Religious Liberty - links
Friedman: Playing At A Theater Near You
New York Times
July 4, 2007
(republished by The Day, Connecticut on July 6, 2007)
I knew something was up when I couldn’t get a cab. Then there were sirens and helicopters whirring overhead. I stopped a passerby to ask what was going on. He said something about a car bomb outside a disco six blocks from my hotel. A few hours later, I finally found a taxi. The driver warned me that it was nearly impossible to get across town. Another bomb had been uncovered in a car park. Next day, more news: a suicide bomber had driven his Jeep into an airport and jumped out, his body on fire, screaming “Allah! Allah!”
Jul 6, 2007
Topic: Citizenship, Human Rights, Religious Liberty
Valuing Speech
Valuing Speech
Sunday, June 24, 2007
by George Will
WASHINGTON — Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values. That sentence is inflammatory, perhaps even a hate crime.
At least it is in Oakland, Calif. That city’s government says those words italicized here constitute something akin to hate speech, and can be proscribed from the government’s open e-mail system and employee bulletin board.
Jun 30, 2007
Topic: Family, Marriage, Sexual Purity, Homosexuality, Life, Abortion, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Religious Liberty
Secularism on the March
Europe’s Culture War: Secularism on the March
This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on May 23, 2007 .
by Paul Belien
Europe is in the middle of a three-way culture war, between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism. In Western Europe, the fight between Christians and secularists is all but over. The secularists have won. Now, the religious vacuum left by the demise of Christianity is being filled by the Muslims. Since one cannot fight something with nothing, the European secularists are no match for Islam.
Jun 30, 2007
Topic: Citizenship, Persecution, Religious Liberty
TIME: The Case for Teaching the Bible
The same might be said about public-school courses on the Bible nationwide. There aren’t that many. But they’re rising in popularity. Last year Georgia became the first state in memory to offer funds for high school electives on the Old and New Testaments using the Bible as the core text. Similar funding was discussed in several other legislatures, although the initiatives did not become law. Meanwhile, two privately produced curriculums crafted specifically to pass church-state muster are competing for use in individual schools nationwide. Combined, they are employed in 460 districts in at least 37 states. The numbers are modest, but their publishers expect them to soar. The smaller of the two went into operation just last year but is already into its second 10,000-copy printing, has expressions of interest from a thousand new districts this year and expects many more. The larger publisher claims to be roughly doubling the number of districts it adds each year. These new curriculums plus polls suggesting that over 60% of Americans favor secular teaching about the Bible suggest that a Miss Kendrick may soon be talking about Matthew in a school near you.
Mar 28, 2007
Topic: Faith, Bible, Family, Education, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Religious Liberty
WSJ on the Fairness Doctrine
Rush to Victory
Why is Harry Reid acting like David Koresh? Because conservatives are winning.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, April 29, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
In 1987, Rush Limbaugh sat down at a microphone at radio station KFBK-AM in Sacramento and began broadcasting something called “The Rush Limbaugh Show.”
The rest is history.
The “rest”—the inexorable 15-year rise of conservative ideas and clout across what Howard Stern calls “all media”—is described in a provocative new book by Brian C. Anderson, “South Park Conservatives.” What was once a mostly exclusive liberal country club—television, the press, book publishing, even the campuses—has become heavily integrated with aggressive, even crude, conservatives.
Jan 25, 2007
Topic: Citizenship, Legislation, National, Religious Liberty
Fairness Doctrine Comeback?
Over the weekend, the National Conference for Media Reform was held in Memphis, TN, with a number of notable speakers on hand for the event. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made an surprise appearance at the convention to announce that he would be heading up a new House subcommittee which will focus on issues surrounding the Federal Communications Commission.
The Presidential candidate said that the committee would be holding “hearings to push media reform right at the center of Washington.” The Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee was to be officially announced this week in Washington, D.C., but Kucinich opted to make the news public early.
In addition to media ownership, the committee is expected to focus its attention on issues such as net neutrality and major telecommunications mergers. Also in consideration is the “Fairness Doctrine,” which required broadcasters to present controversial topics in a fair and honest manner. It was enforced until it was eliminated in 1987.
Jan 25, 2007
Topic: Citizenship, Legislation, National, Religious Liberty
Bible Class Can Be Difficult, But Legal
Thursday, January 25, 2007 9:20 AM CST
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series looking at issues surrounding a proposed elective looking at the Bible as a cultural document. Friday’s report will examine the history of the Bible in the classroom.
By Amy Sherrill
TIMES RECORD • ASHERRILL@SWTIMES.COM
The Bible can be taught in a secular manner in public schools, according to law professors, First Amendment advocates and religious leaders, but teachers and school districts must walk a fine line to do it legally.
In Fort Smith Public Schools, no classes incorporate the study of the Bible in history and literature, but a Fort Smith group hopes that the school district adopts its proposal to do so.
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The Rev. Richard Land, Southern Baptist Convention, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said that a public school attempting to teach a course on the Bible is fraught with difficulties that are exacerbated because schools deal mostly with minors.
“A lot of these questions are different questions when you’re dealing with college students,” Land said. “Even as an elective course, I don’t know how you’re going to teach the Bible objectively and fairly in a secular school. If you teach it as a secular subject, well, that’s going to be perceived as being an approach to the Bible that is not balanced or fair by people of religious faith.”
He added that when the school board gets ready to make its decision, members should ask the litmus test question: If the school board is willing to have an elective course on the Bible, is it also willing to have an elective course on the Koran?
Jan 25, 2007
Topic: Faith, Bible, Family, Children, Education, Citizenship, Church and State, Religious Liberty
Pelosi Targets Grassroots Freedom of Speech
Human Events
Pelosi Targets Grassroots Freedom of Speech
by Amanda B. Carpenter
Posted Dec 18, 2006
House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has pledged to take up a lobbying reform proposal that would impose new regulations on speech by grassroots organizations, while providing a loophole in the rules for large corporations and labor unions.
The legislation would make changes to the legal definition of “grassroots lobbying” and require any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.
The report would include identifying the organization’s expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are the subject of the advocacy efforts. A separate report would be required for each policy issue the group is active on.
Dec 18, 2006
Topic: Citizenship, Church and State, Legislation, National, Religious Liberty
Newsweek Blog: Is America A ‘Christian Nation’?
BELOW TEXT IS FOR RECORD ONLY, NOT FOR PUBLICATION. NEWSWEEK OWNS EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO THIS CONTENT
Religious Americans Want Views Welcomed in Public Square
It is both inaccurate historically and inappropriate theologically to describe America as a “Christian nation.”
Historically, America was an attempt to establish a nation based broadly on Judeo-Christian values (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”) and Enlightenment ideas of self-government. In 1798, John Adams, the nation’s second president, said, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
Theologically, a “Christian nation,” at least for Evangelical Christians, implies a nation where the vast majority of people are “converted” individuals who profess Christ as their personal Savior, a situation which has never been true in the United States, even when more than 90 percent of the population identified with some form of Protestant Christianity in 1790.
Lastly, one must make the distinction between “nation” and “government.” The nation encompasses the people and the society as a whole, as opposed to the government, which is merely the governing authority.
Most religious Americans believe in a secular government under the rubric of the First Amendment, but desire a religiously pluralistic, as opposed to a secular, society in which religiously informed viewpoints are welcomed in the public square on an equal basis with all other voices.
Posted by Richard Land on December 14, 2006 10:30 AM
Dec 15, 2006
Topic: Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Church and State, Religious Liberty
CNN - What is a Christian? (T-script)
CNN
ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
What is a Christian?; New Moral Values; Evangelicals and Israel; End of Days; Capitalist Christian; The Seekers
Aired December 14, 2006 – 23:00 ET
As expert guests, Anderson will talk to Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Jim Wallis, author of “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It” and president of Sojourners, a progressive Christian ministry, along with Dwight Hopkins, a professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Dec 15, 2006
Topic: Faith, Bible, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Church and State, Religious Liberty, Social Issues