c. 2006 Religion News Service

Massachusetts Bishops Critical of Legislators’ Moves on Gay Marriage

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) Massachusetts’ Catholic bishops, who opposed lawmakers’ decision to avoid taking up a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, say the legislators’ action was “deeply disturbing” and violated the people’s right to be heard.

“The effort to silence the people through inaction and delay has no place in a democracy,” the four bishops wrote in a statement released Nov. 14. “We are profoundly disappointed with the conduct of those elected officials who, by voting to recess until the last day of the session, are obstructing the constitutional right of the people to be heard.”

The statement was signed by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and Bishops Timothy A. McDonnell of Springfield, George W. Coleman of Fall River and Robert J. McManus of Worcester.

The House and Senate, meeting in a constitutional convention on Nov. 9, voted 109-87 to recess until Jan. 2, the last day of the legislative session, before dealing with a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and banned future gay marriages.

A petition to ban gay marriage was signed by more than 150,000 registered voters and was supported by the state’s Catholic bishops.

Edward F. Saunders Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, said the legislators’ move could end the referendum’s chances of being decided by voters in 2008.

“(Legislators) have taken an oath to uphold the constitution (that) provides that petitions brought forward should receive final action, which is defined by a `yea’ or `nay’ vote,” Saunders said. “This appears to be a delaying tactic and (based on) the date scheduled to reconvene, it could be a way to circumvent taking a vote.”

Outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney has said he will try to get the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court _ the same court that approved gay marriage _ to compel the Legislature to allow a vote on the gay marriage ballot measure.

_ Bea O’Quinn Dewberry

Panelists: Secular, Religious Progressives Need to Work Together

WASHINGTON (RNS) Left-leaning secular and religious leaders need to overcome differences if they hope to implement progressive social policy, according to panelists at a session of the American Academy of Religion.

“We are recognizing the reality that neither one of us can achieve our goals alone,” said Melody Barnes, executive vice president of the Center for American Progress, on Sunday (Nov. 19). She said “hostility” between the two camps has created distrust between secular and religious activists.

“I think we have too much to do to succumb to that breach,” she said. “There’s a lot of space. There’s a lot of room for us to work.”

Other panelists, including the Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary, and the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, said the recent election and its aftermath show that the groups are working together more.

Thistlethwaite cited the efforts in six states to successfully pass ballot measures calling for an increase in the minimum wage.

“I think it really did kind of reconnect us in the ways that we had been in the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War (movement),” Thistlethwaite said in an interview.

Wallis said he was invited to address the Association of State Democratic Chairs at its conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Friday (Nov. 17) and found “the religious people came out” and identified themselves by faith without excluding the more secular people in their midst.

“I don’t want to see hermeneutical debates on the floor of the Senate, but I want to see a moral discourse in which people from both parties are free to say how their faith informs their moral compass and conviction,” he said in an interview.

“The Democrats are not afraid to speak of religion now, in a way that they were for a long time.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Federal Report Finds Holes in Abstinence Programming

WASHINGTON (RNS) The federal government is not doing enough to ensure the accuracy of abstinence-until-marriage programming, according to a new report by the government’s internal watchdog agency.

The Government Accountability Office found that both state and federal agencies have discovered scientific inaccuracies in federally funded abstinence programs, and said there is little oversight to catch such lapses.

Abstinence programs throughout the nation receive approximately $158 million a year from the Health and Human Services Department (HHS).

The Administration for Children and Families, an HHS division that distributes most federal abstinence funding, does not review recipients’ educational materials for scientific accuracy and does not require grant recipients to perform their own evaluations, the report says.

Only half of the states contacted by auditors in the government review conducted oversight to determine the scientific accuracy of abstinence material.

By contrast, another HHS division, the Office of Population Affairs, does review the accuracy of educational materials, the report said. In one such review, a state official reported that abstinence materials incorrectly suggested that “HIV can pass through condoms because the latex used in condoms is porous.”

The GAO report said review procedures should be extended, and the government should require all grantees to sign written assurances that the materials they propose to use are accurate.

William Smith, vice president of public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, applauded the GAO review.

“It is increasingly clear that the Administration for Children and Families’ strategy is to bury their heads in the sand and simply throw money at organizations that favor the social issue agenda of the Bush administration,” he said in a statement released Nov. 16.

HHS complained that the review did not define the term “scientific accuracy,” and said the agency disagreed with certain findings of the report because “it was difficult to precisely determine the criteria employed by GAO.”

The government report was requested by several members of Congress concerned with the effectiveness of federally funded abstinence-until-marriage programs. In the last decade, more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds have been channeled to organizations promoting abstinence, many of which are associated with conservative Christian groups.

_ Jason Kane

NBA, Methodists Team Up to Fight Malaria

WASHINGTON (RNS) The NBA, Sports Illustrated and the United Methodist Church are caught up together in nets.

In an effort to stop the spread of malaria in Africa, where the disease is a leading killer of children, NBA Cares, Sports Illustrated, the United Methodist Church and others announced a new campaign with the United Nations Foundation to provide mosquito nets to families in need.

The “Nothing But Nets” campaign asks individuals to donate $10 to send an insecticide-treated net to Africa where it can be used to cover people while they’re sleeping to prevent mosquito bites that lead to malaria.

“It’s a wonderful 21st century mix of the secular and sacred, which is really unprecedented,” said United Methodist Bishop Thomas Bickerton of Western Pennsylvania.

He said the denomination has historically paired the spread of the gospel with social outreach, and joining the campaign was “a natural partnership.”

About 500 million people are infected worldwide with the disease each year, resulting in 1 million deaths. Ninety percent of the dead are in Africa; most are African children, according to the World Health Organization Web site.

Bickerton said the U.N. approached the United Methodist Church last summer to join in its efforts because the church has been sending missionaries to Africa for more than 160 years and has established a strong base in area hospitals and churches.

“(The U.N.) said, `You’ve got the networks. We’ve got the resources and ideas. Let’s partner up,”’ he said.

Bickerton said sponsors such as the NBA and Sports Illustrated can help stimulate young people _ specifically high school and college students _ within the church to join in the campaign efforts.

“The campaign gives us an opportunity to reach a generation that we’re struggling to reach, quite frankly,” he said. The NBA has agreed to send players to the United Methodists’ international Youth 2007 gathering next July, according to Bickerton.

The campaign was created after a Sports Illustrated column, also called “Nothing But Nets,” last spring urged people to help fight African malaria by donating mosquito nets.

Each of the insecticide-treated nets can last a family for four years, according to the “Nothing But Nets” Web site. The campaign has raised enough to deliver more than 123,000 nets to Africa.

_ Rebecca U. Cho

Quote of the Day: Evangelical leader Leith Anderson

(RNS) “If there are some who are concerned about the viability of the (National Association of Evangelicals), it’s based on their ignorance, not reality. … This is like a plane crash. When a plane crashes, you’re sad and it’s big news, but you don’t abandon the airline industry. You recognize that’s the safest way to travel.”

_ Leith Anderson, interim president of the National Association of Evangelicals, responding to criticisms that the resignation of former president Ted Haggard has exposed weaknesses in the organization. Haggard resigned after admitting to charges of “sexual immorality” with a male escort. Anderson was quoted by Christianity Today magazine.

KRE/PH END RNS