c. 1997 Religion News Service
Islamic symbol near White House vandalized
(RNS) An Islamic star-and-crescent display in Washington, D.C., has been vandalized in what U.S. Park Police are calling a hate crime.
This is the first year the Muslim symbol has been erected during the December holiday season next to a Hanukkah menorah and Christmas tree on the Ellipse, a grassy area near the White House.
Although the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins New Year’s Eve, the Muslim symbol was erected in connection with USA Muslims Day, a secular Muslim holiday created in recent years by the New York-based National Council on Islamic Affairs and celebrated the third Friday of December to give Muslim youngsters a winter holiday of their own. Because the Muslim calendar is lunar-based, Ramadan occurs at different times each year of the solar-based Western calendar.
The vandalism _ the star was ripped from the 10-foot high structure, defaced with a red, spray-paint Nazi swastika and placed in a nearby trash can _ was discovered Friday (Dec. 26).
M.T. Mehdi, president of the National Council on Islamic Affairs, said Monday (Dec. 29) he believed”fundamentalist”Jews or Christians may be responsible for the vandalism.
Offering no evidence to back his claim, Mehdi said his conjecture was”a good possibility based on our previous experience.”He said in an interview that fundamentalist Jews and Christians”hate Islam”because of Muslim opposition to the state of Israel.
He also said the Nazi swastika was particularly offensive to Muslims because it was the Holocaust that gave rise to modern Israel’s establishment.”In the end, Hitler was the most successful Zionist because without the horrible Holocaust there would be no Israel,”he said.
In a statement, the American Jewish Committee called Mehdi’s comments”despicable.” Calling the vandalism of the star and crescent”an affront to all Americans,”the Jewish group said Mehdi’s”vile rhetoric may further his own self-serving agenda (but) it fuels the very atmosphere of bigotry that has no place in our society.” Other Muslim groups called the vandalism part of a larger pattern of bigotry against Muslims. The Council on American-Islamic Affairs based in Washington urged President Clinton to issue a formal condemnation of the vandalism, but there was no immediate White House response.
Egyptian high court upholds ban on genital cutting of females
(RNS) The highest court in Egypt has upheld a ban on the genital cutting of girls and women, a ritual practiced widely in Africa and a source of debate between human rights groups and Islamic conservatives.
The ruling, issued Sunday (Dec. 28), bans government-certified doctors and health workers from performing the procedure, called genital mutilation by critics and female circumcision by supporters.
Health workers and doctors who violate the ban face three years in prison and hospitals risk being closed, the Associated Press reported.
Some clerics have said female circumcision is required by Islam, but the claim is disputed by many Muslim scholars.
The Supreme Administrative Court ruled the procedure is subject to Egyptian law because it is not included among Islam’s dictates.”With this ruling it has become prohibited for all to perform the operation of female circumcision, even with the consent of the girl or her guardians,”the court said.
The court decision cannot be appealed, but an exception might be allowed if a gynecologist approves the procedure for health reasons.
In July 1996, Health Minister Ismail Sallam announced the ban after women’s and human rights group mounted a campaign calling the procedure dangerous.
The surgery, usually performed on prepubescent girls, can range from cutting the tip of the clitoris to complete removal of external genitals. Many people in Egypt and elsewhere in Africa follow the tradition because they believe it curbs a girl’s sexual appetite and promotes cleanliness.
Sallam’s ban was overturned by a lower court when eight Muslim scholars and doctors argued it exceeded governmental authority. But the high court decided Sallam had the authority to prohibit the procedure because”female circumcision is not a personal right according to the rules of Islamic Sharia (law).” Sheik Youssef al-Badry, a Muslim fundamentalist who spearheaded support for the procedure, said the judge was mistaken.”We shall meet in the day of judgment in front of the big judge, in front of Allah,”al-Badry said.”I want to see what he says to Allah.” In Egypt, where the practice is common among Coptic Christians as well as Muslims, some clinics have been instructing medical staff and patients about the dangers of the controversial procedure, The New York Times reported.
Asma Abdel Halim, a New York-based Sudanese lawyer involved in the campaign against the practice, hopes the judgment will influence the Islamic world.”This decision from Egypt’s highest court is really profound,”she told the Times.”It is significant because Egypt has for a long time been the center of both Islamic scholarship and Islamic jurisprudence, and many people look up to Egypt.”
Pope criticizes nontraditional families
(RNS) Declaring the traditional family to be the foundation of a free society, Pope John Paul II on Sunday (Dec. 28) criticized cultures that permit practices that”disfigure”traditional family structures.
Although John Paul, speaking to pilgrims gathered in the courtyard of his summer home at Castelgandolfo, Italy, did not name any society by name or mention any specific form of a nontraditional family, Italian media has recently devoted extensive coverage to a N.J. court decision opening the way for gay and other unmarried couples to adopt children, the AP reported.
In addition, the Vatican has repeatedly condemned the use of reproductive methods such as implanting embryos from one woman to another and the use of surrogate mothers.”The family is the foundation and safeguard of a truly free and compact society,”the pope said, adding that it is important to safeguard and promote the traditional family’s”authentic rights”against myriad threats, including poverty, unemployment, and”the mentality contrary to the gift of life and even favorable to the very elimination of life with abortion and euthanasia.”Alongside these very worrisome phenomena,”the pope said,”even more grave are the threats that directly attack the structure of the family and disfigure its aspect and role in society.”
American Jewish Congress files brief in Louisiana evolution case
(RNS) The American Jewish Congress said Monday (Dec. 29) it has filed a brief urging a federal appeals court to find a Louisiana school board erred by issuing a disclaimer saying the theory of evolution was not necessarily correct.
The statement, issued by the Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education, took issue with the theory of evolution taught in its public schools because, the school board said, it is in conflict with”the biblical version of creation.” A U.S. District Court in Louisiana found the disclaimer to be unconstitutional and the AJC brief urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold that finding.
In its brief, the Jewish organization said the school board seized on one interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis in a way that establishes”an official religious orthodoxy”that it said is impermissible.
It said the school board statement ignored differing readings of Genesis, even among Protestants.”The choice of an official reading of biblical chapter reflects, knowingly or otherwise, an explicit preference for one group of faiths over others which undercuts the most fundamental principle of the Establishment Clause,”the brief said.”The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be preferred over another,”it added. For this reason, the brief said,”there can be neither an officially approved sacred text nor an official understanding of a sacred text.”
Ordination of gay elder case going to Presbyterian high court
(RNS) The national office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has announced it has received a formal appeal of a ruling by a lower church court upholding the ordination and installation of a gay elder in Cincinnati.
The appeal could be heard by the denomination’s Permanent Judicial Commission as early as mid-February but because of the size of the lower court’s proceedings _ 750 pages _ an August hearing is more likely, reported Presbyterian News Service, the denomination’s official news agency.
The appeal comes as presbyteries _ local governing bodies _ across the denomination are preparing to vote on an amendment to the church’s official rule book, the Book of Order, setting standards for ordination of pastors, elders and deacons that would soften the present requirement”of fidelity within the covenant of marriage … or chastity in singleness.” In the Cincinnati case, involving the ordination of an elder at Knox Presbyterian Church, the Permanent Judicial Council of the Synod of the Covenant _ the regional governing body _ held that because the elder candidate did not formally tell his session, the equivalent of a church council, he was gay, the ordination was valid.
The Cincinnati Presbytery had declared the ordination null and void.
According to Presbyterian Outlook, a Richmond, Va.-based independent weekly magazine, the elder candidate was never directly questioned about his sexuality and his candidacy was approved by the session along with other candidates.
The Synod of the Covenant PJC ruling said the session had upheld its obligations under church rules and the session did not have sufficient evidence to establish the candidate had”self-affirmed”or”declared”he was homosexual.
Church officials said the case may be heard together with a similar case from Florida making its way through church court procedures and which is expected to be appealed to the denomination’s top court.
Quote of the day: Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban Congress
(RNS)”To try to give the pope’s visit a political sense would be a mistake. Nor can you identify it as an act of support for the Cuban revolution. The pope is not a subversive, he’s the head of state of the Vatican and the leader of the Catholic Church.” _ Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban Congress, quoted in an interview published Sunday (Dec. 28) in El Nuevo Dia, a newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico, commenting on Pope John Paul II’s scheduled Jan. 21-25 visit to Cuba.
MJP END RNS
