c. 2006 Religion News Service

Study Says Muslim Men Saw Wages Drop After Sept. 11

(RNS) Men from predominantly Arab and Muslim countries employed in the U.S. saw their wages drop about 10 percent in the years following the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a new study.

While approximately the same number of hours were worked before and after Sept. 11, 2001, the men’s average wages fell from about $20 to about $18, according to the study. The study found mixed results for the wages of Arab and Muslim women during the same period.

“Sept. 11 was a catastrophic event for everybody and it clearly raised prejudice,” said Robert Kaestner, a labor-market specialist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who co-wrote the study. “We wanted to find out _ what were the consequences?”

The study tracked 4,322 first- and second-generation immigrants ages 21 to 54 who live in the 20 states where 85 percent of Arab and Muslim U.S. residents live. The immigrants were from predominantly Arab and Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Wage decreases were larger in areas with more reported hate crimes related to religious and ethnic bias, according to the study. The study also found that post-Sept. 11, Arab and Muslim men were more likely to be employed in a low-wage job, despite the fact that more than 50 percent reported having a college degree.

The study compared those Arab and Muslim immigrants’ wages against immigrants from other countries, to account for the post-Sept. 11 economic downturn.

“Despite their higher education levels, men in the (Arab and Muslim) group earned less than men in the comparison group both before and after Sept. 11,” the study reports.

Employers may have discriminated against Arabs and Muslims after the attacks, according to the study.

“It is possible that greater prejudice reduced employment opportunities for Arab and Muslim men and forced them to make less desirable choices, resulting in earnings declines,” the study reports.

The wage declines may be short-lived, however, as the study found some evidence of a “significant rebound” in wages for Arab and Muslim men.

_ Daniel Burke

Swearing Gets Bishop Banned From Two Pulpits

LONDON (RNS) The controversial former Anglican bishop of Durham has been barred from delivering sermons at two of his local churches for swearing in the pulpit, The Sunday Times in London reported (Aug. 27).

The newspaper said Bishop David Jenkins, who stirred up church fury two decades ago when he questioned the literal truth of Jesus’ resurrection, was barred for using the words “damn” and “bloody” (considered a curse word in parts of Britain) during a sermon.

Peter Midwood, rector of the northeast England parish of Romaldkirk and Laithkirk who suspended Jenkins from preaching at two churches, said he had felt “forced to act” after congregants complained.

Jenkins _ who was bishop of Durham from 1984 to 1994 _ conceded that he might have been guilty of “a bit of anger and swearing,” but he said, “I get worked up in the pulpit, and I get quite lively.”

According to the Sunday Times report, the swearing popped up as the former bishop railed “against splits in the Anglican Communion over homosexual priests.” Jenkins himself had enraged Anglican conservatives last year when he become one of the first clergymen to bless a “civil partnership” between two men, one of them a priest.

In defending his “swearing” sermon, the cleric said, “I am fed up with the disgraceful quarreling among Anglicans when they should be addressing major world questions. … Dogmatism is destroying the reasonableness and realism of religion.”

In the “swearing” episode, Midwood originally also barred Jenkins from preaching in a third church in the area, at Cotherstone. But John Parker, bishop of Ripon and Leeds, granted a reprieve after Cotherstone parishioners called for Jenkins to be reinstated.

“David is a passionate person and uses passionate language,” Midwood told The Times. “It’s easy to upset people by using immoderate language in church. It wasn’t a deeply theological thing.”

_ Al Webb

Quote of the Day: Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla.

(RNS) “If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.”

_ Senate candidate Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., telling Florida Baptist Witness on Aug. 24 that the separation of church and state is “so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.” She pointed to abortion and gay marriage as examples of sin.

KRE/PH END RNS