THEISTWATCH FOR JUNE 8, 1995 Washington, D.C. - HEARINGS BEGIN ON RELIGIOUS EQUALITY AMEND
THEISTWATCH FOR JUNE 8, 1995
Washington, D.C.--HEARINGS BEGIN ON RELIGIOUS EQUALITY
AMENDMENT
United States--THE CULTURE WAR: RAPPERS BLAST BACK WHILE NEWT
BACKS DOWN TO DOLE
Ethiopia--ORTHODOX, EVANGELICALS SLUG IT OUT
Cyberspace--QUESTION FROM A READER OF THEISTWATCH
____________________
____________________
HEARINGS BEGIN ON RELIGIOUS EQUALITY AMENDMENT
by Conrad Goeringer
JUNE 8 -- The House Judiciary Committee began hearings on a
proposed constitutional amendment which critics say
would entangle government and religious doctrine. The
proceedings are described as "laying the groundwork" for a
Republican-orchestrated Religious Equality Amendment which would
mandate greater government accommodation to religious exercise,
especially in schools and other public
institutions.
The amendment is the centerpiece in the Christian
Coalition's "Contract With the American Family" presented
last month. Citing alleged "hostility of public institutions
toward religious exercise," the Coalition and its allies
called for "voluntary, student and citizen-initiated free speech
in non-compulsory settings such as courthouse lawns, high school
graduation ceremonies and sports events."
Working with the Christian Coalition on the Amendment is the
American Center for Law and Justice. Both organizations were
founded by television evangelist and Christian media-
mogul Pat Robertson. Yesterday, Jay Sekulow, ACLJ director,
claimed that the hearings are "an important moment in the
ongoing struggle for religious liberty."
Critics, however, charge that the hearings are just part of
a political strategy by the Republican congress to "pay the bill"
for evangelical fundamentalists who helped sweep the GOP into
power in last November's congressional
elections. The first 100 days of the new Congress witnessed the
implementation of much of the GOP "Contract With America"
economic agenda. Since then, a number of conservative
religious leaders have expressed worry that social issues
like abortion, school prayer and efforts to combat
pornography, are being ignored. Strategists for GOP
presidential candidates Sen. Bob Dole and Sen. Phil Gramm
have much to worry about as well; they don't want to repeat the
1992 election debacle where George Bush lost votes
because of doctrinaire religious stances on the abortion
question. While many Americans favor GOP tax cuts and other
economic strategies, they are deeply divided over social
issues advanced by groups like the Christian Coalition.
Although a number of liberal religious groups have
expressed support for the idea of teaching religion as
history in schools, many still oppose a Religious Equality
Amendment. Professor Norman Redlich, former Dean of the New York
University Law School, told the House Subcommittee on the
Constitution that any amendment would erode the wall of
separation between government and religion.
"A constitutional amendment is no panacea," said Redlich, who
is also co-chair of the American Jewish Congress
Commission on Law and Social Action. "It would create a new and
untested legal standard of uncertain meaning, and it
would raise almost as many questions as it would answer old ones.
"And of course, it would leave in doubt the status of dozens of
Supreme Court and hundreds of lower court cases. Nothing on the
horizon remotely justified such a wholesale revision of the First
Amendment."
Critics have also charged that Amendment backers really want
to negate cases such as Lemon v. Kurtzman, which
established guidelines in determining how government may act in
regard to religious belief. The "Lemon test" enjoins the state
from taking any action which has the primary effect of advancing
religion, favoring one religion over another, or results in
"excessive" entanglement between government and religion. First
Amendment supporters maintain that Lemon and other cases protect
the rights of nonbelievers, and even
those in religious minorities, from rituals and practices of
dominant religious groups.
Other critics maintain that the Religious Equality
Amendment is attempting to circumvent the "school prayer"
issue and introduce religion into public schools under the guise
of academic instruction. In 1963, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in the famous Murray v. Curlett case that
mandatory prayer and Bible recitation in public schools was
unconstitutional. One of the litigants in that case was the
prominent American Atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
Critics charge that the amendment, though, while
advocating "voluntary" prayer, is really a smokescreen to
introduce religious belief in history and sociology classes.
Others worry that it may even be a foundation for promoting so-
called "scientific creationism" in biology classes.
"Scientific creationism" is a belief used to counter
evolutionary explanations of how life arose and developed, using
instead a literal interpretation of the Bible as found in the
book of Genesis. Scientists, educators, and others have
denounced creationism as poor science and inappropriate for
classroom settings and charge that alleged "proofs" of
creationism are bogus.
The exact wording for the proposed amendment has not yet
been formulated. Last March, representatives from several
Christian fundamentalists groups including Focus on the
Family, Christian Coalition, and ACLJ met with Rep. John
Istook whose task is getting any amendment through the
elaborate hearing and ratification process. Reports since the
March gathering suggest that amendment supporters are
having difficulty in crafting precise wording that would pass
House and Senate scrutiny, as well as ratification by
individual states.
THE CULTURE WAR: RAPPERS BLAST BACK WHILE NEWT BACKS DOWN TO DOLE
by Conrad F. Goeringer
Not everyone is ganging up on Hollywood and the rest of the
entertainment industry, despite charges by GOP
presidential hopeful Sen. Robert Dole. Last week Dole
grabbed headlines by claiming that violence, sex and
profanity in the entertainment world was leading the United
States down the road to ruin. Critics saw Dole's "culture war"
offensive as pandering to the evangelical Christian
right, whose support he may need in clinching the Republican
nomination next year and in running against Bill Clinton.
One of Dole's targets was Time Warner, Inc. which
happens to own 50 percent of Interscope, a distributor of
major rap music artists such as 2Pac (Tupac Shakur), Dr. Dre and
Snoop Doggy Dog. 2Pac has been imprisoned on sexual
assault charges, and the Dr. and the Dog face murder counts. A
lot of White social actions groups -- and even some Black
organizations -- don't like the "gangsta' rap" message of
Interscope artists, and some of the other rap labels.
On Thursday, June 8, representatives of the Recording
Industry Association of America met in Washington, D.C., to
"discuss the current scrutiny of music lyrics." RIAA has
supported the parental "warning labels" on CDs, but skeptics note
that the presence of such labels merely helps their
sales. When a 2 Live Crew album drew criticism for its lusty
lyrics and cover art of bare bottoms, two editions were
produced. The "sanitized" version, though, accounted for
only about 10 percent of sales.
Some rappers are now beginning to take on the 71-year-old
Kansas senator. Pudgee the Phat Bastard told USA TODAY that Dole
"is a politicians who's brown-nosing the
conservative community."
"And why isn't (Dole) addressing how the World Trade
Center got attacked?", asked Bushwick Billy, insisting that
Bosnia was a more important issue than rap lyrics, and
claiming that rappers are "easy targets." Meanwhile, the
executive producer of the soundtrack for "Tales From the
Hood" said that more attention needs to be paid to the
conditions which motivate rap music. "Why do rappers have to
live where drive-by shootings are high and educational
opportunities are low?", asked Larry Robinson.
Dole's statement that Hollywood and the rest of the
entertainment world was "mainstreaming deviancy" seems to
have drawn support even from liberals. They seemed to have more
courage back in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle
attacked the television character Murphy Brown for being an unwed
mom. But that was before last year's Congressional
elections, when the GOP -- supported with large contributions of
money and volunteer help from the Christian evangelical right --
swept the elections and gained control of both the House and
Senate for the first time in four decades. Critics charge many
liberals with "backpeddling" on the sex-violence issue.
Dole's cultural cleansing campaign dovetails with
efforts of evangelical groups which for years have worked for
tougher laws to regulate violence, sex, profanity, and even
criticism of religion and religious "values" in the media. Dole
told an anti-pornography group last week that his
motivation in taking on the entertainment industry had
nothing to do with politics, but critics charge the Senate
Majority Leader with trying to exaggerate the problems and ignore
other issues. Indeed, a USA TODAY poll showed that 67 percent
of those questions believed that "candidates are just playing
politics" in criticizing violence and sex in media.
Newt Waffles
Over the weekend, Dole also blasted fellow Republican, House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, for some of the racier
paragraphs in his soon-to-be-released action book, "1945." Due
in July, Gingrich's thriller tells the story of a
presidential aide seduced by a German intelligence agent,
Erica von Strasse, who at times is described as a seductive "sex
kitten." While it's tame stuff for the best-seller
market, Dole still found fault with Gingrich -- and today it was
learned that whole phrases are now being chopped from
"1945." Among the luke-warm paragraphs: "even though it had been
only minutes since their last lovemaking" and "shameless
pleasures."
Unfortunately, while Erica remains a "sex kitten," she will
no longer sit "athwart his chest . . . poised . . . like
delicious doom above him", or threaten to make him (the
presidential assistant) "do terrible things." While "1945"
isn't exactly graphic and steamy, the fact that the New York
Times syndicate which has the rights to the novel would alter
copy seemingly in response to Dole's attack, demonstrates
just how far the literary community might cave in to public
pressure.
And while 65 percent of the USA TODAY respondents agreed
that the entertainment industry is "seriously out of touch" with
the values of the country, they continue to watch action
thrillers, steamy television (even if it consists of shows like
"Melrose Place" or "Baywatch"), or read the sex-obsessed
magazines at the check-out counter.
We may as a country talk about purity, but we're worried
about bust size, tight buns, sexual potency, and driving a car
which -- say some -- is the ultimate sex statement.
But maybe guys like Dole have a chauffeur.
ORTHODOX, EVANGELICALS SLUG IT OUT IN ETHIOPIA
by Conrad F. Goeringer
Feeling that they must take the "word of (their) god" to
other countries, evangelical Christians have been mounting an
intense effort to win converts throughout Europe and even the
Islamic-dominated Middle East. Many of these efforts have met
with official opposition, and even violence from other religious
groups.
A recent case in point is the recent organized
by California evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, slated for Meskel
Square in Addis Ababa. Orthodox Christians poured out of
their local church last April and charged police lines
surrounding the crusade. Three truckloads of the rioters
were carted away to jail. According to Christianity Today
magazine, newspapers which support the Ethiopian Orthodox
church had warned of "heretics" and the "antichrist" at the
Bonnke rally. Orthodox fanatics also had tried to disrupt a
Billy Graham video crusade and rally there in March. The riot
prompted police to revoke permission for the crusade due to fears
of violence. In 1993, Bonnke had to cancel a
campaign scheduled in Mali due to fears of disruptions. His
group has had repeated clashes in other predominantly Muslim,
African countries, according to Christianity Today. Muslim and
Orthodox groups are often wary of European and
especially American evangelicals as agents of political or
cultural "imperialism." They also do not want the competition for
followers; in many countries, established religions have enjoyed
a special relationship with governments in power, and see
Protestant or even militant Catholic movements as
upstarts.
But events like the Bonnke crusade show that world
religious unity, of even limited ecumenism for Christians, while
a goal of the Vatican and major Protestant bodies still remains
elusive. Entrenched religions must contend with the modern tools
which "upstart" religions often employ,
including satellite broadcasts, media ads, cassette tapes and
movies. Evangelizing is no longer seen as a way to garner
"souls," but to win the numbers game in an ongoing religious turf
war.
QUESTION FROM A READER OF THEISTWATCH
From: EMalenka@aol.com
To: theistwatch-l@atheist.org
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 22:24:06 -0400
Subject: Re: TW: June 7, 1995
Hello!: Just a short note to say "great job!!" I love what
you're doing here. You're doing a great service by exposing the
insanity of religious ideas and practices throughout the world.
By the way, who is Conrad Goeringer? I really like his analysis
and writing style. Sincerely, Ed Malenka
MODERATOR'S RESPONSE:
Thank you! There's a lot of news to sift through, but we try to
do it as speedily, accurately, and often as possible.
Conrad Goeringer has been an activist with American Atheists for
almost two decades, starting as the director of its
Tucson Chapter in the late 1970s and then later becoming its
Outreach Director. Currently, he serves on the board of the
American Atheist Library. Professionally, he is an
antiquarian book dealer and freelance writer living in the cape
of New Jersey. Mr. Goeringer took over the primary
writing responsibilities for TheistWatch in April, after it was
made available on the Internet.
--R. Murray-O'Hair, Moderator, TheistWatch
***********************************************************************
* *
* American Atheists website: http://www.atheists.org *
* PO Box 140195 FTP: ftp://ftp.atheists.org *
* Austin, TX 78714-0195 *
* Voice: (512) 458-1244 Dial-THE-ATHEIST: *
* FAX: (512) 467-9525 (512) 458-5731 *
* *
* Atheist Viewpoint TV: avtv@atheists.org *
* Info on American Atheists: info@atheists.org, *
* & American Atheist Press include your name and mailing address *
* AANEWS -Free subscription: aanews-request@listserv.atheists.org *
* and put "info aanews" in message body *
* *
* This text may be freely downloaded, reprinted, and/other *
* otherwise redistributed, provided appropriate point of *
* origin credit is given to American Atheists. *
* *
***********************************************************************
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank