c. 1998 Religion News Service
Frugal Gourmet settles sex assault suit
(RNS) Jeff Smith, the “Frugal Gourmet”and an ordained Methodist minister, avoided a civil trial set to begin next week in Tacoma, Wash., by reaching a settlement with his accusers on allegations he sexually assaulted seven teens over the last 25 years.
The terms of the settlement are confidential, according to the agreement.
Previously, Smith had threatened to fight the charges and prove his accusers were “crooks” and “bloodsuckers” out to ruin his reputation.
The first plaintiff to come forward, George Heitman, said he is disappointed with the agreement. “I’m dissatified with the terms of confidentiality of the agreement,” he said. “In fact, I’m kind of dissatified with the whole thing.”
Smith started his career as a university chaplain in Tacoma more than 30 years ago. He went from Tacoma restaurant owner and local TV personality to become a nationally syndicated star of one of the most popular cooking shows ever and a best-selling author in the span of two decades.
His “Frugal Gourmet” cooking show, born of modest beginnings on Tacoma public television, at one time reached more than 7 million households every week through syndication on more than 300 public stations. Broadcasts of “The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast,” Smith’s last cooking series, were suspended by United Methodist Communications last year in the wake of the allegations of sexual abuse.
Smith was accused by six men who worked for him during the 1970s and 1980s at his Tacoma restaurant, the Chaplain’s Pantry. In their depositions, the men swore that Smith often offered them alcohol before attempting to lure or intimidate them into sexual encounters. Some of the plaintiffs say Smith simply forced himself on them sexually.
One man claimed he was a 14-year-old hitchhiker in 1992 and was assaulted after Smith offered him a ride; his parents are also plaintiffs, bringing the total number of plaintiffs Smith settled with to nine.
Smith, 59, has not been charged with any crimes.
The settlement was reached with all the named parties in the suit, including Smith; his wife, Patty; Frugal Gourmet Productions Inc.; The Frugal Gourmet Inc.; and Chaplain’s Pantry Inc.
Some of the plaintiffs are glad the case is over, though some had hoped for a public admission of guilt.
“I’m glad we’re not going to be dragged through the trial,” said Rod Pedersen, a Wisconsin man who said Smith repeatedly got him drunk as a teenager before forcing him to perform sex acts. “But I’m kind of disappointed it doesn’t include some kind of admission from him.”
Odyssey Channel to partner with Hallmark, Jim Henson Co.
(RNS) Two well-known entertainment companies _ Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Henson Co. _ have signed a letter of intent to invest $100 million in the Odyssey Channel, a faith and values network based in New York.
The arrangement would involve the two companies and two existing shareholders, the National Interfaith Cable Coalition and Liberty Media Corp. The NICC, a consortium of Protestant, Jewish, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faith groups, founded the network in 1987. Liberty Media, the programming arm of Tele-Communications Inc., joined in a partnership with NICC in 1995.
After the investment and some restructuring, NICC will retain 22.5 percent, Liberty will own 32.5 percent and Hallmark and Henson will each own 22.5 percent of the common equity of the channel.
In a statement released Monday (June 29), Odyssey Channel officials spoke of the benefits of the partnership.”The Odyssey Channel will be greatly enhanced when it is relaunched with programming from The Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment,”the statement said.”Hallmark and Henson will make available cable-exclusive airings of both original and existing programs that feature the unique combination of high entertainment values and meaningful content that have been the trademark of both companies for the past several decades.” Originally called VISN (Vision Interfaith Satellite Network) and later known as Faith & Values Channel, Odyssey includes faith-related programs ranging from”The New Inspiration, Please!”religion quiz show to an evangelical debate program called”Hashing It Out.”It also features family dramas, such as”Brooklyn Bridge”and”Our House,”Catholic Masses and other worship services, and”CeCe’s Place,”a gospel and contemporary Christian music program hosted by singer CeCe Winans.
It is available to more than 30 million U.S. households through 1,500 cable systems, the Primestar direct-to-home satellite service (Channel 84) and C-Band dish owners.
Hallmark Entertainment, a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards Inc., is a leading distributor and producer of miniseries and made-for-TV movies. The Jim Henson Co. is an independent multimedia production company that has focused on family entertainment for more than four decades.
Survey shows English church attendance higher than thought
(RNS) Traditional surveys of Sunday church attendance in England seriously underestimate the number of regular worshippers, according to a new poll conducted by the Anglican diocese of Ripon in Yorkshire.
The headcount, conducted during April and May in 110 of the diocese’s 159 parishes, showed that during a four-week period 27,947 individuals were involved in worship at least once compared to secular surveys showing an average attendance of only 11,548.
If those attending occasional services such as funerals, baptisms, and weddings are removed from the total, there were still 18,362 regular worshippers _ 59 percent higher than the Sunday average head count.
Dissatisfaction with the accuracy of the regular polling of the number of worshippers in church on an average Sunday led the Church of England this year not to publish church attendance figures, which for several years have been showing a steady decline from 1.5 million in 1970 to just over 1 million in 1994, the last year for which figures are available.
The Ripon findings, which cover both urban and rural areas, suggest people are not losing contact with the church but are changing their pattern of involvement because of social pressures. This could involve attending midweek services or going to church regularly but less frequently.
Update: New report of violence in Tibet
(RNS) A bomb reportedly exploded near police headquarters in the capital of Tibet last week on the eve of President Clinton’s visit to China. It was the second recent report of violence in Chinese-occupied Tibet.
The London-based Tibet Information Network said in a statement sent to the Associated Press on Thursday (July 2) that three or four persons were injured by the June 24 blast near the Public Security Building in Lhasa. The group said it did not know who was responsible for the blast, the first reported in Tibet in 18 months.
It was also unknown whether the blast was timed to coincide with Clinton’s arrival in China, where the president urged Chinese President Jiang Zemin to negotiate a resolution of the Tibetan situation with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist religious and political leader.
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly called for Tibetans to remain non-violent in their struggle against the Chinese. However, with China so far unwilling to grant Tibet the cultural and religious autonomy the Dalai Lama says he is willing to settle for in the face of Beijing’s insistence that Tibet must remain part of China, elements with the Tibetan freedom movement have recently stepped up their tactics.
On Wednesday (July 1), the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy in India said six jailed Tibetans _ including a Buddhist monk and four nuns _ had been killed by Chinese prison guards during pro-Tibetan freedom incidents in Tibet’s Drapchi prison.
In recent months Tibetan exiles in India have also held a 47-day hunger strike. It ended with one of the demonstrators immolating himself. He died in a New Delhi hospital two days later, soon after he was visited by the Dalai Lama.
China has forcefully occupied Tibet since 1950. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet following a failed upraising.
Orthodox Jewish school sued over denying housing to lesbian couples
(RNS) Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish school in New York, has been hit by a lawsuit over its refusal to offer student housing to a lesbian couple.
The suit, filed in late June in the New York State Supreme Court, is believed to be one of the first of its kind to claim discrimination in student housing based on marital status, according to the independent Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service.
The suit was filed against Yeshiva and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, by the Einstein Association of Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals on behalf of students Sara Levin, 26, and Maggie Jones, 23. The women said that because they could not obtain student housing with their respective female partners, they were forced to find more expensive housing some distance from the school.
Their suit calls for a reversal of Yeshiva’s student housing policy, and an unspecified financial payment for emotional distress and the extra housing and commuting costs incurred.
The medical school offers housing to all single students and to married students and their spouses and children. Same-sex couples are denied the housing on the grounds that they are not legally married.
Although Yeshiva University is Orthodox Jewish in orientation, it is officially secular. As such, the school has been forced under the law to accept gay and lesbian groups on campus, despite the vehement objections of some Orthodox students and faculty who object to homosexuality on religious grounds.
CCM Magazine celebrates 20th anniversary with special issue
(RNS) CCM Magazine, the publication that chronicles the contemporary Christian music scene, has turned 20.
A special anniversary issue, in stores as of Wednesday (July 1), reviews the history of the magazine, whose growth has mirrored the industry it covers. With the publication of the special issue, the magazine will reach a peak circulation of more than 100,000 copies. Christian music sold 44 million units in 1997, making it the sixth most popular form of music in the country.
The monthly magazine, founded by John Styll, now has 29 employees and is part of CCM Communications in Nashville. Sold in Christian retail stores, the magazine covers the artists and recordings of the industry.
In an introduction to the anniversary issue, Styll voiced his concern that the music still does not hold a prominent place in the”public square”after three decades.”It is frustrating to see how utterly irrelevant Christian music seems to be in the culture at large, even after nearly 30 years of growth and development,”writes Styll.”Despite its growing economic importance to the music industry, Christian music is virtually invisible in the cultural centers of the world and in most of the general market media.”
Two Christian environmental ministries merge
(RNS) Two Christian ministries that have focused on environmental issues have merged.
The Evangelical Environmental Network and the Christian Society of the Green Cross decided to combine their staff, publications and other projects.
With the merger, Michael Crook, former editor of Green Cross magazine has become EEN’s director of grassroots outreach.
Evangelicals for Social Action is the parent organization of both groups. The merged ministry, which now will be called the Ecumenical Environmental Network, will be based in Wynnewood, Pa.”EEN has established itself as America’s leading evangelical voice on environmental issues,”said Crook.”Our integration of grassroots and institutional and denominational networking will make EEN even stronger.”
Quote of the day: Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson
(RNS)”China is simply too big, too important and too powerful to wish away. It is one thing to blacklist Iraq or Cuba. It is another thing to try to blacklist one-fifth of the world’s population.” _ Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, writing in the Wall Street Journal June 30, on why he disagrees with those religious conservatives who fault President Clinton’s policy of full engagement with China, given its poor human rights record.
DEA END RNS
