c. 2000 Religion News Service
Vermont Governor Signs `Civil Unions’ Bill Into Law
(RNS) Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed a law Wednesday (April 26) that makes the state the first to give gay and lesbian couples the rights and benefits of marriage through “civil unions.”
“I think it is a courageous and powerful statement about who we are in the state of Vermont,” said Dean, a Democrat. “I also believe that this legislation speaks to the heart of this state, and certainly to my heart.”
The state’s lawmakers, who approved the bill Tuesday by a vote of 79-68, did not use the term “marriage” to describe the new benefits. They instead created a parallel track of “civil unions,” which would give homosexual partners the property and other legal rights already given to spouses.
On July 1, civil unions will become legal, making Vermont the state that gives relationships formed by gay and lesbian couples the most recognition, the Associated Press reported.
The three couples who sued in 1997 when they were denied marriage licenses watched the historic vote Tuesday.
“This isn’t marriage, but it’s a huge and powerful bundle of rights that we’ve finally gotten,” said Stan Baker, who sued with his partner, Peter Harrigan.
Janet Parshall, chief spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, decried the lawmakers’ action.
“This is `gay marriage’ in everything but name, and it is a direct assault on society’s most essential institution,” Parshall said in a statement. “It means that Vermont’s lawmakers no longer believe that marriage _ and marriage-based families _ have any unique value to society.”
The Vermont Supreme Court ruled unanimously in December that the denial of rights and benefits of marriage to gay couples was unconstitutional. The Legislature opted to create a parallel system for gay couples instead of broadening marriage statutes to include homosexuals.
The civil unions are not recognized under federal law, which means gay couples cannot receive benefits bestowed by the government in areas such as immigration and Social Security.
Judge Rules Against Ohio’s `God’ State Motto
(RNS) Deciding that the state motto of Ohio expresses “a uniquely Christian thought” and is a government endorsement of Christianity, a federal appeals court declared the motto unconstitutional Tuesday (April 25) in a 2-1 vote.
In prohibiting Ohio’s use of the motto “With God, all things are possible,” the appellate court decided that U.S. District Judge James Graham should not have granted Ohio permission to use the motto with the stipulation that the phrase’s biblical origins could not be cited.
“When Jesus spoke to his disciples, he was explaining to them what was needed of them to enter heaven and achieve salvation, a uniquely Christian thought not shared by Jews and (Muslims),” wrote Circuit Judge Avern Cohn, according to the Associated Press.
In its lawsuit filed on behalf of Presbyterian minister Matthew Peterson,the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the phrase is inseparable from its biblical context.
“Remarkably, advocates of the state motto attempted to drain the passage of its theological significance in their effort to avoid the First Amendment implications of its meaning,” said the ACLU’s Ohio Legal Director Raymond Vasvari. “It is just another example of how state sponsorship ultimately does no favors to religion.”
The appellate court’s lone dissenter, Circuit Judge David Nelson, said he found Ohio’s state motto no more upsetting than the phrase “In God We Trust” printed on U.S. currency.
But Cohn, citing two federal appeals courts rulings since 1970, said “In God We Trust” is not the equivalent of a state endorsement of religion, and noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on a direct challenge to the phrase.
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, has vowed to do “everything within my power to uphold and defend the motto.”
“The state does not use the motto to promote or advance any single set of religious beliefs,” he said.
Taft was joined in his support by the Council on American Islamic Relations, which noted that the “God” in the motto is not a uniquely Christian notion but also applies to “Allah,” the name for God in Islam.
“Our society is suffering from many problems associated with a decline both in moral values and in respect for religious and family principles,” said a statement from the group. “These problems will not be solved by eliminating references to God from public discourse.”
The state has said it intends to challenge the appeals court’s ruling.
Florida Judge Allows Voucher Law to Continue for Now
(RNS) The Florida judge who ruled in March that the state’s voucher program is unconstitutional is allowing the vouchers to continue until an appeal is considered.
Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith Jr. previously decided that the voucher law violates the state constitution because it provides state money that will be spent on private schools.
On Tuesday (April 25), he presided over a hearing in which opponents to the law sought a reinstatement of his order preventing implementation of the law in the next school year. That order was suspended when the state appealed Smith’s previous ruling.
Attorneys for the state told the judge that the First District Court of Appeal could make a decision on the appeal by September, the time when public money would be put in the voucher account. The state’s lawyers thought implementation did not need to be stopped in April.
Smith encouraged the state’s attorneys to file their briefs in the appeals court quickly so the appeal can be settled, the Associated Press reported.
“There are a lot of people that need to have this resolved expeditiously,” he said.
Smith chose not to reinstate the order halting further implementation but added that it was on the condition that attorneys “using all due diligence to expedite the review of this court’s final judgment.”
Under the law, students at schools that are considered to be failing two years out of four are eligible for vouchers. Two elementary schools in Pensacola qualified this year, but the number of schools that would be eligible next year is uncertain until grades come out in June.
Guard Convicted of Nuns’ Murder Asks for Pardon
(RNS) A former soldier serving a 30-year prison term in El Salvador for the rape and murder of three nuns and a social worker has requested a presidential pardon.
Francisco Contreras, one of two former national guardsmen who have already served 19 years for the crime, said Tuesday (April 25) that he sent a letter six months ago to President Francisco Flores requesting a pardon, according to the Associated Press, but so far has received no response.
Contreras told AP that he stood by his defense that he and the four other guardsmen convicted of the crimes were simply following orders when they attacked Jean Donovan and Roman Catholic nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel, who were all from the United States, in 1980.
That claim is backed by a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission report that contended one of the guardsmen “obeyed the orders from his superiors to execute” the women. The commission’s report also argued that then-National Guard Director Col. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, as well as other senior officials, “knew that National Guard members had committed the assassinations under orders from their superiors.”
Vides has denounced the report as biased and incomplete.
On Sunday (April 23), San Salvador Archbishop Fernando Saenz asked for government pardons for Contreras and Francisco Palacios, the other ex-guardsman imprisoned for the killings (three others were released in 1998).
“Let us have mercy and pity for them,” said Saenz. “They have demonstrated their repentance.”
Contreras said he wanted to ask for forgiveness from the victims’ families,who have said they believe their relatives were attacked because authorities thought they sympathized with leftist forces in El Salvador’s civil war.
“I’d like to ask them their pardon and I want them to know that it wasn’t our fault,” Contreras said.
Brazilian Catholics to Apologize to South American Indians
(RNS) In a special open-air Mass scheduled for Thursday (April 27), the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil will formally apologize to Indians and blacks for “sins and errors” Catholic clergy committed against them.
“The Mass will be a moment of penitence,” said the Most Rev. Raymundo Damasceno Assis, secretary general of the National Brazilian Bishops’ Conference, according to the Associated Press. “We will ask God to forgive the sins and errors committed by the Roman Catholic clergy against the human rights and dignity of the Indians, the first inhabitants of this land, and the blacks who were brought here as slaves.”
During the Mass _ to be held about 500 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro in Coroa Vermelha _ the church will “admit that some of the acts committed by its clergy over the past 500 years did not correspond to what is written in the Gospel,” said Assis.
The Mass will be celebrated near the area where Brazil’s first Roman Catholic Mass was held 500 years ago on April 26, 1500, the same area where police used tear gas and rubber bullets last Saturday (April 22) to break up a protest by 2,000 Indians against Portugal’s “invasion” of Brazil in 1500.
Church authorities said they expect about 50,000 people, including more than 300 bishops, will attend the event, which will also mark the start of the 38th General Assembly of the National Brazilian Bishops’ Conference. During the weeklong event, church leaders will discuss “some of the major challenges facing (Brazil),” said Assis, such as land distribution and economic globalization.
World’s First Mormon Chapel Reopens in England
(RNS) The world’s first Mormon chapel _ found not in the United States, where Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, but in the depths of the English countryside _ was rededicated and reopened on Sunday (April 23), more than 150 years after it was sold to help finance the migration of English Mormons to the United States.
The chapel, at Gadfield Elm, a hamlet about nine miles northwest of Gloucester, was built in 1836 by the United Brethren, one of the many fundamentalist Christian sects that proliferated in 19th century Britain.
In 1840, only 10 years after Smith had founded the Mormons, Gadfield Elm was visited by pioneering Mormons, including Wilford Woodruff, later their fourth president, and Brigham Young, who was to succeed Smith in 1844 as their second president and lead the Mormons to Utah.
Most of the United Brethren _ 600 in all _ joined the Mormons through baptism by immersion, and in 1840 their chapel was turned over to the Mormons.
Two years later the chapel, built of stone and accommodating 100, was sold to help finance the emigration of members of its congregation to the United States. In 1994 it came up for sale at auction and was bought back by the Mormons, who have since restored it.
There are about 180,000 Mormons in Britain. They have two temples, one at East Grinstead, 30 miles south of London, which opened in 1958, and one at Preston in Lancashire, which opened in 1998.
Quote of the Day: Internet evangelist Siam Rogers
(RNS) “The power of a Web site is that while we’re sleeping the Lord is out there using that to reach people who are looking for answers.”
Siam Rogers, who has been appointed as the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board’s first missionary devoted entirely to Internet evangelism. He was quoted in the April 25 report of Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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