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Christian Radio Hosts: Gays Commit Half The Murders In Large Cities

Posted: 08/29/2013 2:58 pm EDT | Updated: 08/30/2013 4:54 pm EDT

The hosts of a controversial Christian radio show that often touches on the subject of homosexuality have become the latest anti-gay propagandists to repeat a shockingly inaccurate claim about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Speaking during the Aug. 24 episode of Minnesota-based radio show "The Sons of Liberty [ http://www.gcnlive.com/programs/sonsOfLiberty/archives.php ]," co-hosts Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillan both repeated a startling claim: that homosexuals are responsible for half of all murders committed in large cities[audio: https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/dean-mcmillan-half-of-murders ].

Dean, founder and executive director of nonprofit Christian youth organization You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International [ http://youcanruninternational.com/blogs/bradlee-deans-blog.html ], told listeners that he was quoting from a New York City judge named John Martagh. The Huffington Post later learned the quote came from a 1992 newspaper column cited from time to time in anti-gay rhetoric.

Stated casually, and with an almost comical lack of context [ http://wonkette.com/526933/did-you-know-homosexuals-commit-half-of-all-big-city-murders-it-is-probably-true ], Dean’s assertion implies that the LGBT population -- estimated between 1.7 [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/gay-population-us-estimate_n_846348.html ] and 3.4 percent of the population [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/158066/special-report-adults-identify-lgbt.aspx ] -- has a dramatically high murder rate compared to the straight population.

McMillan then argued, and Dean agreed, that the allegedly sky-high proportion of murderers in the LGBT community is possible due to the inherent immorality of same-sex orientation. McMillian explained in the episode that the LGBT community is more likely to include homicidal members because “when a person’s mind has gone to that extent of committing an abominable act [like homosexuality], sin, it shows what else they are capable of."

It's important to note that other conservatives have used this so-called statistic about homosexuality and murder, usually bundling it with a series of similarly dubious "facts" that allege homosexuals are often child molesters and pedophiles. These statements have been parroted across the Internet [ http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/a02rStatistcs.html ] and were referenced on Facebook earlier this year by a Michigan GOP official [ http://www.queerty.com/michigan-rnc-member-defends-posting-about-gays-filthy-lifestyle-refuses-to-resign-20130329/ ]. In each instance, the figures are attributed to the same 1992 column, written by Dr. J. Kaifetz for The Post-Tribune newspaper of Gary, Ind.

Two years ago, curious minds over at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch blog tracked down Kaifetz, a Christian evangelist, who told the Center that he could no longer remember the origins of those statistics [ http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/11/18/oklahoma-pastor-gay-people-behind-half-of-urban-murders/ ].

Hatewatch also uncovered some interesting facts about John Martagh, the judge quoted by Kaifetz in his Post-Tribune column. Martagh apparently led a campaign in the 1950s to increase penalties against “perverts,” but Hatewatch was not able to find any independent record of Martagh's quote other than Kaifetz's recollection. Martagh died in 1976 [ http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=102750 ] but is survived by his son, also named John Martagh, who is a Republican lawmaker supporting, ironically enough, same-sex marriage.

Given Bradlee Dean's history of controversial statements [ http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/07/28/281635/bachmann-pal-bradlee-dean-lawsuit-against-maddow-is-about-protecting-children-from-homosexual-agenda/ ], hearing him present a discredited statement as fact should surprise few. Even during the same segment last weekend, Dean referred to President Obama as a "homo [audio: https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/dean-obama-is-a-homo ],” called gay MSNBC host Rachel Maddow "shim[audio: https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/dean-shim-rachel-maddow-part ]” and claimed homosexuals “don’t have rights given to them by God.”

Dean did not respond to a request for comment.

(Hat tip, Right Wing Watch [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bradlee-dean-gays-commit-half-all-murders-obama-homo-and-maddow-shim ])

Watch conservative pundit and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones discuss the perils of the so-called "homosexual agenda" with Bradlee Dean in 2011 [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVVh9If-Qc (next below, as embedded)].

Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/gays-commit-murders-bradlee-dean_n_3830760.html [with (separate) embedded video report, and comments]


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Bobby Jindal Lashes Out at Eric Holder Over Voucher Suit, Asks If White House Is Incompetent Or Ideological
08/31/2013
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is steamed.
Earlier this week the state was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice over its school voucher system [ http://gov.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&articleID=4208 ], one of Jindal's major education initiatives.
"A week ago, 7 o'clock at night, I find out that [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder, at the Department of Justice, is filing suit against the state of Louisiana -- now listen to this -- to force these children to go back to failing schools," Jindal said Friday at an Americans for Prosperity conference. The audience booed loudly.
School vouchers use public money to help students pay for private, and often religious, schools [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/new-school-voucher-laws-backlash_n_883939.html ]. ...
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/bobby-jindal-eric-holder_n_3845586.html [with embedded video report, and comments]

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Christian School With Creationist 'Science' Quiz Closing Down For Financial Reasons

08/30/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/school-creationist-quiz-closing_n_3837183.html [with embedded video report, and comments]


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10 years after Gene Robinson, African Anglicans to take stock


Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya and the current Chairman of GAFCON.He says the Anglicans need to learn from the history of division.
Photo by Fredrick Nzwili

Fredrick Nzwili
Aug 27, 2013

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) Concerned that the crisis in the worldwide Anglican Communion is deepening, conservative Anglican primates in Africa are organizing a second conference to discuss ways of returning the church to what they describe as biblical faithfulness.

The primates held the first conference in Jerusalem in 2008, five years after openly gay New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson was consecrated in the Episcopal Church. The action threw the communion into disarray.

At the Jerusalem meeting, the primates called for the creation of an Anglican province in North America to rival the Episcopal Church. Five years later, the primates say the new Anglican province, known as the Anglican Church in North America, is thriving.

Now, the archbishop of Nigeria and archbishops in East Africa have organized the second Global Anglican Future Conference at which they hope to accelerate the process that began in Jerusalem. The so-called GAFCON II meeting will take place Oct. 21-26 in Nairobi.

“We have succeeded in consolidation,” said Ugandan Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali.

“Anglican churches have been planted in North America. The clergy trust one another to preach according to the Bible,” he said. “But the crisis in the communion continues to deepen as more (homosexual) consecrations occur.”

In addition to the consecration of gay bishops, the African primates are concerned with the growing acceptance of same-sex unions in the West. They say attempts to discipline the Episcopal Church were not successful, and, as a result, a “spiritual cancer” has spread to other provinces, including the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales, and the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

In their words, GAFCON II seeks to restore good order, theological integrity and biblical faithfulness.

“We need to see the overthrow by some churches of the creation order of female and male as just one symptom of the disease,” wrote Kenyan Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, chairman of the GAFCON primates’ council in a letter to the conference dated Thursday (Aug. 22). “The cause is spiritual.”

The primates remain optimistic that Archbishop Justin Welby, the new global leader of the Anglican Communion, may prevent a split since he is on record as being opposed to gay consecrations.

“The primates are happy with Welby since he has been attending our meetings,” said Ntagali. “He has taken time to follow what we are doing and he understands we are not breaking the communion.”

© 2013 Religion News LLC

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/08/27/anglican-primates-in-africa-organize-second-global-meeting/ [with comments]

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08/30/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/church-sign-homphobes-message-christian_n_3838306.html [with embedded video report, and (nearly 7,000) comments]


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Liz Cheney: 'I Am Not Pro-Gay Marriage'

08/30/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/liz-cheney-gay-marriage_n_3844711.html [with (over 4,000) comments]

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Mary Cheney: Liz Cheney Is 'Dead Wrong' On Gay Marriage

09/02/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/01/mary-cheney-liz-cheney_n_3852411.html [with (over 7,000) comments]

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Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg officiates at same-sex marriage

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg marries Michael M. Kaiser, left, and John Roberts in a ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday. Kaiser is president of the center; Roberts is an economist.
August 31, 2013
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/31/20263615-supreme-court-justice-ginsburg-officiates-at-same-sex-marriage [with comments]


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Sunnyside School District Denounces Anti-Gay Flyers Targeting Daniel Hernandez

08/31/2013
What started as a small, local school board fight in Tucson, Ariz., turned into a national story this week, with the emergence of anti-gay flyers [from "Daniel Hernandez Jr., Intern Who Helped Save Gabby Giffords, Faces Anti-Gay Smear Campaign", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/26/daniel-hernandez-gay_n_3819884.html , a bit beyond 3/4 of the way down at (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91559070 ]

targeting one of the board's members -- who happens to be the man who helped save the life of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) in 2011.
Now, to put an end to the finger-pointing and negative attention, the Sunnyside School District has put out a statement disavowing and condemning the smear campaign targeting Daniel Hernandez, Jr., saying that none of the other board members or school administrators are behind the flyers.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/sunnyside-daniel-hernandez_n_3845379.html [with comments]


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From Italy, a Vintage Redolent of Horrors


Vini Lunardelli has been selling Nazi-themed wines for 20 years.
Laia Abril for the International Herald Tribune


The Simon Wiesenthal Center was the latest to object to Vini Lunardelli's labels.
Laia Abril for the International Herald Tribune

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: August 25, 2013

COLLOREDO DI PRATO, Italy — Vini Lunardelli [ http://www.vinilunardelli.com/index.php?inc=chi_siamo&lnng=EN ] is no stranger to controversy. Every year, it seems, usually during the summer, a tourist will happen upon its wines with their outrageous labels and make a fuss that is then picked up by the local — and sometimes national and international — media.

This year, the fuss picked up some extra heft when it was raised by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Infuriated by wine labels that portray Hitler and sundry members of the Nazi hierarchy [ http://www.vinilunardelli.com/index.php?lnng=EN&cat=000468&cat2=000471 ], the Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group called on distributors this month to stop handling Lunardelli wines.

Though Lunardelli has been selling Nazi-themed wines for 20 years, the once-idiosyncratic marketing device is even more intolerable these days, center officials said, with the rising incidence of anti-Semitism in Europe.

“What is the condition of Jewish life in Europe: is it getting better or worse? It’s getting much worse,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Wiesenthal center, citing recent disturbing episodes in France, Greece, Hungary, Eastern Europe and Spain, where earlier this week a banner appeared at a bullfight with the slogan: “Adolf Hitler was right.”

“This is not a time where we can say we defeated anti-Semitism, we are being marginalized,” said Rabbi Hier. “This is not the time to drink wine with Hitler’s image. It’s an insult and the desecration of the memory of the Holocaust.”

But the winemakers believe they are doing nothing wrong.

“It’s history, not propaganda,” Andrea Lunardelli insisted during an interview on a warm August morning in his family’s modest wine cellar where a lone employee was busy attaching labels — Hitler giving the Nazi salute; a portrait of Hitler with his autograph; another portrait with the motto “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (one people, one nation, one leader) — on bottles waiting to be boxed and shipped.

It is not just Hitler. The company offers about 30 Nazi-themed labels, including glorifying images of Himmler, Göring, Eva Braun and others.

Bottles with labels from what Mr. Lunardelli, the son of the company owner, Alessandro Lunardelli, describes as the “historical line of products” occupied a shelf on a wall. The discriminating buyer could choose among Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, indicating that when it comes to despots, Lunardelli wines are equal-opportunity merchandizers.

“It’s pretty absurd because Hitler was a teetotaler,” said Mr. Lunardelli, who seems genuinely aggrieved that people might be upset about his wines, but is nonetheless unrepentant.

These products “are a way of not forgetting history and the monsters it produced, ensuring that they never return,” he said. At least the past had identifiable tyrants, he added. “Today’s monsters are faceless multinationals.”

Besides, Mr. Lunardelli said, “most people buy the bottles as a joke.”

But the labels are no laughing matter as far as Rabbi Hier is concerned. “Who does he think his customers are, people having fun?” he asked in a telephone interview from his office in Los Angeles. “People enjoy drinking the wine because it is in sync with their feelings about Jews.”

Anti-Semitism is growing, Rabbi Hier said, and “everywhere you find people inching up to tear down barriers against Nazism.” The wines are yet another example of this. “To me, it’s amazing that he can get away with it.”

To assuage criticisms of promoting fascism or Nazism, over the years, Lunardelli developed a historical and artistic range of products that produced some hits — Sissi, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, the Mona Lisa — and many misses — Churchill, Napoleon, and even Dracula’s Blood, which all “sold very few bottles,” Mr. Lunardelli said.

Only Che Guevara popped corks when it came to leftist figures. But Mr. Lunardelli was forced to pull the plug after the widow of Alberto Korda, the photographer who took the well-known image of Che [ http://visualcommunicator-kawsar.blogspot.com/2010/10/alberto-korda-1928-2001.html ] wearing a black beret, asked for 20,000 euros (about $27,000) and 15 percent on every bottle sold. “So we sent her all the unused labels,” Mr. Lunardelli said, a little wistfully.

Nazi bottles, he acknowledged, are among the company’s best sellers. “Eighty percent of the sales are Hitler,” he said, or around 20,000 bottles a year, about a quarter of Lunardelli’s total production, which consists mostly of table wines using local variety grapes.

For Fabio Bogo, who started a similar line of historical wines out of his home near Belluno in the Veneto region 13 years ago, the percentages are even higher. “Ninety-five out of every 100 bottles sold are Adolf,” he said, though a line featuring Dolomite peaks is also popular.

He says his business has been booming in recent years. “Perhaps the crisis makes people think that things were better when they were worse,” Mr. Bogo said, “but I suspect they didn’t live through, or remember, the past.”

Despite years of complaints about his labels, Mr. Lunardelli pointed out that the law was on his side. Several lawsuits and investigations by public prosecutors have failed to prove in court that the wines are an apologia for fascism or Nazism, which is against the law in Italy.

National legislation also bars Lunardelli from selling the Nazi-labeled wines in Austria and Germany, he said, though he believes that most people who buy these wines are from those countries, as well as from Eastern Europe.

He suspects that there is a brisk black market, with truckers moving boxes of wine over northern Italian borders, “but no one admits it,” he said.

Are the wines any good? At about $10 or $11 plus shipping and handling, they are not bargain basement bottles, and Mr. Lunardelli is proud of the historical wines he makes from a variety of local grapes.

Mr. Lunardelli, who claims to be apolitical, said he doesn’t mean to offend anyone, and tries to respond to every e-mail of complaint he receives. But for every critical message, he said, “I get 100 inquiring where to buy them,” even from the United States. “These wines sell.”

In downtown Udine, a pastry shop and knickknack shop displays the bottles — Hitler, but also Popes John XXIII and John Paul II — in the storefront window. “We see that most people buy them as a joke,” said the owner, Giuseppe Folegatto. “No one wants to exalt these figures. It’s just business.”

© 2013 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/world/europe/from-italy-a-vintage-redolent-of-horrors.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/world/europe/from-italy-a-vintage-redolent-of-horrors.html?pagewanted=all ]


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The Advantages of Being Asaram Bapu


Spiritual leader Asaram Bapu during a ceremony in Jodhpur, Rajasthan on Aug. 11.
Strdel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By SNIGDHA POONAM
August 30, 2013, 9:57 am

Asumal Sirumalani, a popular Indian spiritual leader who is known to his followers as Asaram Bapu, has fought a long battle against sex.

At his crowded satsangs (spiritual assemblies), which are telecast live on India’s proliferating religious channels, Mr. Asaram, who goes by one name, takes great pains to condemn sexual desire in men and women. Among his most persistent campaigns against the growing sexualization of Indian society has been one for the abolition of Valentine’s Day, which the guru sees as just the excuse all these young people need to have sex. “Chhora Chhori ko phool de, bole main tumse pyaaar karta hoom; chhori chhore ko phool de, bole main tumse pyaar karti hoon. Satyanaash ho jaata hai. Pyaar ke bahane gandi gandi harkatein kar ke khali ho jaate hain.” (“Boy offers flower to girl, says he loves her; girl offers flower to boy, says she loves him. It leads to destruction. They engage in dirty acts in the name of love, wasting themselves in the process.”)

This year, he proposed to all state governments that they declare Feb. 14 “Matri Pitri Pujan Diwas” (“Parents’ Worship Day”). He even got Chhattisgarh, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., to impose it as such; circulars were sent to schools all over the state, its chief minister, Raman Singh, piously announced at the guru’s Raipur ashram in January.

Earlier, at another of his satsangs with a social message, he advised [ http://creative.sulekha.com/sant-asaram-bapuji-amritvaani-do-not-have-sex-on-amavasya-purnima-shivratri-diwali-holi-janmashtami_475118_blog ] married couples to abstain from sex during auspicious days in the Hindu calendar like Holi and Diwali. “Husband-wife behavior” on these days led to lifelong diseases, even mentally and physically crippled children, the preacher said. “Tabahi, tabahi, tabahi” (“destruction, destruction, destruction”), he warned his horrified audience. A recurring feature of Mr. Asaram’s spiritual assemblies are yogic tips for maintaining celibacy, which include stuffing one’s ears with wet cotton and rolling the eyes back into the head.

Given his puritanical background, it’s not surprising the guru’s name was splashed across local newspapers after a 15-year-old girl filed a police complaint on Aug. 20 in Delhi against 72-year-old Mr. Asaram, accusing him of sexually abusing her five days earlier at a farmhouse in Jodhpur, where he was staying at the time. The girl, who studied at a school run by his foundation in Madhya Pradesh, had been brought to Jodhpur by her parents, devotees of the godman, to be rescued from evil spirits.

Mr. Asaram was booked under Sections 376 (rape), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act.


Asaram Bapu, center, being escorted by police officers at the Raja Bhoj airport in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday.
Sanjeev Gupta/European Pressphoto Agency

In fact, Mr. Asaram has not exactly been immune to such controversy in the past; the Gujarat police are investigating the mysterious murder and mutilation of two young boys in his ashram in April 2008. The sage said sadly, however, it was that the “dirtiness” of this latest accusation that stung him.

You’d think an accusation of sexual assault would be career-ending for your hard-working professional saint, but Sant Shri Asaramji Bapu has nothing to fear. At a time when people want the harshest punishment for the five slum dwellers, four of them reportedly Muslim, accused of raping a young working woman in Mumbai, the charges of sexual abuse against the guru have led to an outpouring of sympathy and support. While it’s neither the first time a religious leader is suspected of sexual exploitation, nor the only occasion when concessions are made for him or her, the difference in the political and public response to the two parallel cases reveals uncomfortable truths about our system.

The country’s Hindu-nationalist establishment – peaceable organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Hindu Kranti Dal, the Hindu Jagriti Manch, and the Hindu Dharma Raksha Samiti – has put its firm weight behind its soldier, terming the incident a motivated attack against India’s saints and religious leaders. Press conferences have been called across central and north India — Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh — to put forth explanations. It is the work of Christian missionaries, someone suggested; it’s a foreign conspiracy to finish Hindu culture, said another.

Leaders of the B.J.P. see this as a political conspiracy, hatched by the rival Congress. Raman Singh, an old follower of Mr. Asaram, said the guru had long been on the radar of “a particular party.” Tweeted another B.J.P. politician, the saffron-clad Uma Bharati: “Saint Asaram Bapu is innocent. He is being punished for opposing Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. False cases have been lodged against him in Congress (ruled) States. Saints are with Bapu.”

Then there’s Subramanian Swamy, a recent entrant to the B.J.P. best remembered for calling for Muslims to be disenfranchised: “Need to probe why there is a spate of allegations against Asaram Bapu. Is it because he asked TDK [a reference to Sonia Gandhi] to flee from the country?” Mr. Asaram does indeed share these luminaries’ concerns about Western influence, beyond just Valentine’s Day, and had indeed once appealed to Mrs. Gandhi, the Congress Party president, to leave India.

His spokeswoman, Neelam Dubey, has, meanwhile, speculated about the role of foreign corporations (“videshi takatein”) associated with coffee shops or soda brands, since “Pujya Bapuji” often spoke of the harmful effects of these Western imports. In one of his spiritual addresses, all of which are available on his Web site, the godman solemnly warned that dancing to “rock and pop” music at nightclubs, especially while sipping cold drinks, could lead to permanent pain and weakness below the knees.

People sometimes malign even the gods, Mr. Asaram has himself said of the girl’s charges. Not that his followers care. In a series of rallies in various cities and towns, his devotees have expressed their pain at his persecution, some threatening nationwide revolt if the charges were not withdrawn. “He is god to us and we will shed our blood for him,” said a young woman in Punjab on A2Z channel.

Aware of their unwavering devotion, the guru has moved from Jodhpur to Ahmedabad to Indore and now Surat on a spiritual tour even after receiving the summons for police interrogation. During a rare television interview to the ABP channel at his live satsang in Indore, he asked the reporter to turn the camera toward the cross-legged multitude before him, who let out wails of outrage for the camera.

It is an old trick for him. In January, after he was criticized for first saying that the young woman gang raped in a moving bus in Delhi could have saved herself by acting helpless and addressing the men as “Bhaiyya” (brother), and then suggesting that stricter rape laws could be misused by “bazaaru auratein” (“loose women”), he amassed a large gathering of his female followers for an address titled “Does Asaram Bapu Really Hate Women of India” and asked them, on live TV, if they thought he was against them. “No!” came the resounding response, unsurprisingly. “Every time there is an accusation against me, the number of my followers goes up,” he said in an interview to a local newspaper in Indore this week.

The most zealous of his followers are, however, neither in his satsangs nor the street demonstrations, but online. And as Internet champions of Hinduism are known to be, they are very angry. “Why only saints like Bapuji n baba ramdev is targeted? the answer is clear… because they inspire people … these anti-social elements know that defaming these prominent personalities will give a serious dent to Hindu religion” responds one of them to a news telecast on Satsang TV. “This is Conspiracy by Christian Missionaries and Her SISTER IN RULING PARTY OF INDIA to Defame INDIA HINDU GODMAN” writes another in a comment on the Web site FirstPost.

Mr. Asaram could turn out to be innocent, and this whole controversy may well be a conspiracy of the Congress or of Coca-Cola, but one thing is clear: rape is not yet a real issue in India.

Snigdha Poonam [ http://caravanmagazine.in/profile/29 ] is the Assistant Editor at The Caravan [ http://caravanmagazine.in/ ].

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Related Posts

From India Ink

A Conversation With: Journalist Naveen Soorinje
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/a-conversation-with-journalist-naveen-soorinje/

India Passes Sweeping Bill on Crimes Against Women
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/india-passes-sweeping-bill-on-crimes-against-women/

At Delhi Protest Ground, Talk of Causes Behind Violence Against Women
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/at-delhi-protest-ground-talk-of-causes-behind-violence-against-women/

They Don’t Want to Become ‘Bravehearts’
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/they-dont-want-to-become-bravehearts/

After the Delhi Rape, Small Victories for Women in India’s Popular Culture
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/after-the-delhi-rape-small-victories-for-women-in-indias-popular-culture/

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© 2013 The New York Times Company

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/the-advantages-of-being-asaram-bapu/ [with comments]


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Kenneth Copeland, Texas Televangelist, Under Scrutiny After Measles Outbreak



By JAMIE STENGLE
08/31/13 04:47 PM ET EDT

NEWARK, Texas -- The teachings of televangelist Kenneth Copeland and his family focusing on the virtues of trusting God to keep healthy are under scrutiny after a cluster of measles cases [(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91357996 ] linked to his family's North Texas megachurch revealed many congregants hadn't been vaccinated against the highly contagious disease.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries has won supporters worldwide through television programs, crusades, conferences and prayer request networks. He was a pioneer of the prosperity gospel, which holds that believers are destined to flourish spiritually, physically and financially.

Although church officials were quick to act after the outbreak – including hosting clinics in August where 220 people received immunization shots – and have denied they are against medical care or vaccinations, people familiar with the ministry say there is a pervasive culture that believers should rely on God, not modern medicine, to keep them well.

"To get a vaccine would have been viewed by me and my friends and my peers as an act of fear – that you doubted God would keep you safe, you doubted God would keep you healthy. We simply didn't do it," former church member Amy Arden told The Associated Press.

Health officials say 21 people were sickened with the measles after a person who contracted the virus overseas visited the 1,500-member Eagle Mountain International Church located on the vast grounds of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, about 20 miles north of Fort Worth.

Of the 21 people who contracted measles linked to the church, 16 were unvaccinated. The others may have had at least one vaccination, but had no documentation.

Symptoms of the measles, which is spread by coughing, sneezing and close personal contact with infected people, include a fever, cough and rash. Those infected are contagious from about four days before breaking out into the rash to four days after.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children get two doses of the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, called the MMR. The first dose should be given when the child is 12 to 15 months old and the second at 4 to 6 years old.

During an August 2010 broadcast, Copeland expressed shock at the number of vaccinations recommended for his great-grandchild.

"I got to looking into that and some of it is criminal. ... You're not putting – what is it Hepatitis B – in an infant! That's crazy. That is a shot for a sexually transmitted disease. What? In a baby?" he said. "You don't take the word of the guy that's trying to give the shot about what's good and what isn't. You better go read the can or read the thing – find out what's going on there and get the information on there because I'm telling you, it's very dangerous the things that are happening around us all the time."

His wife Gloria bragged during a conference that she and her husband don't need prescription drugs, adding that the Lord heals all diseases.

Robert Hayes, risk manager for the ministries, denied that the church's teachings ever have advised against immunizations and noted the facility includes a medical clinic staffed with a physician.

Ole Anthony, president of the Dallas-based religious watchdog group Trinity Foundation, said that while there might not be specific guidance on topics such as vaccinations, the views of the leadership are clear.

"The whole atmosphere is to encourage them to have faith, and it's no faith if they go to the doctor, that's the bottom line," Anthony said.

In a sermon posted online following the outbreak, Copeland's daughter, Terri Pearsons, who is a senior pastor at Eagle Mountain along with her husband, encouraged those who hadn't been vaccinated to have it done, but added that if "you've got this covered in your household by faith and it crosses your heart of faith, then don't go do it."

In a statement denying that she opposes vaccinations, she added the concerns they had had were "primarily with very young children who have a family history of autism and with bundling too many immunizations at one time."

A fear of the MMR vaccine can be traced to a now-discredited paper published in 1998 by British researcher Andrew Wakefield and colleagues that suggested a link between autism and the combined childhood vaccine for MMR. Repeated studies since have shown no connection, the paper was eventually rejected by the journal that published it and Britain's top medical board stripped Wakefield of the right to practice medicine.

"We do know how to effectively prevent measles. We do know that and so a choice not to do that, to put a child at risk is just an unsupportable, an unconscionable choice. And in addition, you put others at risk," said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Arden, who attended church at Eagle Mountain from 1997 to 2003 and worked at the ministries for three years, said the distrust of vaccines was so pervasive that her daughter, who as an 11-month-old was up to date on her immunizations when they joined the church, didn't get any others until they left.

"We were terrified to have any sort of fear. And anything that wasn't faith in God was fear," said Arden, 35, who now lives in New York City.

Kristy Beach, 41, said that because of the ministry's teachings, her mother, Bonnie Parker, refused to see a doctor, even as her cancer advanced rapidly. After Parker died in 2004 at age 59, Beach found her mother's diaries, which detailed the words of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland she'd heard on television in her home in Winnsboro, La.

"If she went to a doctor, it was a sin," Beach said. "You didn't believe enough if you did. She just wrote: `God heal me. God heal me. God heal me.' "

© 2013 Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/31/kenneth-copeland-measles_n_3850299.html [with (nearly 5,000) comments]


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The False Promise of the Prosperity Gospel: Why I Called Out Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer



By Pastor Rick Henderson
Pastor, blogger and grace addict
Posted: 08/21/2013 11:37 am

I have been preaching for 20 years. Yesterday I did something that I have never done before in a sermon. I publicly called out false teachers and named them by name. I said:

If you listen to Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer, if you take what they teach seriously, it will not be good for you. It will be detrimental to your long-term growth as a follower of Jesus.

(You can watch my sermon here [ http://smccutah.org/draper/face-the-music/ ].)

I used to think that their error was so blatantly obvious that they could just be ignored. I was wrong. They are massively growing in popularity in the evangelical world and are seen as credible and helpful. Before I'm inundated with questioning emails I want to share why I distrust these two and think you should as well. So, don't shoot me -- at least not yet.

When I was a kid I could tell the difference between neighborhood kids who wanted to be my friend from the neighborhood kids who were my friends so that they could play with my toys. Joel and Joyce are the latter. They both teach a twisted form of Christianity that teaches obedience, giving and faith as a way to get things from God. They are both products of what is known as the Prosperity Gospel and The Word of Faith Movement, or the Seed Faith Movement.

Dangers of the Prosperity Gospel

John Piper [ http://www.desiringgod.org/about/who-is-john-piper ] does a great job of defining what the Prosperity Gospel is and why it is so sinister. Please take a few minutes to watch this before moving on the critiques of Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRue4nwJaA (next below, as embedded)]:

Joyce Meyer

When I first heard her tell her story I was deeply moved and impressed. She is an amazing example of overcoming hurts and abuse. She will forever have my admiration and respect in that regard. Furthermore, she gives spectacular advice. If my wife or if one of my daughters went to her in a moment of crisis, I believe they would return with magnificently helpful advice. If they went to her for teaching, they would return with deadly heresy.

False Doctrine

1. She teaches that Jesus literally stopped being the Son of God on the Cross (listen here [ http://craigbrownsreformedtheology.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/clip-6-joyce-meyer.mp3 ]):

"He could have helped himself up until the point where he said I commend my spirit into your hands, at that point he couldn't do nothing for himself anymore. He had become sin, he was no longer the Son of God. He was sin."

2. She teaches that Jesus went to Hell and became the first-born again man (listen here [ http://craigbrownsreformedtheology.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/clip-7-joyce-meyer.mp3 ]):

"Do you know something? The minute that blood sacrifice was accepted Jesus was the first human being that was ever born again. Now that was real it happened when he was in hell."

3. She teaches that Jesus paid for our sins [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwNfOaxIcOM ] in Hell:

"There is no hope of anyone going to heaven unless they believe this truth I am presenting. You cannot go to heaven unless you believe with all your heart that Jesus took your place in hell" -From The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make

4. She teaches [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DInxKmfgts0 ] that words have power and you can release the power of Heaven through your words.

5. She teaches that you need special revelation from God to understand what she teaches because it is NOT contained in the Bible (listen here [ http://craigbrownsreformedtheology.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/clip-2-joyce-meyer.mp3 ]):

"The Bible can't even find any way to explain this. Not really. That's why you've got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I'm telling you. I've got to just trust God that He's putting it into your spirit like He put it into mine." -From "What Happened From the Cross to The Throne [ http://craigbrownsreformedtheology.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/clip-4-joyce-meyer.mp3 ]"

"Now spirits don't have bodies, so we can't see them. Okay? There probably is, I believe there is, and I certainly hope there is several angels up here this morning that are preaching with me. I believe that right before I speak some anointed statement to you, that one of them bends over and says in my ear what I'm supposed to say to you." -From "Witchcraft & Related Spirits" (Part 1 - 2 A-27 Audiotape)

6. She teaches that she is no longer a sinner [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dmHJdM63hk ].

Unfortunately I could continue with examples of her utter misuse of scripture, false teaching and blatant heresy. In America, Christians have an embarrassment of riches. We can buy more books, download more podcasts and tune into more helpful teachers than anyone else on the planet. The lies that she teaches are easily lost in the hum of all the great teachers we hear. But this is not the case in the third world.

In many other countries their resources are far fewer. Uneducated pastors, who are doing their very best and uninformed Christians have this garbage pumped into their countries through radio waves and TV broadcasts. Because Joyce Meyer is endorsed here, she is trusted there. And, she can afford to spread her message with the money she makes from American Christians who buy her books, CDs and who attend her conferences. Her influence is severely disrupting the church in the third world. Her teachings are the unfortunate starting point for Christians in the third world and it is birthing even greater heresies.

The devastating reality that we have to come to grips with is that when we support her here, we support the churches she is undoing there.

Financial Concerns

There is nothing wrong with being wealthy. I love it when Christians are rich. That should mean more money to fund the mission. But there is a line to how much money we as leaders should spend on ourselves. I don't know where the line is, but it is somewhere before the ministry purchasing million dollar homes for us and our kids. That line is somewhere before purchasing us a $10 million private jet. The line is somewhere before the ministry spending $261, 498 for 68 pieces of furniture. That equates to $3,845.56 per item. That line is somewhere before spending so egregiously that the U.S. Senate investigates us. Joyce Meyer lands on the other side of that line.

The following link includes audio from Joyce Meyer. Around 5:30 she is asked if people will get more money back to them if they give financially to her ministry [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlWQsoA7D24 ].

Not only does she teach giving as a way to leverage more money from God, she is reckless with desperate people. She is not at all concerned if people give to her instead of paying bills. This is intolerable!

Questionable Example and Lack of Accountability

I challenge you to watch a typical message by Joyce Meyer. Here are a few of things you will notice:

She pauses about every five minutes for applause. And if people don't applaud she is likely to say something like, "I'm preaching better than you're acting."

She talks about herself constantly. She is the main character in every story she tells. Even when she talks about herself in a self-deprecating way, some how it comes across in a way that causes people to admire her more.

God talks to her and reveals new information to her... a lot!

Her ministry lacks real accountability. Her family and her close friends are the governing board. This is an organization that receives almost $100 million dollars annually, and with no substantive accountability.

Conclusion for Joyce Meyer

What I wrote and linked in the first section should have been enough to completely remove her from our sphere of trust. Her doctrine is horrific. Her hermeneutics are horrible. She is a woman who seems to have an unrestrained love for money and applause. Her finances are questionable at best. Her example is questionable at best. Her impact on desperate people here, as well as churches and pastors around the globe is wildly destructive.

I lament with you a sense of loss if she was a teacher you trusted. I lament that someone who is so wrong has so much influence with so many. I do not regret, however, pointing to her as a false teacher and as one who should be rejected.

Joel Osteen

Like Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen has some really great things to say. He is encouraging and the man is certainly happy. This should not be held against him.

The man is confused on theology. He has much of the same doctrinal misunderstandings as does Joyce Meyer. They come from the same tradition. His doctrine is difficult to discern for many because he won't talk about doctrine. He won't talk about theology. He quickly back pedals when asked hard questions, as seen here in an interview with Larry King [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKF_QgNezBY ].

In fairness, Joel published a letter of apology [ http://www.joelosteenblog.com/2005/07/13/joel-osteens-letter-about-the-interview/ ] after this interview.

While I commend him for his humility and courage to publicly declare that he was wrong, this is just one of too many instances. He frequently misunderstands important matters of faith and doctrine when being interviewed. He repeatedly gets the Gospel wrong. And he does so when talking to millions.

If we take Joel at his word, our only conclusion is that he is either incapable or unwilling to understand and explain how the Gospel intersects with all of life.

We recently hosted Hank Hanegraaff (The Bible Answerman) at SMCC. He has some very helpful insights (here [ http://www.equip.org/discernment-and-aberrant-teachings/the-teaching-of-joel-osteen-2/ ] and here [ http://salemnet.vo.llnwd.net/o29/bibleanswerman/hankspeaksout/joel_osteen.mp3 ]) into Joel Osteen's confused views of faith, doctrine and Scripture:

Joel Osteen and Prosperity Gospel

The Prosperity Gospel is much like all other religions in that it uses faith, it uses doing good things to leverage material blessings from God. Essentially, use God to get things from God.

"God has already done everything He's going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you're going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family" -From Your Best Life Now, p.132

"If you are believing for your child to find God, go help somebody else's child to develop a relationship with God. If you're struggling financially, go out and help somebody who has less than you have ... f you want to reap financial blessings, you must sow financial seeds in the lives of others ... If you want to see healing and restoration come to your life, go out and help somebody else get well" -From Your Best Life Now, pp. 224, 250-51

This is not the Gospel. This is a false Gospel. Joel teaches that we open ourselves to God to get more from God. He teaches that we use our words to speak into existence a better reality. This straight from the Word of Faith Movement. This is not what is taught throughout the New Testament. Consider what the Apostle Paul wrote. And remember that he wrote this while in prison.

Philippians 4:10-13 I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Conclusion

When I was in seminary, Heather and I were poor. There were seasons in which I worked 70+ hours a week while taking a full-time Master's load. There were times that I had to sleep every other day so that I could get all my work done. This was an extended period of exhausting financial stress.

During this time, I remember reading something from Joel Osteen. He and his wife claimed by faith a new house that they wanted. Joel was unsure, but his wife Victoria was confident. And she lovingly chastised him for his lack of faith. Sometime later, they purchased that house. Still in seminary, my wife and I were walking through our dream neighborhood and that was playing through my mind. As I walked through the neighborhood, looking at all the homes, I wanted so badly for what Joel is teaching to be true. I don't know if you can understand how desperately I wanted it to be true.

I wanted relief and I wanted more. But I knew that it wasn't true. I knew that my exhaustion and desperation made me emotionally vulnerable to this false Gospel. I'm educated and well read. I've haven't just read the Bible, I've translated large chunks of it from the original Hebrew and Greek. I think I understand it. I think I have a relatively significant level of discernment. But for a moment, I was emotionally vulnerable to this false doctrine.

What about the millions of others who are desperate, searching, hoping and vulnerable without the discernment? We owe it to them to not tolerate a false gospel any longer.

If you made it to the end of this blog post, congratulations. This is a thick and heavy subject. Even though I've written much, this only begins to scratch the surface of the repugnant nature of the Prosperity Gospel.

Rick Henderson is a pastor who blogs at churchismessy.com [ http://www.churchismessy.com/ ]. This post first appeared on his blog [ http://churchismessy.com/2013/08/05/why-i-called-out-joel-osteen-and-joyce-meyer/ ].

Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pastor-rick-henderson/osteen-meyer-prosperity-gospel_b_3790384.html [with comments]


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Out of Enclaves, a Pressure to Accommodate Traditions


Hasidic Jews' preference for segregating the sexes on buses is just one practice raising conflicts with New York City.
Damon Winter/The New York Times


On the B110 bus, which services the Orthodox Jewish communities in Williamsburg and Borough Park, men sit up front and women in the back, hewing to the practice of avoiding casual mingling of the sexes.
Damon Winter/The New York Times


There has been a remarkable rise in the population and the influence of Hasidim and other ultra-Orthodox Jews in certain enclaves of New York City.
James Estrin/The New York Times

By JOSEPH BERGER
Published: August 21, 2013

Needing to abide by their tribe’s traditions of modesty, Hasidic women want the city to post a female lifeguard during a women-only swim session at a municipal pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and have lobbied a local councilman to take up their cause.

On another front, Hasidic matzo bakeries, citing ancient Jewish law, have insisted on using water from groundwater wells rather than from reservoirs in preparing the dough used for matzos and have found themselves tangling with health officials worried about the water’s purity.

And on a public bus service that plies a route between the Hasidic neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Borough Park, Brooklyn, men sit up front and women in the back, hewing to the practice of avoiding casual mingling of the sexes, even after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg condemned the arrangement.

While these episodes may not have reverberated beyond New York’s Hasidic enclaves, taken together they underscore a religious ascendancy confronting the city’s secular authorities in ways not seen in decades.

The remarkable rise in the population and the influence of Hasidim and other ultra-Orthodox Jews has provoked repeated conflicts over revered practices, forcing the city into a balancing act between not treading over constitutional lines by appearing to favor a particular religious group and providing an accommodation no more injurious than suspending parking rules for religious holidays.

A politically astute new generation of ultra-Orthodox leaders has become savvy at navigating the halls of government, while the grand rabbis of Hasidic sects wield electoral power like few religious leaders can, turning followers into cohesive voting blocs. “No one can deliver votes like a rebbe can,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at the City University of New York, who has written extensively about ultra-Orthodox Jews.

That power was evident most recently in last September’s primary for Democratic district leader in the area covering Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Two factions of Satmar Hasidim turned out at the polls in astonishing numbers for such a relatively obscure post, yielding a turnout of 11,000 votes, among the city’s largest. Many members of both factions admitted they did not know whom they were voting for but had been instructed to do so by their rabbis or yeshiva officials. The dominant Satmar faction made the difference in vaulting a candidate to the leadership.

As a result, the image New Yorkers and the city’s power brokers have of Hasidim has changed. “They are no longer an obscure group — they’re not just quaint,” Professor Heilman said.

A telling example of how dutifully officials respond to Hasidic interests came at a Brooklyn synagogue forum in this year’s mayoral campaign in which each candidate staked out a position on metzitzah b’peh, a circumcision ritual obscure to most Jews, let alone non-Jews.

Hasidim insist that they are adopting a more confrontational approach only because they are defending their faith’s precepts. Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, said issues like the use of well water in matzos are “core Jewish religious beliefs and will not change, but where there’s ways to work with the government, we will do that.”

On the other side, city officials say their main obligation is to enforce the laws even if it might seem antagonistic to ultra-Orthodox traditions. “We don’t have a formal policy, but we can’t commit to providing a female lifeguard because it would run against the establishment clause of providing a service on the basis of a religious belief,” Liam Kavanagh, first deputy commissioner for parks and recreation, said of the Hasidic request.

Meanwhile, the conflicts and predicaments seem to be multiplying. The city’s Commission on Human Rights issued complaints last year against a half-dozen Hasidic merchants on Williamsburg’s Lee Avenue for posting signs stating, “No shorts, no barefoot, no sleeveless, no low-cut neckline allowed in this store.” The signs, the city said, discriminated against women and non-Orthodox men in places patronized by the public. Hasidic advocates said the signs were no different than dress codes at places like the Four Seasons Restaurant. The dispute is still being litigated in a city administrative court.

Most prominently, the city has battled with ultra-Orthodox Jewish representatives over the health risks in metzitzah b’peh, a technique for orally suctioning a circumcision wound. Instead of banning the practice outright, health officials instead required parents to sign a consent form so they could be alerted to the risks. But ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders were still infuriated. The matter even became an issue in the mayoral campaign, with Christine C. Quinn defending the city’s policy and her Democratic opponents, including Anthony D. Weiner and John C. Liu, arguing that the Hasidic practice has stood the test of millenniums.

Hasidim have also been pressing public libraries in their neighborhoods to open on Sunday, just as the post office and banks now do, since they cannot patronize them on the Sabbath. But Brooklyn library officials refuse, pointing out that union contracts require expensive Sunday overtime.

If city officials feel they need to respond in full-throated fashion to Hasidic appeals, that is partly because the increasing sway of the city’s Hasidim has been nothing short of remarkable. The sparse remnants of Hasidic sects in Hungary, Poland and the Soviet Union were almost decimated by Hitler’s slaughter of the European Jews and arrived in New York after World War II in tiny numbers, barely enough to fill a sect’s single small yeshiva or room-size synagogue. But families have an average of six, seven and eight children, helping the sects replenish.

The latest population survey by the UJA-Federation of New York counted roughly 330,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews, or 30 percent of the city’s 1.1 million Jews, a figure that melds Hasidim with others who are as scrupulously observant but do not revere a particular grand rabbi. Today Hasidim dominate neighborhoods like south Williamsburg and Borough Park, and support scores of schools, synagogues and kosher stores. Rising numbers have also brought increasing tensions with government authorities.

Two years ago, when the city transferred a female lifeguard at Williamsburg’s Metropolitan Pool to a beach and replaced her with a man, Hasidic women stopped going and felt cheated.

“It’s the only exercise I get,” said Rose Herschkowitz, a Satmar Hasid who swam with her 85-year-old mother.

They turned to their local councilman, Stephen Levin, explaining that wearing bathing suits under the eyes of a male lifeguard would violate the tradition of modestly clothing themselves before men who are not their husbands. Mr. Levin agreed that it was “a reasonable accommodation.” But parks officials did not see it that way, arguing that explicitly assigning lifeguards by gender could violate the First Amendment’s establishment of religion clause, not to mention union seniority rules.

Hasidim were somewhat more successful in the tussle over matzo bakeries. After inspectors told a Satmar bakery that it could not use well water without a permit since reservoir water was “available,” the Hasidim marshaled their lawyers. The lawyers, with Talmudic hairsplitting, argued that the reservoir water was not technically “available” to the Hasidim because it had been treated with chemicals like chlorine and so violated religious requirements for matzo baking. The conflict was resolved when the bakery installed carbon filters that allowed the well water to meet state chemical and bacteriological standards. A half-dozen other bakeries still have not met city requirements.

Sometimes a city ruling seems beside the point. A city-franchised company that operates the B110 bus that ferries people between Williamsburg and Borough Park no longer enforces the Hasidic custom that men and women sit apart in social situations. But since virtually all the riders traveling that route are Hasidic, the men and women choose to do so on their own and do not complain about segregation.

Eric Rassbach, the deputy general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative civil rights group, accuses the city of using “the power of government to suppress Orthodox religious practices.”

‘’Why all the targeting?” Mr. Rassbach wrote in a blog post. His blunt answer: “Because of differing birth and adherence rates, the future of Judaism in New York City increasingly appears to be Orthodox.”

Professor Heilman said that many Hasidim specifically blame Mr. Bloomberg’s liberal Jewish background for his intransigence on matters like the circumcision technique. Mr. Bloomberg is Jewish but not Orthodox. The recent clashes with Hasidic tradition, Professor Heilman added, also feed into a tribal memory of centuries of oppression in Europe.

Alexander Rapaport, a Hasid who runs Masbia, a nondenominational group of soup kitchens, urges officials to think about these matters as less about establishing a preference for religion than “accommodating a less conventional lifestyle” of people who pay taxes and are entitled to city services. Jewish Web sites have featured his list of ten “rights” [ http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/haredi-activist-demands-ten-rights-to-be-my-mayor/2013/06/20/ ] where officials — and mayoral candidates — can demonstrate sensitivity to Hasidic mores. He included Sunday library hours and permits for well water, but not the circumcision ritual or bus seating.

“I don’t approve of any behavior that imposes your way of life on others,” Mr. Rapaport said, adding that the assignment of a female lifeguard does not do so.

“You’re accommodating a person’s having a good time at a pool,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you’re accommodating that person’s religion.”

© 2013 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/nyregion/hasidic-jews-turn-up-pressure-on-city-to-accommodate-their-traditions.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/nyregion/hasidic-jews-turn-up-pressure-on-city-to-accommodate-their-traditions.html?pagewanted=all ]

*

Religious Laws and Public Places

Letter
Published: August 26, 2013

To the Editor:

The recent divide between some of New York’s Hasidic population and city government crystallizes the issues in the larger national conversation about religious freedom and discrimination in public accommodations (“Out of Enclaves, a Pressure to Accommodate Traditions [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/nyregion/hasidic-jews-turn-up-pressure-on-city-to-accommodate-their-traditions.html (just above)],” news article, Aug. 22).

The fundamental right to religious liberty lies at the heart of our constitutional democracy and helps define us as a nation. But the essential freedom to practice and express our faith, or to have no faith at all, does not include a right to impose those beliefs on others. Nor does it confer a right to enlist the machinery of government to enforce religious restrictions in public services.

Deeply held religious beliefs cannot trump the basic notion that government facilities, like city buses, should be open to all on an equal basis. Sincere, heartfelt moral convictions, like those invoked recently by businesses to justify limitations on employee health benefits or refusals to serve same-sex couples (a practice rejected by the New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday), cannot be used to undermine our longstanding commitment to fairness in employment and the marketplace.

DANIEL MACH
Director, Program on Freedom
of Religion and Belief, A.C.L.U.
Washington, Aug. 23, 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/opinion/religious-laws-and-public-places.html


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