Keywords by David Yonke

I just chatted with a journalist friend in Detroit who's working on an article about a transgender person who's being kicked out of a Christian & Missionary Alliance church.
The church leaders say the woman (formerly a man) chose to pursue a homosexual lifestyle, which is against their teachings on the Bible and morality. The woman says no, that's wrong. She is straight, not homosexual. She had her birth certificate changed to show she's female.
I'm glad my church has not run into this scenario -- one that could not have happened a few years or decades ago. It's only through modern medicine that such a dilemma could occur.
Science and technology are moving faster and further than our culture's morals and ethics.
What would you say if you were on a church board and had to make a decision on her membership and/or attendance?
Obviously, a lot depends on which church and denomination. For some, it would be automatic expulsion. For others, it would hardly raise an eyebrow.
I'm glad this hasn't come up at my church ... yet.

Toledo, Ohio
April 22, 2008

Got a note from Dottie Zimmerman, the Toledo woman who channels dead Italian Saint Padre Pio. She liked my article but was braced for repercussions.
She teaches religion at a local Catholic school and sure enough, she was asked politely to "check out" the possibility of retirement.
If you haven't read the article about her, I highly recommend it. Here is a link.
Stay tuned...
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Toledo, Ohio
July 17, 2008

The Episcopal Church is not the only denomination being torn apart over homosexuality. This well-written press release from the United Methodist News Service shows how emotionally charged the debate can be. -- David.

Pastor is church's first openly gay bishop candidate
Jul. 22, 2008

NOTE: Photographs, audio and related coverage are available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Marta W. Aldrich*

PORTLAND, Ore. (UMNS)-Standing before an assembly that would elect two bishops, the Rev. Frank Wulf shared his problem as a candidate for one of the top clergy positions in The United Methodist Church.

"The problem is that I come as a gay man, and I know where our church stands on the issue of same-sex orientation," Wulf said in his candidacy address before the Western Jurisdictional Conference, which represents United Methodists in the western United States, Guam and other U.S. territories in the Pacific.

The delegates, who later approved four statements challenging the denomination's position on homosexuality, listened intently as Wulf continued: "And I know that the church says … a practicing self-avowed homosexual shall not be ordained or appointed within our church."

By extension, Wulf noted that his candidacy created a quandary for jurisdictional delegates in a denomination that consistently has declared homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching."

"I know that if, by some chance, I were ever to be elected as a bishop within this jurisdiction or any jurisdiction, that all hell would break loose …," he said, explaining later that he would anticipate church judicial charges, threats and hate mail.

He challenged them: "If in fact you feel this is what God is calling you to do … then I would be willing to be your bishop. But if the Western Jurisdiction is not at the point where it is willing … to deal with the maelstrom that will occur, then I am certainly not the person you should elect as bishop in this jurisdiction."

Wulf then left the podium-the only one to receive a standing ovation for a candidacy address among more than a dozen clergy members asking that July 16 to become bishop. In so doing, he became the first openly gay candidate for the United Methodist episcopacy. (During his 2004 candidacy, Wulf had not openly shared his sexual orientation.)

Two days later, in the late-night hours of July 18, as delegates struggled to elect their second and final bishop, Wulf went to the podium again-this time to withdraw his name from consideration. For the previous two days, he had consistently finished sixth in the balloting among 19 clergy members receiving votes. At this hour, it was apparent that he would not be elected.

"I am withdrawing from this race for the episcopacy, but I'm doing so with the hope that a gay man or a lesbian will be able to be elected bishop of The United Methodist Church. … I know that day is coming," Wulf said to applause and another standing ovation.

Mixed reaction

As word of Wulf's openly gay candidacy spread elsewhere, reaction was mixed but passionate on all sides.

"Even though he was not elected, I think it was a significant milestone for The United Methodist Church," said Mary Larson, chairperson of the pastor parish committee at United University Church, a United Methodist/Presbyterian congregation that Wulf leads in Los Angeles.

"He made the decision to run as an openly gay man, and it was a challenge to the whole church to deal more directly with this issue. … He was not a token candidate just to make a point; he was a serious candidate," said Larson, who attended the conference in support of Wulf.

Others countered that the Western Jurisdiction, which historically has supported the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church, is not of one mind on the issue. They noted that a large number side with the denominational stance on human sexuality as passed by General Conference, the church's top legislative body, which met last spring in Fort Worth, Texas. They said church law is based on Scripture and longstanding Christian tradition, and that it serves as a covenant for the entire denomination, including Wulf and others advocating for change.

Such advocacy is a perplexing statement to the world at best and a subversive act of teaching at worst, according to the Rev. David Parker, senior pastor of Central United Protestant Church, an 1,100-member United Methodist congregation in Richland, Wash.

"To change our official stance and even advocate for that change is both harmful and subversive, not only to The United Methodist Church but to the larger global Christian church and our commitment to understanding holiness in every dimension of life," said Parker. "…I haven't run into any self-avowed homosexuals willing to remain celibate and teach and advocate that God has a different and healing vision for sexual practice."

The Rev. Maxie Dunnam, a well-known United Methodist speaker, author and educator, said the fact that an openly gay person would run for bishop shows the depth of division with United Methodism.

"It also shows how far removed the leadership of the UM Church in that jurisdiction is--not only from the consistent witness of United Methodism but from the church universal and the vast majority of Christians around the world," said Dunnam, chancellor of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky.

Dunnam said bishops are to be both symbols of unity and defenders of the faith.

"What bothers me most is that our bishops in that jurisdiction (and some in other jurisdictions), while not openly violating the law of our church on the issue of the practice of homosexuality, are pastorally and prophetically supporting persons and positions that do violate our stand on this issue," he said. "I am deeply troubled that they seem oblivious to the fact that their failure to lead prophetically and pastorally in support of the church's doctrine and discipline contributes greatly to division and the threat of schism."

Jurisdictional duty

The Western Jurisdictional Conference's primary tasks during its July 16-19 gathering were to elect two bishops and then to assign all of its bishops to geographical areas of responsibility for the next four years, starting Sept. 1.

Wulf had agreed to be nominated from the floor at the urging of members across the jurisdiction's gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual community.

"There's no question that he is recognized as the community's natural leader," Larson said.

As for Wulf, he believes his candidacy represented "a growing movement within the church to understand another way."

"When General Conference ends and questions related to the Book of Discipline have been voted on, it looks like it's all settled and done. But what that uniformity of the Discipline really does for us is to disguise a disunity that exists in our church," he said in an interview with United Methodist News Service.

"I think my running provides an opportunity for us to talk across those boundaries-to listen to each other, read Scriptures together, pray together, fast together-and hopefully not just to shout insults at each other. I feel that God called me to this moment."

*Aldrich is news editor of United Methodist News Service.

News media contact: Marta Aldrich, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is campaigning against a University of Minnesota professor who intentionally descrated the Holy Eucharist -- the Communion wafer that according to Catholic doctrine literally becomes the body of Christ.

Here's what the Catholic League reported on its website last week (here's a link to the site):

University of Minnesota professor Paul Z. Myers made good on his pledge to desecrate the Eucharist today. According to his statement on the subject, “I pierced it [the Host] with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash.”

Saying he did not want to “single out just the cracker,” Myers also tore pages from the Koran along with a few pages from Richard Dawkins’ "The God Delusion" and nailed them to the Host. He then said, “They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet.”

========

The University of Minnesota's response? Again, this is from the Catholic League, which I'm am assuming is accurate:

The Chancellor of the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMN) released a statement today regarding the intentional desecration of the Eucharist by Professor Paul Z. Myers. “I believe that behaviors that discriminate against or harass individuals or groups on the basis of their religious beliefs are reprehensible,” said Jacqueline Johnson. Importantly, she added that the school’s Code of Conduct prohibits such behavior. However, she also stressed that academic freedom allows faculty members “to speak or write as a public citizen without institutional discipline or restraint….” Nowhere did she say Myers would be disciplined.

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(Note: An interesting parallel case in Toledo occurred in May when a University of Toledo administrator, Crystal Dixon, was fired for saying in a public forum, written as a private citizen and not as a university employee, that homosexuality is wrong according to her religious beliefs and the Bible. I genuinely wonder what would have happened to Ms. Dixon if she had worked at the University of Minnesota. Would the university have supported her "academic freedom" ... "without restraint"?)
========
Here is the Catholic League's response to the U of Minnesota's statement:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:

“It is a sure bet that UMN would not tolerate a white professor who worked a comedy club on weekends trashing blacks. Indeed, it would say that such behavior disqualifies his ability to be objective. In many respects Myers is worse, and that is why sanctions are warranted.”

========

As a citizen and a journalist, I strongly support free speech, even though it can be distasteful at times.
Even so, there are limits. That's why we have libel and slander laws, and laws against making threats against others. There are considerations that our legal and judicial system must weigh in each individual case.
Sometimes, unfortunately, free speech can be used as a smokescreen to espouse bigotry, and used as an excuse to bully and insult others.
It may be within his legal rights to descrate a Eucharist, Qur'an, and atheist's best-selling book, but it irresponsible for a professor at a public university to promote hatred and insult millions. Despite Myers' assertion, some things really are sacred.

Toledo, Ohio
July 28, 2008

Dottie Zimmerman, the Toledo woman who channels dead Italian Saint Padre Pio, called me yesterday to say she has officially retired as a teacher in the local Catholic school system.
She is at peace with the move and so is Padre Pio, she said.
Dottie is not looking for any controversy and is genuinely fine with the outcome, but she just wanted to let me know how things developed since I was concerned from the start for her job. She acknowledged it was the publicity generated by my reporting that led to her early retirement. The first few weeks after the article ran, she was in a panic, she said. But in the end, church officials offered a fair economic deal and she is OK with everything.
Dottie said church officials told her she had done a fine job as a teacher for 40 years and actually said it was okay for her to channel a canonized Catholic saint. But she had gone too far, she said she was told, because she also channels her dead mother and her late husband.
Isn't that interesting.
* * *
Sylvania, Ohio
July 29, 2008

Here's a recount of the controversy straight off the Wikipedia entry about Paul Z. Myers:

Eucharist controversy

A controversy arose in July 2008 over a blog entry written by Myers expressing amazement at news reports of death threats issued to University of Central Florida Student Senator Webster Cook. On June 29, 2008, Cook attended a Catholic Mass being held in the student union at UCF by a Catholic student group that receives funding from the student government. Cook received the Catholic Eucharist host but did not consume it immediately. He said later that he wanted to take it back to his seat to show a friend, but when stopped he put it in his mouth until back at his seat, then a church leader made forcible attempts to take the host from him.[19][20] Cook stored the host at his home, then returned it one week later after receiving e-mail threats and pleas.[21][19] Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, described the student's actions as "beyond hate speech" and said that "All options should be on the table, including expulsion."[22]

In his July 8 blog entry, Myers criticized the reaction to Cook's act. Myers described the level of harassment leveled against the student, which included multiple death threats, and the accusations which included hate crime, kidnapping, and intent to desecrate the wafer, which Catholics consider a mortal sin.[20][23] Myers expressed outrage that Fox News appeared to be inciting readers to cause further problems for the student, and ridiculed reports that armed guards would attend the next mass. Myers suggested, as a fitting response, that if any of his readers could acquire some consecrated Eucharistic hosts for him, he would treat the wafers "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web."[24]

A number of Roman Catholics immediately reacted strongly. Donohue's Catholic League accused Myers of anti-catholic bigotry,[25] described his proposal as a threat to desecrate what Catholics hold to be the Body of Christ, and sent a letter asking the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Legislature to take action against Myers.[26][25]. According to Donohue, as the Pharyngula website was accessible via a link from the University of Minnesota website, it should be bound by the institution's code of conduct which requires faculty to be "respectful, fair and civil" when dealing with others.[26]

Myers explained to the Star Tribune that his blog entry was "satire and protest" rather than any actual threat. Myers also reported that he too had received death threats regarding the incident but was not taking them too seriously.[25]

In a talk show featuring Myers on Catholic Radio International, hosted by Jeff Gardner, Myers confirmed that he had been sent an unspecified number of consecrated hosts and said that he intended to “subject them to heinous cracker abuse.” When asked by Gardner to explain why he must do so, Myers said that Donohue of the Catholic League was insisting that he acknowledge the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. Gardner pointed out that Donohue had no authority to insist that anyone acknowledge the body of Christ in the Eucharist. When Gardner asked Myers who, having the Magisterial authority of the Catholic Church, had insisted that he recognize the Body of Christ in the eucharist, Myers said that no one from the Catholic Church had contacted him.[27]

On July 24, 2008, PZ Myers, in his post, "The Great Desecration," wrote that he had pierced the "cracker" with a rusty nail and simply threw it in the trash together with old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. He added a few ripped-out pages of the Qur'an and The God Delusion, and included a photograph of these items in the garbage. He wrote that nothing must be held sacred and encouraged people to question everything.[28]

The University of Minnesota, Morris (UMN) Chancellor on July 25, 2008 addressed the matter, stating: “I believe that behaviors that discriminate against or harass individuals or groups on the basis of their religious beliefs are reprehensible,” but that the school "affirms the freedom of a faculty member to speak or write as a public citizen without institutional discipline or restraint."[29]

The debate over Dottie Zimmerman, the Toledo woman who channels St. Padre Pio, still goes on.
I'm glad to see people discussing the issue but I hope they realize that I don't necessarily agree with or condone everything I write about.
It's a big world of religion out there and I write for a mainstream newspaper, not a Christian periodical. I think I need to cover topics occasionally that are controversial and/or offbeat, although I wouldn't do so too frequently. All in perspective.
The practice of channeling dead people is as old as humanity; the real point of contention for most people about the article is that Mrs. Zimmerman was teaching religion at a Catholic school (she just retired).
Incidentally, in a sidebar article, I quoted a Toledo priest, who was speaking for the diocese, who said that each case of channeling would have to be reviewed individually before any pronouncements were made. So he did not immediately condemn Mrs. Zimmerman for channeling and I think that irked many people.
===============

Here's today's letter:

Church does not condone divination
This is in response to the writer of "Talking with spirits is devilish practice" in the July 28 Readers' Forum. Divination is not a practice that the Catholic church accepts or promotes. The catechism of the Catholic church clearly states, "All forms of divination are to be rejected." It goes on to say, "They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone."

The writer assumed too much from the article and should have done a little more research before he wrote. I believe that his wrath should have been directed more toward Blade religion editor David Yonke for thinking that this was something worth printing. He cast his story in a way that it is legitimate religion. I, as a Catholic, would not condone such practices (divination or channeling), and neither would anyone who is in a "Jesus-centered church."

The church speaks for itself. All one has to do is listen.

Thomas E. Rawlins

Glenbrook Drive

I went to Lima, Ohio, yesterday to cover an appeals court hearing in a lawsuit by members of the closed St. James Parish in rural Kansas, Ohio, challenging the Toledo diocese over the right to access their former church building.
Here is a copy of the article that ran today.
As a synopsis, the unusual, if not unique, legal angle the ex-parishioners are taking is to argue that Bishop Leonard Blair was a trustee of the parish who failed to act in their best interests. They want the court to remove him as trustee and replace him with someone or some entity that will protect their interests. They are arguing strictly on civil law terms and say Canon Law does not apply in this case.
The ex-parishioners have spent well over $100,000 in legal fees and if they win, they'll have access to their old building but they don't know what they'll do with it.
All they know is they can never go back to being a Roman Catholic parish.
* * *
Sylvania, Ohio
October 8, 2008

This story is almost unbelievable, but it has been widely reported by the world's media. The people responsible for this should be brought to justice and face punishment.
The punishment for this poor girl appears to have been ordered by Islamic militants based on their twisted interpretation of Sharia law, or a law based on Islamic teachings.
As I've said before, religion can bring out the worst in people.
Fortunately, it also can bring out the best. Here is a worst-case scenario.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.

Calls to Somali government officials and the local administration in Kismayo rang unanswered Saturday.

"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement Friday.

Somalia is among the world's most violent and impoverished countries. The nation of some 8 million people has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 then turned on each other.

A quarter of Somali children die before age 5; nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.

Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been battling the government and its Ethiopian allies since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians.

In recent months, the militants appear to be gaining strength. The group has taken over the port of Kismayo, Somalia's third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it

I wrote that article on Bob Larson and his new reality TV show, The Real Exorcist, before the show premeired on the Sci-Fi channel Oct. 30.
There have been some interesting developments, as you can see in the video above.
For one, I've gotten lots of emails from people who say they are suffering from demonic oppression or possession and need help. I try to connect them with Bob Larson's ministry.
I did get one nasty email from someone who loathes Larson and claims he's a charlatan using his ministry to enrich himself. I expected more. He is definitely a controversial figure and attracts critics like a lightning rod attracts lightning.
While I was on vacation last week, I got a call at work from the Rev. Roger Miller, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Maumee, saying he was going to be on CNN thanks to my including him in my article on Larson/ (It's not the first time one of my stories led to CNN coverage.) Unfortunately, I didn't check my voice mail in time and missed Rev. Miller's call and the CNN segment, but I sure hope it went well.
Thanks to Pastor Miller for passing along this link to the segment, which is also posted above.
* * *
Sylvania, Ohio
November 12, 2008

I'm reading a very interesting and somewhat disturbing book called "Misquoting Jesus," by Bart Ehrman. Some of you may be familiar with it already, it was a New York Times best-seller.
The basic premise of Ehrman, who is a scholar on biblical textual criticism, is that much of the early copies of the Bible were written by people who were not experts at language or writing.
Remember there were no Xerox machines or printing presses back then.
The letters and words and pages were copied by hand, and these untrained scribes, some of whom could barely write their name, made many mistakes.
He documents quite a few of them.
Later, the duty of making copies was considered a much more important and responsible job and the task was assigned to skilled scribes who worked in "scriptoria."
Ehrman said that none of the original manuscripts can be found today and that much of our modern Bible is based on the work of very human and error-prone people.
I'm not quite done with Ehrman's book but it is causing me to do a lot of pondering.

When I'm finished with this book I have another one waiting to go, written by Timothy Paul Jones and titled "Misquoting Truth." It was written specifically to rebut Ehrman.
This is a highly important issue for people who take the Bible seriously and my head is spinning a bit as I read Ehrman's authoritative writing. His arguments carry a lot of weight, the question is what do you personally do with the information? How do you reconcile your faith in the Bible and in God when, if Ehrman is correct, much of Scripture is plagued with errors?
I hope Timothy Paul Jones has a good explanation. Even if he does not, Ehrman's writing does not shake my faith. It just gives me something to think about. Deeply.

* * *
Sylvania, Ohio
Dec. 20, 2008

from the Associated Press today:
Senator Kyl hosts anti-Islamic Dutch lawmaker

By ANNE FLAHERTY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is hosting a film screening at the Capitol on Thursday for a far-right Dutch lawmaker who claims that Islam inspires terrorism.
Kyl is sponsoring the event for Geert Wilders, who was denied entry to London earlier this month because British officials said he posed a threat to public order.
Wilders’ 15-minute film juxtaposes verses from the Qur'an with images of violence by Muslims. Wilders has called the Qur'an a “fascist book” and said it should be banned.
Kyl agreed to facilitate the event because “all too often, people who have the courage to point out the dangers of militant Islamists find themselves vilified and endangered,” said spokesman Ryan Patmintra.
Thursday’s event was being sponsored by the International Free Press Society, headed by Danish activist Lars Hedegaard, and the Center for Security Policy, a think tank in Washington led by Republican Frank Gaffney.
The event is closed to the public and the media, but the film is being shown to members of Congress and their staff in the ornate “LBJ room,” a Senate office once used by Lyndon B. Johnson as majority leader and later vice president.
Wilders’ film has sparked protests around the world, and it has inspired a debate on freedom of speech. Wilders had been invited to Britain by a member of Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, to show his film. But the British government refused his entry into the country, saying he posed a threat to “community harmony.”
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the British Broadcasting Corp. that Wilders was guilty of “extreme anti-Muslim hate.” He said, “There is no freedom to stir up racial and religious hatred.”
Hedegaard, who helped sponsor Wilders’ visit to the Capitol, said Europe’s hate speech and blasphemy laws make no sense.
“The way to deal with controversial, offensive or even hateful statements — unless they are directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action — is to expose them to public debate and criticism,” Hedegaard said in a statement advertising Thursday’s event.
While it is unusual for U.S. lawmakers to grant Capitol access to such a controversial figure, it was unlikely Wilders’ appearance would produce the same outcry as it did in Britain.
Several leading senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined to comment.
AP-CS-02-23-09 1551EST

Did you see this news item below? Unfortunately, it's true, not one of those "urban legend" emails you get that someone makes up and then sends out into cyberspace and gets circulated on the net for years (always check Snopes.com if you smell something fishy).
This is an interesting development, showing how closed-minded some religious leaders can be. I agree with them that the media are powerful and have great responsibility, and it is also true that the western media sometimes cross over the lines and go too far. But these Saudi clerics' proposal is ominous and examplifies "religion" gone awry. -- David

Saudi clerics want women banned from TV, media

Tue Mar 24, 2:11 pm ET

RIYADH (AFP) – Hardline Saudi clerics have called on the government to ban women from appearing on television and to prohibit their images in print media, which they called a sign of growing "deviant thought."

In a letter to new Information Minister Abdul Aziz al-Khoja that appeared on websites this week, the 35 Islamic clerics also condemned the increase of music and dancing on television, as well as images of women in popular newspapers and magazines that they labelled "obscene."

"Our faith in you is great to carry out media reform, for we have seen how perversity is rooted in the ministry of information and culture, on television, radio, in the press, literary clubs, and book fairs," the letter said.

It cited an alleged plan to "westernise" Saudi women by "reducing their rights to a question of removing veils, wearing makeup and mixing with men."

It added that the ministry had permitted the import of "obscene newspapers and magazines that are filled with deviant thought and pictures of beautiful women on its covers and inside."

"There should be no Saudi woman on television, in any case," they said.

"There is no doubt that this is religiously impermissible."

The clerics, including justice officials and academics from a conservative Islamic university, cited several cabinet-endorsed orders and policies from years past which they said supported their argument.

They appeared to be challenging a growing push for liberalisation of tough restrictions on women, including near-mandatory use of black, full-face veils, which are rooted in its ultra-conservative Wahhabi version of Islam.

Both Saudi television and print media increasingly feature women, while Arabic-language magazines showing women in Western garb and makeup are also widely sold in the country.

The letter came in the wake of an information ministry-sponsored book fair in Riyadh in early March at which religious conservatives complained that men and women were allowed to mix freely, and that some books on sale violated Islamic principles.

The book fair was marred by the muttawam, or Islamic morality police, harassing a woman author promoting her book and trying to prevent men from obtaining her autograph.
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Sylvania, Ohio
March 25, 2009

This is quite a story... be sure to read the last few paragraphs. -- David

Paraguay leader hit by third paternity claim

One woman files paternity suit, asks for DNA test;
Analysts say scandal damage to president will be light

By Daniela Desantis
ASUNCION (Reuters) — A third woman in two weeks has claimed that Paraguay’s bishop-turned-president Fernando Lugo fathered her child, intensifying a political scandal that has made him the butt of lewd jokes and even a pop song.
Damiana Moran, a teacher aged 39, told local media that Lugo was the father of her 1-year-old son and she was negotiating child support with the president’s lawyer.
Two days after going public, a second woman, Benigna Leguizamon, 27, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to get Lugo to take a DNA test to prove he is the father of her 6-year-old boy.
Earlier this month, Viviana Carrillo, 26, stunned Paraguayans when she revealed that Lugo, known as the “bishop of the poor” before he quit the church in late 2006 to run for president, was the father of her son, who is almost 2.
The president recognized Carrillo’s boy as his son and even remarked that they looked alike, but he has not accepted or denied paternity in the two newer cases.
Many Paraguayans said he was brave to admit paternity in the first case, and women in his cabinet defended the 57-year-old leader even though Carrillo claimed she started having sex with Lugo when she was 16, below the legal age of consent in Paraguay.
Opposition politicians from the conservative Colorado Party, in power for decades before Lugo’s victory, railed that the president was a national embarrassment and not trustworthy but analysts said the political damage would be light.
“Yes, a lot of people are indignant and it will damage Lugo’s image, but it’s not going to become a question of state or interrupt the government,” said analyst Alfredo Boccia.
He predicted that the paternity suits would soon move onto the back pages as Paraguayans turn their attention back to perennial issues such as poverty as the economy stumbles.

NO DENIALS

The president’s office said it was setting up a team to handle the complaints and related media requests.
Lugo was elected a year ago at the head of a center-left coalition and took office in August, pledging land reform to help poor peasants in the landlocked South American nation that exports beef, soy, and electricity.
After his election, Lugo won a rare dispensation from the Vatican allowing him to return to lay status.
Most of Paraguay’s 6 million people are Roman Catholics but, as in other Latin American countries, many people have low expectations of priests after repeated pedophilia scandals.
Political commentators said Lugo’s failure to make good on his promises of cleaning up corruption and finding land for poor farmers would hurt him more than paternity suits.
“In Paraguay, we don’t punish people for moral mistakes. This isn’t the United States. But, if he continues being inefficient in governing that will be a much bigger scandal,” Bernardino Cano Radil, a former congressman with the Colorado Party, told Nanduti radio station.

Many jokes making the rounds in Asuncion focus on Lugo having broken his vows of celibacy as a bishop but apparently respecting church rules against condoms.
“Lugo’s got heart, but he didn’t use a condom,” go the lyrics of a dance tune being played on the radio.
In fact, in a macho country such as Paraguay, some said Lugo could gain status by breaking priestly vows.
Lugo’s brother Pompeyo Lugo told Argentine radio love is more important than celibacy, which goes against human nature, and said the president had lived the greatest love story in Paraguay in a century.
According to the women there were multiple love stories. Carrillo met him when he stayed at the home of her godmother and that he seduced her with his way of talking.
Leguizamon said she met Lugo when she went to the church for help with her first baby, whose father had abandoned her.
Moran told ABC newspaper her son “is the fruit of a relationship that came out of a great love, total surrender.” (Additional reporting by Mariel Cristaldo, Writing by Fiona Ortiz, Editing by Anthony Boadle)

A few weeks ago I went to a talk by the Rev. Dr. Hilton Sutton, an 84-year-old evangelist from Texas whose specialty is biblical prophecies about the End Times.
For those of you who aren't familiar with this area of theology, it's been studied and analyzed for millennia and there are many different theories about what signs will herald the end of the world.
Dr. Sutton is an old-school preacher who said he has been studying this for more than 60 years. He certainly knows his scriptures, but some of his interpretations of scriptures are just that -- one man's analysis of a mystery.

Dr. Hilton Sutton

He said he believes the Anti-Christ will come from one of the 10 nations that will lead the European Union and that this evil world ruler will be homosexual.
Dr. Sutton said he believes homosexuality has become so prevalent in society today and so much more acceptable now than a decade or more ago because the path is being cleared for the arrival on the world stage of a homosexual leader who eventually will be revealed as the Anti-Christ.
One of the key verses Dr. Sutton cited for this prediction is Daniel 11:37, which he quoted in the King James Version of the Bible:

"Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all."

"He will have no respect for the gods of his ancestors, or for the god loved by women, or for any other god, for he will boast that he is greater than them all."

"He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the one desired by women, nor will he regard any god, but will exalt himself above them all."

The "pro-life movement" has been put in a difficult spot due to the shooting of one of the nation's most prominent abortion doctors on Sunday.
No matter what a person's beliefs and feelings are about abortion -- and this topic generates more emotion than almost any other single issue -- there is no justification for killing another human being.
The shooting of abortionist Dr. George Tiller, who was killed in his church lobby while serving as an usher, is indefensible by all accounts, and a terrible blow to the efforts of peace-loving pro-lifers who want to put an end abortion.
Jesus said to not only love your friends and family, but to love your enemies. Dr. Tiller, one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions, was an enemy to many pro-lifers who blamed him for the deaths of so many unborn children.
Yet no matter how strongly one feels about such a person and his actions, Christians have no excuse for resorting to violence and murder to advance their beliefs. Killing the abortion doctor is the same kind of twisted logic as the Islamic terrorists used to fly jets into the Twin Towers.
People have every right to protest, write their congressmen and senators, petition the governor, hand out flyers, support their local pregnancy centers, and do all they can within the system to promote change and to seek new laws on abortion.
Taking a gun into a church and committing murder is anathema to everything Christ did, said, and represents.
Vigilante justice in the name the God is a twisted and tragic act that will only harm the valid and peaceful efforts of Christians and pro-lifer activists trying to save unborn children.
* * *
Toledo, Ohio
June 2, 2009

Spiritual Profile of Homosexual Adults Provides Surprising Insights

The gay and lesbian population, which constitutes about 3% of adults, has garnered national attention in the past several years thanks to issues like gay marriage, gay adoption, and other gay rights conflicts. In the wake of those controversies and the spotlight aimed at gays, Americans have developed numerous assumptions about the lives of the homosexual population. A new survey by the Barna Group explores the spiritual life of gay and lesbian individuals, providing some surprising results.

Spiritual Similarities

Out of the 20 faith-oriented attributes examined in the Barna study, there were just a few in which there were no significant differences between the heterosexual and homosexual populations. The areas of similarity included the facts that a small minority of people in both groups believe that Satan is real; equivalent percentages of these groups feel they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs with others who believe differently; similar numbers of people from each group contend that good people can earn their way into Heaven through their goodness; and rates of participation in house churches is about the same for both groups.

Spiritual Distinctions

A majority of the spiritual measures studied revealed statistically significant differences between “straights” and “gays.”

Although most adults affirm the importance of faith in their life, regardless of their sexual orientation, straight adults (72%) were more likely than gay adults (60%) to describe their faith as “very important” in their life. And even though most Americans consider themselves to be Christian, there is a noticeable gap between heterosexuals who self-identify that way (85%) compared to homosexuals (70%). Another gap was then noted among those who say they are Christian: about six out of ten heterosexuals say they are absolutely committed to the Christian faith, compared to about four out of ten among homosexuals.

And even though a majority of adults have made “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in your life today,” such a relationship was more common among non-gays (75%) than among gay adults (58%). The research also revealed that straight adults were nearly twice as likely as gays to qualify as born again Christians (47% compared to 27%, respectively).

There were substantial differences in some core religious beliefs, too. Heterosexuals were twice as likely as homosexuals to strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; two-thirds of heterosexuals believe the single, most important purpose in life is to love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul, significantly higher than the half of all homosexuals who embrace the idea; and about half of straight adults and one-third of gay adults contend that their life has been greatly transformed by their faith.

One of the most basic beliefs has to do with one’s understanding of God. This proved to be one of the biggest differences noted in the study. While seven out of every ten heterosexuals (71%) have an orthodox, biblical perception of God, just 43% of homosexuals do. In fact, an equal percentage possesses a pantheistic view about deity – i.e., that “God” refers to any of a variety of perspectives, such as personally achieving a state of higher consciousness or maximized personal potential, or that there are multiple gods that exist, or even that everyone is god.

For insights into the different faith tribes that populate the U.S. – such as Pantheists – get a copy of George Barna’s groundbreaking research contained in The Seven Faith Tribes. Read about this book by clicking here.

Religious behavior differs significantly. In any given week the research discovered that heterosexuals are the more likely of the two groups to attend a church service, attend a Sunday school class, pray to God, or read the Bible. Gay adults are 50% more likely than straight adults to be unchurched (42% versus 28%). Overall, heterosexuals are twice as likely as homosexuals to attend a church service, read the Bible and pray to God during a typical week (31% vs. 15%).

Other Measures
The research also explored some attitudinal and demographic elements. Those measures produced a mixture of the expected and unexpected results.

Most gay adults are male (60%) and few are married (19%). Gay adults are considerably younger than average: half are under age 40 compared to just three out of ten heterosexuals are under 40. Gays are less likely than heterosexuals to be white and are also much more likely to earn less than $30,000 annually. (That can be partially explained by being younger and thus less experienced in the marketplace.)

Politically, gays are less frequently registered to vote than are heterosexuals (76% vs. 88%). Among those registered, gays are far more likely to align with the Democratic Party (53% of gays are registered Democrats) than the Republican Party (18% of gays are registered Republicans). The gap in party alignment among heterosexuals is only ten percentage points (41% are registered Democrats vs. 31% who are registered Republicans). Perhaps the most significant difference, though, is the ideology gap. Homosexuals are three times more likely to describe themselves as “mostly liberal” on social and political matters as to say they are “mostly conservative.” In contrast, heterosexuals are twice as likely to define themselves as “mostly conservative” as to select the label “mostly liberal.”

In terms of life priorities, heterosexuals consider faith and family to be among their highest life priorities. Homosexuals assign a lower priority to family (30% said family is their top priority in life, compared to 48% among other adults) and placed a higher emphasis upon the importance of their lifestyle (32% placed this on top, versus 16% of other adults).

Comments about the Findings

George Barna, whose company conducted the research, pointed out that some popular stereotypes about the spiritual life of gays and lesbians are simply wrong.

“People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts,” declared the best-selling author of numerous books about faith and culture. “A substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life, consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today.

“The data indicate that millions of gay people are interested in faith but not in the local church and do not appear to be focused on the traditional tools and traditions that represent the comfort zone of most churched Christians. Gay adults clearly have a different way of interpreting the Bible on a number of central theological matters, such as perspectives about God. Homosexuals appreciate their faith but they do not prioritize it, and they tend to consider faith to be individual and private rather than communal.

“It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles – but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles. Although there are clearly some substantial differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay populations, there may be less of a spiritual gap between straights and gays than many Americans would assume.”

About the Research
This report is based upon telephone interviews conducted by The Barna Group among nine nationwide random samples of adults. In the course of the 9,232 interviews conducted, each respondent was asked if they considered themselves to be “heterosexual, lesbian, gay, or bisexual.” These surveys were conducted between January 2007 and November 2008. In total, there were 8,548 adults in the heterosexual category and 280 adults in the homosexual category. An additional 404 people said they did not know what category they fit or declined to identify their sexual orientation. The range of sampling error associated with the total sample of adults is between ±0.2 and ±1.0 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The range of sampling error associated with the sub-sample of 280 homosexual adults is between ±2.5 and ±5.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

“Born again Christians” were defined as people who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that was still important in their life today and who also indicated they believed that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “born again.”

The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) is a private, non-partisan, for-profit organization that conducts primary research on a wide range of issues and products, produces resources pertaining to cultural change, leadership and spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website (www.barna.org). Additional research-based resources, both free and at discounted prices, are also available through that website.

© The Barna Group, Ltd, 2009

There have been many clashes on the religious front in Europe in the last few years involving the continent's growing Muslim population -- from the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh to the riots in France in 2005 and 2007 in which thousands of protesters were arrested and thousands of cars were set on fire.
There have been many legal confrontations as well, particularly involving the wearing of religious garb such as hijabs, or headscarfs, veils and burkhas.
This story below shows that these conflicts can end in tragedy. An Egyptian woman living in Germany, who was four months pregnant, was insulted by an ignorant and dangerous neighbor who called her a terrorist. When she went to court to deal with him in particular and the issue in general, the article below details the tragic outcome.
This is the kind of news event that could possibly trigger more furor and violence worldwide, such as the deaths that followed the publication of Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in 2005.
Meanwhile, in Toledo, the largest area mosque was host to a multifaith picnic yesterday. This is exactly the kind of effort the world needs to improve interfaith relationships and prevent ignorance and violence. -- David

The headscarf martyr: murder in German court sparks Egyptian fury

Egyptian Marwa el-Sherbini and her husband Elvi Ali Okaz.
Photograph: EPA

CAIRO — Thousands of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the "martyr of the head scarf" on Monday -- a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom as her young son watched.

Many in her homeland were outraged by the attack and saw the low-key response in Germany as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Her husband was critically wounded in the attack Wednesday in Dresden when he tried to intervene and was stabbed by the attacker and accidentally shot by court security.

"There is no god but God and the Germans are the enemies of God," chanted the mourners for 32-year-old Marwa al-Sherbini in her hometown of Alexandria, where her body was buried after being flown back from Germany.

"We will avenge her killing," her brother Tarek el-Sherbini told The Associated Press by telephone from the mosque where prayers were being recited in front of his sister's coffin. "In the West, they don't recognize us. There is racism."

Al-Sherbini, who was about four months pregnant and wore the Islamic head scarf, was involved in a court case against her neighbor for calling her a terrorist and was set to testify against him when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her 3-year-old son.

Her husband, who was in Germany on a research fellowship, came to her aid and was also stabbed by the neighbor and shot in the leg by a security guard who initially mistook him for the attacker, German prosecutors said. He is now in critical condition in a German hospital, according to al-Sherbini's brother.

"The guards thought that as long as he wasn't blond, he must be the attacker so they shot him," al-Sherbini told an Egyptian television station.

This article from the London Times was written by Bishop N.T. "Tom" Wright, Anglican bishop of Durham, England, who in addition to being a bishop is a skillful and prolific author.

From The Times
July 15, 2009

The Americans know this will end in schism

Support by US Episcopalians for homosexual clergy is contrary to Anglican faith and tradition. They are leaving the family

Tom Wright
In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practising homosexuals as bishops. They were rejecting the two things the Archbishop of Canterbury has named as the pathway to the future — the Windsor Report (2004) and the proposed Covenant (whose aim is to provide a modus operandi for the Anglican Communion). They were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level”. In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to “walk apart”.

Granted, the TEC resolution indicates a strong willingness to remain within the Anglican Communion. But saying “we want to stay in, but we insist on rewriting the rules” is cynical double-think. We should not be fooled.

Of course, matters didn’t begin with the consecration of Gene Robinson. The floodgates opened several years before, particularly in 1996 when a church court acquitted a bishop who had ordained active homosexuals. Many in TEC have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional.

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.

The question then presses: who, in the US, is now in communion with the great majority of the Anglican world? It would be too hasty to answer, the newly formed “province” of the “Anglican Church in North America”. One can sympathise with some of the motivations of these breakaway Episcopalians. But we should not forget the Episcopalian bishops, who, doggedly loyal to their own Church, and to the expressed mind of the wider Communion, voted against the current resolution. Nor should we forget the many parishes and worshippers who take the same stance. There are many American Episcopalians, inside and outside the present TEC, who are eager to sign the proposed Covenant. That aspiration must be honoured.

Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship. Ways must be found for all in America who want to be loyal to it, and to scripture, tradition and Jesus, to have that loyalty recognised and affirmed at the highest level.

Tom Wright is Bishop of Durham

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was arrested by Islamic morality police for drinking a beer at a public beach.

Reason prevails in Malaysia as Islamic Courts backs off -- or at least delays -- the caning sentence of a woman who drank a beer.

Malaysian court puts caning of woman on hold
VIJAY JOSHI
Associated Press Writer
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — A Malaysian Cabinet minister has praised an Islamic court for indefinitely suspending the caning of a woman found guilty of drinking beer and said the sentence made the country appear cruel.

The chief judge of Pahang state's Shariah court decided Monday to defer the caning of 32-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno pending a review, as it was deemed too extreme, Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said Tuesday.

"I am impressed with, and commend, the chief judge's wisdom for making the order of revision," Shahrizat told reporters. She said the sentence had projected a "cruel image" of Malaysia.

Malaysia's home minister indicated the caning — which had been expected to be administered this week — was unlikely to be carried out, arguing that the prisons department did not have staff with the expertise to administer the caning according to Shariah laws.

The developments will likely defuse growing consternation in Malaysia over the unusual sentencing, which if carried out would have made Kartika, a part-time model and mother of two, the first woman to be caned under Islamic law in the country.

Kartika was arrested by Islamic morality police for drinking beer at a beach resort in Pahang in December 2007. Her plight has drawn international attention to the use of Islamic laws and raised questions whether a radical brand of Islam is taking root in the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority country.

Malaysia's Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the country's 27 million people, are prohibited from drinking alcohol under the Shariah laws they are subject to. The offense is punishable by up to three years in prison and caning but most offenders have been let off with a fine in the past.

Ethnic Chinese and Indian citizens of Malaysia are allowed to consume alcohol and are not subject to Shariah laws, only civil laws.

The sentence Kartika received shocked many people, including Muslim leaders and commentators in Malaysia, even though authorities had said she would receive a very light caning while remaining clothed.

Men convicted of crimes such as rape and bribery in Malaysia are caned on their bare buttocks, breaking the skin and leaving permanent scars.

___

Ruling unfavorable to US diocese

JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press Writer

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday against a Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut, saying that thousands of documents generated by lawsuits against six priests for alleged sexual abuse cannot remain sealed.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Tuesday denied the Bridgeport diocese's request to continue a stay on the release of the papers until the full court decides whether to review the case.

Ralph Johnson III, a lawyer for the diocese, said church officials were considering whether to ask all nine justices to rule on the request.

The diocese said on its Web site Tuesday afternoon that it was disappointed with Ginsburg's decision and that it "intends to proceed with its announced determination to ask the full U.S. Supreme Court to review the important constitutional issues that this case presents."

Jonathan Albano, attorney for three newspapers who requested the documents, said the ruling compels the diocese to release the documents, but he acknowledged the church could ask the full court to reconsider Ginsburg's decision.

"At the end of the day, the diocese will be able to say they were heard before every court that was available to them," Albano said.

Albano represents The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. The three papers along with the Hartford Courant have asked to see the documents.

A Waterbury Superior Court said in 2006 that the documents were subject to a presumption of public access. And the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision, ruling that more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against the six priests should be unsealed.

The Connecticut high court also rejected the claim by church officials that the documents were subject to constitutional privileges, including religious privileges under the First Amendment.

The records have been under seal since the diocese settled the cases in 2001. They could provide details on how retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan handled the allegations when he was bishop in Bridgeport from 1988 to 2000.

The documents include depositions, affidavits and motions

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction... these two news items are from http://www.ananova.com

A novice nun is suing her ex-boyfriend in Italy after he uploaded pictures of her naked on Facebook.

The 31-year-old woman who lives in Turin said she was devastated when she saw the pictures, taken in summer 2006 during a holiday in Sicily, on the social networking site.

The man who said he wanted to stop her becoming a nun has refused to remove the pictures despite the woman's requests.

Now lawyer Anna Orecchioni has taken action and said: "My client doesn't want money, she only wants that he respects her decision to become a nun."

Large numbers of Italians meanwhile have logged on to see the pictures leaving comments like: "If all the nuns are like that, I want to become a priest."
* * *
And here's another doozy:

Woman, 107, seeks 23rd husband
A 107-year-old Malaysian woman is looking for her 23rd husband - because she fears her marriage is on the rocks.

Wook Kundor married a man 70 years her junior four years ago, reports the BBC.

But now she fears her husband will not return home after completing treatment for drug addiction in Kuala Lumpur.

She told reporters she felt "lonely" without her husband, ahead of the Muslim feast at the end of Ramadan.

Wook Kundor, of Kuala Terengganu state, plans to visit her husband, Muhammad Noor Che Musa, if her neighbours would drive her to the capital.

She said she would re-consider her plans if the 37-year-old told her he still had feelings for her.

Speaking to The Star newspaper in Malaysia she said: "Lately, there is this kind of insecurity in me.

"I realise I am an aged woman... My intention to re-marry is to fill my forlornness, and nothing more than that."

Her husband, who used to be her lodger, had previously said it was "God's will" that he fell in love with her.

Got this today in an email from ABC... I think the Scientologists are a particularly interesting sect. They also are very tight-lipped and generally avoid the media.
I have no information or insights on the allegations Nightline says will be leveled on the program tonight, but I think it will be interesting to hear from the former high-ranking insiders. -- David

Former Scientologists Level Accusations

High-Level Members Who Left the Church Say Leader David Miscavige Hit Subordinates; Church Denies Accusations

Since its inception in the 1950s, the Church of Scientology has rarely been far from controversy. And now some senior insiders who have left the church are leveling disturbing accusations against the current leader, David Miscavige.

Marty Rathbun, Amy Scobee, Bruce Hines and Mike Rinder each dedicated more than 20 years to the Church of Scientology, as members of the Sea Organization, or Sea Org, the equivalent of the church's clergy.

They tell co-anchor Martin Bashir they left in part because the 49-year-old leader, Miscavige, struck subordinates numerous times and encouraged others to do the same.

In an interview with Bashir, scientology spokesman Tommy Davis vehemently denies that David Miscavige ever hit anyone and says the accusers are lying in an attempt to discredit Miscavige and to justify their own bad behavior within the church, which he says led to their dismissal.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" on Thursday, October 22nd and Friday, October 23rd.

I watched Nightline's show on Scientology last night. It basically repeated the allegations that were reported in the St. Petersburg Times in June that the sect's leader hit and slapped his subordinates (at least the show acknowledged they were following up a St. Pete Times story).

The church or sect denied all the charges.

It's hard to tell what's what in a "he said-she said" scenario with no documentation. Especially when the people raising the allegations are disgruntled or former employees / members of an organization.

The former Scientologists seemed sincere when they described being hit by chairman David Miscavige. But a spokesman dismissed the claims as nonsense.

One particularly bizarre allegation was that Miscavige had a Scientology leader's outfit tailor-made for his dog, and when subordinates did not salute the mutt Miscavige would belt them. The ex-Scientologists also claimed that if the dog barked at them, Miscavige would assume they were up to no good.

The church spokesman laughed off those claims.

I think there's a part 2 tonight... but don't go out of your way for it.
Better to read the St. Pete Times stories. Here's a link.

This is a very interesting ruling. By the way, I'm not picking on the Scientologists, it's only coincidence that a Nightline program featured the religion last week and now a French court issues this historic ruling today. -- David

c.2009 New York Times News Service=
PARIS — The French branch of the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud and fined nearly $900,000 on Tuesday by a Paris court. But the judges did not ban the church, as the prosecution had demanded, saying that a change in the law prevented such an action for fraud. The church said it would appeal.
The verdict was among the most important in several years to involve the group, which is registered as a religion in the United States but has no similar legal protection in France. It is considered a sect here, and says it has some 45,000 adherents, out of some 12 million worldwide. It was the first time here that the church itself had been tried and convicted, as opposed to individual members.
The case was brought by two former members who said they were pushed into paying large sums of money in the 1990s, pressed to sign up for expensive “purification courses” and harassed to buy a variety of vitamins and other forms of pharmaceuticals, plus electronic tests to measure spiritual progress. One woman said she had been pressured into spending more than $30,000.
The major fines were rendered against the Scientology Celebrity Center in Paris and a Scientology bookstore. Six group leaders were convicted of fraud, with four given suspended sentences of 10 months to two years. One of them, the group’s leader in France, Alain Rosenberg, was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined $44,700. Two others were given only fines, of $1,490 and $2,980.
The judges said the individuals had avoided jail in part because of efforts by the church “to change its practices.”
There have been other cases brought against individual Scientologists in France, but this is the first time the organization was charged for its methods of functioning.
Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said: “This is a historic decision. It’s the first time in France that the entity of the Church of Scientology is condemned for fraud as an organized gang,” as opposed to simply individual members. He said that the tribunal “expressed its will to maintain the structure of Scientology in order to make it easier to control,” adding that “it gave this decision a national and international dimension so that potential victims can be warned of the methods of Scientology.”
Catherine Picard, who runs an association to help victims of sects, called the verdict “subtle enough and intelligent,” saying that it would help control Scientology in France, and expressed the hope that the state would be “more vigilant.” She said that “Scientology can no longer hide behind freedom of conscience.”
A spokeswoman for the church, Agnes Bron, called the verdict “an Inquisition for modern times.”
The Church of Scientology is based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1954 by the writer L. Ron Hubbard. Belgium, Germany and other European countries have been criticized by the State Department for labeling Scientology a cult or sect and enacting laws to restrict its operations.

The evidence is strong and is getting stronger that Fort Hood mass-murderer Major Nidal Hasan is a Muslim terrorist. We must be careful not to lump the world's 1 billion Muslims together, just as we can't blame all Christians for the outrageous acts of a few lunatics. But the evidence that Hasan was a religiously motivated Muslim terrorist is overwhelming.

On the day the shooting happened, Nov. 5, witnesses at the scene said Hasan shouted "Allahu Akhbar" before opening fire in a brutal rampage that killed 13 and wounded more than 30 others at the Texas Army base.
Neighbors said Hasan had given them copies of the Qur'an before he was scheduled to be deployed to the front. Medical doctors had expressed concern over his increasingly zealous religious beliefs.

Then it came out that Hasan had exchanged emails with an Islamic clergyman who is believed to be a recruiter for al-Qaeda.

Today, Levine Breaking News quoted a disturbing excerpt from one of those emails:

United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.

* * *
It looks like Major Hasan expected to kill and then be killed that fateful day. I'll bet he was shocked when he woke up in a hospital bed, paralyzed.
Normally I would hope someone who committed such an atrocity receive the death sentence, but with his attitude I think life in prison would be a far greater punishment.
* * *
Former presidential candidate John McCain has called Hasan's attack "an act of terror" and Gwynne Dyer, one of the best journalism columnists of today, in my opinion, marveled in a Nov. 10 essay at how reluctant we all are to state the obvious. He wrote:

"It is evidence of the profound denial that still reigns in the majority community in the United States that the most obvious explanation for Major Hasan's actions didn't even make the media's short list.

"I cannot know for sure what moved Major Hasan to do the terrible things he did: Each individual is a mystery even to himself. But I do see the U.S. media careening all over the road to avoid the huge and obvious fact that obscures half the horizon. Time to grow up."

The Christmas Wars are going strong in 2009 and here's one example. I think it's interesting that this homemade "Merry Christmas" sign has been displayed for about 50 years without complaint. But the times, they are a-changing. -- David

'Merry Christmas' sign ordered taken down in Massachussetts

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (AP) — An annual "Merry Christmas" sign on a North Andover fire station has been ordered removed.

Town officials told firefighters last week to take down the homemade sign after they said people complained.

Fire Chief William Martineau said Monday that the sign was made by firefighters about 50 years ago and never had been an issue before.

The order comes a week after selectmen voted to allow a menorah display on the town common for only one day instead of all eight days of Hanukkah. They said a new town common policy only allows displays to stay up for one day, no matter what they are.

Town Manager Mark Rees said the town's public buildings should not be displaying things specific to a particular religion.

Here's an interesting sermon, as reported in the York Press in England (here's a link to the newspaper website).

'It’s okay to shoplift' says Father Tim Jones, parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda

By Gavin Aitchison »

WORSHIPPERS at one York church got a shock when their parish priest used the last Sunday before Christmas to advocate shoplifting.

Father Tim Jones, parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda, broke off from the traditional Nativity story yesterday, and said stealing from large national chains was sometimes the best option many vulnerable people had.

He told the congregation: “My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.

“I would ask that they do not steal from small, family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices. I would ask them not to take any more than they need, for any longer than they need.”

He said he offered the advice “with a heavy heart”, and wished society would recognise that bureaucratic ineptitude and systemic delay had created an “invitation and incentive to crime for people struggling to cope”.

Father Jones said society had failed many needy people, and said it was far better that they shoplift than turn to more degrading or violent options such as prostitution, mugging or burglary. He cited an example of an ex-prisoner who had received less than £100, including a crisis loan, in the six weeks since his release.

He said his advice did not contradict the Bible’s eighth commandment, not to steal, saying God’s love for the poor and despised outweighed the property rights of the rich.

He added: “Let my words not be misrepresented as a simplistic call for people to shoplift. The observation that shoplifting is the best option that some people are left with is a grim indictment of who we are. “Rather, this is a call for our society no longer to treat its most vulnerable people with indifference and contempt.”

He said providing “inadequate or clumsy social support” was “monumental, catastrophic folly”.

Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh, who has campaigned in Parliament for stronger sentences for shoplifters, said there had been an “over-commercialisation” of Christmas, putting more pressure on people to spend, but said: “I cannot condone inciting anyone to commit a criminal offence.”

She said shoplifting was “a crime against the whole local community and society”.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “First and foremost, shoplifting is a criminal offence and to justify this course of action under any circumstances is highly irresponsible.

“Turning or returning to crime will only make matters worse, that is a guarantee.”

He said the force recognised that some people found themselves in difficult circumstances but said support was readily available and must be sought.

An atheist group has been cutting down roadside crosses that individuals have erected as a way of memorializing loved ones who died in traffic accidents.
The group is even recommending certain power tools capable of cutting through the metal crosses.

"Roadside memorials ... are macabre eyesores and dangerous distractions," according to the group, Atheist Activist. Here is a link.

The crosses run "afoul of the law" ... and "raise serious church-state constitutional concerns because they usually feature religious symbols and are placed on state property," according to Robert R. Tiernan of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

So these activist atheists are urging like-minded folks to take matters into their own angle-grinder-equipped hands and hack these crosses down.

Sounds a bit cruel and extreme to me. What do you think?