c. 2003 Religion News Service
Appeals Court Considers Alabama Ten Commandments Case
(RNS) The attorney for Alabama’s chief justice argued Wednesday (June 4) before an appellate court that a Ten Commandments monument should stay in the state Supreme Court building.
Herb Titus told the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the monument to the biblical laws should remain because God is the “source of law and liberty.” He argued against a federal judge’s order that the commandments be removed, the Associated Press reported.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore had the 5,200-pound granite monument installed one night two years ago in the state Judicial Building.
Titus said the biblical laws should be permitted to stay because they are the basis for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
“God is officially acknowledged as the source of law and liberty,” he said. “This monument is part of that unbroken history.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit on behalf of three Alabama lawyers who claimed the monument violated their constitutional rights.
Ayesha Khan, one of the lawyers who sued, said after the hearing, “Religion is too personal and too sacred and too holy to be used as a tool by the government.”
The appearance of the biblical laws in public settings has prompted numerous cases regarding church-state separation across the country.
A three-judge panel of the same court that is considering Moore’s case ruled during the last week of May that a Richmond County, Ga., court seal that depicts the Ten Commandments should be permitted to remain in use because it does not endorse religion. The small seal, used since at least 1872, shows tablets with Roman numerals rather than written commandments.
The Adams County school district in southwestern Ohio is planning to remove granite Ten Commandments monuments at four public high schools on Monday (June 9) to comply with a court order that ruled them unconstitutional.
Survey: Muslims Resent U.S. Policies, Believe Democracy Can Work
(RNS) A major new survey of attitudes in the Muslim world reveals that many Muslims believe Western-style democracy can work in their countries, at the same time it found inflamed resentment of U.S. policy among some Muslim populations in the wake of the Iraq war.
The survey, “Views of a Changing World 2003,” was released Tuesday (June 3) by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which is a project of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
The project surveyed 16,000 people in 20 countries plus the Palestinian territories between April 28 and May 15. The surveys in each country, which spanned the Middle East, Europe and parts of Asia including North and South Korea, were conducted separately, with margins of error ranging from 1.8 percent to 4.4 percent.
The survey also tracked some attitudes over the past year. A broader survey of 44 nations was conducted in 2002, and previously unreleased findings were made public along with the new poll.
Among the major findings of the survey was that many Muslims believe that democracy can work in their countries.
“Despite soaring anti-Americanism and substantial support for Osama bin Laden, there is considerable appetite in the Muslim world for democratic freedoms,” said the report. It found, for example, that in the predominantly Muslim country of Kuwait, 83 percent of those surveyed said they believe Western-style democracy can work well there.
In Indonesia, though, just 41 percent agree with the statement, a figure that is down from 64 percent in the 2002 survey.
American policies and attitudes came under sharp criticism in the survey, particularly in the wake of the Iraq war.
Seven of the eight predominantly Muslim countries surveyed reported that a majority are concerned that they may be attacked by the United States. And “favorable” ratings for the United States have fallen in Indonesia and among Muslims in Nigeria by 46 percent and 33 percent, respectively, since the summer of 2002.
Israel is another area where U.S. policy came under sharp criticism. Twenty of the 21 populations surveyed _ America was the only exception _ reported a plurality or majority saying that the United States favors Israelis over Palestinians.
Also, the report said, “By wide margins, most Muslim populations doubt that a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that the rights and needs of the Palestinian people are met.”
However, nearly the same percentage of Arabs as Jews living in Israel _ 62 and 68 percent, respectively _ reported that they believe that Israel can exist in a way that addresses the rights and needs of Palestinians.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Conservatives Cheer Vote to Ban `Partial-Birth’ Abortions
WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious conservatives savored a victory eight years in the making after the House voted Wednesday (June 4) to ban so-called partial-birth abortions.
The House voted 282-139 to prohibit the rare late-term procedure that critics call “barbaric.” Abortion rights supporters vowed a swift legal challenge once President Bush signs the law, as promised.
“When President Bush signs this bill into law, it will be the most significant blow to the pro-choice, pro-death agenda since the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade 30 years ago,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Senate passed a similar bill March 13. Minor differences between the two bills, such as Senate language that voices support for the 1973 decision that legalized abortion, must still be ironed out before Bush can sign it.
Congress has voted twice to ban the procedure since 1995, but both bills were vetoed by President Clinton.
The bill imposes a two-year prison sentence for any doctor who aborts a partially delivered fetus whose head is outside the mother’s body, or in the case of a breech delivery, whose trunk beyond the navel is outside the birth canal.
The House rejected, 287-133, an alternative bill that would have allowed the procedure if it were necessary to preserve the “mental health” of the mother. The legislation, as passed, contains an exception that allows the procedure if it is deemed necessary to save the life of the mother.
“In voting to ban this procedure, one of the most heinous acts ever perpetrated upon an unborn child, Congress is in harmony with the vast majority of Americans who find this violent act intolerable and want it stopped,” said Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, chairman of the pro-life committee for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law that banned the procedure, in part because it was too vague and presented an “undue burden” on women’s abortion rights. Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, pronounced the new law “constitutionally sound.”
Abortion rights supporters said the new law is built on “deception and fear.” The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice said the bill is “intended to inflame the public, confuse the media, criminalize doctors, strip women of their right to make their own medical decisions and once again imperil women’s health and lives.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Anglican Mission Signs Agreement With Denver Seminary
(RNS) A breakaway group of conservative Episcopalians has signed its first agreement with an established seminary to train clergy.
The Anglican Mission in America entered the agreement with Denver Seminary, a multidenominational evangelical seminary in Englewood, Colo. Officials expect to launch classes for the Master of Divinity degree with an emphasis in Anglican studies by next spring.
“I have been working with students and graduates of Denver Seminary since 1990. They have few equals in terms of academic excellence and spiritual formation,” said Bishop Alexander “Sandy” Greene, one of AMIA’s six active bishops and a former Episcopal priest in Colorado.
The Anglican Mission in America, which now claims 12,000 members in 55 parishes, broke away from the Episcopal Church in early 2000. Members say the Episcopal Church has grown too liberal, while Episcopal leaders are angry that the group is receiving support and oversight from conservative overseas Anglican leaders.
Classes in the new Anglican Parish Ministry Program will include Anglican history, Anglican theology, Anglican polity and liturgy and Anglican discipleship. The AMIA will recommend and provide faculty for those courses.
Seminary students who wish to serve as pastors in the AMIA could still attend other seminaries, even those affiliated with the Episcopal Church, but would need additional training with AMIA leaders to become ordained in the movement.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: USA Today Columnist Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer
(RNS) “Movies like `Bruce Almighty’ are certainly not graduate courses in theology. But used selectively and carefully, they can be teaching and preaching tools. Sometimes they can raise issues as effectively as a month’s worth of Bible classes and sermons.”
_ Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer, spiritual leader of a Conservative congregation in the Metuchen-Edison, N.J., area and a member of USA Today’s board of contributors, writing in a column in USA Today.
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