hate crime if one of his church members—sometime after hearing the pastor’s comments—commits a crime against a homosexual person.

Mr. Louis Gohmert (R-TX): Even with your amendment, you still have to go back to the “rule of evidence” at page 15 of the underlying bill. And it says that these things may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial unless the evidence specifically relates to the offense. And if I understood the gentleman’s amendment—and I will put the question back to you—if a minister preaches that sexual relations outside of marriage of a man and woman is wrong, and somebody within that congregation goes out and does an act of violence, and that person says that that minister counseled or induced him through the sermon to commit that act, are you saying under your amendment that in no way could that ever be introduced against the minister?

Mr. Artur Davis (D-AL): No.

Chairman John Conyers (D-MI): The gentleman’s time has again expired.

Mr. Louis Gohmert (R-TX): And he answered no before the time ran out.

[Emphasis supplied.] [Source, .PDF.]

In addition to being a speech issue, it is also a federalism issue, in that H.R. 1592 would constitute a giant leap in the federalization of criminal law in the United States, which prior to this time has been left as much as possible to each respective state to administer, prosecute and adjudicate.

In United States v. Morrison (2000), the Supreme Court held that “the Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.”

Looking to the Fourteenth Amendment, the ruling went on to say: “Congress therefore may not regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on the conduct’s aggregate effect on interstate commerce.”

The court continued, there are “limitations on the manner in which Congress may attack discriminatory conduct;” further, “gender-motivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense, economic activity.”

There is no question that all violent crimes should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of the motivation—real or imagined—of the perpetrators that commit the crimes and regardless of the identity of the victims.

Yet a law won’t purge hate from the national conscience; only Christ can do that.

The greatest commandment, Jesus said, was that we should, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40).

It is worth noting Jesus doesn’t describe our neighbor. He didn’t say he or she had to meet certain behavioral or moral guidelines, only that all our neighbors need to know God’s love as much as we do.

We should all strive for a just society that treats all victims as equally valuable and innocent in the law and perpetrators as equally culpable.

In the meantime, I’m grateful the President has indicated he will veto this Orwellian bill if it reaches his desk.

____________________________________________________________

Dr. Richard Land is president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns, with particular attention to their impact on American families and their faith.

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Poll: Most Americans, Protestants Favor Hate Crimes Expansion (Christian Post, 070518)

[KH: how half-truths win out]

WASHINGTON - The majority of the American public, including Protestants, favors the expansion of the hate crimes bill to include violent attacks against gays and people targeted because of gender, a new poll found.

Just a week after faith-based groups denounced the House vote approving the legislation, the Gallup Poll revealed 68% of Americans are for the expansion while only 27% oppose it. Moreover, 65% of Protestant and other non-Catholic Christians said they would favor it.

Under current federal law, hate crimes apply to acts of violence against individuals on the basis of race, religion, color, or national original. H.R. 1592, the legislation currently being reviewed by the Senate, would add gender, sexual orientation and gender identity to the hate crimes law.

Highly religious Americans were less likely to favor expanding the federal hate crime laws than those who seldom attend church. Still, 64% of those who attend church weekly expressed that they favor the bill. Among the less religious, 67% of those who attend church almost every week or monthly support the expansion and 73% of Americans who seldom or never attend church also favor it.

A larger gap was seen between conservatives and liberals with 57% of the former group expressing favor and 82 of the latter showing support.

Nevertheless, no group identifiable in Gallup’s standard categories – including the Republicans, Independents, Democrats, conservatives, moderates, liberals, Protestant and those with no religious identity – expressed less than majority support for the legislation that some Christians fear could strip away their right to express a biblical view on homosexuality, according to the poll report.

The May 10-13 poll was conducted a week after the House passed the bill and days before Repent America – a Philadelphia-based evangelistic organization that is an outspoken critic of homosexuality, abortion and evolution – organized the “National Hate Crimes Petition Day” on Tuesday, urging Christians to protest the legislation through phone calls, e-mail and faxes to members of the U.S. Senate.

Conservative Christian leaders say expanding the Hate Crimes Act could silence believers who view homosexuality as sinful.

“The Hate Crimes Act will be the first step to criminalize our rights as Christians to believe that some behaviors are sinful. Pastors preaching from Scripture on homosexuality could be threatened with persecution and prosecution,” said Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson.

Repent America director Michael Marcavage stated, “We must not remain silent as our liberty to freely speak the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being threatened by those who are framing mischief by a law.”

The recent Gallup Poll results, conducted on 1,003 national adults aged 18 and older, may lead those opposed to the legislation to argue that many Americans are not aware of the implications of the law, the survey group acknowledged.

However, “the challenge for opponents is that the fundamental idea of the new law seems acceptable to every identifiable subgroup of the Americans population,” stated the Gallup report.

“More conservative and religious subgroups of the population may be amenable to arguments about the hidden or unanticipated consequences of the legislation if presented to them through targeted media in the weeks to come, but convincing them of these facts would appear to be an uphill battle.”

As the Senate reviews the bill this week along with the U.S. Senate version S. 1105, Christian organizations have continued to voice opposition to the expansion. A spokeswoman for Focus on the Family argued that all violent crime is tied to hate in some way.

“The Virginia Tech shooter said in his diatribe that he hated rich kids. Well, rich kids aren’t protected in this hate crime bill,” Carrie Gordon Earll told the Baltimore Sun. “If we’re going to start choosing categories of people for additional penalties when they’re victimized, where does the list end?”

“[A] homosexual would have more federal protection under the law than the 32 victims of [the Virginia Tech] massacre,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Meanwhile, the White House, which argues that H.R. 1592 is unnecessary and constitutionally questionable, has threatened a veto.

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Survey: Most Americans Say Founders Intended Christian Nation (Christian Post, 070913)

A majority of Americans believe the nation’s founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation, a new national survey revealed.

In the First Amendment Center’s annual survey measuring attitudes toward freedom of religion, speech and press, 55% of Americans said they believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. Furthermore, three out of four people who identify themselves as evangelical or Republican agree while about half of Democrats and independents do.

Compared to previous years, more Americans were found to support Christian activities in public schools. Most respondents (58%) say teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead prayers, up from 52% in 2005. Moreover, 43% say public schools should be allowed to put on Nativity re-enactments with Christian music while only 36% said so in 2005, according to the survey released Wednesday and titled “State of the First Amendment 2007.”

Only 50%, however, said they would allow schools to teach the Bible as a factual text in history class, down from 56% in 2000.

“While the survey shows Americans highly value religious freedom, a significant number support privileging the religion of the majority, especially in public schools,” said First Amendment Center senior scholar Charles Haynes.

Amid concerns from conservative Christians about the secularism of public schools, bestselling author Stephen Prothero, who wrote Religious Literacy, has expressed support for teaching the Bible in schools, saying that it plays a major part in the nation’s culture and politics.

“The strong support for official recognition of the majority faith appears to be grounded in a belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, in spite of the fact that the Constitution nowhere mentions God or Christianity,” Haynes argued in the survey report. “Of course, people define ‘Christian nation’ in various ways – ranging from a nation that reflects Christian values to a nation where the government favors the Christian faith.”

In April, some 4,000 Christians, ranging from evangelicals to Pentecostals and mainline groups, assembled in Virginia Beach, Va., on the 400th anniversary of the first landing of English settlers in America to rededicate the nation to Christ. Christians nationwide believe the nation was founded on Christian roots and pray to revive the land from what they see as moral decay.

Nevertheless, the latest poll doesn’t mean a majority favors a “theocracy,” said Rick Green of WallBuilders, an advocacy group that believes the nation was built on Christian principles, according to USA Today. Rather, the poll shows that most believe the Constitution reflects Christian values, including religious freedom.

“I would call it a Christian document, just like the Declaration of Independence,” he says.

Nearly all Americans (97%) say the right to practice one’s own religion is “essential” or “important.” The right to “speak freely about whatever you want” and the right to “assemble, march, protest or petition the government” are also highly valued by 98% and 94% of Americans, respectively.

In other findings, 56% believe that the freedom to worship as one chooses extends to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme, down from 72% in 2000. Twenty-five percent say “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees,” a rebound from the 49% recorded the year after 9/11, but up from 18% in 2006.

Also, 74% would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others; 34% think the press “has too much freedom” – the lowest since the survey was first conducted in 1997; and 64% could name freedom of speech as one of the five freedoms included in the First Amendment while only 19% was able to name religion.

The 2007 survey of 1,003 respondents was conducted by telephone between Aug. 16 and Aug. 26 by New England Survey Research Associates.

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Freedom is lost one bit at a time (townhall.com, 070918)

By David Strom

Imagine this: in 1776, the Founders of our country concluded that the most important means of communication—at that time the printing press—was so vital to the economic and political development of America that they decided to issue, along with the Declaration of Independence, a national office of printing presses that would supplant the existing free presses of the day.

Any free rational individual at the time would have risen up in opposition, justifiably accusing the founders of hypocrisy, and of setting up the conditions of tyranny by using a government-subsidized press to squeeze out the free and open media of the day. The revolutionaries would have first turned on their leaders, before taking on the British Redcoats.

Well, what was impossible then is becoming increasingly the reality today.

Not possible, you say, in America? Think again.

Municipalities across the country are setting up municipal wireless, cable, internet, and telephone systems to directly compete with those operating in the free market today. Already most cities “franchise” cable companies to provide exclusive cable access to homes within their jurisdictions, and were it not for off-air and satellite companies there would be no competition for your cable TV already. And in exchange for those franchises, municipalities routinely demand concessions such as cable-access channels, broadcast of municipal TV shows, and even sometimes outright bribes such as upgrading city streetscapes or other such nonsense.

In short, governments already have too much control over the means of communication.

The new trend, though, is to get into the business of communications services themselves. Several cities have set up municipal wireless systems—which have been largely huge financial failures—and now some are getting into the “fiber optic to the home” business.

These government-run, government-owned, or even government-licensed services are not just financially stupid, but in fact a direct threat to our liberties. Just as government-owned, government-subsidized, or government chartered newspapers would have appalled our founding fathers, the idea of giving over control to the government the most important means of communication in present-day America—telephones and internet access especially—should be repugnant to all who cherish liberty.

Imagine your email residing on government-controlled servers. Your purchase records, your phone records, your television watching habits—in fact, pretty much the most private and intimate information about you—being held directly in the hands of your local government officials.

That is what is being proposed, whatever the advocates of “reduced price” (government subsidized) telephone, television, and internet access say they want to provide. In exchange for a bribe (using YOUR tax dollars), they will soon be asking you to surrender your privacy and eventually your liberty to their tender mercies.

Does anyone really believe that these systems could possibly remain private in such a situation?

In today’s competitive marketplace, communications providers have an enormous incentive to protect your privacy. If they don’t, you have options. Cable competes against DSL, Satellite competes with both, and as the economics change to a more favorable environment perhaps wireless providers will move into the market as it matures and promises profitability.

A government-run system, though, has the ability to dip into tax dollars to hide the actual cost to consumers. You will wind up paying for the system in your property or income taxes, but the subsidized rate will make private providers poor competitors with the developing government monopoly. They will become bit players—or perhaps cut a deal with the government just to maintain their businesses.

In many ways this seemingly benign trend—to “move municipal infrastructure into the 21st Century” some would say—could turn out to be one of the greatest threats to our liberty in our times.

Liberty is rarely lost in one fell swoop. It erodes little by little, bit by bit, as we cede control of ever increasing parts of our lives to government control and regulation. This trend, however benign it appears to most observers, is perhaps the greatest long-term threat to our liberty today. Controlling the communications high-ground—bandwidth to consumers—should never be put into the hands of government officials, or any monopoly for that matter.

Government officials are asking you to make a false and dangerous trade: supposedly “lower” prices (actually subsidized by your tax dollars) in exchange for your very freedom. It’s a fool’s bargain.

Only the free market—which will directly respond to consumers’ desire for privacy, offers any hope at all for keeping the communications market both free and private. Consumers will flee service providers who won’t maintain their privacy—that is, unless they no longer have the option when government controls the market.

So when your city or county suggests to you that they get into the communications business—to save you money, of course—you should give them one answer and one answer only: hell no!

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U.S. Report Applauds Religious Freedom Improvements (Christian Post, 070920)

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of State’s 2007 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom turned a few heads this past week by recognizing improvements – from significant to some – in certain countries in an otherwise long and typical list of religious freedom offenders.

The communist Southeast Asian country of Vietnam was highly praised by the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, John V. Hanford III, for not only showing improvements but going beyond what was expected of the government.

Vietnam, a former country of particular concern, was reported to have improved religious conditions by allowing many places of worship to register, easing restrictions and reducing harsher forms of suppression.

Hanford went as far as saying that the most significant new development in this year’s report was the positive progress found in Vietnam.

The religious freedom ambassador noted that the Vietnamese government released the last prisoner on the U.S. negotiation list last September. Moreover, Vietnam has banned the practice of forced renunciations of faith and reopened nearly all places of worship which previously had been forcibly closed.

“They’ve gone beyond that. They’ve allowed for a new Catholic seminary, a new Protestant institute – training institute to be set up,” said Hanford. “They’ve registered whole new religions that weren’t even legal before.”

However, the religious freedom official recognized that the Vietnamese government still had much room for improvement. The communist government still bans certain religious groups while some religious leaders are under house arrest. Yet Hanford was quick to comment that he believes most of these religious leaders were under arrest for political rather religious reasons.

Last year, Vietnam was taken off of the U.S. list for the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

Saudi Arabia was also said to show some progress in religious tolerance, though not as significant as Vietnam. The Sunni Muslim-dominated country is accused of promoting religious intolerance worldwide through its religious textbooks. Hanford said, however, that the Saudi government has made efforts to curb distribution of these religious literatures.

“We do see progress, but it’s clear that there are still some intolerant references that remain,” commented Hanford, who credited King Abdullah for “very publicly” calling for tolerance.

“He (King Abdullah)’s moving to create a more tolerant society that allows people of minority faiths to practice more freely,” said the ambassador.

On the other hand, North Korea was described as the “worst violator of religious freedom in the world.” Though Hanford could not provide an accurate number of religious prisoners in North Korea, he said reports from defectors and sources in South Korea indicate severe suppression of religious practice.

Meanwhile, its communist neighbor China was criticized for its treatment of religious minorities including persecution of Christians who worship in unregistered house churches.

Hanford said the State Department was especially concerned with China this summer as “it appears that the government has been moving to crack down on religious groups to a certain extent and this has involved even the denying of visas or the expulsion of some Americans who are – who have been accused of practicing illegal religious activity there.

“The fear of many is that the government is wanting these westerners out of the country; that their goal is to crack down on any chance that there might be protest in the run-up to the Olympics,” he added. “And our hope is that the government will take the opportunity of the Olympics and of the worldwide spotlight that will be shown to respect religious citizens and their practice rather than to repress it.”

The 2007 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom covered 198 countries and was released on Sept. 14 in Washington, D.C.

In her remarks Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said “the United States will continue working to promote religious freedom, to nurture tolerance and to build a more peaceful world for people of all faiths.” This, she claimed, would be done through “our bilateral relationships, our work in international forums, and our many ongoing discussions on this issue with people across the globe.”

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Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn’t literal (Foxnews, 070924)

The community college instructor says the school sided with students offended by his explanation of Adam and Eve.

A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.

Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday.

“I’m just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master’s degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job,” Bitterman said.

Sarah Smith, director of the school’s Red Oak campus, declined to comment Friday on Bitterman’s employment status. The school’s president, Barbara Crittenden, said Bitterman taught one course at Southwest. She would not comment, however, on his claim that he was fired over the Bible reference, saying it was a personnel issue.

“I can assure you that the college understands our employees’ free-speech rights,” she said. “There was no action taken that violated the First Amendment.”

Bitterman, who taught part time at Southwestern and Omaha’s Metropolitan Community College, said he uses the Old Testament in his western civilization course and always teaches it from an academic standpoint.

Bitterman’s Tuesday course was telecast to students in Osceola over the Iowa Communications Network. A few students in the Osceola classroom, he said, thought the lesson was “denigrating their religion.”

“I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn’t given any more credibility than any other god,” Bitterman said. “I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there.”

Bitterman said he called the story of Adam and Eve a “fairy tale” in a conversation with a student after the class and was told the students had threatened to see an attorney. He declined to identify any of the students in the class.

“I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here,” he said. “From my point of view, what they’re doing is essentially teaching their students very well to function in the eighth century.”

Hector Avalos, an atheist religion professor at Iowa State University, said Bitterman’s free-speech rights were violated if he was fired simply because he took an academic approach to a Bible story.

“I don’t know the circumstances, but if he’s teaching something about the Bible and says it is a myth, he shouldn’t be fired for that because most academic scholars do believe this is a myth, the story of Adam and Eve,” Avalos said.

“So it’d be no different than saying the world was not created in six days in science class.

“You don’t fire professors for giving you a scientific answer.”

Bitterman said Linda Wild, vice president of academic affairs at Southwest, fired him over the telephone.

Wild did not return telephone or e-mail messages Friday. Bitterman said that he can think of no other reason college officials would fire him and that Smith, the director of the campus, has previously sat in on his classes and complimented his work.

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Why Islamic Fascists Get Away With Hate Speech (townhall.com, 071022)

By Mike S. Adams

When, in class one day, a student said that “hate speech” was not free speech, I asked him the following: “Can you even define hate speech?” After a long silence, I assured him that I, too, was unable to define hate speech. But, since then, I think I have come up with a suitable definition that helps me understand both the failure of speech codes and the success of Islamic terrorism.

My new understanding of hate speech comes from a recent speech given by my boss Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo. As usual, Rosemary was trying to do damage control as a result of her most recent administrative blunder. The current controversy intensified when the President of the Faculty Senate fired off a couple of nasty emails to the Provost copying the entire faculty in the process. The angry missives correctly criticized the upper administration for making major decisions affecting the faculty without properly consulting them through the Faculty Senate.

At our next university-wide faculty meeting, the Chancellor addressed the controversy without any reference to the substance of the charges against her administration. Instead, she responded to the criticism by talking about the need to maintain “civility” and a “collegial environment,” which, she said, could not be appreciated fully until it was lost. Many, including myself, thought that a lecture by our chancellor on the topic of civility carried as much weight as a lecture by Al Gore, Jr. on the topic of obesity – or perhaps a lecture on good puns by Mike Adams.

Everything was put in proper perspective when a liberal sociologist properly characterized references to “civility” in higher education as intentional efforts to avoid substantive discussions. In other words, he seemed to be generalizing beyond DePaolo to all of those who play the “civility card.” I resisted the temptation to talk about sociologists who play the racism card and feminists who play the sexism card.

But I recognized immediately the connection between the sociologist’s observation and the campus speech code movement, which seeks to ban “hate speech.” And, after letting his words sink in, I formed this new definition of hate speech:

Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener’s inability to offer an intelligent response.

Because this inability to offer an intelligent response is due to one of two reasons, there are really two different types of hate speech: 1) Speech that is too dumb to merit an intelligent response, and 2) Speech for which the listener is too dumb to offer an intelligent response.

Instances of the former are numerous in the society-at-large. For example, when a member of the KKK says “I may not be much, but at least I’m not a nigger” there is really no way to respond intelligently. Nor is there much hope that any response will be understood and appreciated by someone ignorant enough to make such a remark. So the speech can be properly characterized as hate speech.

Instances of the latter are numerous in academia. For example, three years ago this week, I wrote a piece explaining how speech codes produce a form of reverse Darwinism. I argued that only those who are emotionally unfit are likely to become uncomfortable simply by hearing a contrary point of view. I argued further that they are indeed quite emotionally unfit if they actually remain upset long enough to file a complaint aimed at enforcing a speech code.

Of course, after I wrote my piece a feminist started crying and went to the feminist (now former) chair who, in turn, gave me a lecture about civility. In other words, the feminists weren’t smart enough to address the substance of my remarks. Shocking, isn’t it?

Hence, I accurately predicted that the codes seek to weed out the speech of the emotionally stable majority - those who do not cry at work - through the vehicle of complaints filed by the emotionally unstable - those who cry at work but never file complaints directed towards the suppression of their own views.

The similarity between the two principal forms of hate speech is obvious:

They both induce anger in the listener, regardless of whether the speaker expressed his view with any feeling of hatred or animosity.

And this leads to an understanding (see bold sentence below) of the apparent hypocrisy of gays and feminists who (a) cry “hate speech” (while actually crying in some cases) against conservatives who do not wish to kill gays and feminists, and (b) tolerate “hate speech” by Islamic fascists who really do wish to kill gays and feminists.

Islamic advocacy of violence is not classified as “hate speech” because it induces fear, not anger.

This, of course, explains the failure of speech codes (and probably multi-culturalism in general). Since the enforcement of the codes relies largely on the emotional reaction of the listener rather than the content of the speech, the codes create insurmountable problems within both the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

And, of course, it explains the success of Islamic terrorism. It is indeed a strategy that induces fear in an effort to destroy the proper function of the First Amendment through threats and intimidation too serious to simply ignore.

But, of course, this is not as it should be. And I intend to offer a solution to the problem when I speak during Islamic Fascism Awareness Week. Like true First Amendment terrorists, some Muslims are trying to prevent the week’s events from happening. But the true American patriots who outnumber them will not be deterred. They simply will not provide the fear necessary for the survival of their tyranny and the destruction of our precious liberty.

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Christianity ‘banished’ from Canadian public life: Influential U.S. Priest (National Post, 070929)

Father Richard Neuhaus, the Catholic priest who edits the highly influential New York-based magazine First Things, which covers religion, culture and public life, recently returned from his annual summer vacation in the Ottawa Valley.

After five decades in the United States he has become thoroughly American, but still feels enough of an attachment to his native land to take his rest here and worry about the state of our soul. “It is true to say that, in most aspects of public life [in Canada], Christianity has been not only disestablished but also banished,” he wrote in the “The Public Square,” the popular column he pens for the magazine.

In a recent phone interview, he linked that state of affairs to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He calls it paradoxical that there are so many anti-Americans here, yet the Charter “is a thoroughly American document” — and he does not mean it as a compliment. “It is riddled through and through with the radically individual notion of the unencumbered self and equality enforced by state power. It is a very American document and I think Canada has suffered from it grievously. All of Canada is a fascinating case study in terms of the meaning of modernity relative to religion generally and Christianity in particular. When I’m up there and I speak with clergy they seem very much in a state of defensiveness and a deep sense of malaise.”

First Things has no charts and photos, just words. Recent articles include “The Sacred Heart of Victor Hugo” and “Faith and Quantum Theory.” It is not uncommon to see full-page ads for the recruitment of monks or books on the Eucharist.

And then there is his column, which is usually the length of a short novella. It can run up to 16 pages and cover nearly a dozen topics, but it is easily the most accessible part of the magazine.

He calls First Things “emphatically ecumenical with a particular focus on Christian-Jewish relations.”

Two years ago, Time magazine called him one of the tops 25 Evangelicals in the United States. It said the religious authority that President George W. Bush cites most often is “Father Richard.” The story also quoted a Bush administration official who said Fr. Neuhaus “does have a fair amount of under-the-radar influence on such policies as abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and the defence-of-marriage amendment.”

The fact that he takes no issue with the Vatican keeping its theologians in line would not be a surprise to anyone who has followed his public life, which has soared through the spectrum of U.S. politics and has crossed religious boundaries, too.

Born in Pembroke, Ont., the son of a Lutheran pastor, he himself trained in the United States for the ministry. In the 1960s, working from a poor parish in Brooklyn, he became active in the civil rights movement, in which he worked with Martin Luther King, and was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. Over time, he shifted political allegiances from the left to the right and in 1990 converted to Catholicism and became a priest after 30 years as a Protestant pastor.

He has known Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict the XVI, for more than 20 years and thinks he has the key to understand what motivates this Pope.

“[Pope Benedict] is not a political man. He’s not nearly as interested in questions of political philosophy and practice as John Paul II was. He is passionately for the integrity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the continuing criticism of liberation theology because it compromises the lordship of Christ — because it sets into competition a hope of salvation through human political effort that detracts from the radicality of the role of Christ as the one mediator between man and God. This is the one driving passion of Pope Benedict. If you understand that, then everything else falls into place.”

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Prayer warriors at ‘gay’ fest on trial: Police told Christians they had no speech rights in public park (WorldNetDaily, 080228)

A trial is scheduled to begin today in Elmira, N.Y., and lawyers for the defendants say it will be a test of whether the First Amendment affirmations of freedom of speech and freedom of religion still are valid in the United States.

“Choosing to exercise your First Amendment rights in a public place is not a crime,” Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund said. “The government has no right to arrest citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights in public.”

At issue is the arrest of several Christians at a “gay pride” event is Wisner Park in Elmira in 2007. Julian and Gloria Raven and several others entered the park to pray silently for the participants of the event celebrating homosexual behavior.

Officials with the ADF noted that the materials advertising the event said everyone was invited and it was open to the public. “The group did not draw a disorderly response from event participants,” the ADF said.

However, an Elmira police sergeant had told the group they were banned from the park. They were not allowed to “cross the street, enter the park, or share their religion with anyone in the park,” according to the ADF.

The group’s members later were arrested and accused of “disorderly conduct.”

“It seems oxymoronic to say that by walking silently in a public park, with heads bowed, these people somehow disturbed the peace,” Oster said. “From the sit-ins of the 1960s to today, courts have repeatedly ruled that the police cannot arrest those who peacefully express their message in public places.”

While the facts of the case make it seem relatively minor, the ADF said the issue is nothing less than the United States’ freedoms of speech and religion.

“If this violation of these Christians’ rights is allowed to stand, the First Amendment rights of all people of faith are in jeopardy,” the ADF said.

When the Christians were arrested, officials with Elmira justified their actions to WND.

Assistant Police Chief Mike Robertson told WND that the members were accused of a “combination” of allegations, including the “intent” to cause a public inconvenience, a “disturbance” of a meeting of persons and obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic.

He also said at the time that the accusations would include taking part in “any act that serves no legitimate purpose.”

Raven had told WND his group assembled to pray for three hours the night before Elmira’s “pride” festival in promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.

“We have a legal right to be at an event held in a public square. We’re not a hate group,” he said. “We’re Christians and we’re going to be there to pray.”

He said he contacted police, who told him he had no free speech rights in the public park.

“The female officer, she said, ‘You’re not going to cross the street. You’re not going to enter the park and you’re not going to share your religion with anybody in this park,’” he told WND.

“When she said that, for the first time in my life as a Christian, I felt now my freedom of speech is threatened or challenged,” he said. “I was being told I could not share my religion with anybody in that park.”

Raven said he told the officer “she was violating the Constitution that she had sworn to uphold, and she was very agitated and adamant, and couldn’t look me straight in the eye.”

Raven asked for the justification for such a threat and was not given a response.

He said his team of Christians then went into the park, and they were arrested within three or four minutes.

He said if the situation is left unchallenged, the city of Elmira will be in the position of being able to control the content of people’s messages in a lawful assembly – or even thoughts if they are nearby.

“We didn’t say boo to a goose, still we were arrested,” he said.

The local newspaper reported the arrests came just “moments” after Elmira Mayor John Tonello delivered a speech “celebrating diversity.”

And the actions prompted some immediate criticism from newspaper readers.

“I was appalled and disgusted by the gay stories strewn through the paper. What was even more disturbing was the way the city acted. Since when is it illegal to sit on the ground in a public park and recite Bible verses? Are they not protected by the same Constitution that allows gay people to have their gay pride event. These Bible thumpers had their constitutional right to free speech and assembly trampled on by the city. They should not have been arrested,” said Kevin Raznoff.

Robertson told WND the Christians “certainly” have a right to assemble, but not on public property when there’s an “organized” event there. Asked repeatedly about how the “disturbance” statute relates to First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, he did not answer.

“Obviously, they caused a disruption to an event that was taking place,” he said.

But Raven confirmed to WND the Christians did not approach a single person, did not speak to anyone and did not even make any audible statements until after they were arrested.

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Supremes to allow ‘Statue of Tyranny’? Group seeking Liberty alternative actually targeting Ten Commandments, critics say (WorldNetDaily, 080401)

The Supreme Court today announced it will review a case that could be used to install a “Statue of Tyranny” to oppose the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

“We’re delighted that the Supreme Court agreed to take this critical case – it’s exactly what we were hoping for,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah, in the dispute.

“The Supreme Court is faced with a dramatic opportunity: Preserve sound precedent involving the well-established distinction between government speech and private speech – or permit a twisted interpretation of the Constitution to create havoc in cities and localities across America,” Sekulow said. “The lower court decision – if left unchecked – would ultimately force local governments to remove long-standing and well-established patriotic, religious and historical displays.”

The interpretation under review by the Supreme Court was made by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

That court ruled in August against revisiting its original decision in a case involving the Utah cities of Pleasant Grove City and Duchesne City. A lower court had ordered the cities to allow monuments containing the “Seven Aphorisms” of an organization called Summum to be erected on public property. The alternative was for the cities to remove all monuments with other sayings, primarily the Ten Commandments, many of which were donated and erected decades ago.

“The lower court decision misses a key distinction between government speech and private speech,” Sekulow said. “The government has to be neutral toward private speech, but it does not have to be neutral in its own speech. The 10th Circuit confused this rule when it said private parties have a First Amendment right to put up the monuments of their choosing in a city park, unless the city takes away all other donated monuments.”

The ACLJ’s petition argued: “When private speakers have the right to use government property to speak, there is a speech forum. But when, as here, the donor cedes and the government accepts ownership and control of something from a private party, that ‘something’ is no longer private property. It becomes government property. And if it is a message-bearing ‘something,’ any communication thenceforth is government speech, not private speech.”

It continued: “Accepting a monument for permanent display as the government’s own property does not require accepting other monuments in the name of content- or viewpoint-neutrality. Nor does the government’s acceptance of a donated monument require that a government park be turned into a cluttered junkyard of monuments contributed by all comers.

“In short, accepting a Statue of Liberty does not compel a government to accept a Statue of Tyranny,” the petition said.

The concept of allowing anything as a monument is “scary,” Frank Manion, of the ACLJ, told WND earlier. “The Minutemen in Massachusetts? We need a Redcoat. A George Washington statue? Why not George the 3rd. A Holocaust memorial? How about a Hitler memorial?”

Summum lauds the principles of “psychokinesis, correspondence, vibration, opposition, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender,” and promotes mummification of both people and pets.

The ACLJ said the Ten Commandments monuments are the real targets of the legal actions, because in many circumstances, cities or other governments likely would order such monuments removed, rather than order acceptance of others.

The ACLJ, which has worked on the case with the Thomas More Law Center, contends that the Constitution “does not empower private parties to force permanent displays into a park, crowding out the available physical space and trumping the government’s own vision” for the parks.

“In the Duchesne case, even an attorney for Summum admitted to the federal district court that its position could lead to bizarre results. Summum’s attorneys told the court that if a city park is required to display monuments contributed by all comers, the city park may well end up looking like a cemetery with many, many monuments,” the ACLJ said.

Under Summum’s theology, adherents believe the first set of stone tablets Moses received on Mt. Sinai contained its seven aphorisms, “made by a divine being.”

“The first set of stone tablets was not inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Rather, they contained aphorisms of a Higher Law that held very profound and deep meanings,” the organization’s website says.

The group believes Moses “had been initiated into an understanding of the inner, esoteric source” of those aphorisms, but when he “observed the immature behavior and attitude of the Israelites” he realized they could not understand them too.

“So Moses destroyed the stone tables and revealed the aphorisms to a select few.”

The ACLJ warned earlier: “In 1886, the United States government accepted from the people of France a donation of a 151-foot tall colossal statue called “Liberty Enlightening the World. Since that time, the government has displayed this Statue of Liberty in a traditional public forum in New York Harbor.

“For years, demonstrators with messages to deliver have assembled, handed out literature and otherwise expressed themselves at the site subject to certain regulations of the time, place and manner of their expression. But it probably never occurred to any such demonstrators that they enjoyed a constitutional right to insist that the government allow them to erect their own 151-foot tall statue or monument setting forth an alternative message to that conveyed by Lady Liberty,” the law firm warned.

“Under the flawed private speech jurisprudence of the panel in this case – there exists no principled basis upon which the government could turn down for permanent display on Liberty Island a donation of a ‘Statue of Tyranny,’ or, perhaps, a new copper colossus bearing the message ‘Pay No Attention to the Lady With the Torch – the Golden Door is Now Closed,’” the legal briefs argued.

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Poorly rated nations get UN human rights seats (Paris, International Herald, 080522)

UNITED NATIONS, New York: Sri Lanka, which has been strongly criticized for its human rights record, lost its bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, but four other countries with poor rights records won seats - Pakistan, Bahrain, Gabon and Zambia.

In a close race for two Western seats on the UN’s human rights body, France on Wednesday received 123 votes and Britain 120 votes - barely defeating Spain, which got 119 votes.

The hotly contested election for 15 seats on the 47-member council, whose performance has also come under attack, was the subject of intense lobbying. Foreign Secretary David Milliband of Britain and Human Rights Minister Rama Yade of France were in New York on Tuesday seeking support.

Candidates for the Geneva-based council are chosen by regional groups, and the entire 192-member General Assembly votes by secret ballot for new members by region. In the election on Wednesday, Africa and Latin America had uncontested slates while Asia, Eastern Europe and the Western European groups had contested slates.

In the contest for four council seats from the Asian region, Japan, Bahrain, South Korea and Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka and East Timor. In the race for two seats in the Eastern European group, Slovakia and Ukraine defeated Serbia and the Czech Republic.

The four African candidates - Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana and Zambia - and the three Latin American candidates - Argentina, Brazil and Chile - all won easily since they had no formal opposition.

The New York-based Freedom House and the Geneva-based UN Watch, which monitors the world body’s performance based on its charter, evaluated the 20 candidates for the 15 council seats on their records of promoting human rights at home and at the United Nations.

Their report gave negative ratings to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Gabon and Zambia, and “questionable” ratings to three candidates with mixed human rights records - Brazil, East Timor and Burkina Faso.

It gave “qualified” ratings to Ghana, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Argentina, Chile, France, Spain and Britain.

The NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council specifically targeted Sri Lanka’s human rights record. On Monday, it got support from three Nobel Peace laureates: Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina, and the former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Each published statements urging UN members to vote against Sri Lanka.

In a commentary published by The Guardian in London, Tutu charged that “the systematic abuses by Sri Lankan government forces are among the most serious imaginable,” citing widespread torture and extrajudicial killings.

Lawrence Moss, special counsel to Human Rights Watch, said: “Sri Lanka’s defeat is a victory for the Human Rights Council.”

The Human Rights Council was created in March 2006 to replace the UN’s widely discredited and highly politicized Human Rights Commission, and one aim was to keep some of the worst human rights offenders out of its membership.

But the council has been widely criticized for failing to change many of the commission’s practices.

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What’s the Matter With Canada? (townhall.com, 080721)

by Chuck Colson

How is this for irony? Recent actions by Canadian human rights groups have observers alarmed for the state of human rights in Canada. That is because the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal do not give a fig about protecting human rights. Their mission is suppressing free speech.

Maclean’s magazine was hauled before these two “quasi-judicial” bodies when it published excerpts from Mark Steyn’s popular book America Alone. Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress charged that the content of these excerpts about the expansion of radical Islam “subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt.”

The Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint, but the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal got in on the act. It investigated the charges in what bloggers on the scene called a “kangaroo court,” and has yet to issue a ruling. But there is a greater cause for concern here: As the Calgary Herald pointed out, Maclean’s has the money to fight the charges—but not everyone does. The Herald gloomily predicted, “Let a citizen of modest means utter a politically incorrect thought: He will be crushed.”

That is what happened to the Reverend Stephen Boissoin. In a letter to the editor in the Red Deer Advocate, he protested the homosexual agenda, and was hauled off before the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The complaint—sound familiar?—was that Boissoin’s words were “likely to expose homosexuals to hatred or contempt because of their sexual orientation.”

The panel ordered “that Mr. Boissoin . . . shall cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or in the internet, in the future, any disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.” He was also ordered to apologize in writing for the article, and was fined.

As the Catholic Exchange reports, “In essence, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal is ordering . . . the minister to renounce his Christian faith, since his opposition to homosexuality is based upon the Judeo-Christian Bible.” The article went on to observe that a prominent Canadian priest, Father Alphonse de Valk, is now being investigated “for having publicly defended the Church’s traditional definition of marriage. Some of [his] allegedly hateful statements are quotations from the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

This is what Pope Benedict calls the “dictatorship of relativism.” In the name of tolerance—or of someone’s twisted idea of that concept—we have to protect everyone’s sensitivities. Nobody can say anything that might make someone feel like a victim of hatred and contempt. And thus we back into a soft despotism, which suppresses free speech and eradicates religious freedom.

Where is this going to end? Will it become a crime even to be a Christian in Canada? Will opposition to radical Islam be routinely punished? Here in America, we already know you can get in hot water for opposing gay marriage—like the Christian photographers who refused to take pictures at a lesbian civil ceremony, and ended up being fined by the New Mexico Human Rights Commission.

Make no mistake. If Canadians do not stand up for their religious and free speech rights, they will soon be gone. And so will ours. For what happens in the beautiful country to the north of us often affects our so-called “enlightened elites” in the United States.

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Int’l Policy Watchdogs Call U.N.’s ‘Defamation of Religions’ Dangerous (Christian Post, 090325)

Religious freedom and human rights groups are protesting a U.N. resolution on defamation of religions that could be used to justify anti-blasphemy laws and restrict freedom of expression, belief, and press.

Since last week, a letter has been circulating around the world among rights groups seeking the signature of those opposed to the resolution. Critics argue that the “combating defamation of religion” concept has no validity in international law.

The resolution, created by members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), explains the concept of defamation of religion in a way that could be manipulated to “silence and intimidate human rights activists, religious dissenters, and other independent voices,” the letter warned.

U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide signed the statement on Wednesday, which had already been signed by 186 other non-governmental organizations from more than 50 countries.

Among the first signers were Freedom House, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and U.N. Watch.

The resolution comes at a critical time for the United Nations, which is preparing for the upcoming “Durban Review Conference” in Geneva this April. The conference is a follow-up to the 2001 World Conference against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa.

There is concern that the Review Conference will be used to legitimize a “defamation of religion” agenda, supported by the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference.

“We are concerned that the motivation behind these annual resolutions on defamation of religion, and the aspiration to push this agenda at international conferences is not driven by a desire to protect religious believers,” said CSW’s chief executive, Mervyn Thomas.

“Rather, we believe these resolutions can be used to protect states from the legitimate criticism of human rights defenders,” Thomas continued. “They may also be used to justify blasphemy, anti-conversion and apostasy laws.

“CSW therefore urges member states to reject such texts and to seek the protection of religious believers through existing international human rights law.”

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House Passes Expanded ‘Hate Crimes’ Bill (Christian Post, 090430)

“[T]he ‘Hate Crimes’ bill ... will result in homosexuals and transgenders being protected under a special class under the federal hate crimes law,” noted the Christian Coalition of America after the passing of H.R. 1913.

“Pastors have been thrown in jail because of similar laws in Sweden, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom just because they have preached the Bible on homosexuality,” the conservative group added.

But supporters of the bill, which passed 249-175, have rejected the idea that it could criminalize pastors, insisting that the first amendment protects their right to free speech.

They also note that hate crimes against sexual orientation are the third most frequent, behind race and religion and ahead of ethnicity or national origin - three groups covered under current federal law. The expanded hate crimes bill seeks to add violence against individuals based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability to the list of federal hate crimes.

“I would think that the followers of Jesus would be first in line to protect any group from hate crimes,” commented Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland - A Church Distributed in Florida and a member of President Obama’s advisory council for faith-based and community initiatives.

“This bill protects both the rights of conservative religious people to voice passionately their interpretations of their scriptures and protects their fellow citizens from physical attack,” Hunter continued. “I strongly endorse this bill.”

Opponents of the bill, however, insist that the bill is unnecessary as gay, transgender and bisexual people are already protected under existing state laws. They also see its passage as one step on “a slippery slope toward religious persecution.”

“These laws are already being employed as a tool in Brazil, Europe, Canada - and even right here in America - to intimidate and silence people who honor natural human sexuality and who value the sanctity of marriage as between one man and one woman,” stated Concerned Women of America.

“If a person speaks out against various sexual behaviors, that person may be accused of ‘hate speech,’ which could lead to an accusation of associations with ‘hate crimes,’” the conservative group argued.

The bill is now headed for the Senate, which Obama urged to work with his administration to “finalize this bill and to take swift action.”

On Tuesday, the president had urged both sides of the House to pass the legislation “that will enhance civil rights protections, while also protecting our freedom of speech and association.”

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‘Patriot pastors’ called to crush ‘hate crimes’ bill Ministers ordered to fight for freedom, against criminalization of Christianity (WorldNetToday, 090519)

By Chelsea Schilling

America has become a morally bankrupt society that embraces intolerance against Christians, including a new push for “hate crimes” legislation, according to one pastor who believes it’s all because church leaders have failed to do their jobs.

But this Memorial Day weekend he is calling ministers to fight for those freedoms - from their pulpits.

“Pastors, if you wonder who is to blame for America’s slide from the ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ morality of yesteryear to the ‘Brokeback Mountain’ immorality of today, look in the mirror,” said Pastor Paul Blair of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Okla.

Blair is founder of a group called Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ, an outreach to pastors that encourages church leaders to take a stand against the spread of immorality in American culture. He is urging pastors across the nation to stop being silent and muster the courage to speak out against efforts to criminalize Christianity. He said church leaders have abandoned the prophetic call and have chosen instead to be CEOs of competitive church businesses rather than proclaiming “faith in Christ alone and repentance from sin.”

Concerned individuals may contact elected officials, sign a petition against hate crimes legislation and participate in WND’s FedEx campaign to send thousands of letters to senators by overnight delivery.

“Pastors used to speak strongly about issues - like when Billy Sunday led a crusade, and the next thing you know, liquor was outlawed. So they made a difference,” he said. “The year 1954 is when pastors began to grow timid because, all of the sudden, they had this misguided notion that they might lose their tax exemption if they made too much noise.”

Shortly after ministers grew silent, prayer and Bible reading were taken out of schools. The sexual revolution immediately followed, along with Roe v. Wade. Now, he said, attacks on Christian liberty and morality have become more brazen and coordinated than ever - with widespread movements to legalize homosexual marriage, the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to profile Christians as “potential terrorists” and strategies to silence pastors through hate crimes legislation.

As WND has reported, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 would provide special protections to homosexuals but leave Christian ministers open to prosecution should their teachings be linked to any subsequent offense, by anyone, against a homosexual.

A hearing on the act, already approved by the U.S. House as H.R. 1913 and pending in the Senate as S. 909, is expected in the Senate Judiciary Committee soon.

Under a comparable law in Sweden, a minister was sentenced to 30 days in jail for preaching from Leviticus. Similar state laws have resulted in similar results. In Philadelphia several years ago, a 73-year-old grandmother was reported to have been jailed for trying to share Christian tracts with people at a homosexual festival.

WND columnist Dave Welch, founder and executive director of the U.S. Pastor Council and Houston Area Pastor Council, has warned, “Hate crimes legislation, which assigns different levels of punishment for the same crime, is a perversion of equal justice on its face. Compound that injustice by criminalizing the preaching of Scripture as “hate speech” and therefore evil, while protecting unimaginable and abominable sexual behaviors as good, and we are building a perfect storm for national calamity.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of letters have been dispatched to members of the U.S. Senate suggesting that the bill is the wrong way for the country to move. WND columnist Janet Porter, who also heads the Faith2Action Christian ministry, launched the campaign to send thousands of letters to every senator by overnight delivery.

To date, at least 4,500 people have participated, dispatching 450,000 letters to members of the Senate.

But now Blair is stepping up the effort by calling on “patriot pastors” to lead their congregations in three areas: 1) evangelizing and leading people to Christ to change the culture 2) educating people about the truth of America’s Christian heritage and real threats like the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and 3) contacting elected representatives by writing letters and participating in petition drives.

His church is planning a special Memorial Day weekend sermon where he will bring in a 150-foot crane to fly the American flag as he warns his congregation of attacks on freedom.

“We absolutely will be addressing the fact that freedom isn’t free,” he said. “We’ll talk about the great sacrifice that was paid for the liberty we enjoy and how there are attacks on that liberty not just abroad, but here at home.”

Ministers should never underestimate their roles in preserving America’s freedom, Blair said. According to President John Adams, colonial pastors were the single group most responsible for America’s independence.

“They were the best educated of citizens, understood the precious value of liberty from tyranny and taught their congregations a true biblical worldview,” he said. “As Pastor John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration and member of Congress, recognized, ‘There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved.’”

Patriot pastors led in the great spiritual revival of the 18th century known as the Great Awakening, Blair noted. And patriot pastors educated their communities and led them in the fight for liberty in America.

“Thank God that our patriot pastors of yesteryear weren’t trained with a modern seminary education,” he said.

Representatives told Blair if they get five calls on a particular issue, they take notice. So, he would like to see what would happen if hundreds or thousands of people called lawmakers.

“Just think, if pastors would get up on their pulpits and teach folks about how the issues of today are going to affect them and then lead them, we can make a difference,” he said. “The problem is we don’t hear the truth. We don’t hear it in the media, we don’t hear it in schools and our pastors have been taught to remain silent.”

But Blair said he intends to change that.

“Brethren, it’s our turn,” he said. “As we reflect this Memorial Day weekend on the great price paid for the liberty that we enjoy, let us not lose that same liberty on our watch. Join with a group of patriot pastors across our nation and teach your flock about this dangerous hate crimes legislation and lead them in combating this brazen effort to criminalize Christianity in America.”

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Human rights commission ‘corrupted,’ critics testify (National Post, 091005)

OTTAWA — Two free-speech crusaders appealed to a parliamentary committee on Monday to do its part to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its power to investigate complaints of online hate, alleging that it is bad law that has been “corrupted and diseased beyond salvation.”

Blogger Ezra Levant and author Mark Steyn contend that if anyone in Canada should have the power to investigate online speech, it should be police - not human rights employees who have behaved like out-of-control thought police.

“I call on this Parliament to assert its oversight role and compel a full inquiry into the commission,” said Steyn, who was the target of a hate speech complaint by Muslims two years ago for an excerpt published in Maclean’s magazine from his book, America Alone.

The House of Commons justice committee is studying whether Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be repealed in light of persistent complaints that the commission’s powers to probe Internet postings that are “likely to expose”a complainant to hate are too broad.

The commission itself has retreated from its own power to investigate and punish hate speech amid persistent debate over the issue.

Richard Moon, a free-speech expert hired by the commission to study its hate speech provisions, said in a report last year that the organization’s mandate to probe Internet postings is too expansive and unworkable. He concluded that the business is best left to police to investigate the most vile cases.

A key issue is whether the commission’s mandate in policing online hate is outdated and restricts free speech by the mushrooming numbers of bloggers and online publications.

The commission’s power survived a Supreme Court of Canada challenge almost 20 years ago - but that was before the Internet mandate was added in 2001 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Mr. Steyn asserted that “psychologically disturbed”employees of the commission have been influenced by a former employee, Richard Warman, who has filed just about all of the complaints that the commission has received involving online hate in recent years.

“Section 13’s underlying philosophy is incompatible with a free society. Its effect is entirely irrelevant to the Queen’s peace, and its use by agents of the human rights commission has been corrupted and diseased beyond salvation,” Steyn said.

“I hope this committee will be united in their revulsion,” added Mr. Levant, a conservative blogger who has led a relentless campaign against the commission’s power.

Mr. Moon, in his report, acknowledged “potential drawbacks” to relying exclusively on the Criminal Code for hate speech investigations, including a higher burden of proof and the lack of police and prosecutorial experience and resources in pursuing hate speech online.

The commission responded earlier this year in a report to Parliament that recommended that the commission be stripped of its power to impose fines. The commission can also levy financial penalties of up to $10,000 for violators.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has signalled that he supports repealing the section that permits Internet probes, voting in favour of a resolution passed last fall at a Conservative party police convention.

Under the Human Rights Act, the commission can dismiss complaints, send them for conciliation or refer them to a quasi-judicial body, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, for a hearing.

Since the 1977 adoption of the Canadian Human Rights Act, 17 Section 13 complaints went to a tribunal hearing. Of those, the tribunal has upheld 16, most of which were filed by Mr. Warman.

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FRC: Hate Crimes Bill to be Slipped into Defense Budget (Christian Post, 091007)

Leaders in the U.S. House plan to slip the hate crimes bill into the 2010 Defense Authorization bill that could be voted on as early as Thursday, a conservative public policy organization warned.

In a move similar to the Senate, the House leadership reportedly wants to add the difficult-to-pass amendment to the high priority defense budget, according to Family Research Council.

The bill would expand federal hate crimes to include violence against individuals based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. Current federal law covers crimes committed on the basis of race, religion, color or national origin.

Many pastors and Christian leaders have rallied against the hate crimes bill, saying it would restrict their right to free speech and religious freedom. They emphasized that while everyone – regardless of their sexual orientation – deserves to be protected from violence, the bill would be one step on “a slippery slope toward religious persecution.”

They cite cases involving hate crimes laws in other countries which have been used to put pastors and Christians in prison for speaking against homosexuality as a sin.

Critics also argue that state laws already exists that guarantee protection for the people the hate crimes bill seeks to protect.

“I know it is not politically correct to say that certain lifestyles are not condoned by the Bible, but in this day those of us who are leaders in the faith community got to make a choice to be biblically correct or politically correct,” said Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr., pastor of Hope Christian Church in Maryland, at an anti-hate crimes bill press conference on Capitol Hill earlier this year. “And I believe if we are biblically correct we will impact the nation.”

However, some evangelical leaders have publicly voiced support for the bill, including Jim Wallis, president of the progressive ministry Sojourners, and Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland – A Church Distributed in Florida. [KH: all liberals]

In an earlier statement, Hunter said, “I would think that the followers of Jesus would be first in line to protect any group from hate crimes.”

In 2007 under the George W. Bush administration, a similar hate crimes bill was passed by the House. The Senate then passed the legislation as part of a defense spending bill. But House and Senate negotiators decided to strip the provision from the bill after concluding that it lacked the necessary votes to pass in the House.

This year, the Senate voted to attach the hate crimes bill to its version of the 2010 defense spending bill. The hate crimes bill is supported by the Democrat-controlled House and President Obama.

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House Approves Hate Crimes Provision in Defense Bill (Christian Post, 091009)

The House voted Thursday in favor of expanding hate crimes protection to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The bill was attached to the 2010 Defense Authorization bill.

In a 281 to 146 vote, the House approved a measure that conservatives say was sneaked into a must-pass defense policy bill.

“The inclusion of ‘thought crimes’ legislation in what is otherwise a bipartisan bill for troop funding is an absolute disgrace,” said Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, head of the GOP conservative caucus, according to The Associated Press.

Christian leaders and conservatives have actively voiced their opposition to the hate crimes bill that seeks to add violence against individuals based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability to the list of federal hate crimes. They contend that it would infringe on their freedom of speech and religion and be used to prosecute ministers who preach homosexual behavior as sin.

Democrats, meanwhile, hailed what they believe is a long overdue measure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) noted that it’s been over a decade since the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, whom the bill is named after.

“No American should ever have to suffer persecution or violence because of who they are, how they look or what they believe,” Pelosi said, as reported by AP.

Some Christian pastors, including Dr. Joel C. Hunter of Northland – A Church Distributed in Florida, have endorsed the bill, especially after changes were made to bar prosecution based on the expression of racial, religious, political or other beliefs.

But many conservatives are not convinced of their free speech protection and say the legislation is unnecessary as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are already protected under existing state laws.

“This measure is about giving special rights based solely on sexual behavior,” said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council. “All of our citizens deserve equal justice under the law. Do we somehow care less about victims violently assaulted in the act of robbery or during a personal dispute than we do about those assaulted because they belong in a federally designated, politically motivated category?”

Perkins contends that the measure sets them on a slippery slope toward religious persecution.

The defense policy bill could be approved by the Senate as early as next week. If passed, the measure would authorize $5 million for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 for Justice Department grants of up to $100,000 to state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. President Barack Obama, who has expressed support for the hate crimes provision, has promised to sign it into law.

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Evangelist’s Suit Leads Miami University to Revise Speech Policy (Christian Post, 090616)

A five-year legal battle over Miami University’s speech policy has come to an end with a settlement obtained Monday, according to attorneys with a Christian legal group.

Nearly a year after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit sided with a Christian man who was prohibited from sharing a Christian message on campus because he didn’t have a permit, Miami University revised their policies to affirm the First Amendment rights of campus visitors, reported Alliance Defense Fund attorneys.

“Exercising your First Amendment rights is not a crime,” commented ADF Litigation Counsel Jonathan Scruggs. “We are pleased that the university has now issued new policies that affirm, rather than deny, those rights.”

On Oct. 14, 2002, Christian evangelist Jim Giles visited the campus of Miami University with a friend and shared a Christian message with passerbys. After about 45 minutes, campus security approached the two men and informed them that they needed permission to conduct a speech on campus.

When the men went to the campus security office, they were told that some areas on campus were designated free speech areas and some were not. However, as Giles’ speech was not considered “legitimate business,” he was told that his expressive activities would not be permitted anywhere on campus.

In response, ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit in a federal district court against the university’s speech restrictions in October 2004. Though the federal court upheld the university’s speech restrictions on April 20, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed the lower court ruling the following year, stating that the university’s policy was “ill-defined.”

“There is ‘no doubt that the First Amendment rights of speech and association extend to the campuses of state universities,’” the court noted, citing a 2001 ruling.

In his remarks Monday, ADF’s Scruggs said “Christians shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs.”

“No one should be threatened with arrest or be required to have a permit to exercise their constitutional free speech rights. The university did the right thing when it revised its speech policy to respect the rights citizens have under the First Amendment,” he added.

Located in Oxford, Ohio, Miami University is the tenth oldest public university in the United States and second oldest in the state of Ohio. The “Miami” in this school’s name refers to the Miami River valley in southwestern Ohio.

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Religious Tolerance in America (Christian Post, 090616)

By Chuck Colson

Many Americans regard religion, for all the good it does, as a source of conflict. They think of places like Northern Ireland, South Asia, or the Middle East and wonder if a little less religion might not be good for social peace. But as a recent Wall Street Journal article points out, they’re not looking close enough to home.

Naomi Schaefer Riley points to what she calls the “riddle of American exceptionalism.” How is it that “one of the most religiously fervent [countries] in the world” is, at the same time, “one of the most religiously tolerant”? As she puts it, “generally, societies are one or the other.”

She’s right. For example, Iran is very religious, but no one would call it “tolerant.” Likewise, Scandinavian countries are very tolerant but no one would call them “religiously fervent.”

So why is America both? Citing the work by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Riley credits what she calls “religious bridging”-that is, having friends and acquaintances of a different faith.

According to the data, among the average American’s five closest friends, between two and three “are of other faiths.” What’s more, half of all Americans are married to “someone of a different faith from the one in which they were raised.”

This “bridging” has the effect of changing people’s attitudes toward different religions. For example, simply getting to know a real, live evangelical, as opposed to the media caricature, increases a person’s positive feelings toward evangelicals in general.

According to Riley, “This finding bodes well for the health of American religion and for American tolerance.” She is encouraged that Americans seem more willing to overlook “abstract lessons we were once taught” in favor of “facts on the ground.”

But I think that Riley and the people at Pew have missed the real reason that Americans are both religious and tolerant. It’s because we remembered those lessons-we didn’t overlook them-the lessons, that is, that Christianity teaches about the dignity and sanctity of the person.

Unlike other religions, Christianity does not require a choice between fervor and tolerance. We believe that our God created us in His image and gave us a free will so that we could love Him. If we were forced to accept Him, it wouldn’t be love.

Free will is the very essence of what we believe as Christians, which makes tolerance a must. By “tolerance,” I don’t mean the mushy, politically correct way the word is used today. Not a license to do anything you want; but the real kind of tolerance that respects the deepest convictions of other human beings, and regards them as worthy of respect-even if we strongly disagree.

This irony-that it is America’s specifically Christian religious fervor that makes tolerance possible-is what’s missing from this story. It couldn’t happen in Islamic or even Buddhist societies, as recent events in Sri Lanka illustrate.

What’s more, Riley was wrong in claiming that overlooking “abstract lessons we were once taught” produces tolerance. That only produces indifference. And it’s hard to respect other people’s convictions when you don’t even notice them.

No, when believers apply those so-called abstract lessons about freedom and human dignity-that’s when we see true tolerance.

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Christian Educators, Legal Group Take Action Against Anti-Religious Order (Christian Post, 090705)

A Christian legal group has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that resulted in an anti-religious and allegedly unconstitutional consent order against a Florida county school district.

Liberty Counsel filed the motion on behalf of Christian Educators Association International (CEAI) this past week, insisting that the overly broad consent order against the Santa Rosa County School District essentially bans all employees from engaging in prayer or religious activities, whether before, during, or after school hours.

“Neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” stated Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law.

“Not only does the ACLU want to strip public school employees of their rights to free speech while working, the ACLU is now arguing that they lose their rights after work and off campus. Public school employees are not required to abandon their faith to feed their families,” he added.

It was in August 2008 that the ACLU filed the complaint against the School Board for Santa Rosa County for the district’s alleged sponsoring of prayer at school events, orchestrating of religious baccalaureate services, and proselytizing of students during class and extra-curricular activities.

In response, the school district attempted to settle the suit by joining with the ACLU and presenting the court with a consent order that “permanently enjoined” school officials from “promoting, advancing, endorsing, participating in, or causing Prayers.”

Without any legal argument or briefing, the judge signed the order, which also bars school officials from “orally express[ing] personal religious beliefs to students during or in conjunction with instructional time or a School Event.”

“The Court’s order, based on the defendants’ own admissions, will help ensure that public school officials do not inject their personal religious beliefs into the students’ education,” said Daniel Mach, director of litigation for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, after January’s ruling.

Liberty Counsel, however, argues that the order is so broad that it unconstitutionally infringes on the rights of teachers, administrators, and students.

“The ACLU’s consent order broadly defines prayer, school events, and school officials so that employees who bow their head or fold their hands, pray over meals during their lunch, or voice agreement with another’s religious discussion at any time on school property or at any school event can be found in contempt of court,” the legal group reported.

“When private third parties use school facilities for after-school religious events or church services, no district employee on his or her own private time may participate or communicate agreement in any prayer or religious discourse, even if he or she is attending the event voluntarily, outside of school hours,” the group added.

As a result, Liberty Counsel decided to represent faculty, staff and students of the school district – particularly certain members of the CEAI who are employed by the Santa Rosa County School Board and are opposed to the unconstitutional Consent Order.

On behalf of CEAI, Liberty Counsel will argue that the consent order is too broad and thus unconstitutional.

“The terms of the consent order violate the free speech and free exercise rights of CEAI members, both in their capacities as employees of the School Board and as private citizens,” Liberty Counsel reported. “The order also forces CEAI members to infringe upon the rights of students and other third parties.”

Established in 1953, CEAI is a nonprofit religious association whose mission is to “serve the educational community by encouraging, equipping and empowering Christian educators serving in public and private schools.”

The Santa Rosa County School District, located in northwest Florida, consists of 18 elementary schools, 7 middle schools, 6 high schools and 4 specialty schools.

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Conservatives Vow to Keep Close Watch on Hate Crimes Law (Christian Post, 091029)

Christian conservative groups will be keeping a close watch over how new hate crimes legislation will be enforced after President Obama signed it into law Wednesday.

“Although we don’t know the full ramifications of this bill as of yet, my staff and I will be watching closely for any possible infringement on the rights of our members and pastors to speak out against the sin of homosexuality based on the Word of God,” said Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, president of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, in a statement.

Like Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, Kieschnick said he doesn’t believe there will be “immediate” prosecution of pastors and churches for teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful, but the threat to free speech is “nonetheless real.”

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed by Congress last week, adds sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability to the list of federal hate crimes and allows the federal government more room to intervene in investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.

The bill, tucked inside the $680 billion defense spending bill, was named after Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was kidnapped and beaten to death in October 1998, and James Byrd Jr., a black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas in 1998.

President Obama, with the mother of Matthew Shepard and the sister of James Byrd, Jr. at his side, signed the act into law Wednesday at the White House.

In his remarks at the reception, Obama said hate crimes are not only about physical harm, but they “break spirits” and “instill fear.”

“[N]o one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hands of the person they love,” Obama declared.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, calls the hate crimes law the “nation’s first major piece of civil rights legislation” for LGBT.

Though supporters hail the signing of the hate crimes bill an advancement in U.S. civil rights, opponents fear the law will be used to restrict the free speech of pastors and Christians who say that homosexuality is a sin.

Critics contend that pastors can be unfairly linked to a hate crime if they preach homosexuality as sin and someone who hears the sermon later harms another because of their sexual orientation.

“ADF has clearly seen the evidence of where ‘hate crimes’ legislation leads when it has been tried around the world: It paves the way for the criminalization of speech that is not deemed ‘politically correct,’” warned Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with Alliance Defense Fund. “‘Hate crimes’ laws fly in the face of the underlying purpose of the First Amendment, which was designed specifically to protect unpopular speech.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins also criticized the hate crimes bill as a threat to the free speech of Americans, saying that the hate crimes law lays a legal foundation and framework for “investigating, prosecuting and prosecuting” pastors and Christian business owners “whose actions reflect their faith.”

But not all Christian groups are opposed to the hate crimes law. The United Methodist General Board of Church & Society said it “celebrates” the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which the church body believes will “ensure public safety and equal protection under the law from hate crimes.”

The agency further contends that the legislation will protect free speech and religious liberty.

“We celebrate passage of this legislation with millions of Americans who believe that we are all created equal in the image of God, and with the rest of the civil rights community who have worked so hard for its passage,” UMC’s GBCS stated.

It took more than a decade of efforts for sexual orientation and gender identity to be added to the hate crimes list, which originally included race, religion, color and national origin. Though Democrats had favored the measure, Republicans had blocked the amendment from passing in the past. Former President George W. Bush had vetoed the defense bill when the hate crimes bill was attached to it during his administration.

Gay rights group are now pressing President Obama to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bans gays from openly serving in the military, and to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines legal marriage as between a man and a woman.

Obama has previously announced his intention to repeal both.

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Pastors Test Expanded Hate Crimes Law (Christian Post, 091117)

WASHINGTON – Conservative pastors rallied outside the Justice Department on Monday to test the limits of the newly expanded hate crimes law.

Rick Scarborough, founder and president of Vision America, expresses concerns about the Hate Crimes Prevention Act outside the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., Monday, Nov. 16, 2009.

Calling the new law – which broadens the definition of federal hate crimes to include attacks based on sexual orientation and gender identity – a clear threat to religious liberty, the group sought to defend their freedom to proclaim biblical truths.

“You may choose to disbelieve or disagree with us but you have no right to seek to silence us,” said Dr. Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America Action, as pro-gay clergy and some from the gay and lesbian community gathered with signs reading “My love is legit.”

“If this law is used to silence me or any of these preachers for speaking the truth, then we will be forced to conscientiously defy it,” Scarborough declared. “That is my calling as a Christian and my right as an American citizen.”

After a decade-long dispute, the hate crimes legislation was tacked on to a must-pass defense appropriations bill this year and passed by the House and Senate. President Barack Obama signed the bill last month.

Clergy, religious broadcasters and conservative groups fear the legislation will subject them to prosecution for preaching what they believe the Bible says – that homosexual behavior is sin. While some believe they are exaggerating the effects of the expanded hate crimes law, the group on Monday was convinced they could be targeted for their speech and beliefs.

Janet Porter, president of Faith2Action and author of The Criminalization of Christianity, cited Title 18 of the United States Code regarding accessories to crime. It states: “Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.”

“That’s how they go after speech,” Porter explained at the rally.

The group also pointed to cases in Canada and the United Kingdom where Christians have already been feeling the negative effects of similar hate-crimes legislations.

Paul Diamond, a barrister from Great Britain, said people are scared to exercise their rights as a number of preachers, including Aake Green from Sweden, and other individuals have been threatened with imprisonment for preaching against homosexuality or for speaking out against its promotion.

“Our freedoms are very much inhibited in the last few years as Judeo-Christian values are driven from the public square,” he said. “We’ve been there. ... We have lessons to tell you. And this is a road you don’t want to go down.”

Amid the arguments, a couple of ministers preached short sermons in hopes of sharing the Gospel with the homosexual community.

“God loves the homosexual,” the Rev. Grace Harley of Jesus Is the Answer Ministries in Silver Spring, Md., declared.

As someone who previously lived as a transgender (as a man) for 18 years, Harley testified that God set her free and can set others free from all kinds of sexual immorality, not just homosexuality. Jesus died on the cross so that you may be saved, she preached.

Offering a personalized version of the biblical passage Luke 13:13, she said, “Immediately she was made straight and glorified God.”

“I don’t just walk as a woman,” she noted, “but now I know the truth.”

Concerned about the new hate crimes law, Harley believes she is being silenced.

“It seems the government is shutting me down,” she said as she expressed her desire to share her story without fear.

The group of clergy insisted that their motivation is love.

“The love of Christ compels us to call any sin, whether this sin (homosexuality) or any other sin, wrong,” Scarborough said. “Christ shed his blood so sinners can be forgiven.”

“Frankly, the church is largely comprised of people who are caught up in various sins but who later came to Christ,” he noted.

Those from the homosexual community were not persuaded.

Sampson McCormick, 23, says he’s always been gay and has a healthy relationship with God. But he believes sermons and speeches against homosexuality incite hate and are not motivated out of love.

“They preach from their interpretation of the Bible and it forces people to hate themselves,” he commented, adding that it also incites hate crimes.

But Scarborough submitted, “To fail to call homosexuals to repent of their sin and come to Jesus is the highest form of cowardice and sin for it denies homosexuals of the privilege of hearing the good news that Jesus forgives all sin and can set them free.

“The real hate speech is that which perverts the word of God to fit the latest cultural fad.”

During the rally, some of the clergy delivered a five-page letter to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing their concerns with the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Though police authorities were present, there were no arrests made during the event.

Those involved in Monday’s rally included Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission; Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition; Jim Garlow, a southern California pastor who led the Proposition 8 battle; Michael Marcavage of Repent America; and Bishop E.W. Jackson of STAND America, among others.

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High Court Refuses to Revive Battle Over Religious Graduation Speech (Christian Post, 091117)

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear the case of a high school valedictorian whose speech was cut short by school officials after she began speaking about the role her beliefs played in her success in life.

The justices said Monday they will not revive the lawsuit filed by Brittany McComb of Henderson, Nev., who has accused school officials of violating her free speech rights and having engaged in viewpoint discrimination when they censored her speech in 2006 because of its Christian content.

McComb, who was one of three valedictorians selected to give a speech at Foothill’s annual commencement ceremony in spring 2006, was in the middle of delivering her speech to the crowd of nearly 400 graduates and their families when school officials turned off her microphone. Officials had cut short McComb’s speech after she departed from the officially-approved text and went on to mention Jesus and the Bible.

Despite extensive jeers from the audience over the school officials’ actions, McComb was not permitted to finish her valedictory speech. As a result, McComb filed a First Amendment lawsuit against Foothill High School officials in July 2006 with the assistance of The Rutherford Institute.

In June 2007, the U.S. District Court for Nevada rejected a second attempt by the school district to have the case dismissed and affirmed that the lawsuit raised substantial claims of infringement of McComb’s right of free speech. School officials subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeals, which dismissed the case, holding that McComb had no right to give her speech, which it deemed to be “proselytizing.”

Following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear McComb’s case, John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute said it was a “sad day for the cause of freedom.”

“When the Supreme Court cannot clear their calendar to hear a case of this magnitude, then our freedoms are in jeopardy,” he stated.

“Such censorship and discrimination should not be permitted in America.”

Video footage of McComb’s interrupted speech and The Rutherford Institute’s Supreme Court petition are available at www.rutherford.org.

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Stand Up for Religious Freedom (Christian Post, 091119)

By Chuck Colson

Allow me to make a very direct statement. I believe it is time for the Church in this country to stand up for religious freedom.

Especially over the course of the last few years, we have seen repeated efforts-in the courts, in state legislatures, in Congress, and on Pennsylvania Avenue-to erode what has been called the first freedom: religious liberty.

It isn’t hard to cite numerous cases where Christian organizations and individuals have been singled out and punished for adhering to their faith.

In New Jersey, a Methodist camp lost its tax exempt status for refusing to hold a same-sex civil union ceremony. In California, Christian doctors were successfully sued for refusing to offer in-vitro fertilization procedures for a lesbian couple. Catholic Charities in Boston had to shut down its adoption services because it was being forced by the state to place children with same-sex couples.

The current health care bill has no protections for religious medical personnel or health care providers who, by reason of conscience, refuse to participate in abortions. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is gathering momentum in Congress. The bill would require even Christian-owned enterprises with more than 15 employees to hire those who do not share their faith.

The list could go on and on.

So why is religious freedom such a concern to us as Christians? Freedom of religion is called the first freedom for a reason. Our founding fathers recognized that without freedom of conscience, no other freedom can be guaranteed.

Christians, in fact, are the greatest defenders of religious freedom and human liberty-not just for Christians, but for all people. Compare religious freedom in those countries with a Christian heritage to the state of religious freedom in Islamic nations, communist countries, and Buddhist and Hindu nations, and you will see my point.

The reason that Christians place such a high value on human freedom is that freedom itself is part of the creation account in the Bible. God made humans in His image. He gave us a free will to choose to love, follow, and obey Him, or to follow our own way.

That free will, given us before the Fall, is part of human nature itself.

Perhaps more than anything else, it was this understanding of individual freedom that turned me into the kind of patriot who would willingly give his life for his country. It was the words of the Declaration of Independence that inspired me to join the Marines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

So this question of human freedom goes to the very heart of who we are as Christians and as Americans.

So this Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, a statement signed by 125 evangelical, Orthodox, and Catholic leaders will be released - a historic declaration on life, the family, and religious freedom.

And please, today, go to ColsonCenter.org to view my Two-Minute Warning video on religious freedom. We will have some great resources for you. Then Friday at noon, we will have for you the declaration itself-probably the most important document I’ve ever signed.

The Church needs to understand the urgency of the hour and do its duty.

Baptist Leader: Obama ‘Very Dangerous,’ Causing ‘Severe Damage’

Saturday, November 21, 2009 2:24 PM

One of the leaders of the nation’s influential Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) tells Newsmax that President Obama is “very dangerous” in his economic policies and his foreign policy is causing “severe damage” to U.S. standing in the world.

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and author of the book “The Divided State of America: What Liberals and Conservatives Are Missing In The God And Country Shouting Match”, told Newsmax.TV that the cultural war is heating up. Christians must remember that God is not partisan.

“And on many of the most important issues we deal with as a society, God does have a side,” Land said. “God’s not a Democrat; God’s not a Republican, but God’s pro-life.”

“Religious groups need to maintain their integrity and the truth of their principles,” Land said.

He pointed out that Southern Baptist make up a “disproportionate” membership in the Armed Forces and that the SBC strongly opposes any changes to military policies relating to gays in the military. He suggested that changes Obama has stated he will make would undermine military readiness because it could cause many evangelicals serving in the military to leave.

Land said the SBC has been fighting liberal social policies, and had played a leading role in getting anti-abortion proposals passed in the House under the Pitts-Stupak Amendment that banned federal funding in the new health care bill.

Land noted the role Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., an evangelical who received the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s distinguished service award in the past year, played and important role in getting the amendment passed in conjunction with Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. Though the nation’s Catholic bishops had been credited with helping push the amendment through Congress, Land said several players made the funding cut-off possible,

“The Catholic bishops certainly played a major role, but so did the National Association of Evangelicals, so did Southern Baptists, so did the American Family Association run by Don Wildmon, and so did Focus on the Family,” Land said. “A lot of these organizations are basically Evangelical Protestant.

Land suggested that religious groups also need to look beyond social issues and unite on practical solutions to economic questions.

He gave President Obama a failing grade on his handling of the economy.

“High confiscatory taxation does not work; it does not bring about prosperity,” he said. “Let’s look at China and India. China was a communist country that became a capitalist country economically. It has addressed far more poverty as a capitalist country than it ever addressed as a communist country.”

The Obama administration’s rush to head in the opposite economic direction of where India and China have been heading particularly troubles Land.

“I think [Obama] can be particularly dangerous,” Land said. “I think he can do significant damage to our economy; I think he is doing significant damage to our economy …The stimulus package has clearly not worked.”

Land compares the Obama administration’s economic policies to those of Japan, which have kept Japan mired in a recession for more than a decade.

He said Obama would have found greater success had he emulated the policies Ronald Reagan followed in the early 1980s to stamp out similar high unemployment and other economic problems by cutting taxes and putting money in people’s pockets.

Turning to international matters, Land offered a similar pessimistic assessment of Obama’s handling of U.S. foreign policy.

“I also think he could do severe damage to peace in the world,” Land said. “Unfortunately, I think a lot of the really bad people in the world don’t believe that Barack Obama is a tough guy.

“They see him more as Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be.’”

Land says Obama should trust the advice Gen. Stanley McChrystal has given him with regard to the number of troops he has requested in Afghanistan to ensure he is successful.

“I believe he should either fulfill general’s request and give him the troops and the materials he needs to finish the job, or we ought to withdraw,” Land said. “The most immoral thing we could do is to leave just enough troops there to get killed, but not enough to do the job we have asked them to do.”

Obama, he said, should take a stronger line against the Iranian regime and its effort to pursue nuclear weapons by imposing a gasoline embargo against the nation and supporting the opposition.

“I think it has been disgraceful that Obama has not been more supportive in his statements about the Iranian dissidents that want to overthrow the rogue regime that runs Iran,” Land said.

Helping the opposition to overthrow the Islamic government, he said, is especially important to prevent the Israelis from attack Iran and thus trigger a wider conflict. He told Newsmax he has no regrets about having sent a letter to former President George W. Bush endorsing the war in Iraq as a just war because it has led to Iraq becoming the most democratic country in the Arab world.

Land expressed particular concern over the implications of the Fort Hood shooting and the military’s embrace of political correctness and its failure to follow up on the warning signs Maj. Nidal Hasan displayed prior to the massacre.

“This guy should have been kicked out of the Army a long time ago,” Land said. “If we sacrifice that kind of political correctness that refused to remove this guy then maybe we can have diversity and safety for our troops.”

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Crucifixion ruled too violent for Christmas (National Post, 091215)

An eight-year-old Massachusetts boy was suspended from school and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a figure of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross.

The second-grader drew the crucifix after his teacher asked children to sketch something they associated with Christmas. But the boy’s father said he then got a call from the elementary school informing him that his son had created a violent drawing.

“When she told me he needed to be psychologically evaluated, I thought she was playing,” the boy’s father told the Taunton Daily Gazette.

The drawing in question shows Jesus on a cross with Xs in place of his eyes to symbolize death.

The man, who asked for his name not to be published to protect the child, said his son gets specialized reading and speech instruction at school, and has never shown any tendency toward violence.

“He’s never been suspended. He’s eight years old. They overreacted,” he said.

The child drew the picture shortly after taking a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat site in Attleboro, Mass.

Toni Saunders, a non-profit educational consultant, said the boy’s father reached out to her for help after trying to have his son moved to another school because “he’s traumatized by everything that has happened.”

“I’ve had kids suspended for idiotic things before, but I’ve never had to deal with anything like this,” said Ms. Saunders.

Ms. Saunders said the boy was kicked out of Lowell L. Maxham School on Dec. 2 and not allowed back until Dec. 7, after he received a psychiatric evaluation. The evaluation found nothing to indicate that he posed a threat to himself or others.

“I didn’t understand why this was so important to them, why it violated the school code of violence in their handbook. It just didn’t make sense,” she said. “It was just the drawing, and I don’t know how that turned into violence.”

The school’s zero-tolerance for violence policy and a general lack of common sense are to to blame, Ms. Saunders said.

“It’s time that we shine a light on what we’re doing to our own children, and stop it, because our children’s imagination is being assaulted. It’s not right. I can’t imagine that this would’ve happened 20 years ago. It wouldn’t have. People would’ve patted him on the back and said, ‘Isn’t that wonderful.’”

Angela Smithson’s son Cullen was suspended from his Taunton school in June 2008 for drawing what his teacher considered to be a violent image. The teacher filed a criminal complaint against the 10-year-old boy over the picture, which shows him, a gun and a figure labelled as the teacher with a bullet wound. The district attorney’s office chose not to pursue the charges.

Ms. Smithson said it was horrible that no one tried to speak with the eight-year-old child and his father before they suspended him. She experienced the same problem when the teacher refused to speak with her regarding Cullen’s drawing.

“I have no idea why they would think that that’s a violent drawing. Even if I didn’t know what it was, and you know, I took a look at it, you can tell it’s Jesus on a crucifix ... there’s nothing wrong with that picture. Nothing should have happened. I really feel bad for this family,” Ms. Smithson said.

Phone calls to the school principal and superintendent were not returned.

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UK Christians Celebrate Victory Over Equality Bill (Christian Post, 100126)

LONDON – Some Christians say their prayers have been answered after the House of Lords on Monday defeated changes to a law that would have required church groups to hire homosexuals or others whose manner of life is inconsistent with their teaching.

Peers voted 216 to 178 in favor of Lady O’Cathain’s amendment to retain an exemption for religious groups to equality employment laws.

Reacting to the result, Lady O’Cathain said Tuesday: “I know that very many Christians were praying that justice would prevail as the House of Lords voted on this important issue. Many also wrote wise, sensitive letters to peers, seeking to persuade them of our case.

“We give thanks to God for the outcome, and we continue to pray for our Government, as Scripture exhorts us to do, that God would bless their counsels.”

The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge commented, “The prayers of thousands of Christians and letter writing to peers was key to protecting our freedom.”

“Surely churches should be free to employ people whose conduct is consistent with church teaching. Surely that’s not asking too much,” Judge added. “It’s called freedom of association, and it’s a key liberty in any democratic society. The fact that the Government couldn’t see this will concern many Christians.”

The government attempted to restrict the exemption for religious organizations solely to ministers and other positions that wholly or mainly “exist to promote or represent the religion or to explain the doctrines of the religion.”

Christians argued that if the Equality Bill was passed without Lady O’Cathain’s amendment, which leaves the current law unchanged, it would impose considerable restrictions on who religious organizations could employ and put them in the difficult position of having to appoint someone who did not conform to their ethos and beliefs.

Last week, bishops in the Church of England argued that the bill would leave religious organizations “more vulnerable to legal challenge.”

Dr. Don Horrocks, head of public affairs for the Evangelical Alliance, said the government’s amendments to change the current law “would have left churches and organizations unsure whether they could prefer practicing Christians for the majority of their roles.”

“Now, they can continue to appoint people who are committed to the ethos of the organizations they are supposed to represent,” Horrocks said. “It’s a victory for common sense. I hope the government will accept this and not prolong the issue by asking the House of Commons to challenge the Lords’ vote.”

Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of Christian Concern For Our Nation, also praised Monday’s vote. “This is a great day for religious liberty in the United Kingdom. We are thankful that the law has not been changed and the freedom of churches to control their own affairs has not been restricted any further.

“The results show what can happen when Christians pray and take action. Let us be encouraged that even in an increasingly secular society, the voice of the Church can still be heard.”

Harriet Harman, whose name is attached to the Equality Bill, may decide to force the bill through the House of Commons or revert to an EU directive prohibiting discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.

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High Court Urged to Protect Faith Groups’ Right to Define Membership (Christian Post, 100210)

At least 18 different organizations and 13 state attorney generals are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the constitutional rights of religious groups to set membership and leadership criteria according to the dictates of their religious beliefs.

More specifically, the groups and attorney generals are asking the high court to overturn an appeals court ruling that backed a California law school’s decision to not recognize a Christian student group because of the group’s refusal to allow non-Christians to become voting members or leaders.

In its amicus brief filed at the high court, one of the groups, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), contended that religious groups are constitutionally protected in following their religious beliefs.

“Religious groups by their nature embrace religious principles and, as a matter of organizational identity and coherence, will normally require adherence to such principles as a criterion for membership and certainly for leadership,” the legal group stated in the brief – one of at least 19 that were filed by Thursday’s deadline.

“This is not ‘discrimination’ but rather part and parcel of what defines them as religious groups,” it added, adding to arguments made by groups including the Boy Scouts of America, Christian Medical and Dental Associations, the American Islamic Congress, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Wooden application of religious ‘non-discrimination’ policies therefore forces religious groups to choose between their religious identity and access to the forum.”

Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to intervene in the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which was first filed in 2004 after Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco denied official recognition to the local chapter of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) after the student group said it could not abide by the school’s non-discrimination policy.

Since the federal civil rights suit was filed against school officials, attorneys with CLS and the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom have argued on behalf of the CLS chapter, insisting that the group should be able to decide its own membership and not be required by the college to admit homosexuals and non-Christians as members and officers in order to receive school recognition.

“It is fundamental to religious freedom that religious groups are free to define their own mission, select their own leaders and determine their own membership criteria,” commented ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow in a statement Thursday.

“The First Amendment protections afforded to religious organizations are clear,” he added.

In April 2006, however, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the defendants, including school officials and Hastings Outlaw, a recognized student organization.

A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that heard oral argument in this case on in March 2009, later affirmed the district court’s opinion, ruling against CLS in an unpublished disposition on March 17, 2009.

“The appeals court decision discriminates against religion, undermines Supreme Court precedent, and injects the government into an area that the Constitution forbids,” Sekulow commented. “We’re hopeful the Supreme Court will reverse the decision of the Ninth Circuit.”

Arguments for the Hastings case is expected to take place in the spring.

CLS had filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court on May 5, 2009, seeking a reversal of the Ninth Circuit’s decision against CLS.

The Christian Legal Society, which has chapters at universities nationwide, has sued other universities on the same grounds.

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Trinity Western faces pressure over faith statement (National Post, 100129)

[KH: persecution]

A dispute has erupted between the country’s largest association of university teachers and a group of Christian schools, raising questions over whether academic freedom can exist in an overtly religious environment.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has issued a report that says B.C.-based Trinity Western University falls below the standard of proper academic freedom because it requires its faculty sign a statement of Christian faith before being hired.

It has also put the organization “on a list of institutions found to have imposed a requirement of a commitment to a particular ideology or statement as condition of employment.”

The statement of faith, available on the school’s web site, acknowledges, among other things, that there is one God, the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and that Christ is God incarnate.

The report by the teachers’ body also pointed to excerpts from the academic calendar, which in part said: “All teaching, learning, thinking, and scholarship take place under the direction of the Bible.”

Although Trinity Western is the first school to be put on the list, the organization said it will now investigate three other Christian universities — Crandall University in Moncton, Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, and Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ont. — all of which require faculty to sign faith statements.

“A school that requires its faculty to subscribe to a particular religious belief or ideology cannot be practicing academic freedom,” said James Turk, executive director of CAUT. “This is not about the school being Christian, but about faculty having to sign a statement of faith before being hired. A university is meant as a place to explore ideas, not to create disciples of Christ.”

“The list and investigation implies there’s something sinister,” said Al Hiebert, president of Christian Higher Education Canada, an umbrella group for Christian universities and colleges, including Trinity Western and the other three schools. “I would also call it harassment. It’s putting the education of those schools and the research of their faculty under the heading of, ‘We don’t need to take them seriously.’ “

Jonathan Raymond, the president of Trinity Western, said the report has put the school “under a cloud of suspicion” and characterized CAUT’s list as “a black list.”

Calling it an investigation, he said, “makes it appear as if there is something deeply wrong at the school” and that could put a burden on graduates in their attempt to be taken seriously outside the institution.

“There is no topic under the sun that can’t be raised. We assume faculty will have their thinking informed by their Christian faith, but we don’t influence it. They can raise all perspectives but we expect they’ll also raise the Christian perspective.”

Trinity Western, which is 48 years old, has 5,000 students and faculties with undergraduate and graduate degrees in everything from education to social work to engineering. It is accredited by the province and is also a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, which said it demands a high level of academic freedom before a school is accepted.

Mr. Raymond said they received no notification that an investigation would take place and only discovered what was going on when academics at other schools began receiving emails from CAUT. The email read: “If you are currently teaching at Trinity Western University, have taught there in the past, or have applied for a faculty position at TWU, the inquiry co-commissioners would like to have the opportunity to interview you about the institution’s faith-based practices. If you have personal experience or information that you feel might shed light on these issues, please contact the CAUT inquiry co-commissioners below. All communications will be kept confidential.”

Mr. Turk said his group sent a letter to the university, but Mr. Raymond said it was never received. “They should have come to us first,” said Mr. Raymond. “They owed us that professional courtesy. I believe they entered this with a preconceived conclusion. I think this is outright anti-Christian discrimination.”

John Stackhouse, who teaches philosophy at Regent College in Vancouver, wrote in an article in University Affairs this month that the CAUT report raises “a crucial issue that is not yet properly resolved. [Does it make] sense for a Canadian university to insist that its faculty members teach and research within the confines of its confessional statements.”

This is not the first time that Trinity Western has been put under a microscope.

In the 1990s, the B.C. College of Teachers said the school was not fit to train teachers because Trinity Western graduates would bring an anti-homosexual agenda to the classroom.

But in 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled, in an 8-1 decision, that the students could only be judged by their behaviour in the workplace and not because of their education.

In other words, there was nothing about a Christian education per se, even one that considers homosexual activity a sin, which would prejudice its students against homosexuals.

Also, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, whose membership includes 92 universities, said they have never found any issue of academic freedom at Trinity Western.

“We have no reason to believe they suppress academic freedom,” said Christine Tausig Ford, a spokeswoman for the organization, which conducts thorough investigations, including interviews with students and faculty, before allowing institutions to become members.

Mr. Turk said his group’s report does not specify how Trinity Western impinges on academic freedom.

“But the faith statement constrains who is allowed to teach. They believe the ultimate authority is the Bible. So that undermines the central aspect of what a university should be because before [the school’s teachers] look at anything, they accept certain facts as automatically true.”

Over the past 50 years, CAUT has been reactive to incidents of potential restriction on academic freedom whenever there has been a complaint.

Mr. Turk said when a complaint is received they bring it to the university’s attention. If that does not settle the issue, then an investigatory committee is struck.

In the case of Trinity Western, Mr. Turk said CAUT did not receive a complaint from anyone, nor did they choose to speak to the school first, because “it was a different kind of case.”

“We weren’t investigating wrongdoing; we were confirming the nature of the institution. We were being proactive instead of reactive,” he explained.

“We have no real authority,” said Mr. Turk. “All we can do is put a spotlight on the situation.”

However, with a membership of 65,000 university employees, the organization does have the weight to raise alarms about institutions, which is what concerns Mr. Raymond and others who are supporters of the Christian university.

The only way that Trinity Western would be removed from the new list, according to Mr. Turk, would be to drop its faith statement.

In his University Affairs article on this contentious dispute, Prof. Stackhouse appealed for room for both secular and religious institutions.

“I want to urge my fellow Canadian scholars to leave a space for the alternative … The synergy that comes from such shared intellectual commitments is simply not to be found in the secular university,” he wrote.

“Anyone who has actually worked in a secular university for more than about two weeks recognizes that there are ideological pressures there too: to conform to the preferences of one’s departmental superiors … to the fads of one’s discipline and to the priorities of granting agencies.”

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Christian Communicators Mobilized to Engage, Transcend Secular Culture (Christian Post, 100228)

NASHVILLE – Though critics of the long opposed, recently passed Matthew Shepard Act say the legislation could be used to prosecute broadcasters and pastors who preach homosexuality as sin, the world’s largest network of Christian communicators was impelled Saturday to stand firm, speak with a “holy boldness,” and proclaim with great confidence the message they’ve been called to deliver.

“It will be a matter of great concern if our government can successfully force us to stop proclaiming the full counsel of God,” acknowledged Dr. Frank Wright, president and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters, at the opening session of the 67th NRB Convention & Exposition in Nashville.

“But when we put the shackles on our own arms, that is a matter of great sadness. That is a matter of great unbelief. Because if we don’t believe in the power of the gospel, what other power do we have available to us, especially those of us who have been called to proclaim it?” he added.

In front of the thousands gathered for the four-day gathering, Wright pointed to a number of examples in which prominent Christians chose not to respond to questions about their faith with the full message of the gospel but rather self-censored versions of it.

He shared about a well-known broadcaster who appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live and was asked “Is Jesus the only way to Heaven?”

“Well, he’s the only way for me,” Wright recalled the unnamed broadcaster as saying.

In another example, Wright referred to a well-known pastor who was asked in an interview about the verse in which Jesus proclaimed himself to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” and how “no one comes to the Father except by me (Christ).”

“And this pastor, this well known pastor – if I named him, you would know the name immediately – said, ‘I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to preach that verse in our day,’” Wright recalled.

“[I]nstead of being constrained by the forces of legislation or regulation or even legal opposition, we’re in a place where broadcasters, where the Church, might begin to censor itself,” added Wright later.

Following Wright, convention attendees heard from author and teacher Del Tackett, who warned against the consequences of relativism, which he described as the “sand” upon which lives disintegrate – a reference to Jesus’ parable of wise and foolish builders.

“We must engage in the battle of great wisdom and grace. Speaking the truth is not an act of judgment. Speaking the truth is an act of compassion,” said the on-air personality for Coral Ridge Ministries.

“My prayer is that … we’ll begin to be the light and salt we were made to be, that we will engage our culture with the grace and compassion God has shown to us, that we would do so united in love so that the world will know that the Father has sent the Son, not for our glory, but for His alone,” he added.

Regarding how to engage today’s society while not compromising Christian values, Dr. Jim Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, Calif., provided NRB Convention attendees with a model from the Bible that he has been looking at in recent times.

The prominent evangelical preacher began his concluding message with a three-minute history lesson that started from 1607, when Bible-believing Christians were part of the establishment, and passed through seven stages before reaching to today – the first time in which the Church of Jesus Christ in North America can “legitimately” refer to itself as the persecuted Church.

Today, Garlow said, “we are citizens of Jerusalem but residents of Babylon.”

“Somebody moved the country. We didn’t go through a geographical change, but we are in exile in a nation called America,” he added.

So the problem today, according to the megachurch pastor, is that believers in America find themselves having to be prophetic to the same people they want to be evangelistic to.

“We have to say ‘No, stop it, that’s wrong, that will cause us all to self-destruct’ to the very same people who do not want to hear that and that we’re turning around and we want to have a relationship that they love us or trust us enough that we can share the gospel,” he said.

That said, Garlow instructed attendees on how to engage the society by referring to the story of Daniel, as recorded in the Bible, as a model.

Garlow highlighted three steps that Daniel took that allowed him to engage the people, and even the king of Babylon, without compromising his identity.

Specifically, Garlow noted how Daniel learned the language of the Babylonian, learned the literature, and fasted.

For Christians today, that would entail knowing more than just “Christianese,” knowing the research that’s already out there in secular sources that backs up biblical truth, and doing what might be very uncomfortable – i.e. fasting and forming relationships with those who may seem far different in their beliefs an ideologies.

“They’re not nearly as hostile to us as I thought, but they do not understand us at all,” Garlow recalled an evangelical working for CBS having told him when asked about what he’s learned in the secular work environment.

“I challenge you to form relationships with those who you are most uncomfortable. Learn the language of the Babylonians. Learn the literature … that we can leverage from the world. And thirdly, saturate it in fast,” Garlow exhorted.

In concluding, Garlow reminded attendees that they are “spiritual warriors” in the midst of a war, and that they have all been “made for this moment.”

“If we don’t use carnal weapons but spiritual forces, this is a winnable war,” he concluded.

This year’s NRB Convention is being held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. The gathering concludes Tuesday.

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U.S. Preacher Fined for Calling Homosexuality a Sin (Christian Post, 100402)

LONDON – The Christian Institute has voiced concern after a street preacher was handed a fine of more than $1,500 for saying homosexuality was a sin.

U.S. evangelist Shawn Holes, 47, was preaching in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 18 when he was arrested and detained overnight in a police cell.

Police later charged him with breaching the peace and told him to pay the fine on the grounds that his remarks were “homophobic” and had been “aggravated by religious prejudice.”

Holes was touring the U.K. as part of a group of evangelists from the U.S. He was taking questions from the public when a gay couple in the crowd asked him about his views on homosexuality.

He allegedly told them that homosexuals “deserve the wrath of God” and would go to hell.

Holes said the incident had “felt like a set-up” by gay rights campaigners and that he had only admitted the charge because he wanted to return to the U.S. to see his family and father, who is staying in a hospice.

The case has concerned even gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who branded the fine “disproportionate.”

“Shawn Holes is obviously homophobic and should not be insulting people with his anti-gay tirades,” the activist said. “He should be challenged and people should protest against his intolerance. However, in a democratic, free society it is wrong to prosecute him. Criminalization is not appropriate. The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive.”

The Christian Institute helped pay for Holes’ lawyer, Tony Kelly, who had advised him to challenge the charge.

Kelly said: “This case raises important issues about the interface between the criminal law in Scotland, freedom of speech and religious freedom.”

Christian Institute director Colin Hart said: “The fine in this case was totally disproportionate. The police should have never arrested Mr Holes at all.

“We believe that had he fought the charge it would have been proved that he did nothing wrong. We are disappointed that Mr Holes pleaded guilty.”

Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church, argued that Holes should not have been charged because he was expressing a religious conviction.

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New Effort Launched to Protect Rights of Churches (Christian Post, 100415)

A Christian legal group has launched a new effort aimed at protecting churches from excessive and unconstitutional government intrusion.

Launched Wednesday, Alliance Defense Fund’s Church Project provides legal information to pastors and ministry leaders on how to defend their religious freedom in America as well as practical guidelines on issues such as public funding and hiring policies.

“Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government. That’s exactly why the Constitution protects religious freedom,” says ADF senior counsel Kevin Theriot, who heads the Church Project.

But these days, pastors and church leaders are being pressured to be silent on moral issues such as life, liberty, marriage and the family. Government officials from the local to federal level are “determined to muzzle” church leaders who proclaim the biblical views on these issues, ADF contends.

“These officials are encroaching as never before on the autonomy of churches and their leaders, to the point that pastors’ ability to proclaim the full counsel of God’s Word is endangered,” the legal group asserts on the Church Project.

In recent years, churches have faced legal problems related to use of public facilities for worship services, zoning laws and land ordinances. But ADF says the “most intimidating intrusion” is the threat of IRS audits and loss of 501(c)(3) tax exemption for churches whose pastor speaks from a biblical standpoint about the positions of political candidates on moral issues.

Historians have largely credited America’s independence to the “moral force of the pulpit,” ADF points out.

“Pastors have proclaimed Scriptural truth throughout history on great moral issues such as slavery, women’s suffrage, child labor and prostitution,” notes the group on the website of another initiatve, the Pulpit Initiative. “Pastors have also spoken from the pulpit with great frequency for and against various candidates for government office.”

ADF’s Pulpit Initiative, launched in 2008, has been integrated into the Church Project as one of the broader efforts. One of the highlights of the initiative is the annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday – a day when pastors across the country are urged to preach from the pulpit on the position of political candidates based on a biblical perspective. The act is done in defiance to the IRS rule that says nonprofits with tax-exempt status cannot endorse a candidate or be involved in political activity.

“The future of religious liberty in America hinges in large part on the outcomes of these legal issues … and on the willingness of all pastors and church leaders, whether or not they themselves are directly persecuted, to act, minister and speak up boldly for the God-given freedoms protected by our Constitution,” states the group on the Church Project’s website.

“Even erosions of religious liberty that seem small threaten the Church’s ability to be the Church,” adds Theriot.

Established in 1994, ADF is a national legal organization defending people of faith. The Christian legal group provides strategy, training, and funding in the legal battle for religious liberty, sanctity of life, and traditional family values.

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Vacationing a human right, EU chief says (National Post, 100419)

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers’ dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.

Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports.

“Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life,” Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15. Mr. Tajani was appointed to his post by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The plan — just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined — would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing “difficult social, financial or personal” circumstances. The disabled and elderly can also be accompanied by one other person. The EU and its taxpayers are slated to fund 30% of the cost of these tours, which could range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation.

“The commission is literally considering paying people to go on holiday,” Mats Persson, of pro-reform think-tank Open Europe, told Britain’s News of the World. “In this economic climate, it’s astonishing that the EU wants to bribe people with cheap holidays.”

Mr. Tajani said the program will be piloted until 2013, and then fully launched.

Intended to instill a sense of cultural pride in Europeans, Mr. Tajani’s human-rights travel will also help bridge the continent’s north-south divide and pad resorts’ business in their off-season, the Times reports.

Northern Europeans will be encouraged to visit southern Europe, and vice versa. Mr. Tajani wants to ensure people’s “right to be tourists” remains intact.

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A Case of Discrimination (Paris, International Herald, 100418)

[KH: secular media bias, can all non-gay people join a gay group and then vote out all the gay leaders and take over the gay group?]

Hastings College of the Law, part of the University of California, rightly prohibits student organizations from discriminating. A Christian group that bars non-Christian and gay students sued the school for denying it funding and access to its facilities. The Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in the case. It should rule in favor of Hastings.

To qualify for official recognition, and receive money from a publicly financed university, groups at Hastings are required to adhere to the school’s nondiscrimination policy, which says that official student groups cannot refuse membership on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or other prohibited factors.

For years, the Christian Legal Society chapter at Hastings adhered to this policy. In 2004, it changed course and required members to sign a “statement of faith” that denied membership to students who did not share all of the society’s religious beliefs, as well as gay students. Hastings told the society that it could not remain a recognized group and receive money from the school unless it stopped discriminating.

The society refused, and when the funding stopped, it sued, claiming that its First Amendment rights of free speech, free association and free exercise of religion were being denied.

Under California law, it is illegal for postsecondary educational institutions that receive state money to discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. The school correctly determined that the law requires it to ensure that its student organization program does not permit discrimination. The school also has the right to pursue its own educational policy of promoting diversity and opposing discrimination.

Students at Hastings who want to join together in more exclusive arrangements are free to do so. They can form unofficial student groups. But Hastings is right that groups that bear its imprimatur, use its name and logo, and receive public funds must not discriminate.

In 2006, the Federal District Court that heard the case ruled for Hastings, and a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed unanimously. The panel said that the school’s rules were “viewpoint neutral,” since they imposed a requirement of openness on all student groups, and were also “reasonable.” It was right.

The Christian Legal Society is not being denied any First Amendment rights. It is being told that if it wants an official association with a public university and public money, it cannot deny gays, non-Christians or members of any other protected minority equal rights.

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Christians Denounce Street Preacher’s Arrest (Christian Post, 100505)

LONDON – The arrest of a street preacher has renewed concern over religious freedom for Christians in the United Kingdom.

Dale McAlpine, 42, was arrested in his home town of Workington, in Cumbria, last month after he mentioned homosexuality as one of a number of sins listed in the Bible, alongside idolatry, blasphemy, fornication, and drunkenness.

He said he refrained from speaking about homosexuality in his sermon but when a passerby inquired on the issue, told her it was a sin.

He was then approached by a gay community support officer who took him to the police station where he was detained in a cell for seven hours and charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress.”

McAlpine, who denied the charge, was released on bail on the grounds that he cease preaching.

U.S. evangelical Dr. Albert Mohler wasn’t surprised by the arrest and said he has seen “this coming for some time now.”

“We are witnessing the constriction of Christian speech and the criminalizing of Christian ministry,” he wrote in a commentary. “The Bible clearly condemns homosexual behaviors, and the Christian church has been clear about this teaching for twenty centuries. But now, the statement that homosexuality is a sin can land a preacher in jail.”

He said even if all charges are dropped against McAlpine, the message is clear that “the act of Christian preaching is now a potential criminal offense.”

He warned Christians that such arrests are likely to happen elsewhere, besides Britain, as well.

Writing in The Telegraph, former Catholic Herald editor Cristina Odone condemned the action by the police, saying McAlpine was another victim of the “new inquisition.”

“Fueling the inquisitors is a vicious secularism that allows no tolerance for views based on Christian values,” she said.

“Freedoms of speech and conscience are important, but do not automatically trump all individual rights. A civilized, tolerant society requires negotiation between these freedoms and rights, between a preacher’s right to proclaim his beliefs and a gay’s freedom to live out her sexuality.

“Such negotiation requires confidence in one’s own belief system and respect for those of others. These qualities have been quashed, instead, by a tiny and unrepresentative political class that respects only the secularist side of the equation.”

Commentator and author Peter Hitchens warned that British society was moving closer to the point where a person could be prosecuted for saying in public that homosexual acts are wrong.

“The Public Order Act of 1986 was not meant to permit the arrest of Christian preachers in English towns for quoting from the Bible. But it has,” he said. “The Civil Partnerships Act 2004 was not meant to force public servants to approve of homosexuality. But it has.

“The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 was not meant to lead to a state of affairs where it is increasingly dangerous to say anything critical about homosexuality. But it did.”

He added, “We have traveled in almost no time from repression, through a brief moment of mutual tolerance, to a new repression.”