c. 2007 Religion News Service
Justice Department Launches `First Freedom Project’
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Department of Justice has launched a “First Freedom Project” to draw more attention to protecting the religious liberties of Americans.
“Why should it be permissible for an employee standing around the water cooler to declare that `Tiger Woods is God,’ but a firing offense for him to say `Jesus is Lord,’?” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday (Feb. 20) at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tenn.
“These are the kinds of contradictions we are trying to address.”
The initiative includes a new Web site (http://www.firstfreedom.gov), a public education program and a task force that will review religious freedom policies and cases.
The department also released a “Report on Enforcement of Laws Protecting Religious Freedom,” which summarizes its work from fiscal years 2001-2006.
“Religious discrimination is a growing problem,” the report states, citing a 69 percent rise in religious discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission between 1992 and 2005.
Leaders of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Family Research Council and Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission applauded the initiative.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said it was a hypocritical action by an administration that he said has tried to merge church and state.
“Expecting the Bush administration to defend religious liberty is a little like asking Col. Sanders to baby-sit your pet chicken,” Lynn said.
The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches (NCC), welcomed the renewed focus on religious freedom but questioned why it was announced at a gathering of a single denomination. He invited Gonzales to present the project to the March meeting of the NCC’s Committee on Religious Liberty, and suggested it should also be presented to Muslim groups.
Cynthia Magnuson, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to respond specifically to Edgar’s criticism, but said, “I believe he (Gonzales) intends to talk about this to other groups.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Monks Deny PETA Charges That Chickens Are Mistreated
(RNS) Trappist monks at a South Carolina abbey have rejected accusations made by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that the monks mistreat the chickens on their egg farm.
“The monks at Mepkin Abbey do not abuse animals,” said abbey spokeswoman Mary Jeffcoat. “They care about and are concerned for their hens, and they believe that conventional cage production is healthy for them.”
A PETA investigator, posing as a retreatant at the abbey, found evidence of “shocking cruelty” to the hens, according to a PETA statement.
The statement deplored the hens’ living conditions in “tiny cages,” and condemned the monks for debeaking the chickens and periodically starving the birds in order to increase egg production. Video of the farm is available on PETA’s Web site (http://www.PETA.org).
Jeffcoat on Thursday (Feb. 22) said the monks follow all of the United Egg Producers’ “science-based guidelines” in order to ensure that the hens are treated well. A United Egg Producers spokeswoman dismissed PETA’s allegations as “a publicity stunt.”
“Everyone knows that (PETA’s) ultimate goal is to eliminate animal agriculture,” spokeswoman Diana Storey said. She said the abbey was audited in October and was found to be 100 percent in compliance with guidelines.
PETA alleged that the abbey’s practices violate Catholic teaching, quoting Pope Benedict XVI to back up their claims.
“Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that … hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me … to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible,” the pope said in a 2002 interview before he was elected pontiff.
PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich, a Catholic, described the monks as animal abusers.
“If these monks abused dogs or cats the way they abuse chickens, they could be put in prison on felony cruelty to animals charges,” he said. “We’re asking the monastery to stop causing birds to suffer for money’s sake and to switch to making marmalade, bread, beer or some other product that does not cause animals such unmitigated misery.”
Jeffcoat, the spokeswoman for the abbey, said no one at Mepkin Abbey would “engage in a conversation with anyone from PETA.”
“Mepkin does not believe PETA is interested in a true, two-way dialogue,” she added.
_ Katherine Boyle
Clinton Campaign Chief Barred From Catholic Alma Mater
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (RNS) The Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has canceled a book talk by Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, at his alma mater high school after the 1975 graduate said on a national radio show that he supports abortion rights.
“I am pro-choice, no question about it,” McAuliffe, chairman of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign and author of a best-selling memoir, said in a Jan. 29 interview with Hugh Hewitt.
McAuliffe was to speak to about 100 alumni at Bishop Ludden High School about his book, “What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals,” on Saturday (Feb. 24), said Danielle Cummings, a spokeswoman for the diocese.
According to a 2003 diocesan policy, “Any person who publicly supports abortion, or who holds that abortion is a right or a matter of choice, may not be invited to speak at diocesan functions or in its diocesan/parish facilities (except at an academic symposium where both sides of the issue can be fairly presented).”
When Bishop James Moynihan approved Saturday’s event last month, the diocese was unaware of public statements by McAuliffe on abortion, Cummings said.
During the radio interview, Hewitt asked McAuliffe how he justifies his Catholic belief and support for abortion rights. “I can, as can many Catholics,” McAuliffe responded.
McAuliffe could not be reached for comment.
“While my views on this issue have been public and consistent for many years, they have not prevented me from working and speaking to Catholic organizations in the past,” he said in a statement released by an aide. “I hope we can keep an open dialogue to find common ground in the future.”
_ Renee K. Gadoua
Update: Phone Company Cancels Porn Access After Bishop Vows Boycott
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company will stop offering erotic images on cell phones after receiving complaints and learning of a boycott launched by the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver.
A spokesman for Telus Corp., the first major wireless provider in North America to directly sell adult content on mobile phones, said Tuesday (Feb. 20) the company was ending the month-old service in light of the public’s growing concerns.
As a result, Vancouver Archbishop Raymond Roussin said he would call off his order to more than 140 parishes and schools to cancel their Telus contracts.
“I am pleased and grateful that Telus has decided to remove itself from the business of profiting from pornography. This decision is for the greater good of the community as a whole _ a fact I am glad Telus is recognizing,” Roussin said after his boycott received international attention.
“We are just beginning to fully appreciate how serious the issue of sex and pornography addiction really is. It is a problem that is taking a horrendous toll,” Roussin said.
Even though cell phone users with wireless access can obtain low-quality adult content through Internet Web sites, Telus had been the first to sell its own erotic images directly, listing “adult content” as a purchase option on a menu of Telus cell phone services.
_ Douglas Todd
Chicago Pastor Says Immigration Has Won `Hearts’ of Churches
CHICAGO (RNS) A United Methodist pastor who has sheltered an illegal Mexican immigrant for over six months said traditionally conservative churches are changing their stance on immigration as they see growing membership among Latinos.
The Rev. Walter Coleman, speaking at the University of Chicago on Tuesday (Feb. 20), said immigration has “separated the racist right from the religious right.”
Coleman’s Adalberto United Methodist Church in a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood has provided sanctuary to Elvira Arellano and her 8-year-old son, Saul, since she defied deportation orders last August. Arellano’s son is a U.S. citizen; she is an undocumented immigrant.
Immigration officials have left Arellano in the church, though officials have said they will come at some point in the future.
“They may have to break the door down,” Coleman said.
Coleman said Mormon, evangelical and Catholic churches have seen a push for immigration reform as they receive pressure from their Latino congregants.
“It’s not exactly how you’d expect them to line up on the issue,” Coleman said.
“I really believe that within the last four or five years we have won the hearts of the religious community,” he said.
Coleman’s 100-member church has been a platform for immigration reform advocates. In the past six months, about 7,000 supporters of all faiths have visited the church.
Coleman pointed to the commitment that Arellano, a single mother, showed in keeping her family together and staying with her son as divorce rates in the U.S. are on the rise.
“You’ve got to see that as a sign from God,” he said.
_ Kat Glass
Quote of the Day: Episcopal Bishop Steven Charleston
(RNS) “This church is either open to all, or it is closed to the Spirit. We either stand for what we know is just and embrace our (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) members, or we stand aside as justice is denied. There is no easy way out of this choice. There is only a gospel way forward.”
_ Bishop Steven Charleston, president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., reacting to Anglican demands that the Episcopal Church stop blessing same-sex unions and allowing gay bishops. His letter to the Episcopal seminary was posted on the blog http://www.dailyepiscopalian.com.
KRE/PH END RNS
