Sunday, November 23, 2008

ADL Covers A Range of Issues at Meeting Marking 95th Year

In a release issued Friday, the Anti-Defamation League summarized the proceedings of its annual meeting held earlier this month in Los Angeles. The ADL marks its 95th birthday this year. In the keynote address, ADL director Abraham Foxman reported that in the wake of the country's financial crisis, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are spreading on the Internet. Separately, the ADL released a new poll showing that a majority of Americans believe that religious values are under attack in the U.S., but there has been a decline in concern about racial tensions. Finally the ADL adopted a resolution on religious accommodation in the workplace, favoring it if it does not infringe others' rights or create undue employer burdens. The resolution opposed "policies or laws that permit a pharmacist to interfere with the physician-patient relationship by refusing to fill prescriptions without simultaneously offering a referral source to the patient so that his or her medication can be promptly and timely obtained..." Also it opposed excusing government officials, in states where same-sex marriage is legal, from issuing licenses or performing civil ceremonies unless there is immediate access to another employee who will do so.