c. 1996 Religion News Service
Warner beats Christian conservative-backed foe in Virginia GOP primary
(RNS)-Virginia Sen. John W. Warner won an overwhelming Republican primary victory Tuesday (June 11) in a vote that some have interpreted as a defeat for Christian conservatives.
Warner, a three-term incumbent, garnered about 66 percent of the vote to defeat challenger James C. Miller III, a former Reagan administration budget director who ran with the strong support of anti-abortion Christian conservatives.
The victory by Warner-who calls himself a”common-sense conservative”-marked the third recent setback for Virginia Republican candidates running statewide with strong Christian conservative backing.
In 1993, Baptist minister Michael P. Farris was defeated in his bid to become lieutenant governor, and in 1994 Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North lost his race for the United States Senate.
Warner refused to back Farris or North, even though both were his party’s official candidates. That stand earned Warner the wrath of Christian conservatives, who have effectively taken over the Virginia state GOP party leadership in recent years.
Despite that organizational power, Mark Rozell, a University of Virginia political scientist, said the results of the Warner-Miller voting”show the influence of the Christian right is somewhat limited.”They are much more effective within a convention, where they have mastered the rules and their enthusiasm has an impact,”Rozell told The Washington Post.”But a primary requires a broader diversity of voters. And that’s where the Christian right runs into trouble.” However, Mike Russell, a spokesman for the Chesapeake, Va.-based Christian Coalition, said the election’s outcome revealed more about the difficulty of defeating an entrenched, well-financed incumbent than about the strength of Christian conservatives.
Update: Russia puts new curbs on Jewish Agency operations
(RNS)-Russia has stepped up the pressure against the Jewish Agency, ordering the abrupt closing this week of the organization’s office in Pyatigorsk and threatening to shut offices in three other cities.
Since 1989, the Jewish Agency, which has close ties to the Israeli government and is financially supported by Jews around the world, has organized the departure of 630,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union and their resettlement in Israel.
In April, the Russian government unexpectedly canceled the agency’s permit to operate in Russia. On May 15, the agency reapplied for a permit, which has yet to be issued.
The actions against the Jewish Agency have come during the Russian presidential election campaign, which will culminate with Sunday’s (June 16) vote. Polls show that President Boris Yeltsin is in a close race with Communist Party candidate Gennedy Zyuganov.
Zyuganov and his supporters have made repeated anti-Semitic statements during the campaign. One theory holds that Yeltsin has allowed the crackdown on the Jewish Agency to draw right-wing support away from Zyuganov.
Another theory is that the actions reflect Russia’s upset with the government of Israel for rejecting Moscow’s attempts to inject itself anew into the Middle East peace process. Yet another is that they reflect Russian anger over the brain-drain that has resulted from the emigration of tens of thousands of Jewish professionals to Israel.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday (June 12) that a Russian government official accused the Jewish Agency of being a front for the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence-gathering bureau.
Pakistan’s Bhutto declared a non-Muslim over death penalty stand on women
(RNS)-A prominent Muslim religious leader in Pakistan has declared that nation’s prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and her entire cabinet”non-Muslims”for deciding to abolish the death penalty for women.
Pir Afzal Qadir, described by the Associated Press as the leader of a right-wing Sunni Muslim organization, also said Bhutto and the members of her cabinet should be killed if they do not rescind their Monday (June 10) decision. To become law, the measure must be approved by Pakistan’s parliament, a move that is expected.
Pakistani womens’ groups have lobbied for the death penalty exemption, arguing that dozens of women have been wrongly imprisoned under a law that carries the death penalty for adultery. The womens’ groups argue that females do not get a fair hearing in Pakistan’s male-dominated judicial system.
Bhutto previously drew the wrath of Muslim conservatives when she attempted to overhaul Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which provide for an automatic death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting Islam. Bhutto’s proposed amendments to the law were shelved after Muslim conservatives strongly objected.
Some 97 percent of Pakistan’s population of about 100 million people is Muslim.
Waldheim blames Jews for his banishment from the U.S.
(RNS)-Kurt Waldheim, the former secretary general of the United Nations and ex-president of Austria, says in his new autobiography that Jews are responsible for his not being allowed into the United States.
Waldheim, 77, has not been allowed to enter the United States since 1987, when the Justice Department ruled that he should be barred because he had participated in the deportation, mistreatment and execution of civilians and Allied soldiers while a member of the German army in World War II.
Waldheim has repeatedly denied those charges and has done so again in his autobiography,”The Answer,”published Wednesday (June 12) in Austria. He said that as a member of the German army serving in the Balkans he sought only to survive, while personally objecting to Nazi policies.
Acknowledging that he once tried to hide his army service, Waldheim said World Jewish Congress head Edgar Bronfman asked then-Attorney General Edwin Meese to bar Waldheim in 1987.
Waldheim told The New York Times that Bronfman said to Meese, a Republican who served under President Ronald Reagan, that such a step would be a”useful sign”to Jewish voters. The following year, 1988, was a presidential election year.
Elan Steinberg, a spokesman for the World Jewish Congress, based in New York, denied that Bronfman had ever spoken to Meese about Waldheim.
Maryland judge says Religious Freedom Restoration Act goes too far
(RNS)-A federal judge in Maryland has struck another blow against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
U.S. District Court Judge Frederic N. Smalkin, ruling in a case involving the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, said Congress lacked the authority to pass legislation that in effect overturned a Supreme Court decision.
Congress passed RFRA in 1993 after the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that governments could pass legislation to regulate society even if the legislation infringed upon religious groups and their practices.
Last year, a federal judge in Texas also struck down the law, although his decision was overturned on appeal. Other federal judges have upheld the act, leading legal experts to conclude that the Supreme Court will again have to take up the matter.
The Maryland case involved a church in Cumberland that wanted to demolish an old monastery building to make way for a new multipurpose center. Because city officials had included the monastery in an historic district, they refused to allow its destruction, prompting the archdiocese to go to court.
Archdiocese spokesman Bill Blaul said the judge’s decision will be appealed.”The right of our parishioners to freely worship is being restricted by a local government,”Blaul told The Baltimore Sun.
Episcopal heresy case dismissal will not be appealed
(RNS)-The 10 Episcopal bishops who accused fellow Bishop Walter Righter of heresy for ordaining a non-celibate homosexual have decided not to appeal a church court’s decision to dismiss the charge.”I’m really on top of a mountain now,”Righter-who is retired as the bishop of Newark, N.J., and now lives in New Hampshire-said in response. He told Episcopal News Service, the denomination’s official news agency, that an appeal of the decision would have meant”more pain.” The decision against an appeal was announced by A. Hugo Blankingship Jr., an attorney who represented the 10 bishops in church proceedings on the case, and his assistant, the Rev. Charles G. Flinn.
They said in a document filed with the church Tuesday (June 11) that the bishops would instead ask the church’s 1997 General Convention to require all ordained clergy to abstain from sexual relations outside of marriage.
A church court announced May 15 that Righter did not violate any”core”Episcopal doctrine when he ordained the Rev. Barry Stopfel, a non-celibate homosexual, as a deacon in 1990.
Groups, citing humanitarian needs of Iraqi people, urge sanctions’ end
(RNS)-While hailing the”oil-for-food”agreement between the United Nations and Iraq, two groups with religious ties Wednesday (June 12) said the agreement would not meet the overwhelming needs of Iraqi civilians and called for an end to economic sanctions against Iraq.
Iraq has been the target of international economic sanctions since 1990 when it invaded Kuwait, precipitating the 1991 Gulf War and prompting the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Iraq that block Iraqi oil sales. Oil is the country’s chief source of income.
On May 20, however, the United Nations and Iraq reached an agreement that allows Iraq to sell about $2.6 billion worth of oil for the purchase of food and medicine to distributed under U.N. supervision.”We urgently remind everyone that the overwhelming needs of Iraqi civilians will not be met by this measure alone,”the Quaker-related American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), an interreligious umbrella organization of religious pacifist groups, said in a joint statement.”Only the complete lifting of the embargo and substantial rebuilding will begin to address the very dire conditions existing because of the Gulf War and six years of sanctions.” According to the two groups, malnutrition, extreme shortages of essential medicines and the breakdown of Iraq’s health care and sanitation systems have led to”staggering”estimates of loss of life.
Earlier this year, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that there had been more than 500,000 preventable deaths of children between the imposition of sanctions and the end of 1995. A separate report, issued in March by the World Health Organization, said health conditions in Iraq are”deteriorating at an alarming rate”because of the sanctions.
In urging a negotiated end to the sanctions, the Quakers and the pacifists said that on the one hand, Iraq will have to agree to a verified disposal of its weapons of mass destruction and that the United States, which has led the international anti-Iraq effort, will have to agree to impose no new terms on the Iraqi government.
New York Court rules inmate’s religious rights violated in A.A. case
(RNS)-The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, said Tuesday (June 11) that prison officials violated the constitutional rights of an inmate by penalizing him for refusing to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings because he objected to the group’s religious activity.”A fair reading of the fundamental A.A. doctrinal writings discloses that their dominant theme is unequivocally religious,”the Court of Appeals said in a 5-to-2 ruling.”Adherents to the A.A. fellowship entails engagement in religious activity and religious proselytization.” The prisoner, David Griffin, described by The New York Times as a former heroin addict, brought the suit. Griffin, saying he had been an agnostic or an atheist since the 1950s, said he had been unfairly treated by prison officials because they tied his eligibility to participate in other programs to his attendance at A.A. meetings.
An Alcoholics Anonymous spokeswoman, who refused to be identified, would not tell the Times whether it saw itself as a religious organization. The group, she said,”has always refrained from commenting on outside issues.” The ruling said that five of the 12 steps that are the cornerstone of A.A. programs mention God and that meetings are”heavily laced with at least general religious content.” But State Attorney General Dennis C. Vacco said the ruling”defies common sense”and”erodes the authority of corrections officials to set certain requirements in order for inmates to enjoy their prison perks. …” Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that the court ruling recognized the”fundamental principle that government can’t force people to participate in religious activities that violate their own tenets.”
Quote of the day: Dr. Lonnie Bristow, president of the American Medical Association, on children and violence.
(RNS)-The American Medical Association (AMA), in its annual report card on violence in America, gave the nation a”D,”saying violence is its number one public health crisis. In releasing the report, AMA president Dr. Lonnie Bristow talked about children and violence:”This country will not pass the test until we can safely walk our streets at night and send our children to school alone without fear. Kids tell us that it’s easy to buy a gun, but it’s cheaper to rent one by the hour. When it is easier to get a gun in this country than it is to get a library card, we know we are heading in the wrong direction.”
MJP END RNS
