Anglican Factions In Zimbabwe Struggle Over Control

Virtue Online today carries a report from the Feb. 1 Christian Post on the struggle between two Anglican factions in Harare, Zimbabwe. Controversy began in 2007 when Nolbert Kunonga, a supporter of President Robert Mugabe's regime, accused the Anglican Province of Central Africa of being pro-gay. Kunonga said he was withdrawing the Diocese of Harare from the Province. He set up his own rival Anglican province, appointed himself archbishop and claimed church property. A High Court ordered the two factions to share church buildings, but Kunonga, with the help of police are blocking access to church buildings by those loyal to the official Province of Central Africa. For the past two years they have been forced to hold services outside.

Lenient Sentence Imposed on Muslim Man By Britain's Cherie Blair Brings Complaints

Britain's Judicial Complaints Office this week began an investigation into Cherie Blair, wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Ms. Blair, who practices employment law under her maiden name, Cherie Booth, also acts as a part-time judge in London. According to UAE's The National today, Britain's National Secular Society filed a formal complaint against Ms. Blair after she gave a suspended sentence to a Muslim man who was charged with getting into an altercation over who was first in line at a bank. Blair told defendant Shamso Miah: "I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour." Both the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Assoiciation have complained that Blair acted in a discriminatory manner in suggesting that a non-religious person would have been treated more harshly. At the same time, some in Britain on the political right are seizing on Blair's remarks to charge bias in favor of Muslims by "the establishment."

Street Preachers Challenge "Loud Noise" and Trespass Bans

Last week, a federal civil rights lawsuit was filed in Richmond, Virginia by five Christian evangelists some of whom were charged with creating loud and disturbing noise for preaching at downtown First Friday events and at a Christmas parade. Others were charged with trespassing for preaching at the Watermelon Festival held in a shopping area. The complaint (full text) in Craft v. City of Richmond, (ED VA, filed 1/29/2010), charges that in the case of individual and small group speech, the provisions invoked are an unconstitutional infringement of speech on their face and as applied. It also alleges freedom of association, free exercise, equal protection and due process violations. Alliance Defense Fund issued a press release on the case earlier this week. Today's Richmond Times-Dispatch covers the case and reports that Richmond City Council is scheduled to pass a new noise ordinance on Monday designed to cure constitutional defects in the old ordinance.

Trial of Geert Wilders Proceeds With Pared Down Witness List

The trial of Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and and discrimination against Muslims and non-Western immigrants, and insulting Muslims will proceed in Amsterdam. (See prior related posting.) Al Jazerra reported Wednesday that a Dutch court rejected Wilders' claim of Parliamentary immunity, ruling that immunity does not extend to statements made outside of Parliamentary meetings. The court also cut down on the witnesses that Wilders may call. Part of Wilders' defense is that he was speaking the truth. According to Dutch News today, Wilders wanted to call 18 witnesses. However the court has limited him to three experts on Islam, including American Syrian psychiatrist Wafa Sultan who believes that the world is engaged in a battle between modernity and barbarism that Islam will lose. The witnesses will be heard by an examining judge in proceedings that will be closed to the public.

North Korea Says It Will Release U.S. Christian Activist

According to Voice of America, North Korea today said it will release Robert Park, the U.S. Christian activist who crossed into North Korea from China on Christmas day carrying a Bible and a letter urging North Korean leader Kim Jong II to embrace God and close political prison camps. (See prior posting.) North Korea says Park has repented. It also says that Park now believes North Korea has complete religious freedom after he was escorted to religious services in Pyongyang. Fellow activists believe Park was severely beaten while in custody, and he is likely to be seen as a hero in the Christian activist community when he returns to the U.S. Park's release comes one day after President Obama announced that North Korea would remain off a State Department list of nations which sponsor terrorism.

Slovakian Court Upholds Religion Law's Registration Requirement

Radio Slovakia International today reports that the Plenary Session of Slovakia's Constitutional Court has rejected a constitutional attack on the provision in Slovakia's religion law that requires 20,000 signatures of members for a church to obtain registration. The Office of the General Prosecutor filed the constitutional challenge claiming that the law, as amended in 2007 (see prior posting), infringes protected freedom of religion and association. The suit also alleged that the law is inconsistent with various human rights treaties. The Court concluded, however, that registration of a church is not an inevitable condition for performance of its right to freedom of religion.

Indonesia's Constitutional Court Hearing Challenge To Blasphemy Law

Indonesia's Constitutional Court on Wednesday held its first hearings in a challenge to the constitutionality of Indonesia's Law on Prevention of Blasphemy and Abuse of Religion. Yesterday's Jakarta Post reports that the lawsuit was filed last year by the late President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid and several human rights organizations. The suit alleges that the law is unconstitutional because it recognizes only six religions: Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. It also bans people from publicly espousing or gathering popular support in favor of certain religious interpretations. Some 31 experts have been invited to testify in the trial.

Groups Urge President To Beef Up Church-State Safeguards In Faith-Based Funding

Yesterday, twenty-five national organizations wrote President Obama urging further church-state safeguards in faith-based social service programs receiving government aid. The letter (full text) said in part:

On the one year anniversary of your Executive Order establishing the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the undersigned religious, education, civil rights, labor, and health organizations write to urge that you take additional actions to prevent government-funded religious discrimination and protect social service beneficiaries from unwelcome proselytizing.

The letter urged the White House to prohibit religious organizations from discriminating in hiring on the basis of religion within federally-funded social welfare projects. It also urged that the President amend existing Executive orders to ensure that:

Program beneficiaries are not subject to unwanted proselytizing or religious activities.

Program providers give proper notice to beneficiaries of their religious liberty rights and access to alternative, secular providers.

Houses of worship and other religious institutions, in which religion is so integrally infused that it cannot be separated out, be required to create separate corporations for the purpose of providing secular, government-funded social services.....

Secular alternatives to social services provided by houses of worship and other religious institutions are readily available to beneficiaries.....

Uniform guidance and training materials be developed for all federal agencies to ensure that government-funded providers understand constitutionally-required religious liberty safeguards..... Furthermore, providers should be required to certify their adherence to the safeguards – and government agencies should engage in oversight to ensure compliance.

Here are the releases on the letter issued by the ADL, Americans United and the Baptist Joint Committee, all of which were signatories.

Deference Given To Hierarchical Determination in Church Property Dispute

In Choi v. Sung, (WA Ct. App., Feb. 2, 2010), a Washington state court of appeals upheld a trial court's resolution of a dispute between two factions of the New Hope Christian Reformed Church of Tacoma regarding ownership of church property. The courts enforced the decision of the denomination's Classis regarding the dispute. The trial court's findings on whether New Hope CRC was a congregational or hierarchical church were somewhat ambiguous. However the trial court's conclusions treat the church as hierarchical, and the court of appeals held that there was substantial evidence to support that approach.

Secretary of State, President Speak At National Prayer Breakfast

This morning the 58th Annual National Prayer Breakfast was held in Washington, D.C. One of the keynote speakers was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Full text of speech.) Her remarks included some rather blunt criticism of the misuse of religion:

All religions have their version of the Golden Rule and direct us to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger and visit the prisoner.... Yet across the world, we see organized religion standing in the way of faith, perverting love, undermining that message.

Sometimes it's easier to see that far away than here at home. But religion, cloaked in naked power lust, is used to justify horrific violence, attacks on homes, markets, schools, volleyball games, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples. From Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan to Nigeria and the Middle East, religion is used a club to deny the human rights of girls and women, from the Gulf to Africa to Asia, and to discriminate, even advocating the execution of gays and lesbians. Religion is used to enshrine in law intolerance of free expression and peaceful protest. Iran is now detaining and executing people under a new crime – waging war against God. It seems to be a rather dramatic identity crisis.

So in the Obama Administration, we are working to bridge religious divides. We’re taking on violations of human rights perpetrated in the name of religion. And we invite members of Congress and clergy and active citizens like all of you here to join us.... We are committed, not only to reaching out and speaking up about the perversion of religion, and in particularly the use of it to promote and justify terrorism, but also seeking to find common ground. We are working with Muslim nations to come up with an appropriate way of demonstrating criticism of religious intolerance without stepping over into the area of freedom of religion or non-religion and expression.

President Barack Obama also spoke at length at the National Prayer Breakfast. (Full text of remarks.) Spotlighting the American people's response to the recent earthquake in Haiti, he said:

This is what we do, as Americans, in times of trouble. We unite, recognizing that such crises call on all of us to act, recognizing that there but for the grace of God go I, recognizing that life's most sacred responsibility -- one affirmed, as Hillary said, by all of the world's great religions -- is to sacrifice something of ourselves for a person in need.

Sadly, though, that spirit is too often absent when tackling the long-term, but no less profound issues facing our country and the world. Too often, that spirit is missing without the spectacular tragedy ... that can shake us out of complacency. We become numb to the day-to-day crises, the slow-moving tragedies of children without food and men without shelter and families without health care. We become absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, our contests for power. And in this Tower of Babel, we lose the sound of God's voice.

As urged by a number of people, Obama also spoke out against the harsh anti-gay legislation recently proposed in Uganda, reportedly at the urging of the same group that sponsored the Prayer Breakfast. (See prior posting.) The President said:

We may disagree about the best way to reform our health care system, but surely we can agree that no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on Earth. We can take different approaches to ending inequality, but surely we can agree on the need to lift our children out of ignorance; to lift our neighbors from poverty. We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

Court Refuses Interlocutory Appeal In Establishment Clause Challenge To AIG Bailout

In Murray v. Geithner, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8415 (ED MI, Feb. 2, 2010), a Michigan federal district court denied the government's motion to certify for interlocutory appeal the court's May 2009 holding that plaintiffs have standing to challenge on Establishment Clause grounds the federal bailout of the giant insurance company AIG. The lawsuit claims that AIG's involvement in Sharia-compliant financing means that federal funds are supporting Islamic religious activity. The court also refused to certify for interlocutory appeal its denial of of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Court Dismisses Challenge To Removal of Children From Tony Alamo Compound

In Tony Alamo Christian Ministries v. Selig, (WD AR, Feb. 2, 2010), an Arkansas federal district court dismissed a lawsuit charging that plaintiffs' constitutional rights of religious liberty were violated when certain children of members of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries were removed from their parents by child welfare officials and adjudicated dependent-neglected under state law in state court. Invoking the Younger v. Harris abstention doctrine, the court held that plaintiffs can raise their claims in ongoing dependency-neglect proceedings pending in state court. Yesterday's Washington Post reported on the decision.

Brazilian Court Overturns Ban on Religious Symbols In Rio's Carnival

In 2007, municipal officials in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil banned the display of religious symbols during the city's annual Carnival that marks the beginning of Lent. The Carnival's street parade, which draws thousands of tourists, has regularly featured near-naked women and fantasy images. AFP reported yesterday that judges in Rio have overturned the ban on religious symbols holding that it violates freedom of expression and is a form of censorship. However the Independent League of Samba Schools which organizes the annual Carnival parades says it will observe a national law prohibiting the public vilification of religious objects. In the 1980's some floats featured sexually suggestive images of Jesus.

BBC Follows Indonesian Sharia Police On Patrol

BBC News on Tuesday posted an interesting 3 minute account by reporter Karishma Vaswani as she joined the Sharia police on patrol in Aceh, Indonesia one Saturday evening as they hunted out immoral activities.

France Denies Citizenship To Muslim Man Who Forces Wife To Wear Face Veil

France's minister for immigration Eric Besson has issued a decree denying an application for French citizenship from a Muslim man because he does not respect the values of the Republic. Yesterday's Irish Times reports that the man needed citizenship to settle in France with his French wife. Besson said in a statement:

It became apparent during the investigation and the prior interview that this person was compelling his wife to wear the all-covering veil, depriving her of the freedom to come and go with her face uncovered, and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon says he intends to sign the decree after consulting with the council of state as required by French law. Fillon said that the full-face veil "has no place in our country."

British Jews Unable To Develop Consensus For Legislative Change To School Admissions

JTA reported yesterday that Britain's Jewish community is divided on seeking a legislative change to reverse the UK Supreme Court's decision last December holding that Jewish schools could not use the traditional definition of who is Jewish for purposes of admissions. (See prior posting.) All denominations within the Jewish community are distressed that the court rejected a definition linked to religious law. However the non-Orthodox Jewish movements want any legislation to require Orthodox Jewish schools to accept converts from the Liberal and Reform branches of Judaism as well. The Orthodox movement is unwilling to accept this. The umbrella organization for British Jews, the Board of Deputies, has decided that without consensus it will just take a wait-and-see approach and watch how implementation of the court's ruling plays out.

Court Says Divorced Parents Must Share Religious Decisions For Children

In In re Marriage of Balashov, (WA Ct. App., Feb. 1, 2010), a Washington state appellate court reversed the portion of a trial court's parenting plan entered in a divorce action. The trial court ordered that the major decisions regarding each of the two children are to be made jointly by the parents, except that the mother alone was to make decisions regarding their religious upbringing. The mother had raised the children in the Orthodox Christian faith, while the father had no religious affiliation. The Court of Appeals held that the parenting plan must give the same joint decision making to both parents on religious upbringing of the children as for other matters. It said:

To protect parents' respective constitutional rights to the free exercise of religion, Washington courts hold that a parent's decision-making authority with respect to religious upbringing may not be restricted unless there is "a substantial showing of actual or potential harm to the children from exposure to the parents' conflicting religious beliefs." In re Marriage of Jensen-Branch, 78 Wn. App. 482, 490, 899 P.2d 803 (1995). The court emphasized that "religious beliefs" should be interpreted in the broad sense of "world view" and that a parent's lack of religious belief receives the same amount of protection as any particular religious belief.

Federal Lawsuit Challenges Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009

A federal lawsuit was filed yesterday challenging the constitutionality of the recently-enacted Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. The complaint (full text) in Glenn v. Holder, (ED MI, filed 2/2/2010), claims that the provisions of the act which criminalizes bias crimes motivated by the victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity "elevates those engaged in certain deviant sexual behaviors to a special, protected class of persons under federal law." After quoting a number of Biblical verses on homosexuality, the complaint argues that the Act violates the 1st, 5th and 10th Amendments and exceeds Congress' power under the Commerce Clause.

Brought on behalf of three Christian pastors and the head of the American Family Association of Michigan, the complaint asserts that the Act "is an effort to eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda from the marketplace of ideas by demonizing, vilifying, and criminalizing such beliefs as a matter of federal law and policy." It claims that the federal aiding and abetting statute, along with the substantive provisions of the Hate Crimes Act, will subject plaintiffs to federal questioning, investigation and prosecution for preaching God's word.

The Thomas Moore Law Center, which represents plaintiffs, issued a long press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit. The lawsuit raises arguments that were debated at length during Congress' consideration of the bill. Proponents argued then that several provisions included in the bill adequately protect freedom of speech and religion. (See prior posting.)

European Human Rights Court Says Religion on Identity Cards Violates ECHR

In Sinan Isik v. Turkey [in French], (Eur. Ct. Hum. Rts., Feb. 2, 2010), the European Court of Human Rights, by a vote of 6-1, upheld a complaint by petitioner that the government of Turkey refused to replace "Islam" on his identity card with "Alevi." Before 2006, Turkish identity cards were required to indicate religious identity. Now they may be left blank. The court held that both the pre-2006 practice and the current one violate Art. 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (freedom of thought, conscience and religion). The court held that the current requirement of applying to authorities to have the religious identification block left blank, as well as including religion on identity cards for any reason, violate the principle that one cannot be required to manifest one's religion or belief. A press release from the Court in English summarizes the court's holding. Today's Zaman reports on the decision.

Churches Have Some Greater Copyright Leeway This Year for Super Bowl Parties

Once again this year, churches are looking carefully at copyright rules as they plan their annual Super Bowl Parties for next Sunday. (See prior related posting.) Yesterday's Christian Post reports that the NFL adopted new Guidelines last year to ease limitations on churches showing the copyrighted Super Bowl Game. Churches are no longer limited to projecting the game on screens of 55 inches or less. Now they can use bigger screens and sound equipment so long as those are used regularly in their ministry. Churches may not charge admission for the showing, but can take up a collection to defray expenses of the party. Finally churches are encouraged to call their events something other than a "Super Bowl" party. The NFL continues to send cease and desist letters to venues other than churches that plan to show the Super Bowl on large screens. The Super Bowl is presumably attracting greater attention than usual in some churches because of the expected anti-abortion ad featuring Tim Tebow that will be aired during the game. (See prior posting.)