c. 1997 Religion News Service
Clinton asks Yeltsin to veto proposed religion law
(RNS) President Clinton has asked Russian President Boris Yeltsin to veto a proposed law that would slap severe restrictions on the activities of foreign missionaries and religious groups not”traditional”to Russia.
Clinton asked Yeltsin to reject the measure when the two leaders met during the G-7 gathering of leading industrial nations last weekend (June 20-June 22) in Denver. (Russia is not a member of the G-7, but Yeltsin was invited to participate in the meeting.)
Clinton’s overture to the Russian president was revealed Wednesday (July 2) by two State Department officials _ Under Secretary of State Timothy Wirth and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steve Coffey _ during a meeting of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.
Wirth mentioned the issue to underscore the White House’s commitment to fighting religious discrimination. Coffey said the Clinton administration”went into high gear”to oppose the proposed Russian law.
In an interview, Coffey said Yeltsin told Clinton he would look into the issue, but made no commitment to veto the measure.
The bill has garnered the backing of Russia’s lower house of parliament, but has yet to receive final approval from the upper house, where it reportedly has considerable support.
The bill would give legal recognition to Russian Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism as”traditional”Russian religions. All other faith groups would have to prove they have operated legally in Russia for at least 15 years in order to be allowed to function. That rule will effectively prevent most from operating because Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union was officially atheistic until the fall of communism in 1991.
Foreign missionary groups would be allowed to operate in Russia only if invited to do so by a Russian religious organization _ which also virtually assures they will not be able to operate in Russia.
The measure _ which originated with Russian Orthodox Church supporters _ is viewed as an attempt to stem the growth of new religious movements in Russia, many of which are imports from the United States and other Western nations. These movements include the Roman Catholic Church, evangelical Protestant groups, the Mormons, and Hare Krishnas, among others.
Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., and others had urged Clinton to raise the issue with Yeltsin. The Russian president vetoed a similar measure four years ago, but has given no indication of his position on the new legislation.
Christian leaders join to slam courts over RFRA, other decisions
(RNS) Some 40 Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders have issued an unprecedented joint statement decrying recent rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts, singling out for particular scorn the High Court’s rejection of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
The statement, released Tuesday (July 1), said that the Supreme Court’s appointed members, acting”without the consent of the governed,”had created a constitutional”crisis.” The statement said that while the nation’s”ills no doubt have many causes, on this Fourth of July our attention must be directed to the role of the courts in the disordering of liberty.” The statement was organized by the Rev. Richard Neuhaus, a Catholic priest who chairs the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York, and Charles Colson, an evangelical Protestant who runs Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Colson called the Supreme Court’s rejection of RFRA”an example of the kind of judicial activism that is of great concern to this group of religious leaders … (It) guts the First Amendment, the most basic of all liberties, upon which all others stand or fall, and creates chaos that genuinely imperils religious liberties.” On June 25, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Congress had unconstitutionally usurped power belonging to the judicial system by passing RFRA, which required governments to show a compelling reason before passing laws that in any way restricted religious expression.”It seems that people who are motivated by religion or religiously inspired morality are relegated to a category of second-class citizenship,”said Neuhaus.
In addition to RFRA, the signers also criticized the courts for various rulings in favor of individual privacy, which the religious leaders called pro-pornography and pro-abortion.
Mark Noll, an historian of American religion at Wheaton College, an evangelical school in Wheaton, Ill., said the broad array of religious opinions held by the signers made the statement unprecedented.”Especially noteworthy is the participation of so many evangelical Protestant leaders, who are often suspicious of ecumenical cooperation,”said Noll.”I believe one would have to go back to the mid-19th century and the controversy over slavery to find a comparable sense of urgency about a moral and constitutional crisis.” Signers include Roman Catholic Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, Bishop Vinton R. Anderson of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Metropolitan Theodosius of the Orthodox Church in America, and the Rev. D. James Kennedy, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America.
Anglicans confess insufficient action against apartheid
(RNS) The Anglican Church has confessed publicly that it did not take enough action against apartheid, making it the first major church in South Africa to do so.
The confession was made Wednesday (July 2) to the human rights violations committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, reported Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
The confession said the Anglican Church had made statements during the apartheid era without taking concomitant action that would have helped alleviate the human rights violations suffered by the nation and the church.
The Anglican Church”has a wide membership, among whom would have been those involved in the perpetuation of the heresy of apartheid and of the violation of human rights. We call on them to appear before the TRC,”the confession said.
British doctors oppose euthanasia, favor some marijuana chemicals
(RNS) The British Medical Association, meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, voted Thursday (July 3) to oppose calls to legalize physician-assisted suicide.
After lengthy debate, the BMA passed a motion to throw out suggested changes in the law that now prohibits mercy killing, Reuters reported.”We must not change the rules which will put us on a slippery slope to expectations that our function is to put out of the way and kill people who we see as not worthwhile,”Dr. Fay Wilson told the conference.
The doctors also voted Wednesday to recommend that some mood-altering chemicals found in marijuana be legalized for treatment of cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, asthma and eating disorders, the Associated Press reported.
Montana court throws out ban on gay sex
(RNS) A 24-year-old ban on homosexual sex in Montana was struck down Wednesday (July 2) by the state supreme court on the grounds that it violates the right to privacy guaranteed in the state constitution.
In 1993, a group of six homosexuals sued the state over the law, appealing to the district court and the state supreme court, the Associated Press reported. Although no one has ever been prosecuted under the law, the group claimed that gays and lesbians in Montana live under emotional and psychological stress from fear of being charged with a crime.
Five other states _ Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri and Oklahoma _ still have laws banning gay sex, Linda Mangel, an attorney for the Northwest Women’s Law Center in Seattle told the AP.
Investigation into 1981 papal assassination attempt closed
(RNS) A new code of judicial procedures in Rome has closed investigations into the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II and the 1983 disappearance of the daughter of a Vatican employee.
The investigations are closed and new inquiries may not begin, unnamed judicial sources told Reuters.
At the end of June, the Italian parliament stopped granting extensions to most pending investigations which began before 1989.
The assassination attempt, which occurred on May 13, 1981, was followed by the almost immediate arrest of Mehmet Ali Agca, who was later sentenced to life in prison. The close of the investigation ends years of investigations into theories that Agca acted in conspiracy with the Bulgarian secret service.
Missionary couple detained, released in Congo
(RNS) Two United Methodist missionaries were detained by military personnel _ and later released _ in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire.
Laura and Larry Hills were held and had their vehicle confiscated when they attempted to leave the town of Kilwa for Lubumbashi, reported United Methodist News Service.
The couple had returned to Kilwa despite admonitions that they wait in neighboring Zambia until unrest in the former Zaire settled.”The Hills returned prematurely to Kilwa where unrest and tensions have been evident,”the Rev. Randolph Nugent, general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, told UMNS.
The Hills were expected to arrive in Lubumbashi Thursday (July 3) or soon thereafter.
Quote of the day: actor Jimmy Stewart
(RNS) Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart, who appeared in more than 80 films during his career, died Wednesday (July 2) at age 89.
Stewart’s life reflected a small-town, religious upbringing and sense of responsibility: He was conservative politically, married only once, earned medals for his World War II missions and often returned to help out at the family hardware store in Indiana, Pa., where his best actor Oscar for”The Philadelphia Story”was displayed in the window for 20 years, the Associated Press reported. For his 75th birthday in 1983, his hometown threw a bash attended by 30,000 people, nearly double the town’s population. Stewart told the crowd:”This is where I made up my mind about certain things _ about the importance of hard work and community spirit, the value of family, church and God.”
END RNS
