"Scientologist won't face trial in scuffle with critic"

by Robert Farley ("St. Petersburg Times," August 29, 2006)

Clearwater, USA - The State Attorney's Office has decided not to pursue charges against a Scientologist accused of assaulting a church critic who was shooting video of Scientologists downtown next to a sandwich board that read "Cult Watch."

Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson, after viewing a video of the confrontation captured by a Church of Scientology security camera on a nearby building, determined "it is just not going to be a prosecutable case."

The video, he said, shows "pretty much mutual aggression" between Scientologist Michael Fitzgerald of Clearwater and Shawn Lonsdale, who has been filming a documentary critical of Scientology.

"Mutual aggression my a--," Lonsdale said on Monday. "I don't know how they can come to that conclusion."

Clearwater police arrested Fitzgerald after the July 8 scuffle, and charged him with misdemeanor assault.

The altercation began when Fitzgerald walked out of the Starbucks and crossed the street toward Lonsdale, shouting that he was a bigot and shouldn't target Scientologists.

Lonsdale, 38, said he raised his handheld camera and began to film Fitzgerald, who objected to being videotaped and grabbed the camera. Lonsdale said Fitzgerald lunged at his camera twice and pushed it into his face, and that after the second time, a scuffle ensued until they were separated.

A police officer who was called to the scene looked at Lonsdale's tape and interviewed the men and other witnesses before deciding to arrest Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald and Scientology spokesman Ben Shaw said the church later delivered a security tape that showed the wrong person was arrested.

But Clearwater police Deputy Chief Dewey Williams later said he did view the Church of Scientology video and he concluded his officers made the right call, that Lonsdale appeared to be the victim.

Fitzgerald's attorney, Jan Andrew Press, sent a letter to the State Attorney's Office urging them to view the church security video and drop the charges. Press also included some Internet postings by Lonsdale in which Press contends Lonsdale appeared to be bragging about the run-in.

"When you look at the video, it appears to be pretty aggressive on both sides," Davidson said. And the Internet postings clearly show Lonsdale had animosity toward the Church of Scientology, he said.

"It makes it pretty much unprosecutable from our standpoint," Davidson said.

Fitzgerald, 52, a self-employed carpenter, could not be reached for comment on Monday, but his attorney, Press, said the "it's obviously the right decision,"

Lonsdale was "spoiling for a fight," Press said, while Fitzgerald was "merely confronting him verbally and calling him out as a religious bigot."

According to Press, Lonsdale put the camera right in Fitzgerald's face and Fitzgerald, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee, reached up toward the camera to block him from filming. Lonsdale reacted violently, Press contends, lunging for Fitzgerald's throat and pushing him backward into a large glass window.

Lonsdale's attorney, Luke Lirot, said he plans to view the videotape and determine whether a lawsuit against Fitzgerald is appropriate.

"It is another example of the State Attorney's Office's historical reluctance to tangle with Scientology," Lirot said.

Phelps clan protests Meade's rainbow flag

SUMMARY: The anti-gay Kansans picket not only straight ally J.R. Knight but also five churches they say didn't do enough to keep the gay flag out of town.

From the balcony off the honeymoon suite of his Lakeway Hotel bed and breakfast, J.R. Knight blared Starship's "Nothing's Going to Stop Us Now."

Nearby, in the Lakeway's parking lot, a car's bumper sticker read, "Kansas: As bigoted as you think," which is a play on the state's "As big as you think" motto.

And townspeople in tiny Meade, Kan., gathered Sunday morning on downtown corners with their video cameras to watch a protest by the notoriously anti-gay Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka-based church.

A 12-year-old boy's gift to his parents -- a brightly colored rainbow flag that he said reminded him of Kansas and "The Wizard of Oz" -- has spawned one of the biggest controversies to hit the tiny town in a long time.

Phelps's group picketed the hotel because of the flag and five local churches for not doing enough to keep it from flying in their town.

On Sunday, Meade Police Chief Loren Borger, his colleagues, and 16 troopers from the Kansas Highway Patrol kept an eye on protests over the rainbow banner that J.R. and Robin Knight decided to fly on the flagpole in front of their business, the Lakeway Hotel.

Robin Knight said she and her husband didn't put the flag up to make a political statement but rather because "it has pretty colors, it's bright, it's summery."

Soon after the flag went up, the local newspaper ran a picture of the banner on its front page, noting its significance in the gay community. Afterward, someone threw two bricks at the bed and breakfast, one of which broke through a window and destroyed two neon signs.

When someone cut the flag down, the Knights ordered two more and said they'll buy even more if they have to. Two local boys, force-marched by their father, later admitted to the deed and apologized to J.R. Knight.

On Sunday, as the daughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps protested with 10 of her 11 children, three brothers, and two sisters, onlookers shook their heads at the spectacle.

"It's just not right," said Suzan Seybert, a 30-year resident of the southwest Kansas community, as she watched Shirley Phelps-Roper's children chanting about gays burning in hell. "I think it's despicable to start to teach your children at such a young age the word hate. It's just the worst thing you can do."

Mike Thompson, who teaches a class at Colby Community College on the sociology of discrimination, brought some of his students to see the protests. Among them was Kati Near, who grew up in Meade.

"I think a lot of people think we're all just a bunch of bigots," Near said, adding that she was embarrassed by what was going on in her hometown.

Robin Knight said this month that the anger spawned by the colorful flag has strengthened the family's resolve to keep the banner flying, noting that caving in to the pressure would send the wrong message to their son.

"It's our business," she said. "It shouldn't be dictated by other people." (AP)

Original Story at PlanetOut

The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up

By the age of 58 a country - like a man - should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and for bad, who we are, what we have done and how we appear to others, warts and all. We acknowledge, however reluctantly and privately, our mistakes and our shortcomings. And though we still harbor the occasional illusion about ourselves and our prospects, we are wise enough to recognize that these are indeed for the most part just that: illusions. In short, we are adults. But the State of Israel remains curiously (and among Western-style democracies, uniquely) immature. The social transformations of the country - and its many economic achievements - have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one "understands" it and everyone is "against" it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it. Like many adolescents Israel is convinced - and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting - that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal. Appropriately enough, this country that has somehow failed to grow up was until very recently still in the hands of a generation of men who were prominent in its public affairs 40 years ago: an Israeli Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in, say, 1967 would be surprised indeed to awake in 2006 and find Shimon Peres and General Ariel Sharon still hovering over the affairs of the country - the latter albeit only in spirit. But that, Israeli readers will tell me, is the prejudiced view of the outsider. What looks from abroad like a self-indulgent, wayward country - delinquent in its international obligations and resentfully indifferent to world opinion - is simply an independent little state doing what it has always done: looking after its own interests in an inhospitable part of the globe. Why should embattled Israel even acknowledge such foreign criticism, much less act upon it? They - gentiles, Muslims, leftists - have reasons of their own for disliking Israel. They - Europeans, Arabs, fascists - have always singled out Israel for special criticism. Their motives are timeless. They haven't changed. Why should Israel change?

But they have changed. And it is this change, which has passed largely unrecognized within Israel, to which I want to draw attention here. Before 1967 the State of Israel may have been tiny and embattled, but it was not typically hated: certainly not in the West. Official Soviet-bloc communism was anti-Zionist of course, but for just that reason Israel was rather well regarded by everyone else, including the non-communist left. The romantic image of the kibbutz and the kibbutznik had a broad foreign appeal in the first two decades of Israel's existence. Most admirers of Israel (Jews and non-Jews) knew little about the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. They preferred to see in the Jewish state the last surviving incarnation of the 19th century idyll of agrarian socialism - or else a paragon of modernizing energy "making the desert bloom." I remember well, in the spring of 1967, how the balance of student opinion at Cambridge University was overwhelmingly pro-Israel in the weeks leading up to the Six-Day War - and how little attention anyone paid either to the condition of the Palestinians or to Israel's earlier collusion with France and Britain in the disastrous Suez adventure of 1956. In politics and in policy-making circles only old-fashioned conservative Arabists expressed any criticism of the Jewish state; even neo-Fascists rather favored Zionism, on traditional anti-Semitic grounds. For a while after the 1967 war these sentiments continued unaltered. The pro-Palestinian enthusiasms of post-1960s radical groups and nationalist movements, reflected in joint training camps and shared projects for terrorist attacks, were offset by the growing international acknowledgment of the Holocaust in education and the media: What Israel lost by its continuing occupation of Arab lands it gained through its close identification with the recovered memory of Europe's dead Jews. Even the inauguration of the illegal settlements and the disastrous invasion of Lebanon, while they strengthened the arguments of Israel's critics, did not yet shift the international balance of opinion. As recently as the early 1990s, most people in the world were only vaguely aware of the "West Bank" and what was happening there. Even those who pressed the Palestinians' case in international forums conceded that almost no one was listening. Israel could still do as it wished. The Israeli nakba But today everything is different. We can see, in retrospect, that the victory of Israel in June 1967 and its continuing occupation of the territories it conquered then have been the Jewish state's very own nakba: a moral and political catastrophe. Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza have magnified and publicized the country's shortcomings and displayed them to a watching world. Curfews, checkpoints, bulldozers, public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings, "targeted assassinations," the separation fence: All of these routines of occupation and repression were once familiar only to an informed minority of specialists and activists. Today they can be watched, in real time, by anyone with a computer or a satellite dish - which means that Israel's behavior is under daily scrutiny by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The result has been a complete transformation in the international view of Israel. Until very recently the carefully burnished image of an ultra-modern society - built by survivors and pioneers and peopled by peace-loving democrats - still held sway over international opinion. But today? What is the universal shorthand symbol for Israel, reproduced worldwide in thousands of newspaper editorials and political cartoons? The Star of David emblazoned upon a tank. Today only a tiny minority of outsiders see Israelis as victims. The true victims, it is now widely accepted, are the Palestinians. Indeed, Palestinians have now displaced Jews as the emblematic persecuted minority: vulnerable, humiliated and stateless. This unsought distinction does little to advance the Palestinian case any more than it ever helped Jews, but it has redefined Israel forever. It has become commonplace to compare Israel at best to an occupying colonizer, at worst to the South Africa of race laws and Bantustans. In this capacity Israel elicits scant sympathy even when its own citizens suffer: Dead Israelis - like the occasional assassinated white South African in the apartheid era, or British colonists hacked to death by native insurgents - are typically perceived abroad not as the victims of terrorism but as the collateral damage of their own government's mistaken policies. Such comparisons are lethal to Israel's moral credibility. They strike at what was once its strongest suit: the claim of being a vulnerable island of democracy and decency in a sea of authoritarianism and cruelty; an oasis of rights and freedoms surrounded by a desert of repression. But democrats don't fence into Bantustans helpless people whose land they have conquered, and free men don't ignore international law and steal other men's homes. The contradictions of Israeli self-presentation - "we are very strong/we are very vulnerable"; "we are in control of our fate/we are the victims"; "we are a normal state/we demand special treatment" - are not new: they have been part of the country's peculiar identity almost from the outset. And Israel's insistent emphasis upon its isolation and uniqueness, its claim to be both victim and hero, were once part of its David versus Goliath appeal. Collective cognitive dysfunction But today the country's national narrative of macho victimhood appears to the rest of the world as simply bizarre: evidence of a sort of collective cognitive dysfunction that has gripped Israel's political culture. And the long cultivated persecution mania - "everyone's out to get us" - no longer elicits sympathy. Instead it attracts some very unappetizing comparisons: At a recent international meeting I heard one speaker, by analogy with Helmut Schmidt's famous dismissal of the Soviet Union as "Upper Volta with Missiles," describe Israel as "Serbia with nukes." Israel has stayed the same, but the world - as I noted above - has changed. Whatever purchase Israel's self-description still has upon the imagination of Israelis themselves, it no longer operates beyond the country's frontiers. Even the Holocaust can no longer be instrumentalized to excuse Israel's behavior. Thanks to the passage of time, most Western European states have now come to terms with their part in the Holocaust, something that was not true a quarter century ago. From Israel's point of view, this has had paradoxical consequences: Until the end of the Cold War Israeli governments could still play upon the guilt of Germans and other Europeans, exploiting their failure to acknowledge fully what was done to Jews on their territory. Today, now that the history of World War II is retreating from the public square into the classroom and from the classroom into the history books, a growing majority of voters in Europe and elsewhere (young voters above all) simply cannot understand how the horrors of the last European war can be invoked to license or condone unacceptable behavior in another time and place. In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that the great-grandmother of an Israeli soldier died in Treblinka is no excuse for his own abusive treatment of a Palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint. "Remember Auschwitz" is not an acceptable response. In short: Israel, in the world's eyes, is a normal state, but one behaving in abnormal ways. It is in control of its fate, but the victims are someone else. It is strong, very strong, but its behavior is making everyone else vulnerable. And so, shorn of all other justifications for its behavior, Israel and its supporters today fall back with increasing shrillness upon the oldest claim of all: Israel is a Jewish state and that is why people criticize it. This - the charge that criticism of Israel is implicitly anti-Semitic - is regarded in Israel and the United States as Israel's trump card. If it has been played more insistently and aggressively in recent years, that is because it is now the only card left. The habit of tarring any foreign criticism with the brush of anti-Semitism is deeply engrained in Israeli political instincts: Ariel Sharon used it with characteristic excess but he was only the latest in a long line of Israeli leaders to exploit the claim. David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir did no different. But Jews outside of Israel pay a high price for this tactic. Not only does it inhibit their own criticisms of Israel for fear of appearing to associate with bad company, but it encourages others to look upon Jews everywhere as de facto collaborators in Israel's misbehavior. When Israel breaks international law in the occupied territories, when Israel publicly humiliates the subject populations whose land it has seized - but then responds to its critics with loud cries of "anti-Semitism" - it is in effect saying that these acts are not Israeli acts, they are Jewish acts: The occupation is not an Israeli occupation, it is a Jewish occupation, and if you don't like these things it is because you don't like Jews. In many parts of the world this is in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling assertion: Israel's reckless behavior and insistent identification of all criticism with anti-Semitism is now the leading source of anti-Jewish sentiment in Western Europe and much of Asia. But the traditional corollary - if anti-Jewish feeling is linked to dislike of Israel then right-thinking people should rush to Israel's defense - no longer applies. Instead, the ironies of the Zionist dream have come full circle: For tens of millions of people in the world today, Israel is indeed the state of all the Jews. And thus, reasonably enough, many observers believe that one way to take the sting out of rising anti-Semitism in the suburbs of Paris or the streets of Jakarta would be for Israel to give the Palestinians back their land. Israel's undoing If Israel's leaders have been able to ignore such developments it is in large measure because they have hitherto counted upon the unquestioning support of the United States - the one country in the world where the claim that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism is still echoed not only in the opinions of many Jews but also in the public pronouncements of mainstream politicians and the mass media. But this lazy, ingrained confidence in unconditional American approval - and the moral, military and financial support that accompanies it - may prove to be Israel's undoing. Something is changing in the United States. To be sure, it was only a few short years ago that prime minister Sharon's advisers could gleefully celebrate their success in dictating to U.S. President George W. Bush the terms of a public statement approving Israel's illegal settlements. No U.S. Congressman has yet proposed reducing or rescinding the $3 billion in aid Israel receives annually - 20 percent of the total U.S. foreign aid budget - which has helped sustain the Israeli defense budget and the cost of settlement construction in the West Bank. And Israel and the United States appear increasingly bound together in a symbiotic embrace whereby the actions of each party exacerbate their common unpopularity abroad - and thus their ever-closer association in the eyes of critics. But whereas Israel has no choice but to look to America - it has no other friends, at best only the conditional affection of the enemies of its enemies, such as India - the United States is a great power; and great powers have interests that sooner or later transcend the local obsessions of even the closest of their client states and satellites. It seems to me of no small significance that the recent essay on "The Israel Lobby" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has aroused so much public interest and debate. Mearsheimer and Walt are prominent senior academics of impeccable conservative credentials. It is true that - by their own account - they could still not have published their damning indictment of the influence of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy in a major U.S.-based journal (it appeared in the London Review of Books), but the point is that 10 years ago they would not - and probably could not - have published it at all. And while the debate that has ensued may generate more heat than light, it is of great significance: As Dr. Johnson said of female preachers, it is not well done but one is amazed to see it done at all. The fact is that the disastrous Iraq invasion and its aftermath are beginning to engineer a sea-change in foreign policy debate here in the U.S. It is becoming clear to prominent thinkers across the political spectrum - from erstwhile neo-conservative interventionists like Francis Fukuyama to hard-nosed realists like Mearsheimer - that in recent years the United States has suffered a catastrophic loss of international political influence and an unprecedented degradation of its moral image. The country's foreign undertakings have been self-defeating and even irrational. There is going to be a long job of repair ahead, above all in Washington's dealings with economically and strategically vital communities and regions from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. And this reconstruction of the country's foreign image and influence cannot hope to succeed while U.S. foreign policy is tied by an umbilical cord to the needs and interests (if that is what they are) of one small Middle Eastern country of very little relevance to America's long-term concerns - a country that is, in the words of the Mearsheimer/Walt essay, a strategic burden: "A liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states." That essay is thus a straw in the wind - an indication of the likely direction of future domestic debate here in the U.S. about the country's peculiar ties to Israel. Of course it has been met by a firestorm of criticism from the usual suspects - and, just as they anticipated, the authors have been charged with anti-Semitism (or with advancing the interests of anti-Semitism: "objective anti-Semitism," as it might be). But it is striking to me how few people with whom I have spoken take that accusation seriously, so predictable has it become. This is bad for Jews - since it means that genuine anti-Semitism may also in time cease to be taken seriously, thanks to the Israel lobby's abuse of the term. But it is worse for Israel. This new willingness to take one's distance from Israel is not confined to foreign policy specialists. As a teacher I have also been struck in recent years by a sea-change in the attitude of students. One example among many: Here at New York University I was teaching this past month a class on post-war Europe. I was trying to explain to young Americans the importance of the Spanish Civil War in the political memory of Europeans and why Franco's Spain has such a special place in our moral imagination: as a reminder of lost struggles, a symbol of oppression in an age of liberalism and freedom, and a land of shame that people boycotted for its crimes and repression. I cannot think, I told the students, of any country that occupies such a pejorative space in democratic public consciousness today. You are wrong, one young woman replied: What about Israel? To my great surprise most of the class - including many of the sizable Jewish contingent - nodded approval. The times they are indeed a-changing. That Israel can now stand in comparison with the Spain of General Franco in the eyes of young Americans ought to come as a shock and an eleventh-hour wake-up call to Israelis. Nothing lasts forever, and it seems likely to me that we shall look back upon the years 1973-2003 as an era of tragic illusion for Israel: years that the locust ate, consumed by the bizarre notion that, whatever it chose to do or demand, Israel could count indefinitely upon the unquestioning support of the United States and would never risk encountering a backlash. This blinkered arrogance is tragically summed up in an assertion by Shimon Peres on the very eve of the calamitous war that will in retrospect be seen, I believe, to have precipitated the onset of America's alienation from its Israeli ally: "The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must." The future of Israel From one perspective Israel's future is bleak. Not for the first time, a Jewish state has found itself on the vulnerable periphery of someone else's empire: overconfident in its own righteousness, willfully blind to the danger that its indulgent excesses might ultimately provoke its imperial mentor to the point of irritation and beyond, and heedless of its own failure to make any other friends. To be sure, the modern Israeli state has big weapons - very big weapons. But can it do with them except make more enemies? However, modern Israel also has options. Precisely because the country is an object of such universal mistrust and resentment - because people expect so little from Israel today - a truly statesmanlike shift in its policies (dismantling of major settlements, opening unconditional negotiations with Palestinians, calling Hamas' bluff by offering the movement's leaders something serious in return for recognition of Israel and a cease-fire) could have disproportionately beneficial effects. But such a radical realignment of Israeli strategy would entail a difficult reappraisal of every cliche and illusion under which the country and its political elite have nestled for most of their life. It would entail acknowledging that Israel no longer has any special claim upon international sympathy or indulgence; that the United States won't always be there; that weapons and walls can no more preserve Israel forever than they preserved the German Democratic Republic or white South Africa; that colonies are always doomed unless you are willing to expel or exterminate the indigenous population. Other countries and their leaders have understood this and managed comparable realignments: Charles De Gaulle realized that France's settlement in Algeria, which was far older and better established than Israel's West Bank colonies, was a military and moral disaster for his country. In an exercise of outstanding political courage, he acted upon that insight and withdrew. But when De Gaulle came to that realization he was a mature statesman, nearly 70 years old. Israel cannot afford to wait that long. At the age of 58 the time has come for it to grow up. Tony Judt is a professor and the director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, and his book "Postwar: The History of Europe Since 1945" was published in 2005. From Haaretz

Women face curbs in Makka mosque

Women also pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba

Religious leaders in Saudi Arabia want to impose restrictions on women praying in the Grand Mosque in Makka, one of the few places where male and female worshippers intermingle.

But women activists in the kingdom, the birthplace of the religion and where a strict interpretation of Islam is imposed, say the idea is discriminatory and have vowed to oppose it.

At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure inside the mosque, revered for being the home of prophet Ibrahim (Abraham).

Pilgrims walk around this seven times during the haj pilgrimage according to rites established in Arabia before the birth of Jesus that continued after Islam and are still observed today.

Plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would place women in a distant section of the mosque while men would still be able to pray in the key space.

Not final

Osama al-Bar, head of the Institute for Haj Research, said: "The area is very small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out of the sahn [Kaaba area] to a better place where they can see the Kaaba and have more space.

"Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will be better for them ... We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is."

Tens of thousands crowd the mosque during haj

The decision is not final, he said, and could be reversed.

Pushing and shoving is common in the tight space around the Kaaba where thousands of pilgrims crowd mainly during haj.

Worshippers can walk round the Kaaba at any other time as well.

The plans are likely to provoke a furore among Muslim women in countries whose traditions are less strict.

Muslims say it is a basic right to be able to pray as close as possible to the Kaaba.

It is towards the Kaaba that Muslims around the world turn when praying.

'Discrimination'

Suhaila Hammad, a Saudi woman member of a body of world Muslim scholars, said: "Both men and women have the right to pray in the House of God. Men have no right to take it away.

"Both men and women have the right to pray in the 'House of God'. Men have no right to take it away" Suhaila Hammad, Saudi scholar

"Men and women mix when they circumambulate the Kaaba, so do they want to make us do that somewhere else too?

"This is discrimination against women."

The Grand Mosque is one of the few places where men and women pray together, although technically there are separate spaces for each gender throughout the vast complex.

Religious police charged with imposing order ensure that women do not pray outside the prescribed areas.

Hatoun al-Fassi, a historian, said the move to restrict women's prayer in the mosque would be a first in Islamic history.

"Perhaps they want women to disappear from any public prayer area and when it comes to the holy mosques that's their ultimate aim," she said.

She said that the religious authorities have already restricted women's access at Prophet Muhammad's burial place in Madina.

Iraqi Peace Activist Forced to Change T-Shirt Bearing Arabic Script Before Boarding Plane at JFK

Monday, August 21st, 2006

On a trip back from the Middle East, Iraqi blogger and activist Raed Jarrar was not allowed to board a flight at JFK airport because he was wearing a T-Shirt that said "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic. Airport security forced him to change his T-Shirt saying wearing it was like "going to a bank with a T-Shirt reading 'I am a robber.'"

In Iraq at least 20 people were killed and more than 300 injured on Sunday in attacks on Shiite pilgrims gathering for a mass religious festival in Baghdad.

The shootings occurred despite heavy security measures imposed by US and Iraqi forces that included a weekend driving ban in the capital. About 1,000 people were killed during the Shiite holiday last year when rumors of a suicide bomber triggered a stampede.

The killings on Sunday highlighted tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims that is claiming about 100 lives a day in Iraq and stoking fears that the country is moving towards a full-blown civil war. In July alone, the Baghdad morgue reported more than eighteen hundred violent deaths.

In a sign of how routine the killings have become, the US military reported "relatively little violence" following Sunday's attacks.

Earlier this month, a delegation of peace activists from the United States met with Iraqi parliament members in Amman Jordan to discuss issues concerning Iraq's reconciliation plan as well as the withdrawal of US troops. The delegation met with representatives of the largest Shia and Sunni groups as well as with religious leaders and human rights organizations.

We speak with Raed Jarrar, the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange about his trip to the Middle East. But first he talks about how he was barred from boarding a flight at JFK airport because he was wearing a T-Shirt bearing Arabic script.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar joins us in a studio in San Francisco, the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange. He is an Iraqi blogger and architect, who runs a popular blog called "Raed in the Middle." Before we talk about the latest in Iraq, Raed, I wanted to ask you about -- well, starting at the end, your trip home, how you made it back to the United States.

RAED JARRAR: I made it back to the United States in a very easy way. In fact, the incident that happened in JFK was not related to my trip, because I went back to D.C. I spent a day in D.C. Then I took the bus to New York. I spent a couple of days in New York. There was an event there. Then I was supposed to take my airplane, my Jet Blue airplane from JFK to Oakland in California last Saturday. So I went to the airport in the morning, and I was prevented to go to my airplane by four officers, because I was wearing this t-shirt that says “We will not be silent” in both Arabic and English. And I was told by one of the officials that wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script in an airport now is like going to a bank with a t-shirt that reads, “I am a robber.”

AMY GOODMAN: That's what the security said to you?

RAED JARRAR: Yeah. I was questioned by four officials from -- I think some of them were from Jet Blue and others were maybe policemen or FBI. I have no idea. I took their names and badge numbers, and I filed a complaint through ACLU against them, because I asked them very directly to let me go to the airplane, because it's my constitutional right as a U.S. taxpayer and resident to wear a t-shirt with Arabic script. And they prevented to let me exercise this right, and they made me cover the script with another t-shirt.

AMY GOODMAN: So they said you could not fly if you wore your t-shirt that said, “We will not be silent”?

RAED JARRAR: Yes. They said that very clearly.

AMY GOODMAN: I was just looking at another piece in the Daily Mail of Britain, which says, “British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny -- refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic. Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus […] minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for [another flight] in the departure lounge refused to board it [until the men speaking Arabic were taken off the plane].”

RAED JARRAR: And, Amy, there was a similar story from San Francisco last week, with a Canadian doctor called Ahmed Farooq, who was prevented to complete his airplane, because he was praying in his seat. So, I think, you know, these incidents are increasing, because of the latest alleged terror attack.

AMY GOODMAN: Also in this article it talks about others, as you were just talking about. “Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were […] reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.” Raed Jarrar, let's talk about the larger context right now of the Middle East and what’s happening. Can you talk about your trip, why you went on this CODEPINK-sponsored trip to Amman, what you learned there? And then we'll talk about the latest in Iraq.

RAED JARRAR: The trip was an answer for what Mr. al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, have done when he came to the U.S. Global Exchange and CODEPINK and other organizations, United for Peace and Justice, we tried to contact Mr. al-Maliki before he came to the U.S. during his last visit and requested a meeting with him. We asked him to meet with representatives of the antiwar movement and to speak with them about, you know, some proposals or ways of supporting the Iraq reconciliation plan, and, you know, what can be done from the U.S. side to finish the occupation of Iraq. Unfortunately, Mr. al-Maliki prefers to just go have some meetings with the U.S. Bush administration’s officials and maybe he met the troops and thanked them for, quote/unquote, "liberating Iraq," and he denied -- he refused to meet with the representatives of the peace movement.

That's why we put together a meeting with Iraqi representatives from the Iraqi parliament to discuss with them alternative solutions for the current occupation in Iraq. So we put together three major meetings with representatives from the biggest Sunni coalition in the parliament, the biggest Shia coalition in the parliament, and the biggest working secular and liberal group in the Iraqi parliament, because we wanted to find other channels in dealing with the Iraqi government, other than al-Maliki and the few people around him, who are repeating the same Bush administration’s lies and excuses for keeping the troops there.

So our meetings were very fruitful, in fact, especially the one with the mainstream Sunni and Shia parties, because we got this strong united message from Iraqi Sunnis and Shia demanding a timetable for pulling out the U.S. troops. And they were very clear about demanding to take their country back. They said, “We want our country back. We want the U.S. troops to put a timetable for withdrawing the troops, because our country is deteriorating. The situation is getting worse, and the U.S. has proven that they cannot control Iraq. So we want our country back. And we want the U.S. to leave.” And this contradicts completely with al-Maliki’s shameful position, when he came to the U.S., you know, and gave the exact different or opposite image.

So I think the visit was important for us as representatives of the peace movement, to deliver this important message, even from the Iraqi government, that many people are still calling it a puppet government in the U.S. When you come to the Iraqi parliament, there is a vast majority of parliamentarians who are requesting an end of this war and dealing with its consequences by either compensating Iraqis or fixing the destruction that happened because of the illegal war.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Raed Jarrar, the Iraqi Project Director for Global Exchange, runs the popular blog, "Raed in the Middle." We'll be back with him to talk about some newspaper reports of private meetings President Bush has been having, discussions of whether democracy should be supported in Iraq and also questioning why the Iraqi people aren't expressing more gratitude. We'll also play a clip of John McCain calling for more troops in Iraq and get Raed Jarrar's reaction. Stay us with.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Raed Jarrar, joining us from a studio in San Francisco, just back from a trip to the Middle East. Raed, I wanted to get your response to Arizona Senator John McCain, who said this Sunday he still thinks more troops are needed on the ground in Iraq. His comments came in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. Host David Gregory asked McCain about U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: The question is, are we going to be able to bring the situation under control now? I still believe we can. I think part of it has to do with the Mahdi Army and Sadr. Sadr has got to be taken out of this equation, and his militia has got to be addressed forcefully.

DAVID GREGORY: But to do that, do you need more U.S. soldiers on the ground now?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I think so. I think so. We took troops from places like Ramadi, which are still not under control, to put them into Baghdad. We’ve had to send in additional troop, as they are. All along, we have not had enough troops on the ground to control the situation. Many, many people knew that. And it's -- we're paying a very heavy price for it.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, if you could respond to Arizona Senator McCain.

RAED JARRAR: I don't know that there is a lot to be responded to, because it seems that, you know, many people in the administration are still not getting it. They're not getting that the situation in Iraq will not get any better by sending more troops and by killing more people and by increasing the violence in Iraq. And then, the only way out of Iraq is to depend on Iraqis and believe in the right of Iraqis in ruling themselves, to believe in democracy for Iraqis, for real, not the American way.

So sending more troops will make things more complicated. It will increase more clashes. And this myth of destroying al-Sadr's movement is just a big joke, because al-Sadr movement is expected or, like, estimated to contain around five million Iraqis. So, I don't know how many U.S. troops have to be sent to destroy five million Iraqis.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the latest violence in Iraq? It's painful, it seems, that any question you ask about Iraq has to talk about the latest violence there, but this weekend, the shooting of the Shia pilgrimage.

RAED JARRAR: Yeah. In fact, the violence was even bigger, because there are people who are trying to trigger more sectarian violence in Iraq. So what happened is that there were attacks against Shia pilgrims from Sunni neighborhoods. And, you know, no one claimed responsibility, because of these things. And in the same time, there were attacks on Sunni mosques from people who were, you know, just gathered or joined the pilgrims moving. So there are people who are trying to interfere in this relationship between Sunnis and Shia to, you know, destabilize Iraq or to justify the foreign troops’ presence in Iraq, because it seems that it’s the only -- the last excuse for the Bush administration and other administrations that are trying to stay in Iraq, to say, “We are there to prevent a full-scale civil war,” and “We are there to protect Iraqis from each other.”

Why don’t you go and talk to any Iraqi in the street or talk with Iraqi leaders, elected officials or civil society leaders? All of them blame the occupation for the current sectarian violence, and all of them realize that Iraqis have been living in harmony and peace for the last 1,400 years. And none of these incidents used to happen before the occupation started in Iraq. So people blame the occupation there, and people say, “The day that the occupation will leave Iraq, this sectarian violence will go down. We know how to deal with our problems by ourselves. We know how to take out these people who are trying to increase the civilian conflict and civilian and sectarian tension in Iraq.”

So mostly people are accusing the U.S., unfortunately, of interfering to increase the sectarian violence, because they see that it's the Bush administration's benefit to increase this violence and justify longer presence in Iraq, longer interference in Iraq. And, like, you know, it's widely used now as the only justification.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, I wanted to read you a few paragraphs from the New York Times. It says, “Some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials are beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq's democratically elected government might not survive. ‘Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,’ said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month,” and agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. He said, “Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect,” the expert said, “but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.” Your response?

RAED JARRAR: My response is that this is very expected since the day that the U.S. entered Iraq. There were many observers who were expecting another Algeria case to happen in Iraq, where the U.S. would reach to a position and discover that the majority, or the majority ruling Iraq, the Shia majority that is ruling Iraq now, it will turn into anti-occupation, and they have better and stronger relationships to their neighbors in Iran than their relationships to the U.S. So it's not in the benefit of the U.S. to let this, you know, even a very primitive and weak democracy in Iraq to be growing.

We shouldn't forget, by the way, that the U.S. was against building a democratic system from the beginning. When Paul Bremer first went to Iraq, he just selected 13 people and made the governing council. And the Iraqi Shia went to the streets, and they demanded to have elections. They wanted to have an elected government, instead of the selected government that the U.S. brought -- you know, some of these usually imported puppets that the U.S. brought with. So the U.S. did not really come with a democratic project, because they knew that they will end up having nationalists, anti-occupation people, who, if they wanted to have any good relationships with someone from outside Iraq, it would not be the U.S. It would be Iran, or it would be other Arab and Islamic countries.

So the U.S. now is realizing this, especially after the war on Lebanon, where Iraqi Shia, like especially al-Sadr movement, spoke very, very strongly against the attack on Lebanon, and the people went in the streets in big demonstrations, carrying Lebanese and Iraqi flags and saying, “We want to fight against the occupations of the region. We want to fight against the British, the American, and the Israeli occupations.” So it’s clear now for the U.S. that what happened in Iraq during the last three years actually produced an anti-occupation government, and all of the attempts of claiming this government and saying, “We are there because the Iraqis want us,” are failing now.

So the U.S. will try to go back to their original plan and put -- just insert yet another dictatorship in the Middle East that will be -- that will listen to what the U.S. will be saying, another dictatorship like Egypt or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or like, you know, the many other dictatorships supported by the U.S. So they want to insert yet another dictatorship regime in Iraq and forget about all of these big slogans of democracy, because, you know, it doesn't work for them.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed, you also traveled to Syria, where you visited a number of Lebanese refugee camps. Thousands of people fled to Syria following Israel's attack on Lebanon. Can you talk about what you saw there and the level of support for Hezbollah in Syria?

RAED JARRAR: The level of support of Hezbollah in Syria and in Jordan is unbelievable. I mean, I lived all of my life between Jordan and Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and I have never seen so much support of Hezbollah or, like, supporting Hezbollah this much, at least. But this time, especially in Damascus, you can't go to a street without finding a Hezbollah flag. You can't go to a place without finding Hezbollah posters, Nasrallah posters with Bashar al-Assad, and even sometimes the Iranian President Ahmadinejad. They have all of these pictures, like all around the streets.

And people were furious against the U.S., people were furious against Israel. And, I mean, even for me, I mean, it was such a, like, catch-22, because even for me as an Arab and Muslim who just immigrated to the U.S. last year, I was shouted at, because I’m a U.S. taxpayer, and I was accused with other people in the delegation who went to visit one shelter where Lebanese refugees were staying. We were accused of funding the war and buying these bombs by our money. So we were kicked out of these refugee camps, because they told us, “If you are good Americans, go and try to stop your government. Don't come here and apologize in our shelters.”

So you can feel that even the sense of anti-Americanism and, like, hatred to the U.S. increased very much in a very unfortunate way that even prevents us, as people who are representing the antiwar or peace and justice movement, from going there. It's like burned bridges with many countries in the Middle East. And like, you know, it made Israel and the U.S. less secure, made Hezbollah, as a means or tool for armed resistance, one of the only choices that people are supporting. So what happened there during the last one month’s war against Lebanon is so tragic. It’s just a tragic, devastating political mistake that turned the region into more extremism and into more potentiality to have violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange, Iraqi blogger and architect. His blog is called "Raed in the Middle."

Original Story

Following in the Footsteps of the Patriarch

EXCLUSIVE: Lou Beres of the Christian Coalition Confesses to Molesting Family Members

Monday, August 14, 2006

GayRightsWatch.com Exclusive:. In a just released police report (pdf), Lou Beres, former head of the Oregon Christian Coalition, finally confessed to the charges that he so vehemently denied last October. Sources from within the family tell us that Lou Beres told the truth because he thought the police report would stay sealed and the statute of limitations were over.

He got that part right... but not in civil court. Now we've got the report and Mr. Beres is being sued by Liz Jonas, one of the victims he admitted to molesting. You may recall his victims included his own biological daughters, their friends and his sister-in-law. Because of Oregon's 6 year statute of limitations - he didn't have to go to jail.

Sources tell us Lou Beres even went so far as to not show up for his first deposition and has now told people he is moving to Israel.

Remember this?

Beres has denied any criminal misconduct and wrote that he will "pursue the Biblical response and do all within my power to reconcile with that person."

The three women - now adults - allege they were abused by Beres as preteens. Their families called the child abuse hot line last month, after the three openly discussed the alleged abuse for the first time.

"I was molested," one of the women, now in her 50s, told The Oregonian. "I was victimized and I've suffered all my life for it. I'm still afraid to be in the same room with him [Beres]."

Beres, 70, has blamed "personal and political enemies" for the complaint.

The same sources from inside the Beres family tell us that he is still acting as the Executive Director of the Christian Coalition even after announcing that he was stepping down a little less than a year ago.

A victim in the police report recalls Beres coming into her room and "would use Vaseline and insert his finger into her vagina" when she was very young.

Another young victim recalls Mr. Beres coming into her room 2-3 times in one night. He "kissed her on the mouth and then licked her all over". Beres then "touched the young victims breasts, touched her on top of her underwear and upon her vagina".

Beres claims in the police report that he "has sinned in the past". The investigating detective recorded the phone call with Lou Beres with his permission. During this phone call Beres made admissions to three separate victims at three different times. All involved underage females.

From our source:

"Interesting angle, Officer Damon Coates who is locally known as an officer shot in the line of duty - survived - is Child Molester Lou's son-in-law.

When his sister-in-law, who Lou molested and then helped himself to her son and daughter - when she went to Officer Coates for help - he not only rebuffed - he protected Lou.

She was thrown out of the family.

[...]

Lou never thought that anybody would ever have the balls to sue him. So he figured his confession would never see the light of day.

[...]

What makes me sick it - he continues to be Executive Director of the Christian Coalition.

And when the woman he confessed to molesting showed up for her deposition - he brought half the church with him to renounce her."

Read the police report. It's ugly--but it's the truth. It's just another unfortunate case of the "higher than thou" extremist Christian Right causing horrific harm to others and hiding behind their religion. Sickening.

GAY RIGHTS WATCH EXCLUSIVE: Read the police report (pdf) here.

US preacher defends belief women can't teach men

A U.S. Baptist preacher has publicly defended himself for firing a female Sunday School teacher after more than 50 years on the job because he believes the Bible bans women from teaching men.

Watertown First Baptist Church Pastor Tim LaBouf, also a city council member in Watertown, N.Y., said women could fulfill any role or responsibility they wanted to -- outside the church.

"My belief is that the qualifications for both men and women teaching spiritual matters in a church setting end at the church door, period," LaBouf said in a statement on the church Web site (http://www.nnyinfo.com/firstbaptist).

LaBouf and the church board fired Mary Lambert, 81, earlier this month in a letter that cited the scriptural qualifications for Sunday School teachers, Lambert said.

"They quote First Timothy Two, 11-14: A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent," Lambert said, reading from the letter.

"I was astonished," she said. "I would not go back and teach as long as this is their thinking."

Watertown is 250 miles northwest of New York City.

William Carlsen, executive minister for American Baptist Churches of New York State, said U.S. Baptist Churches are autonomous and that there would not be many other Baptist Churches that share LaBouf's view.

"A considerable number if not a majority of American Baptist Churches have been quite aggressive in affirming the place of women's leadership roles within the church," Carlsen said.

The board of the Watertown First Baptist Church said in a statement on its Web site that the scripture rules concerning women teaching men in a church setting had only played a small part in Lambert's sacking.

"Christian courtesy motivates us to refrain from making any public accusations against her," the board said.

Original

Cool! It's Time the Dominant Religion Started Being More Tolerant

All my moms love me, kid tells polygamist rally
By James Nelson

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - More than a dozen children of polygamist families spoke publicly at a Utah rally for the first time on Saturday about their lifestyle and called for more understanding.

"I'm the 14th child in a large family and I have several moms," said Mary, 18. "All my mothers love me."

Using only their first names to protect their families, 15 young men and women ranging in age from 10 to 20 addressed a pro-polygamy crowd of 200 to 300 in downtown Salt Lake City.

"I did not come here today to ask for permission to live my beliefs. I shouldn't have to. I came here to defend a principle," said 19-year-old Tyler.

Organizers of Saturday's rally say plural families have historically avoided the spotlight, fearing criminal prosecution and ridicule. Polygamy is outlawed across the United States, but researchers estimate there are more than 30,000 practicing polygamists in Utah.

"There has been so much negative publicity about the polygamy lifestyle; we felt it was time to present the other side of the story," said Anne Wilde, spokeswoman for the polygamy advocacy group Principal Voices.

"I just don't think it's for everybody but I also think it should be a free choice and what we would like to see is equal civil rights so people don't lose their jobs or are ostracized for any reason."

NOT BRAINWASHED

Ten-year-old Sarah told the boisterous crowd she gets her homework done faster because of the help from "lots of brothers and sisters."

Seventeen-year-old Jessica called her several dozen siblings her best friends. "We're not brainwashed, mistreated, neglected, malnourished, illiterate, defective or dysfunctional," she said.

Most of the young men who spoke wore slacks, shirts and ties; the women wore long dresses and blouses.

Katherine, 16, told the crowd she hopes one day to become an attorney so she might "fight for the rights of others."

Following the rally, Katherine's mother Rachel said in an interview that when she grew up in polygamy there was much less openness.

"It is very historic ... I was very proud that the younger generation is stepping up and saying what they believe," said Rachel, who has three "sister-wives."

"I think the next generation is saying I'm not going to hide anymore, I don't want to live in fear like my parents did."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Utah, stopped the practice of polygamy in 1890 as a condition of statehood. They now excommunicate anyone practicing polygamy, although several splinter groups still practice it.

And In the Religious Nutcase Category . . .

Family faces eviction for loud night prayers

BERLIN (Reuters) - A seven-member family faces eviction from an east Berlin apartment tower after neighbors complained about loud prayer sessions that keep the whole building awake at night, a German newspaper said Thursday.

"I really don't want to disturb the neighbors but the high volume is needed in the battle against the devil," Pierre D., the 42-year-old father of the Christian family, told Bild newspaper. He is fighting an eviction order in court.

Neighbors told Bild the screams and singing that are part of the family prayers in the second storey sometimes begin at 2:30 a.m. and can be heard all the way up to the fifth floor.

"We have to work in the morning and need our sleep," said taxi driver Horst Berghahn, who lives on the third floor. He said he asked the family to lower the volume several times since they moved into the building 10 months ago but to no avail.

Original Story

Police say Christian Coalition leader admits molesting girls

SUMMARY: Longtime Oregon Christian Coalition leader Lou Beres told police he sexually touched young girls, including his sister-in-law, court records show.

The longtime leader of the Oregon Christian Coalition and staunch opponent of gay rights admits in a newly released police report that he sexually touched three underage girls years ago, despite denials of such behavior to a newspaper.

Lou Beres denied sexual-molestation allegations when the Oregonian newspaper first reported them in October. But a Gresham (Ore.) Police Department report released as part of a lawsuit said Beres "readily admitted sexually touching" one girl when she was 13 or 14 years old.

Beres also acknowledged sexually touching a 16- or 17-year-old friend of his daughter in 1976 or 1977.

Last fall, Beres said he would withdraw from public life while he fought the allegations. However, as late as last week, records show that he signed a $50 check on the Oregon Christian Coalition checking account to renew the group's business registration with the state.

In March, Beres, 70, was sued in Multnomah County circuit court for $2.1 million by a relative who said he molested her repeatedly between 1963 and 1966.

Gresham police last fall investigated the allegations that Beres had molested underage family members. But Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Shrunk said the statute of limitations would prohibit any criminal charges because the allegations occurred so long ago.

The Oregonian said Beres did not return a phone call Tuesday. His attorney, John Kaempf, told the newspaper the statements attributed to Beres by the police were not accurate. Beres told police that he had received counseling through his church and admitted his mistakes years ago, according to the Gresham police report.

However, other relatives expressed concern to police that the abuse continued for several years through more than one generation of the family, according to the report.

In a telephone call with an investigator, Beres "made admissions to three separate victims at three different times," the police report said. "All involved underage females. The offenses ranged from kissing to touching the breast of an underage girl.

Beres identified the victims as his sister-in-law and two friends of his daughters, said one of the investigators, according to Det. Lee Gosson of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Department. "It should be noted that Mr. Beres said his activities with the girls were in a playful fashion," Gosson said. "I told him that the acts were sexual, and he agreed."

Kaempf said that in addition to disputing the statements in the police report, Beres also denied the allegations in the lawsuit. A hearing is scheduled next month on a motion by Kaempf to dismiss the lawsuit.

When asked about Beres's relationship with the Oregon Christian Coalition, Kaempf said Beres would ask the coalition to "file the necessary paperwork with the state to formalize Mr. Beres's resignation as its chairman."

Michele Combs, spokeswoman for the national office of the Christian Coalition, told The Oregonian that she would check on Beres' status with the group but failed to provide an answer Tuesday and could not be reached by subsequent phone calls.

The Oregon Christian Coalition shut its office last year and does not appear to have any paid staff. Tim Nashif of the anti-gay Oregon Family Council said the coalition is "not doing anything" in the state as far as he can see. Nashif noted that Beres, once active in Republican politics, got almost no support when he tried to win a seat on the Republican National Committee.

Non-Christians need not apply

by ROBYN E. BLUMNER,
Times Perspective Columnist
Published August 13, 2006

---

Thanks to President Bush and his plan to Christianize the nation's provision of social services, one's relationship with Jesus Christ has become a real resume booster. As author Michelle Goldberg reports in her new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Bush has ushered in affirmative action for the born- again.

In 2005 alone, more than $2-billion in federal tax money went to faith-based programs for such services as job placement programs, addiction treatment and child mentoring. Overwhelmingly, this money went to groups affiliated with Christian religions.

This reallocation of social service money from secular agencies to religiously affiliated programs has also resulted in shifting employment opportunities. But some of these new employers have a shocking job requirement - only Christians need apply.

Goldberg cited the publicly funded Firm Foundation of Bradford, Pa., as a blatant example. The group provides prison inmates with job training, something one would think any trained professional could do. Well, think again. According to Goldberg, the group posted an ad for a site manager. It said that the applicant must be "a believer in Christ and Christian Life today, sharing these ideals when the opportunity arises." Apparently, experience and qualifications are secondary.

Transforming social welfare into conversion therapy was Bush's design when he made faith-based initiatives the priority of his administration's domestic agenda. And his success has been astounding.

Before Bush upended things, religious groups had always been enlisted by government as providers of social services. They just had to wholly separate their religious mission from their government-funded services. Under Bush, there has been substantial blurring of the line.

As to hiring, the law always allowed religious groups to discriminate on religious grounds - so that the Catholic Church could hire Catholic priests, for example - but that exemption did not extend to employees hired with public funds to provide social welfare. It was a simple, clear rule. If you took public money, you hired on the basis of merit, not piety.

But Bush wiped away this calibrated distinction by issuing a series of executive orders early in his presidency approving taxpayer financed religious discrimination.

Some of the resulting collateral damage has been tragic. Just talk to Anne Lown. She worked for 24 years for the Salvation Army in New York City before resigning due to the hostility she felt toward her non-Christian beliefs. The office she ran had hundreds of employees with an annual budget of $50-million, almost all of which came from public sources. Lown oversaw foster care placements, day care services, residential services for the developmentally disabled and many other programs.

In Lown's experience, the Salvation Army had always in the past been meticulous about keeping its evangelical side from mingling with its provision of social services, but all that changed in 2003. She attributes the change directly to Bush's policies. A lawsuit filed by Lown and another 17 current and former employees of the Salvation Army alleges that religion suddenly pervaded the agency's personnel decisions.

Lown says she was handed a form that all employees were expected to complete, asking for list of churches she attended over the last 10 years and the name of her present minister. Lown says she was told that indicating "not applicable" was not an option. A lawyer for the Salvation Army says the form was modified after complaints were received.

But Lown said that atmosphere was fear-inducing for the professional staff.

She pointed to a mission statement that all employees were required to support as a condition of employment. It stated that the organization's mission "is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Margaret Geissman, who is also part of the lawsuit, claims that she was asked by a supervisor to point out gay and non-Christian employees, with the overt suggestion that there would eventually be a purge of sorts. The Salvation Army denies this.

Despite the Salvation Army's disclaimers, Goldberg cites an internal Salvation Army document describing a deal struck in 2001 with the White House. In exchange for the administration passing regulations protecting faith-based groups from state and local antidiscrimination regulations relative to gays, the Salvation Army agreed to promote the administration's faith-based agenda.

Forget the proverbial wall. Here it is, church and state working hand-in-glove, with tax money and the government-sanctioned intolerance as the prize.

Meanwhile, money is flowing into religious coffers without anyone watching. A June report from the Government Accountability Office found that few government agencies that award grants to faith-based organizations bother to monitor whether the recipient is improperly mixing religion into their programs or discriminating against clients on the basis of religion. A few organizations contacted by the GAO even admitted to praying with clients while providing government-funded services. As to kicking out non-Christians on the staff, the Bush Justice Department says that it is perfectly okay.

Just another example of how, under this president, I hardly recognize my country anymore.

Original Story

Lebanese direct growing anger at US

While the US worked on a cease-fire agreement, Israeli warships fired on southern Beirut.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BEIRUT, LEBANON

With his arm raised and fist clenched, Sheikh Hussein furiously expressed a sentiment rapidly taking hold here.

"We know who our first enemy is: America," he shouted before tearful mourners at a funeral Wednesday for 30 civilians killed by an Israeli airstrike on Monday. The white-turbaned sheikh led the crowd in a militant chant: "Death to America! Death to America!"

Even as Israel continues to pound Beirut's southern suburbs, and agreed Wednesday on plans to expand its four-week-old offensive as far as 18 miles into southern Lebanon, many here increasingly blame the US for its extensive military and political support for the Jewish state.

"Israel wants to stop the war, but America orders them to continue," the sheikh asserted later in an interview. "This is the American freedom?"

Moments before the first child was interred by weeping parents Wednesday, Israeli ordnance hit again at a building nearby; more strikes followed during burials. In the south of the country, as many as 10,000 Israeli troops continued their slow push north, against strong resistance from Hizbullah guerrillas.

And in Beirut's Shiyyah district, where the Israeli strikes Monday night took more than 40 lives - the largest single-event toll of the conflict - it was a day of digging.

Just after first light, Hassan Dirani pulled several stuffed teddy bears and toys from the rubble, shook off the dust, and gently assembled them on a slab of concrete, with a blonde doll on top. They were dolls his own children had given to families displaced by fighting in the south, who had sought refuge in this "safe" Shiite-Christian neighborhood.

For Mr. Dirani, his emotions were first about the children - three of his remained in the rubble. And second, they were about accusing the US of giving Israel a free hand to destroy Lebanon.

"Thank you, George Bush. Thank you for those 'smart' bombs," says Dirani, whose wife and surviving son were injured in the attack. "I want to ask George Bush: 'What did our children do to him?' "

"Even with this, we love the American people. We love peace and respect Americans," continues Dirani, differentiating individuals from official policies. Unprompted, shell-shocked Lebanese now often skip accusations against Israel, and lay blame on its chief patron.

"I beg Americans not to vote for another butcher and criminal like George Bush," says Dirani, who works at the environment ministry. Tearfully, he says his small daughter, now entombed, had been sharing her excitement about her upcoming sixth birthday party next week; she wrote out an invitation list of 20 school friends.

"Why does your system and White House do this to us ... give smart bombs to throw on our people?" asks Dirani. "What are you going to tell your kids [to explain it]?"

It is these human dramas that are changing attitudes in the war sparked by Hizbullah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers. Israel's overwhelming military response has emptied southern Lebanon of 700,000 people, blockaded the country, and systematically destroyed bridges and airports, making relief efforts all but impossible. On the first day of conflict, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz vowed to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" if the soldiers were not returned.

"That's how they create terrorists," says Mohammed, a Lebanese restaurant owner, while watching the digging effort in Shiyyah. "And they ask: 'Why do they hate us?' "

As the bulldozers and backhoes moved slabs of smashed concrete, the tines of their buckets biting with determination into the smoking rubble, emergency workers with picks and shovels - and stretchers at the ready - kept a sharp eye for victims.

First one man was found, then a woman. Then a backhoe driver called out through the dust: "Here's another one!"

It was 4-year-old Riham Ramaiti, granddaughter of Said Yatim, who broke down, shaking, at the sight of her.

"No! No!" he cried, shouting prayers as she was bundled up and taken away for washing, and then the afternoon funeral. Riham had been visiting relatives with her father, Ali, an electrician, and mother, Maya, when the building collapsed.

"I don't understand anything! I don't know, I just don't know," wailed Mr. Yatim, his body shaking. "Criminal people and a criminal government does this to us. The kids have nothing to do with missiles and bombs, but they are burning everything. No one in the world deserves such a massacre."

Other anxious relatives clamored nearby, waiting for news; one official in a bright green emergency vest carried a list of names, crossing out one after another throughout the grim task.

"Americans, Europeans, and the Western people are great people ... they love freedom," says Yatim, as workers sought to find his daughter. "But the governments of Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair are criminal."

Yatim's wife Alia arrived, wearing a black head scarf, her face twisted with emotion.

"I saw Riham," Yatim reported to her. "She looked the same, nothing changed. She's an angel."

The search continued. More were found. An emergency worker discovered a large chunk of shrapnel, a foot long and very heavy, with sharp serrated edges designed to destroy buildings.

"We never thought we would see this in Lebanon again," says Alia, who survived the 1975-90 civil war.

"Imagine if Americans were receiving this, and not Lebanese," says Yatim. "If these were Americans dying in this massacre, what would they think?

"We are in the 21st century, and it's unbelievable we still have people who follow such a savage way," he continues. "There are 1,000 ways, democratic ways, that [Americans] can protect the world - not this way."

Then he broke away, as a bucket of rubble was emptied on a collapsed roof. "There is Riham's toy!" Yatim tells his wife. A moment later, it was covered by another bucketful.

"Will your words and photographs go out? They won't stop you?" Yatim asks a visiting reporter, his voice at once broken, and tinged with challenge. "We don't trust the world anymore."

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What Is It the Good Books Says About Prophets Whose Prophesies Don't Come True?

Robertson says God told him that storms will lash U.S. coastline this year

VIRGINIA BEACH (AP) — In another in a series of notable pronouncements, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year.

Robertson has made the predictions at least four times in the past two weeks on his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded.

Hurricane season may not be as bad

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) -- The Colorado State University hurricane forecast is predicting that the upcoming hurricane season won't be as bad as earlier predicted.

Colorado State professor William Gray's reducing the number of likely hurricanes from nine to seven and intense hurricanes from five to three.

Isn't it something like, they aren't HIS prophets, but liars and charlatines? I could be wrong. I'll see if I can find the quote.

Gray, who's one of the nation's leading hurricane forecasters, says the fact that there have only been two hurricanes in July is not the reason for the revision.

He says Atlantic sea surface temperatures are not quite as warm and surface pressure is not quite as low. Also, the eastern equatorial Pacific has warmed some and trade winds in the tropical Atlantic are slightly stronger.

Gray and he team says hurricane activity will continue to be above average and will continue to be for another 15 to 20 years.

Thirteen major hurricanes have formed in the Atlantic Basin the past two years, seven of them striking the U.S. coast with devastating damage resulting from four of them.

And Every Time You Think There's No Hope

Keeping the faith
Ishfaq-ul-Hassan

GULMARG: Inside the sanctum sanctorum of the historic Maharani temple here, a diminutive-looking priest recites holy verses loudly. At first glance, he looks like any other Hindu priest, but in reality he is a devout Muslim. Thirty-year old Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh is the caretaker and priest of the 91-year old temple, which houses a Shiv Lingam and idol of Goddess Parvati.

He has been the priest of this Hindu temple for the last 14 years. Interestingly, he is well-versed in both the Gita and the Quran. He offers Namaaz regularly and also performs aarti at the temple

“When everyone left the valley, I was the only person who took care of this temple. Since then I am performing pujas regularly at this temple. And my antecedents have never been questioned. People respect me more when I tell them that I am Muslim,” said Sheikh. The Maharani temple also known as Mohineshwari Shivalalaya was built by Mohini Bai Sisodhia, the wife of erstwhile ruler of Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh, in 1915. The temple had a regular priest until the onset of militancy in the area. After the migration of the pandits, Sheikh’s uncle became its priest and caretaker. Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh took over 14 years ago. Since then, he has donned the mantle of priest of this historic temple. “The temple remains open everyday from 6am to 9pm. Aarti is performed twice a day for devotees, mostly the tourists. After performing aarti, I offer namaaz,” said Sheikh.

The custodians of the Maharani temple are paying him a paltry sum of Rs 1600 monthly to sustain his family. “I have no other income. But the devotees who come to know about my religion sometimes offer some money as a token of gratitude,” he said.

Sheikh however, rues that the government has not done anything for him despite the fact he has kept the flame of secularism alive in tough times. “My residential quarter suffered damages during the October 8 quake. But not a single penny came my way. The pseudo secularists are being felicitated and I’m not even been recognised,” he lamented.

Hindu devotees are grateful to him for setting a precedent of Hindu-Muslim unity.

“All religions preach brotherhood. God is one and he does not discriminate. It makes no difference for us who leads our prayers”, said Asha Sadhu Dimri of Pune.Sheikh has also brought another Muslim relative to serve the temple. “We consider it our duty to serve the people no matter which religion caste or creed you belong to,” said Manzoor Ahmad, a gardener at the temple.

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