c. 2007 Religion News Service

House Votes to Change Policy on Overseas Family Planning

WASHINGTON (RNS) In a narrow defeat for anti-abortion groups, the House on Thursday (June 21) approved a measure to fund contraceptives for foreign organizations that also provide abortions.

The measure passed 223-201, reversing the so-called Mexico City policy that was enacted by former President Ronald Reagan. The policy prohibits grants to groups that promote abortion as a means of family planning.

President Bush promised to veto the amendment, which was drafted by Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., and attached to a $34 billion bill that finances State Department operations and foreign aid. Bush revived the policy in 2001 after former President Clinton had killed it in 1993.

Opponents of the bill argued that since taxpayers do not fund abortions domestically, they shouldn’t be funding them abroad. Though the measure would not specifically allocate funds for abortions, opponents contested that funds can flow freely within the overseas organizations, sending funds meant for contraceptives toward abortions.

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia had urged representatives to vote against the measure.

“Logic and common sense dictate that we cannot reduce abortions by supporting groups dedicated to promoting abortions,” Rigali wrote in a statement.

But the policy’s limits on contraceptives _ especially condoms _ drew sharp criticism from AIDS prevention advocates, who call it “detrimental to women’s health.”

Catholics for Free Choice (CFFC) argued that restricting birth control is out of touch with reality. The group claims that 97 percent of sexually active American Catholics _ and a similar percentage of Catholics worldwide _ use contraception even though church leaders considers it immoral.

“Access to contraception should be something that everybody who has an interest in reducing the need for abortion can agree on,” said CFFC President Jon O’Brien.

The House also voted to remove funding restrictions that earmark one-third of HIV/AIDS prevention money to abstinence-until-marriage programs.

A Focus on the Family spokesperson decried the vote, saying that abstinence education has proven effective, and putting it on the back burner “could skyrocket infection rates.”

But Planned Parenthood applauded the vote, saying removing the stipulation could “greatly expand the funding available for the development of culturally appropriate, medically accurate HIV/AIDS prevention programs.”

_ Michelle C. Rindels

Southern Baptist Pastor Outspoken on Tongues Resigns Seminary Post

(RNS) Texas pastor Dwight McKissic, who has been at the center of a debate in the Southern Baptist Convention over speaking in tongues, has resigned his trustee position with Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

McKissic, the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, told the seminary’s trustee board chairman in a June 20 letter that his role as a trustee was a “huge distraction” from his ministry priorities.

“I’ve been distracted and consumed with SBC/SWBTS matters the past nine months in a way that I haven’t been the past 24 years of pastoring an SBC church,” McKissic wrote. “It has taken a tremendous toll on my family and ministry, and my wife believes it has negatively impacted my health. I simply want to return to the place I was prior to being a trustee.”

McKissic told of his personal use of tongues during a sermon in the chapel of the Fort Worth, Texas, seminary last August. Two months later, the seminary trustee board _ with McKissic dissenting _ voted not to hire professors or administrators who promote charismatic Christian practices, which include speaking in tongues.

Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson issued a statement reacting to McKissic’s resignation, which said in part: “It is well known that we have not always agreed, but we are brothers in Christ and I love this pastor.”

McKissic has criticized an International Mission Board policy _ which is now termed a “guideline” _ that says Southern Baptist missionaries who currently practice “ecstatic utterance as a prayer language” will not be accepted.

“We have prayer police,” McKissic said in an interview during the Southern Baptists’ recent annual convention in San Antonio. “They say we are about missions and evangelism and then they hinder people from the mission field based on their private prayer lives.”

McKissic said he was “exhilarated” by a new study released by the denomination’s LifeWay Christian Resources that indicated that 50 percent of Southern Baptist pastors believe “the Holy Spirit gives some people the gift of a special language to pray to God privately.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Valedictorian Stays Silent After School Says No to Prayer

BAYONNE, N.J. (RNS) Bayonne High School valedictorian Jeremy Jerschina had wanted to give a heartfelt speech at his graduation ceremony on Wednesday (June 20).

A religious young man bound for Calvin College this fall, 18-year-old Jerschina said that to speak from the heart as he addressed his graduating class, he had to speak to God as well.

But Principal Richard Baccarella and the Bayonne Board of Education would not let him speak if he included a prayer _ so he didn’t speak at all.

With his mother Bozena looking on as the pair sat in the family’s living room, Jerschina described his exchanges with Baccarella and Superintendent of Schools Patricia McGeehan, in which they asked him to remove the prayer from his speech.

He said the day before the ceremony they even asked one of his former teachers to help him rewrite the speech in a way that would satisfy the school board, although they could not reach a compromise.

On graduation day, Jerschina said, Baccarella told him that if he decided to give the speech without the prayer, he could signal the principal as he sat on stage to be recognized as valedictorian and that Baccarella would give him time to speak. But, Jerschina said, that put him in a position where he had to “either rip out my beliefs or stay silent.”

“God and Christ are the reason I did how I did in high school, and are what I stand for most,’ Jerschina said. “The principal and superintendent said I could do the speech if I left the prayer out, and I told them that I’d rather do the whole thing or not at all.”

In a statement released Thursday, McGeehan said the school district would have been breaking the law had it allowed Jerschina to speak.

“While the Bayonne school district has the utmost respect for the student’s conviction, the Bayonne school district must follow the law and must sometimes make very difficult decisions to insure that it meets its legal obligations,” said the statement.

Jerschina’s mother, Bozena, who moved to the United States from Poland in 1989, said, “This is supposed to be a free country with freedom of speech. But instead there is censorship.”

_ N. Clark Judd

Quote of the Day: Former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry

(RNS) “It’s good to have a good God, a good lawyer and a good judge.”

_ Marion Barry, a member of the District of Columbia City Council and a former mayor, leaving a D.C. courthouse after a federal judge ruled Thursday (June 21) that prosecutors had not proved he “intentionally” failed to file his 2005 tax returns in violation of his probation for a tax conviction. He was quoted by The Washington Post.

KRE/CM END RNS