c. 2000 Religion News Service
Clinton Said to Be Mulling Moratorium on Federal Death Penalty
(RNS) In the wake of a moratorium on executions in the state of Illinois,President Clinton is considering a senator’s request to suspend federal executions.
In a letter dated Jan. 2, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., asked Clinton to place a hold on federal executions and have Attorney General Janet Reno review how the federal death penalty is administered in the United States.
“Before the federal government executes anyone, the Justice Department should be absolutely certain that innocents have not been condemned to death,” wrote Feingold, sponsor of a bill to abolish the federal death penalty.
Feingold’s request was spurred by Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s recent decision to stop executions in that state until authorities can determine whether the death penalty has been applied fairly. Twelve prisoners have been executed in Illinois since 1976, and 13 inmates have been freed from death row since 1987.
Feingold’s request is under review by White House counsel, said Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart. He remained cautious about whether Clinton would act on the senator’s request.
“The president was certainly concerned by the issues raised by the governor of Illinois,” Lockhart said. “If there are legitimate concerns that are brought to us, we will look at the concerns. But I can’t predict anything beyond that until we’ve had a chance to study the issue.”
Twenty-one people are on federal death row currently, three-fourths of whom are minorities, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Nationally, 85 people have been freed from death row since 1973.
The last federal execution occurred in Iowa in 1963.
“Dr. Laura,” Thomas Kinkade Honored by Religious Broadcasters
(RNS) Christian broadcasters opened the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters Saturday (Feb. 5) with an awards ceremony that honored radio talk-show host “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger, artist Thomas Kinkade and Pat Robertson’s “The 700 Club.”
The glitzy awards presentation in Anaheim, Calif., drew about 1,000 people. About 5,000 are expected to attend the four-day convention.
Schlessinger received the NRB Chairman’s Award. The evangelical Christian NRB praised Schlessinger, who is Jewish, for her defense of religion and morality.
“Her common sense, no-nonsense talk … sets the moral compass for more than 18 million listeners every day,” said NRB chairman Brandt Gustavson.
The award honors recipients for serving the Christian community in an exemplary and distinguished manner.
“I have always contended that people who are seriously religious, are of one mind, period,” Schlessinger said upon accepting the award.
The NRB Broadcast Service Award went to Roy Stewart, chief of media at the Federal Communications Commission.
The convention comes on the heels of a sharp controversy between the NRB and FCC. On Jan. 28, the FCC reversed a previous decision not to classify some religious programming as educational, a move the NRB labeled as “unconstitutional restrictions on religious speech”
Among the evening’s other honorees, California artist Thomas Kinkade received the NRB President’s Award. Kinkade, who is known as the “Painter of Light,” was praised by NRB President Brandt Gustavson for his ability to imbue his paintings with a sense of spiritual illumination.
“People open up the most precious place on the planet to me _ their home, their sanctuary,” Kinkade told the audience, adding, “You’re not in the broadcast business, you’re in the home business.”
The award for TV Program of the Year went to Pat Robertson’s “The 700 Club,” while KKLA-FM of Los Angeles was named Radio Station of the Year.
The William Ward Ayer Distinguished Service Award was given posthumously to former NRB board director Russell Bixler. Bixler, who died Jan. 30, and his wife, Norma, co-founded Cornerstone TeleVision in Pittsburgh.
Massachusetts Court To Hear Arguments in Inmate’s Rosary Case
(RNS) The Massachusetts Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday (Jan. 8) in a case involving an inmate who claims his religious freedom was violated when guards confiscated his rosary.
Prison guards at the state prison confiscated a black-and-white beaded rosary belonging to Peter Kane in June 1997 because it could have signified connections to a gang, according to Department of Correction officials.
To combat gang activity, the department had restricted certain jewelry and clothing items _ including rosaries _ that inmates could keep, said Peter Pepe Jr., superintendent of the state prison. The department does permit inmates to keep rosary beads as long as they are one color.
A lower court has affirmed the department’s policy, saying that inmates’ rights “may be curtailed in order to achieve legitimate correctional goals or to maintain prison security.”
Kane has denied any gang affiliation, and his attorney, John Reinstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the rosary confiscation sent the wrong message to inmates, one that says “If you want to pray, pray our way.”
“The net effect of what the Department of Correction is doing here is to make it more difficult for people to pray,” Reinstein said. “I certainly don’t think you want to deprive people of the focus and sustenance they get from religion.”
C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, told the Associated Press he was skeptical of the rules.
“It seems that, given the easy availability of drugs and knives in Massachusetts correctional facilities, it’s hard to believe a set of rosary beads would constitute a mortal danger,” he said.
Southern Baptist President Hopes for Minority Leader
(RNS) Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson said he hopes the predominantly white denomination will elect a member of a racial or ethnic minority to its presidency within five years.
“I believe, deep down in my heart, with all my soul that the future of the Southern Baptist Convention has to be a multiracial, multiethnic future, or quite frankly, in my way of thinking, it has no future,” Patterson said at the second annual Ethnic Presidents Roundtable sponsored by the SBC’s North American Mission Board.
The meeting, on Feb. 1-2, was held on the campus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. Patterson, the seminary’s president, met with representatives of about a dozen racial and ethnic fellowships within the SBC, reported Baptist Press, the denomination’s news service.
There are a total of 26 “ethnic fellowships” within the denomination, with the majority being Korean, African-American and Hispanic, said Michael Cooley, special assistant in leadership development with the North American Mission Board.
Patterson said he has tried to appoint racial and ethnic minorities to nearly every committee for which he was responsible. He hopes to continue that goal at the SBC’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., in June.
“I intend to use someone if I possibly can from every ethnic fellowship and hopefully numerous ones from many of the ethnic fellowships,” he said.
Bob Reccord, president of the mission board, also participated in the meeting with fellowship representatives. He called on churches affiliated with the SBC to strive to become more racially and culturally diverse.
“I think we’ve got to continue to push toward multicultural churches where in a church it’s not just converted Jews, it’s not just African- Americans, it’s not just Eastern Europeans,” Reccord said. “The church I read about in the New Testament is a church that is spread across all kinds of cultural barriers and in a given church it wasn’t just homogeneous.”
SBC leaders say the meeting demonstrates a continuing commitment to foster racial and cultural diversity within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. In 1995, delegates to the SBC’s annual meeting passed a racial reconciliation resolution repudiating the denomination’s defense of slavery when the SBC began in 1845.
Yarmulke Ruling Prompts Forfeit of Basketball Game
(RNS) The coach of a Hebrew school’s boys basketball team forfeited a game rather than abide by the referee’s request that the players remove their yarmulkes.
Nathan Drory, coach of the team of sixth- through eighth-graders at the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, Va., was preparing his team to play Sweethaven Christian Academy of Portsmouth, Va., on Thursday (Feb. 3) when the referee informed six of his players they could only play if they removed their yarmulkes.
The yarmulkes, worn by some Jewish males as a show of respect for God, had not been an issue previously, Drory said.
Four of the players are sons of rabbis, and the wearing of yarmulkes is “not something we are going to be flexible on,” Drory said. “We’re going to wear them.”
Dick Bowie, commissioner of the Southeastern Virginia Officials Association, on Friday defended the decision by the referee, the Associated Press reported.
“If the clips were to come loose and stick someone in the eye, our $5 million liability insurance wouldn’t cover it,” Bowie said.
Sweethaven’s basketball coach David Clark said his team has played Hebrew Academy in other sports and the issue never came up.
After the forfeit was official, the coaches decided to play anyway. Sweethaven won, 33-22.
“They were gracious; they were understanding; they were very good hosts,” Drory said. “The kids were great on both sides. Our kids were very happy to uphold something they believe in.”
Lawmakers Seek to Stop Gambling on College, High School Events
(RNS) Calling gambling a “black eye” for the nation’s educational system, two senators have introduced legislation to prohibit gambling on college and high school sports. The bill would also ban gambling on the summer and winter Olympic games.
Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., unveiled details of The High School and College Gambling Prohibition Act at a news conference on Tuesday (Feb. 1). They said the legislation was prompted by a recommendation in a report issued last year by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission.
“This legislation will remove the ambiguity that surrounds gambling on college sports and makes it clearly illegal in all 50 states,” Brownback said. “We should not wait for another point-shaving scandal in order to act.”
A national ban on Olympic and student sports would help prevent gambling’s devastating impact on athletes’ lives, Leahy said.
“Sports betting puts student athletes in vulnerable positions and threatens their integrity and the integrity of college and Olympic sports,” he said. “It can devastate individuals and careers. A national ban on amateur and college sports betting may help prevent these ravages of sports wagering.”
U.S. Women Rabbis Pray at Wall
(RNS) A group of 27 Reform women rabbis from the United States prayed Monday (Feb. 7) at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, as part of a first-ever organized trip to Israel by Jewish female clerics, members of the Rabbinic Women’s Network.
The woman-only prayer service, which takes place at the outset of every Jewish month, proceeded peacefully, participants said. The rabbis joined a group of Israeli Jewish women who are fighting in Israel’s Supreme Court for the right to conduct public Bible readings, as well as prayers, in front of the wall.
Orthodox Jewish rabbinical leaders here object to the practice and have sought to bar the group, known as Women at the Wall, from convening at the holy site.
Quote of the Day: Wandering Evangelist Carl J. Joseph
(RNS) “If I walk, I’m more accessible to people. Jesus walked. Buddha walked. And Gandhi walked.”
_ Wandering evangelist Carl J. Joseph, speaking in an interview in Hazleton, Pa., about the effectiveness of evangelizing on foot. He was quoted in the Sunday (Feb. 6) edition of The Washington Post.
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