Politics Daily

Is Murdered Gay Activist David Kato the Gabrielle Giffords of Uganda?

David Gibson — 2011-01-28T21:47:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Senate, Republicans, Religion, Crime, Gay Rights, Foreign Policy, Disputations, Conservatives, Liberals, Hate Crimes, Barack Obama, Arizona Shooting

The bludgeoning death of gay activist David Kato this week in Uganda stunned the gay community around the world and prompted Kato's angry allies to point the finger of blame at Christian-fueled homophobia in the East African nation, and at conservative Christians in the United States who have long ties to anti-gay forces in Uganda.

"David's death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S Evangelicals in 2009," Val Kalende, the woman who heads "Freedom and Roam Uganda," a gay rights group, said in a statement. "The Ugandan Government and the so-called U.S Evangelicals must take responsibility for David's blood."

Gay activists have been furious with Christian conservatives from America -- such as evangelist Rick Warren and politicians including Republican Sens. James Inhofe, Tom Coburn and Mike Enzi -- for their support of Christians campaigning against homosexual protections in Uganda, which has a notorious record of discrimination against gays.

The critics say that U.S.-based support was especially notable in a March 2009 forum in the capital, Kampala, that featured a trio of well-known Christian pastors from the so-called ex-gay movement. They say that forum helped inspire Christian parliamentarians in Uganda to propose draconian measures against gays and lesbians, including a bill pending in the Ugandan parliament that would allow for the death penalty for some homosexual activity.

Still, that legislation is only one manifestation of widespread anti-gay sentiment in Uganda.

Campaigns to publicly out homosexuals (or accuse political opponents of being gay, whether they are or not) are common in Uganda, and last September a Ugandan newspaper, Rolling Stone (no relation to the American magazine), ran a cover story ranting against gays and including David Kato's picture under a banner urging, "Hang Them." Anonymous death threats against Kato were increasing, as they were against many out gays and lesbians, especially after he won a judgment against Rolling Stone.

So it was hardly a surprise that, in an echo of the shootings in Tucson this month that targeted Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, gay rights groups and their supporters blamed homophobia and conservative Christians in particular for Kato's murder -- much as some liberals painted right-wing rhetoric as culpable for the Arizona massacre by a gunman police believe to be Jared Lee Loughner that claimed six lives and injured 13 people, including Giffords.

"Uganda's homophobic witch hunt claims the life of a prominent rights defender," was the title of a press release on Kato from the New York-based organization, Human Rights First. In Uganda, the gay activist group Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), issued a statement calling "on religious leaders, political leaders and media houses to stop demonizing sexual minorities in Uganda since doing so creates a climate of violence against gay persons." And the popular gay blogger Joe Jervis, known as "JoeMyGod," charged that some U.S. Christians were "complicit" in Kato's murder.

Westboro Baptist Church Backs Off Protest Plans at Tucson Victims' Funerals

Tom Diemer — 2011-01-12T17:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Scandal, Gay Rights, Hate Crimes, Arizona Shooting

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church have decided not to picket at the funerals of the victims of the fatal shootings in Tucson, Ariz., in exchange for publicity, a spokeswoman says.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the Kansas-based church's pastor and founder Fred Phelps, said Westboro agreed to drop its plans to protest outside the funeral of Christina Taylor Green and the others killed last Saturday because it preferred to reach a wider audience over the air waves, the Topeka Capital-Journal said.

In an interview with 102.1 The Edge in Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday, Phelps-Roper agreed to call off the protest outside the funeral of 9-year-old Christina if host Dean Blundell permitted her to talk on the air about her church's views, which she did. Christina died when a gunman opened fire at an event hosted by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The congresswoman was severely wounded.

After getting a promise for an interview on the nationally syndicated Mike Gallagher Show in New York, Phelps-Roper said the church agreed not to protest at any of the six victims' funerals, the Topeka newspaper said. Gallagher, in an e-mail, confirmed that church members would appear on his program Monday. "I 'm proud that my radio show could be used as an effective tool to prevent them from hurting those grieving families," he told Politics Daily. Westboro also has an interview scheduled with KXXT-AM Christian radio in Phoenix Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

Westboro Baptist, a small, militantly anti-gay church, routinely demonstrates at the funerals of U.S. service members and others who, members believe, are part of an American culture that accepts homosexuality. Their deaths are a sign of God's wrath, the church says. Westboro members often hold aloft placards with such slogans as "God hates fags."

Members would have been kept at bay had they followed through with their plans to picket in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday signed into law a prohibition on protests within 300 feet of a funeral for one hour before a service and for an hour afterward.

Folo Tom Diemer on Twitter http://twitter.com/tomdiemer

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FBI: Hate Crimes and Anti-Religious Offenses Declined in 2009

David Gibson — 2010-11-26T20:03:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Crime, Race Issues, Disputations, Hate Crimes, Economy, Islam

The FBI says the number of reported hate crimes dropped significantly in 2009 from the previous year, to their lowest point in more than 15 years, despite the deepening recession and growing social tensions. Anti-religious crimes also declined, although attacks against Jewish targets continued to far outstrip incidents aimed at Muslims and Islamic sites.

Whether that downward trend -- and the proportionally low number of anti-Muslim incidents -- continued into 2010 will only come to light in next year's report. Given the supercharged political atmosphere that marked this election year, and flashpoints like the so-called ground zero mosque controversy and the Koran-burning threats that sparked numerous attacks on Muslims, the numbers could spike.

But for now, religious groups are giving thanks for the decline, even if they have no clear explanations for the drop.

The FBI report shows that there were 6,598 single-bias incidents in 2009, with nearly half motivated by racial bias. The second-highest total was the 1,303 incidents motivated by religious bias, accounting for just under 20 percent of all hate crimes. Overall, the numbers represent a drop of 15 percent in all hate crimes to the lowest number reported since 1994, outstripping the 5.5 percent decline in violent crime in 2009 and the 4.9 percent drop in property crimes.

"Working with our coalition allies and law enforcement, we will do everything possible to ensure that this is not just a temporary downturn, but a sustainable trend," leaders of the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish advocacy group, said in a statement. "However, violent bigotry is still disturbingly prevalent in America."

Studies have found no clear correlation between economic downturns and hate crimes, as many tend to believe should be the case. But social and political strife can stoke resentments that lead to attacks or to intimidating rhetoric and vandalism that can rise to the level of harassment and an entry in the FBI hate crimes roster. So establishing cause and effect is difficult, as is predicting whether today's tensions will lead to changes in next year's report one way or the other.

Attacks against Jews and Jewish sites accounted for more than 70 percent of the 2009 incidents against religious targets, while Muslims were targeted in just over 9 percent of the incidents. Both groups have relatively small communities, a few million in each case, as opposed to the nation's more than 65 million Roman Catholics, for example. The FBI tallied 51 anti-Catholic incidents in total in 2009, 38 against Protestants, and 10 against atheists and agnostics.

The ADL and others lamented that hate-crime reporting by local law enforcement agencies remains inconsistent, as more than 60 cities nationwide with over 100,000 residents "either did not participate in the data collection effort or reported figures that appear not credible," the ADL said.

"A victim of hate violence is much less likely to report the crime to a police department if he or she does not believe the crime will be treated with the seriousness it merits," the group said. "American communities have learned the hard way that failure to address bias crimes can cause an isolated incident to fester and result in widespread tension."

Brian Levin, head of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, noted that the number of agencies agreeing to data collection increased in 2009, but the number of agencies actually sending in hate crime reports to the FBI declined.

"A 2005 victimization study estimated that there are 191,000 hate crimes nationally, with most going unreported to police," Levin wrote in The Huffington Post. "While there may have been a downward trend, as suggested by those states with consistent reporting, today's report is undermined by a continued lack of reporting by various states, including some of the largest that had previously participated more actively in the past."

Some advocates hope that the passage last October of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act will improve reporting in coming years because it includes provisions aimed at spurring greater cooperation from state and local law enforcement agencies.

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Rep. Joseph Cao Calls Christian Group 'Ignorant' for Costing Him Election

David Gibson — 2010-11-12T19:50:00+00:00

Filed under: Republicans, Religion, Abortion, Disputations, 2010 Elections, Congress, Conservatives, Campaigns, Hate Crimes, Health Care Reform, Gay Rights

Louisiana GOP Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao is still smarting over the successful efforts of a leading lobby of the Christian right to defeat him in last week's election, a loss that denied Republicans a chance to hold a traditionally Democratic seat and ensure a second term for the first Vietnamese-American in Congress.

While the defeat was easily overlooked in the Republicans' euphoria after their sweep of the House, Cao remains angry at Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council for launching a last-minute radio ad against him, and for effectively fragging a fellow pro-lifer who is a former Jesuit seminarian and was once considered a model for a more diverse Republican Party.

"For a conservative Christian organization to attack a Republican pro-life candidate in a general election is as ignorant as it is inexcusable," Cao told Warren Throckmorton, an evangelical Protestant psychologist and author.

Throckmorton is known for his views on Christianity and homosexuality, which are often more welcoming to gays and lesbians -- while not accepting homosexual acts as morally neutral -- than many hardline evangelicals.

Cao's approach to homosexual rights also got him into trouble with Perkins and the FRC, despite his own conservative Catholic and pro-life bona fides. Cao co-sponsored both the Hate Crimes Protection Act of 2009 and legislation to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, and that was enough to label him a traitor to the cause in the eyes of Tony Perkins, who had enthusiastically endorsed Cao in 2008.

"In the last two years [Cao] has amassed one of the worst voting records of any Republican in Congress on our issues," Perkins told Throckmorton in a statement.

Perkins, a leading lobbyist for Christian conservatives, also said his group's opposition to Cao was about more than a single district.

"I also wanted to send a very clear message to Republicans across the country; if you take a stand against the family, we will take a stand against you," Perkins said. "These squishy Republicans need to know that we will come after them, just like the Democrats."

Yet as Throckmorton noted -- and as documented by the authors of "American Grace," a comprehensive new study of religion in the U.S. -- Americans of all faiths are becoming more accepting of homosexuals and gay rights even as they have become more pro-life. That growing divide is a decided contrast to the efforts of many Christian conservatives, from evangelical Protestants to the nation's Catholic bishops, who increasingly see opposition to abortion and gay rights as two sides of the same coin.

In that sense, the Cao loss and the ongoing fallout could be a lesson that should not be lost on the GOP once the post-election euphoria wears off.

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Obama Addresses Gay Youth Suicides, School Bullying

Alex Wagner — 2010-10-22T10:19:00+00:00

Filed under: Obama Administration, Hate Crimes, White House, Barack Obama, Gay Rights

In a recorded video address posted Thursday night on the White House blog, President Obama spoke to the recent suicides of several gay youth, victims of peer harassment and bullying. Saying the deaths "shocked and saddened" him and that teen suicide "breaks my heart," the president called upon all Americans to be more vigilant about such matters. "We have got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal right of passage, that it's some inevitable part of growing up," he said. "It's not."

To teens still coping with the struggle of sexual identity at home and at school, Obama recalled his own experience as an adolescent. "I do know what it's like to grow up feeling like sometimes you don't belong. It's tough." And he offered a message of hope: "You are not alone. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything to deserve being bullied. And there is a whole world waiting for you, full of possibilities." He added, "There are people out there who love you and care about you, just the way you are. . . . You've got to reach out to people you trust."

The address is not the first time Obama has spoken to the issue in recent weeks. At an MTV-sponsored town hall meeting last week -- aimed at engaging younger voters -- the president was asked about online bullying and gay suicides. He noted that the Department of Education had initiated a summit to determine how local and state officials might coordinate structures to help young people "feel safe, where there's a trigger that goes off when this kind of bullying starts taking place, so that immediately school officials can nip it at the bud."

He called for schools to further institute zero-tolerance policies against bullying and reiterated that "there are laws against this kind of harassment." Said Obama, "Sending that message of seriousness is something that I think we all have to do."

In the same remarks, the president was plainspoken as to the root cause of harassment. "The law doesn't always change what's in people's hearts," he said. "And so all of us have an obligation to think about how we're treating other people. There's a values component to this that all of us have to be in a serious conversation about."

The president's White House video is also featured in the "It Gets Better Project" -- a support forum for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.

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Mormon Church Leaders Condemn Gay Bullying After Outcry and Petition

David Gibson — 2010-10-13T13:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Disputations, Conservatives, Liberals, Hate Crimes, Gay Rights

The conservative Mormon church is not usually considered a gay-friendly religion, and it has been hammered especially hard for its opposition to gay rights since it helped lead the 2008 battle to pass California's Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

But comments by a senior Mormon leader on Oct. 3 saying that God does not make people homosexual and that same-sex attractions are "unnatural" and can be changed has ignited an unprecedented firestorm of protest. The remarks were considered particularly hurtful because they came amid national attention over the bullying and suicides of numerous gay teenagers.

As a result, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or LDS -- the formal name for the Mormon religion -- has spent this week trying to douse the controversy sparked by Boyd K. Packer, 86, the second-highest-ranking church leader and the next in line for the presidency of the 13.5 million-member faith.

On Monday the LDS tweaked the official version of Packer's speech to soften the suggestion that homosexuality is not inborn -- studies that it likely is -- and deleted altogether the claim that God would not create people with a homosexual orientation.

Then on Tuesday, just an hour after the nation's largest gay civil rights organization delivered a protest petition with 150,000 signatures to the LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City, a Mormon spokesman issued a statement denouncing bullying against anyone, including for reasons of sexual orientation, and said Mormons have a special responsibility to be kind to minority groups since Mormons themselves have experienced persecution.

"Our parents, young adults, teens and children should therefore, of all people, be especially sensitive to the vulnerable in society and be willing to speak out against bullying or intimidation whenever it occurs, including unkindness toward those who are attracted to others of the same sex," said LDS spokesman Michael Otterson.

"This is particularly so in our own Latter-day Saint congregations," he said. "Each Latter-day Saint family and individual should carefully consider whether their attitudes and actions toward others properly reflect Jesus Christ's second great commandment -- to love one another."

The statement also seemed to indicate that the church considers homosexual orientation, or "inclinations," as innate to some degree, and it made no mention of trying to turn gay people into heterosexuals. Instead it said homosexuals should learn to live chastely with their same-sex attractions. "The [Mormon] Church distinguishes between feelings or inclinations on the one hand and behavior on the other. It's not a sin to have feelings, only in yielding to temptation," the statement said, reflecting comments made over the years by other church officials.

The statement also reaffirmed the LDS opposition to gay marriage but it broadened the concern by stressing that "any sexual activity outside of marriage is wrong."

The efforts to tamp down the controversy may not have ended it, however.

For example, Packer supporters started an "I support Boyd K. Packer" fan page on Facebook, which went from 10,000 members on Tuesday to nearly 16,000 by Wednesday morning, with many praising the Mormon leader for opposing those who "think the moral degradation of our society is acceptable and right."

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the gay rights lobby that organized the petition demanding a retraction of Packer's remarks, said the LDS statement on Tuesday did not go far enough.

"Unfortunately, the church did not use this golden opportunity to correct the record about their inaccurate and dangerous statements," HRC Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Every human being deserves the God-given right to love and be loved. It's simply not reasonable to say 'don't act on temptations.' "

Many Mormons themselves were upset at Packer's original comments and the message they sent.

The way Packer phrased the question was a "flash point among the membership, not only those paying close attention to issues of homosexuality and gay marriage," Rory Swensen, a Utah businessman and former board member of Sunstone, an issue-oriented Mormon magazine, told The Salt Lake Tribune. "It rippled out in a way we haven't seen before."

In his speech on Oct. 3 to the General Convention of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Packer's most controversial statement on homosexuals was:

"Some suppose that they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember he is our father."

When the church posted the official text online, however, the word "temptations" replaced "tendencies" and the remark about God's intent on homosexuals was removed.

LDS spokesman Scott Trotter told the Tribune that convention speakers are always given the opportunity to make "any edits necessary" and that Packer "has simply clarified his intent."

But as the newspaper noted, such substantive changes are rare.

The Mormon church's efforts in recent days are in keeping with actions and statements by some other traditional Christian groups and leaders who are trying to make their teaching against homosexuality and their lobbying against equal rights for gays mesh with their Christian commitment to treat others with love and kindness.

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Gay Bullying Deaths and Religion: Are Believers the Problem or the Solution?

David Gibson — 2010-10-07T22:24:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Republicans, Religion, Abortion, Crime, Education, Culture, Disputations, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates, Hate Crimes, Gay Rights

The national heartbreak and ongoing furor over the suicide of Tyler Clementi, the New Jersey college freshman who was humiliated when two other students secretly videotaped and broadcast on the Internet his tryst with another man, has cast a harsh light on the scourge of bullying, especially when it targets gay and lesbian youth.

But Clementi's death last month, following suicides by several other homosexual teens in recent weeks, has also prompted a sharp debate in religious communities, a discussion that includes an unusual degree of soul-searching in addition to the more typical defensiveness.

Christian denominations, where homosexuality is often condemned in uncompromising terms and where battling gay rights can be a legislative priority, have been particularly roiled by the debate, with traditionalists who tend to lead the charge against homosexuality posing some of the toughest questions for their own members.

"Are we complicit?" was the title of a provocative blog post on Tuesday at Mirror of Justice, a Catholic legal affairs site.

The author of that column, Russell Powell, an associate law professor at Seattle University School of Law, wrote: "In the Church's attempt to assert its commitment to heterosexual marriage and to maintain that homosexuality is a moral disorder, does it help to create a cultural climate that tacitly legitimizes the stigmatization of gay young people?"

Powell wrote that the suicides have prompted him "to reconsider the possible benefits of anti-bullying legislation even if it were to serve a largely symbolic function."

There is no evidence that those who harassed Clementi or others were motivated chiefly or even in part by religious teachings, but the concern is that some Christian rhetoric may be contributing to an atmosphere that legitimizes gay-bashing, or that churches are not doing enough to counter the anti-gay sentiment existing in the rest of society.

Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and a "traditional evangelical" known for counseling homosexuals to overcome their same-sex impulses, also wrote that the recent suicides should help convince Christian conservatives to drop their opposition to anti-bullying laws that list sexual orientation as a category.

"Christians need not worry about violating their faith when schools insist on fair and respectful treatment for all," Throckmorton wrote at CNN's Belief Blog. "Anti-gay name-calling is hurtful to all students. Refusing to name the problem can create the illusion that such name-calling is acceptable."

Related: It Gets Better: Fighting to Save Gay Teens, One Video at a Time, by Sarah Wildman

On Wednesday, Exodus International, a controversial Christian group that tries to help "liberate" homosexuals from same-sex attractions, announced it would stop sponsoring an annual event that encourages school students to "counter the promotion of homosexual behavior." The reason, Exodus head Alan Chambers told CNN, is because "the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not."

Others Christian leaders adopted a more traditional "hate the sin, love the sinner" attitude. But they still reproached their fellow believers for not showing nearly enough of the latter when it comes to gays and lesbians.

"When gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are wrong. Our concern about the sinfulness of homosexuality is not rooted in fear, but in faithfulness to the Bible -- and faithfulness means telling the truth," R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a leading evangelical voice, wrote at his website.

"Yet, when gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are also right. Much of our response to homosexuality is rooted in ignorance and fear," Mohler wrote.

"We speak of homosexuals as a particular class of especially depraved sinners and we lie about how homosexuals experience their own struggle. Far too many evangelical pastors talk about sexual orientation with a crude dismissal or with glib assurances that gay persons simply choose to be gay. While most evangelicals know that the Bible condemns homosexuality, far too many find comfort in their own moralism, consigning homosexuals to a theological or moral category all their own."

Christians on the more liberal end of the spectrum have been, not surprisingly, quicker to point a finger at conservative members of their own tradition who they say scapegoat and demonize homosexuals through their religious language and in public policy fights in support of the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, for example, or in campaigns against gay marriage, such as the Proposition 8 referendum in California.

"Saying that homosexuality and Christianity are incompatible is violence," said the Rev. Troy G. Plummer, a gay Methodist pastor and activist. "From policy to pulpit to pew to parents to persons, this injustice creates bullies who believe their faith favors punishment of people for the 'sin' of being born gay."

In the same vein, in a column at Religion Dispatches titled "Bullies Flourishing with Christian Support," Candace Chellew-Hodge criticized Focus on the Family, a prominent lobby on the religious right, for leading the charge against anti-bullying legislation introduced in August by Pennsylvania Democrat Robert Casey in the Senate and California Democrat Linda Sanchez in the House.

Those bills, each called the Safe Schools Improvement Act, include sexual orientation as a targeted category -- along with religion and race -- and provide for programs to educate students. Focus on the Family officials say those provisions would in reality "promote homosexuality to kids" as early as kindergarten and "lay the foundation for codifying sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes."

"Instead of being concerned for the actual lives of gay and lesbian children (or those perceived as gay and lesbian), Focus' true motive is to continue its political and religious agenda at the expense of these children," said Chellew-Hodge, a lesbian pastor in South Carolina and editor of an online magazine for gay Christians.

Chellew-Hodge also noted that Focus on the Family's campaign against the bullying legislation coincided with the launch of a new campaign by the group, called "True Tolerance," which aims to fight bullying policies that protect gays by claiming they seek to "evade parental rights" and "circumvent traditional marriage laws."

Within weeks of the campaign's launch, the bullying suicides of Clementi and the others were national news.

But Focus on the Family rejects any connection between its rhetoric and bullying or teen suicides, and they and other Christian lobbies say they won't alter their political efforts because of the recent deaths.

"All of these deaths are tragic, but it is factually wrong to say that all were the result of anti-gay bullying," said William Donohue, head of the Catholic League, a conservative advocacy group. "Worse, it is libelous to suggest that because Christianity (and Judaism and Islam) is opposed to homosexuality that somehow it should be held responsible for whatever bullying did go on. Indeed, to suggest culpability is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to stifle religious speech."

Focus on the Family officials also argue that teen suicide is a complex issue, especially for gay and lesbian youths, and that bullying is only one of several potential factors and so Christian beliefs against homosexuality should not be blamed.

"It's shameful that some pro-homosexual activists would exploit the personal tragedies of these families to promote a political agenda," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a prominent conservative Christian lobby. "While individual bullies may target 'gay' kids (and should be punished), there's no empirical evidence for the claim that society's disapproval of homosexuality causes the mental health problems (including depression and suicide) that are found among homosexuals."

Education experts and child psychologists disagree. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called bullying "a moral issue" when he convened the first-ever bullying prevention summit this past August.

Bullying, Duncan said, "is really a form of physical and mental abuse" that "leaves long-lasting scars on children."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that after physical appearance, homosexuality is considered a prime factor in bullying, and that youth who are bullied are more likely than other children to be depressed, lonely and anxious, and are more prone to think about suicide or trying to commit suicide. A survey by the group Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that 85 percent of gay students were harassed during the previous school year but few reported it.

One irony of the conservative Christian opposition to homosexuality and anti-discrimination efforts is that religion is also listed in every anti-bullying statute as a reason youth are bullied, and a 2008 British study found that one in four young people from across all religions in the United Kingdom had been bullied because of their religious beliefs.

The outcry over the deaths of Tyler Clementi and many others is not likely to deter extremist believers from gay-bashing rhetoric. The case of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, whose members picket the funerals of AIDS victims and soldiers with signs reading "God Hates Fags," was argued before the Supreme Court this week, but as repellent as most other Christians find their views, the group's protests are likely to be found constitutionally protected speech.

More problematic may be the run-of-the-mill Christian discourse that often demeans gays, such as the assertion last week by Sen. Jim DeMint -- a conservative Republican and Tea Party leader from South Carolina -- who told a church audience that homosexuals (and single women who sleep with their boyfriends) should be barred from teaching positions. DeMint was criticized by some but offered no apologies and noted how his past comments on gays have elicited wide though quiet support.

And in his response, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said that besides punishing individual bullies, the "most compassionate" thing Christians can do for gays is to convince them they can change their sexual orientation.

On the other hand, there seems to be an effort within some churches to at least mitigate the kind of language that is deployed against homosexuals.

The Roman Catholic Church, for example, teaches that homosexual acts are "objectively disordered" and has sought to bar even chaste gay men from the priesthood. And in the United States, many Catholic bishops have made fighting gay marriage and anti-bullying laws that include sexual orientation as big a priority as battling abortion rights.

But in his post at Mirror of Justice, Russell Powell expressed a hope that, at the very least, the recent teen deaths would prompt bishops and pastors "to offer encouragement to young people at risk and to call communities to love rather than to reject."

And writing at the blog of America magazine, a national Jesuit weekly, Father James Martin said that the church often approaches gays and lesbians with a series of "Thou shall nots" rather than a positive message of love and acceptance.

"[I]f pro-life means trying to avoid anything that will threaten any life, from natural conception to natural death, then we should be finding ways to protect all life, which also means preventing suicides, and preventing gay suicides," Martin wrote. "In any event, there is much for us, the church, still to do."

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Tyler Clementi's Choice: Sex, Death and Video-Rape at Rutgers

Donna Trussell — 2010-10-04T11:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Woman Up, Video, Internet, Ethics, Hate Crimes

If you try to draw a line between hate crimes and natural human behavior, you'd better have a good eraser.

On Sept. 22, violinist and Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death after video of a (gay) sexual encounter was secretly filmed and posted on the Internet, allegedly by fellow students Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei. So far, Ravi and Wei have been charged with invasion of privacy, but some people are calling for hate-crime prosecution.

My Woman Up colleague Mia Navarro quotes a New York Times commenter who says his students live in a technology bubble where they rarely encounter people outside their parents and peer groups. Navarro asks, "So if parents infantilize while technology shelters, where does that leave the kids? If Ravi and Wei were really children, how would we rationalize what they are accused of doing?"

Another colleague, Joann M. Weiner, disagrees, saying she treats her own teenager as an adult. "At a time when our country sentences minors to decades in prison, condemns the mentally ill to death, expels kids who sneak a puff in the school bathroom, and routinely punishes kids for the idiotic things they do with their cellphones . . . there is nothing that indicates these two suspects should be treated as anything less than adults."

Yet another colleague, Bonnie Erbé, acknowledges that the situation is "rotten," but she cautions against overreaction. "My difficulty with prosecuting the 18-year-old lies not in that it is too harsh, but that perhaps a prosecution for invasion of privacy is not harsh enough. A prosecution for manslaughter seems in some ways too severe."

All valid points and good questions. But allow me to muddy the waters a bit by taking the macro view. Immaturity is natural. Outrage is natural. A thirst for vengeance is natural. But so is Thanatos, or death wish. Just as we all have an instinct for self-preservation, we also have an instinct for destruction.

The desire for an end to "bullying," injustice and intolerance is understandable. But what is the best way to approach the problem? Witness children who prefer abusive attention to being ignored. People don't have to bully you to make you wish you were dead.

A marriage is better off negotiated from the negative. Ask not: How can we be a more perfect couple? Instead ask: Given that humans are selfish, venal, petty and even violent creatures, how can I strive to rise above those faults and be a better partner? And how do I forgive and forget my partner's failures without violating my own rights?

To my mind, negotiating a civil society is similar.

Other choices Clementi could have made: Embracing his loss of privacy and working for or founding an organization for gay teens, or on ethics and privacy in the Internet age. He could have sued Ravi and Wei, and made their names as famous as his own, and a symbol of consequences for vicious behavior. I suspect there would have been no shortage of pro-bono lawyers eager to take the case.

We don't think clearly when we're in great pain. That too is natural. But if Clementi had resisted the urge to end it all, today we'd be having a conversation about ethics and privacy, not about death.

I have real problems with human nature. Hell, I have problems with nature, period. I find it exceedingly difficult to watch nature videos. I want to see the magnificent big cats. I don't want to watch them bring down a zebra.

Likewise, I don't want to watch water buffaloes deliberately stomp lion cubs to death. As one anguished filmmaker put it: You can't take sides. You've got to consider the times lions have killed baby buffaloes. You've got to factor in issues of territory. Animals are programmed for this.

I beg to differ. I do take sides. As a believer in rational thought and science, I am a walking contradiction. I can not erase the animal deaths -- on film and in person -- I wish I'd never seen and heard.

And if you ratchet it up from animals to humans, there's no end to the cruelty. If not much is happening today, just go back a few days. Or read a history book. Pick any century. Pick any decade. It's difficult to come away from that experiment with much respect for human nature.

I admit to being a glass-half-empty kind of gal, but -- contrarian that I am -- I'm also optimistic.

Religion provides adherents with the constructs of original sin and salvation, but I think you can find echoes in the secular world. Even in the natural world, there exist inexplicable acts of kindness. One of the more popular videos on the Internet is that of a wild crow that adopted a stray kitten.

I volunteer for a no-kill animal shelter. I realize I barely make a dent in the mass slaughter happening at any given time on planet Earth. But my small effort helps me live with tragic images that I will no doubt carry to my grave.

Make no mistake: Children can be cruel, but so can adults. Maybe it's not so much immaturity as human nature that's to blame. Unless suspects Ravi and Wei are sociopathic monsters -- which I doubt -- they will spend the rest of their lives regretting what they allegedly did.

Parents would do well to ensure their kids suffer real consequences for anti-social behavior early in life. If parents don't do it, society will. Someday.

As for intolerance, that too is human nature. Evolution trained us to look askance at those who are different from ourselves. The stranger approaching might be an enemy, so you'd better scrutinize carefully. And maybe destroy.

Religion says to love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek. Which is, of course, against nature. But I'm making my stand, National Geographic: Nature is overrated.

For atheists and agnostics, there's always the Golden Rule, which can, due to the law of reciprocity, reap benefits even in a cold "Atlas Shrugged" kind of world.

Utopia is for dreamers. So be one.

Follow Donna Trussell on Twitter.

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Tyler Clementi's Suicide: Prosecution in the Age of Technology

Bonnie Erbé — 2010-09-30T18:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Gay Rights, Woman Up, Culture, Hate Crimes

Suicide is forever . . . prosecution is not. With these thoughts in mind, I try to calm myself in reaction to the horrid suicide of a future virtuoso, Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi. He jumped off the George Washington Bridge after a secretly made video of Clementi having gay sex was streamed online. A second encounter was transmitted live to the Internet.

This whole situation is so rotten it reeks. Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and fellow Rutgers freshman Molly Wei, both 18, have been charged with invading Clementi's privacy. If they are in fact guilty of making the video, they must have thought they were having a jolly old time razzing the shy, quiet Clementi and did not think through the possible consequences of such malicious actions. The whole scenario gives me great pause.

One the one hand, surreptitiously recording someone, then posting it online for the world to see, is unfathomable. On the other hand, part of being 18 is lacking good judgment (although that usually results in a lousy hangover, not the death of a fellow student.) But lacking good judgment is no excuse for invading one's privacy on the basis of sexual orientation.
On the third hand, if there is one, perhaps technology should be prosecuted, as technology has made this scenario possible.

We as a society refuse to accept limits on our beloved Free Speech, even if limits might have prevented the invasive online posting in the first place. Our Supreme Court has yet to enunciate clear rules on what may or may not be posted online, and one suspects even they would have great difficulty devolving a test that would protect free political speech while inhibiting hate or violence-inciting speech.

Oddly enough, next week the justices will hear a landmark case involving hate speech.

The case perhaps couldn't have more vilified defendants - the infamous Phelps family of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas are known for their protests at military funerals, where they display signs with phrases such as, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "God Hates Fags."
While most people are disgusted by the Phelps' speech, it may well be protected under the First Amendment, even though it took place near a funeral where the attendees could not simply leave because they found the speech hurtful.

Let's hope the high court gives Internet users some guidance when it hands down the decision in the Phelps case.

Meanwhile, my difficulty with prosecuting the 18-year-old lies not in that it is too harsh, but that perhaps a prosecution for invasion of privacy is not harsh enough. A prosecution for manslaughter seems in some ways too severe.
Where does one draw the line? I'll leave it to those with more Solomonic wisdom to decide.

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Florida Pastor in New York on 9/11: 'Mission Accomplished, We Will Not Burn Koran'

David Gibson — 2010-09-11T07:41:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Religion, Terror, Foreign Policy, Sarah Palin, National Security, Disputations, Hate Crimes, Military, Middle East, David Petraeus, Ground Zero Mosque

The Florida pastor who threatened to burn Korans to mark 9/11 and in the process became the center of a domestic and global maelstrom said Saturday morning that he had definitively canceled the book burning because he had accomplished his mission of revealing Islam to harbor dangerous elements.

"Not today, not ever. We are not going to go back and do it" -- burn the Koran. "It is totally canceled," Pastor Terry Jones told NBC's "Today" show.

Jones had traveled to New York late Friday night following several days of often bizarre brinkmanship as he suddenly made moving the controversy-plagued Islamic center planned near Ground Zero a condition of his canceling the Koran-burning ritual, which was originally set for 6 p.m. Saturday on the grounds of his small, fundamentalist Gainesville church.

Jones told NBC (video here) that he came to New York hoping to meet with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the Cordoba Initiative that is planning to build the center, but had no meeting scheduled.

He said that while he hoped to meet Rauf and convince him to move the mosque, he felt his threats to burn some 200 copies of the Koran had fulfilled his goal and that God was telling him to stand down.

"We feel when we started this out that one of our reasons was to show, to expose that there is an element in Islam that is very dangerous and very radical," Jones said. "I believe that we have definitely accomplished that mission."

Jones said the fact that he has received more than 100 death threats without yet burning a Koran, Islam's sacred text, was proof of his views.

Appearing just an hour before the city and the nation would mark the moment nine years ago when the first plane hit the tower at the World Trade Center, Jones -- pastor of a Pentecostal-style 50-member church called the Dove World Outreach Center -- paused dramatically when he was asked directly if the Koran-burning was off. He sighed heavily, and after a moment said it was canceled and would never happen.

Jones also again compared his actions to the biblical story of Abraham, whom God told to sacrifice his son Isaac on a mountaintop. Abraham was set to do the deed when an angel stayed his hand, and God provided a ram to sacrifice instead. Jones said he "was also called to do something crazy," and now God at the last moment indicated he should hold off.

"Of course, Abraham was much wiser than us -- he told no one," Jones said.

Jones and his church had drawn international condemnation and domestic pressure to stop his "stunt" (in President Obama's words) from military, political and religious leaders, from the Pentagon to the Vatican, from Jones' fellow Pentecostals to pundits and pols like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

In recent days Jones for the first time raised the prospect of halting his plans if the Islamic center in New York would be moved. Controversy over the center, often referred to as the Ground Zero mosque -- it is planned as a Muslim-sponsored interfaith community center several blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks -- is widely seen as having primed public attention so that Jones, while a fringe figure, could become the focus of global attention and condemnation with his plans to burn the Koran.

Jones said Saturday he hoped his "first step" in canceling the book burning would open the door to dialogue with Rauf and leaders of the Islamic center project. Rauf has said he is willing to meet anyone of goodwill, and Jones said negotiations were ongoing.

Jones categorically denied that his plan, which he first announced in July as "International Burn a Koran day," was a publicity stunt to draw attention to himself and his church.

Jones, author of a book called "Islam Is of the Devil," was accompanied to the "Today" show interview by his assistant pastor, Wayne Sapp. When asked his views of Islam, Sapp offered a somewhat more nuanced view than the men have expressed previously, going so far as to compare radical elements of Islam to radical elements in Christianity.

"As there are in denominations in Christianity as well, I believe there are facets in Islam as well that push one element more than others," Sapp said. "But that element is alive and well throughout the entire religion."

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Would You Burn the Koran? Or Just Hit the 'Delete' Key? History's View

David Gibson — 2010-09-10T20:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Religion, Terror, Culture, Disputations, Hate Crimes, al Qaeda, Pope Benedict XVI, Middle East, Analysis, Ground Zero Mosque

If Terry Jones won't burn the Koran, would you?

Admittedly, it's hard to figure out what Jones, the mercurial leader of a small, cult-like Florida church, will do next. First he was committed to burning Korans on 9/11 to show Muslims what he thinks of them and their holy book. Then, after a global outcry and condemnation, Jones said God sent a sign that he shouldn't because the backers of an Islamic center planned near ground zero promised they'd move it. Then when that deal turned out to be fiction, Jones said he was reconsidering his position and only "suspending" the book burning.

But cut through all the posturing and flip-flopping for a moment and get back to the heart of the matter raised by Jones' "stunt," to use President Obama's apt word: Would you burn the Koran?

Most would quickly and loudly say no, among them some of the more conservative and Bible-believing commentators around, including writer Peter Wehner. "The Third Reich burned books; those who are citizens of the United States should not," Wehner wrote in a blog post at Commentary magazine. "Jones's actions would also be an offense against the Christian faith."

But there is something about that immediate instinct to tolerance -- or, if you will, that reflexive political correctness -- coming from orthodox believers, in particular, that irked Joe Carter, web editor of the conservative religious and political journal, First Things.

That is why Carter -- an evangelical who worked on Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign -- proposed a thought experiment to test just how tolerant, or how genuinely religious, you are.

If you could, Carter wondered in a recent web column, would you delete the Koran entirely? Erase Islam from world history?

Carter grounded his hypothesis in the observation that worshiping false gods is the worst sin for the God of the Old Testament; indeed, the first two of the Ten Commandments deal with that transgression.

So Carter says that while he is against book-burning in general, and thinks God agrees with him, he regrets that American Christians -- even good conservatives -- are acting like mushy liberal Protestants by wringing their hands over Jones' Koran-burning threats. Worse, they are ascribing the same genteel tolerance to Yahweh, who wasn't known -- at least in the Old Testament -- as a sherry-sipping WASP.

Carter instead proposes a "thought experiment" to get around our enlightened views against book burning and see whether we would take seriously the injunction against "false religion":

"Imagine that you (a devout Christian, Jew, Mormon, Hindu, etc) are shown a button and are told that if you press it, all knowledge of the Koran will cease to exist," Carter writes. "Every text version across the globe will instantly disappear and any passages that were memorized will be forgotten. Muslims will not otherwise be affected other than their having no recall of the words of Allah as collected by Moham[m]ed."

"Would you press the button? How would you justify your decision? Would your decision be different if you had to make it solely based on the teaching of your faith and not on received cultural assumptions?"

The advantages of Carter's proposal are obvious.

Erasing any recollection of the Koran, and in effect erasing Islam, would leave no trail of evidence for aggrieved Muslims to follow to the source. There would be responsibility but no accountability -- no danger of having one's life ruined (or enhanced, if you like 15 minutes of fame) by a three-ring media circus or an angry mob. (Indeed, Carter's delete-key proposal is so polite and seemingly innocuous that it sounds like a book burning a Unitarian would invent.)

Moreover, book burning is not only an attack on the ideas and tenets in a book but an assault on the people who write or embrace the beliefs in those books. (Terry Jones admits he's never read the Koran, and doesn't need to.)

"Where they burn books, they will in the end burn people," the German writer Heinrich Heine wrote in an 1821 play, "Almansor," referring to -- yes -- burning the Koran during the Spanish Inquisition. More than a century later the Nazis burned Heine's books, along with millions of people.

Related stories on Politics Daily:

A Case for Opposing Koran Burning and the Mosque Near Ground Zero

Sarah Palin on Facebook: Don't Burn the Koran

Patraeus Urges Florida Church Not to Burn Copies of the Koran

Obama to Florida Pastor: Call Off Koran-Burning 'Stunt'

Who Is Pastor Terry Jones, and Why Is he Burning the Koran?

Terry Jones Cancels Koran Burning, but NYC Mosque Move Disputed
Terry Jones Changes His Mind, Says Koran-Burning May Still Happen

Koran-Burning Threat Still Up in the Air

Whether book burning works depends on one's goals. For many, book burning is like a rancher hanging a dead coyote on the fence to warn others what awaits if they don't stay away.

Actually eliminating an idea or dogma by destroying its text has always been harder to do, never moreso than today.

Given the viral nature of digital media, everyone recognizes that no one can eliminate any text permanently. So modern book burning is recognized as futile in terms of eliminating the offensive material.

Rather, it is more like a form of desecration or iconoclasm -- like the militant atheist PZ Myers driving a rusty nail through a communion wafer or the Taliban destroying the Buddhas of Bamyan. Such actions do little to stop people from believing in something, and may actually encourage them to rally behind the disputed religious view. But desecrations make the iconoclasts feel better about themselves, and let people know where they stand.

In fact, deleting texts from the historical consciousness was a practice frequently deployed by authorities within a religious tradition as a way to enforce orthodoxy by preventing unauthorized texts from proliferating and leading the faithful astray.

After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, for example, his followers finally settled on an authoritative version of the Koran -- and they ordered that all other versions be burned.

A few centuries earlier, as the first Christians were figuring out which books of the Bible would be considered part of the canon, alternative versions of the story of Jesus, which came to be known as the Gnostic Gospels, were cast aside or destroyed.

Unfortunately for the authorities -- and luckily for historians -- even in ancient times, when vellum and papyrus were rarities, some copies survived.

In 1948, for instance, an Egyptian peasant digging for fertilizer near the town of Nag Hammadi in the Upper Nile discovered a trove of codexes of the Gnostic Gospels -- late versions of the life of Jesus containing esoteric teachings so thrilling to Westerners that they have become more popular than the canonical gospels for millions of readers.

Similarly, the 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls -- early versions of the Hebrew bible and other documents -- sparked heated debates over the development of scripture that continue to this day.

But Carter's thought experiment would avoid such perils because it foresees eliminating every copy and every memory of the Koran, and bloodlessly.

The most obvious problem with this idea is that it evokes a Stalinist totalitarianism of the kind portrayed in George Orwell's "1984," with its depiction of the notorious "memory hole" where unauthorized texts and books were dumped.

Also, heresy (or heterodoxy, an alternate belief) has historically been as essential to religion as orthodoxy. Without other religious traditions or the occasional heretic, orthodoxy would be adrift in its own reflecting pool, with nothing to bump up against and no way for believers to take precise soundings on the truth.

In addition, eliminating all competing theologies and philosophies would threaten to eliminate free will, which is key to a genuine profession of faith, notably in Christianity. Without choices, there is no free will. Adam and Eve had options. O felix culpa! That is what made them, and us, human, and blessedly imperfect.

Even parents who annually lobby to bar certain books from local libraries for fear that they will corrupt their youth -- the Harry Potter novels are perennial favorites -- probably don't think they will protect their children from these texts forever, and they don't (usually) advocate tossing the books on a bonfire. They are instead trying to shield their offspring until they are old enough to make mature decisions about their beliefs -- choices that moms and dads hope and pray will be the decisions they themselves made. But maybe not.

Completely erasing other religious traditions and texts is also never going to eliminate religious creativity from the human mind.

Islam holds that there are 99 names for God, and if they were deleted the yearning souls of humanity would come up with plenty more, and many more ways to try to worship and understand the ineffable mystery of God. Just look at the infinite variety of religious traditions that have flourished throughout the ages; hitting the "delete" on them all would lead to a serious repetitive stress injury.

Finally, whatever the God of the Old Testament thought about false religions, His latter-day disciples have found much truth to praise in other religious traditions. Even Roman Catholicism, hardly an outpost of liberal Protestantism, has for decades taught that the "seeds of truth" are to be found in other faiths.

Pope Benedict XVI has said he considers the Koran the sacred text "of a great religion," and the late Pope John Paul II told Muslim young people who follow Allah that "We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God Who created the world and brings His creatures to their perfection."

In the end, burning books or desecrating icons or even imagining the possibility of hitting a "delete" key to eliminate a religion or its holy writ only lends to those texts and traditions the kind of authenticity that the book burner hopes to undermine.

Book burning is self-defeating, if only because it makes the false religion that Yahweh warned about in the Ten Commandments seem more like the real deal.

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Who Is Pastor Terry Jones, and Why Is He Burning to Torch the Koran?

David Gibson — 2010-09-08T22:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Gay Rights, Terror, National Security, Culture, Disputations, Afghanistan, Conservatives, Hate Crimes, Middle East, Ground Zero Mosque

Pastor Terry Jones sure seems like an unlikely fellow to become America's most inconvenient man.

A grizzled 58-year-old who packs a .40-caliber pistol on his hip, Jones heads a small congregation -- maybe 50 members in all -- on a pine-studded tract of land in Gainesville, Fla. The Dove World Outreach Center, as the church is known, is in fact the kind of local, spirit-filled, Pentecostal-style church that is found in cities and rural areas across America, and have been since the earliest days of the Republic.

Think Robert Duvall in "The Apostle," the 1997 Oscar-nominated film about the downfall and redemption of a Texas minister.

But Terry Jones is preaching a much different message than the pastor in "The Apostle," and at a different moment in time. And that is why Jones' mission to burn copies of the Koran to mark the 9/11 anniversary this Saturday has managed to dominate the news -- and global politics -- even in a wildfire media cycle already ablaze with suspicions (false) that President Obama is a Muslim and that jihadis are building a victory mosque at ground zero (also a myth).

On Thursday, Jones surprised the media with news that he was canceling the Koran-burning event. He said he had reached an agreement with Islamic officials in New York City to move the planned Islamic center from a site near ground zero, implying that this concession had softened him and had changed his mind about the need to burn Korans.

But Islamic officials immediately said they had reached no such agreement. Within hours after that Thursday, Jones stood outside his church and told reporters he had been "lied to" and said he was putting any decision on Koran burning "on hold."

Jones believes that Islam is a "false religion" that is "of the devil" and therefore must be defeated. But Islam, he believes, is also threatening to take over in the United States. Hence his justification, reiterated earlier this week, for the Koran-burning: "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam," Jones said. "We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats. It is time for America to return to being America."

Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, this week said the plans by the Dove World Outreach Center to burn up to 200 copies of the Koran could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the proposed book burning "disrespectful and disgraceful" at an iftar dinner for Muslims ending their daily Ramadan fast. And Attorney General Eric Holder called Jones' plan "idiotic and dangerous."

Even Angelina Jolie weighed in -- surely a leading benchmark of media buzz. "I have hardly the words that somebody would do that to somebody's religious book," the 35-year-old actress told reporters in Islamabad after visiting refugees camps in flood-ravaged Pakistan. Jolie is a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.'s refugee agency.

An effigy of Jones -- wrapped in an American flag -- was burned in Afghanistan, and Muslims in Indonesia have rallied outside the U.S. embassy threatening violence if any Korans are burned.

A growing number of Christian leaders are also raising their voices as Jones seems determined to go ahead with his plan. "Please do not judge all Christians by the behavior of one extremist," the National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson said. And the Vatican's interreligious office on Wednesday denounced "Burn a Koran Day" as an "outrageous and grave" plan.

Yet even as efforts are made to minimize Jones' profile and limit the damage he could cause -- Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe called the Dove Center "a very tiny church" that does not represent "the true nature of Gainesville" -- the pastor and his flock are also very much a part of the American religious past, and present.

Sarah Palin on Facebook: Don't Burn the Koran

Patraeus Urges Florida Church Not to Burn Copies of the Koran

Indeed, the Dove World Outreach Center is centered in the Pentecostal, charismatic branch of American Christianity that traces it roots to the first Great Awakening of the colonial era up through the great Cane Ridge, Ky., revival of 1801 and on to the birth of the modern Pentecostal movement that was sparked by the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906.

These "holiness" movements, as they have come to be called, are marked by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit (as experienced by Jesus' apostles at the original Pentecost) that is expressed in emotional and enthusiastic celebrations and transformative personal spiritual experiences. The Dove Center, for example, says that it cultivates "a conscious, deliberate effort during worship to change the spiritual world, that then works its way out into the natural world and becomes visible as victory over the enemy." (The name of the Gainesville church refers to the Holy Spirit, which is usually depicted as a white dove descending from heaven.)

While these churches stress a literal reading of Scripture, it is the Holy Spirit, inspiring visionary experiences, that is the mark of the true believer. The Spirit blows where it will, and recognizes no race or social class. That is why Pentecostal-style churches are among the most racially integrated in American Christianity, and why they are also among the most economically egalitarian.

And the Holy Spirit also confers authority on leaders, linking them directly back to the original Apostles and thereby de-emphasizing the role or even need for "man-made" traditions like formal clergy or denominations.

Yet this kind of free-range spirituality, while spreading in Africa and Latin America as well the U.S., can also spawn religious outliers who believe their direct connection to the Holy Spirit gives them an authority that is beyond ordinary accountability or argumentation.

For example, asked about his knowledge of the Koran, Pastor Jones told The New York Times: "I have no experience with it whatsoever. I only know what the Bible says."

During a recent sermon Jones also voiced disgust at the spiritual bona fides of the United Methodist Church a few blocks away streets away that is planning an an interfaith prayer service on Sept. 10.

"Lily-livered, yellow-bellied Christians," he called the congregants at the neighboring church, and he said the rest of the country wasn't much better. "Our nation is in ruin spiritually."

Dove World Outreach Center was founded in 1986 by Donald Northrup and his wife, Dolores, who spent 17 years as missionaries in Africa before returning to the United States. According to the Dove Center's web site (which appears to have crashed after the recent worldwide attention), Donald Northrup envisioned the congregation as a "total concept church for the rich, the poor, the young and the old."

Northrup died in 1996 and it took the church several years to settle on Terry Jones as the new leader.

Jones had been a former hotel manager and part-time pastor when Northrup sent him and his wife Sylvia to Germany in 1981 to set up a sister church in a working-class neighborhood in Cologne. At its height, the German church had up to 800 members. Jones, a Missouri native whose reportedly has an honorary degree from the unaccredited California Graduate School of Theology, spent some 20 years there before returning to the United States to lead Dove World Outreach in 2001.

At first, Terry and Sylvia Jones split time between the Cologne and Gainesville churches. Then in 2008 they cut ties with the Cologne church after members accused the couple of financial improprieties connected with their side business, TS and Company, which is owned by Terry and Sylvia Jones. TS and Company sells vintage furniture on eBay and was supposed to help support the churches.

Terry and Sylvia Jones have also been accused of of labor abuses by former members in Florida because they allegedly use students from Dove's religious school, called the Dove World Outreach Academy, to pack furniture for TS and Company, which is owned by Terry and Sylvia Jones, who is Jones' second wife. Gainesville authorities have been investigating the church's tax-exempt status.

Jones' daughter, Emma Jones, who still lives in Germany, was one of those accusing her father and stepmother of wrongdoing. Emma Jones had broken with the church, calling it a "cult" that "forced us with oppression to be obedient."

"They used mental violence. They'd say, 'If you're not obedient, God will punish you,' " Emma Jones told The Gainesville Sun.

Other former church members in Florida and Germany also described Jones' style as abusive and cult-like.

"He wasn't a pastor who takes care of everyone," Diana Breuel, a church member in Cologne, told a German news agency. "He didn't project biblical values and Christianity, but put himself as a person in the center of things." (A Cologne court once fined Jones 3,000 euros ($3,800) in 2002 for falsely claiming the title of doctor.)

The Cologne congregation, which now has just 60 to 80 members, says it has no ties to Terry Jones and has denounced his plan to burn Korans, calling him "violent and fanatical."

"We are distancing ourselves from these actions and don't want to be connected to them," Stephan Baar, a church official, told dpa, the German Press Agency.

Jones' call to public action against Islam -- while not shared by most of his fellow Pentecostals and evangelicals -- is another aspect of his ministry that underscores the broader changes within conservative Christianity. A few decades ago, evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians in particular were cultural isolationists who wanted nothing to do with the wider society, which they felt was lost and would only taint them spiritually if they engaged it.

Now these conservative Christians are front and center in politics and in some of the sharper clashes of the culture wars. A few congregations, like the Dove Center and its allies in the Westboro Baptist cult of the Fred Phelps' clan, are considered fringe elements. But they follow in some of the same patterns as their mainstream brethren, only more so.

For instance, a belief that we are living in the "End Times" before Jesus comes again to deliver the saved from a fallen world fuels their urgent proselytizing and their crusading against favorite evils like homosexuality.

During a mayoral run-off in Gainesville last April, Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center posted a sign on the property reading, "No homo mayor," and Jones denounced the candidate, Craig Lowe, in a video. "We've got us a homo mayor, with of course a homo agenda." (Lowe won anyway.)

Islam in its extremist forms is another great concern for many Christians, though fighting Islam in all its forms has become a veritable obsession for Terry Jones. Jones and the Dove Center first drew coverage a year ago when some members sent their children to area schools on the first day of classes with t-shirts emblazoned with the church's motto, "Islam is of the Devil." The children were sent home by school authorities, and media coverage followed.

But in the final analysis, the zeal of Terry Jones -- as so often happens -- is in danger of turning him into the very thing he hates, a religious extremist who risks tarnishing the reputation of the rest of his fellow believers.

"The spirit which Jones condemns is what he's showing himself: this readiness to violence, this fanaticism," said Stephen Baar from the Cologne church. "Terry Jones is someone who will carry something through to the end if he sees it as God-given."

Given the individualistic, decentralized nature of charismatic Christianity, however, there is little Jones' fellow Pentecostals can do but denounce the Koran-burning plan and beseech the Holy Spirit to blow back a bit. And that's what they're doing.

"[The] Rev. Terry Jones does not speak for charismatic Christians, and his brand of fire-breathing judgmentalism doesn't even remotely resemble the message of Jesus Christ," J. Lee Grady, a prominent writer at Charisma magazine, wrote in his latest column. "I am praying that he will repent and renounce his outrageous intentions before the time arrives to strike the first match."

Perhaps those prayers could have an effect, since that is the language Terry Jones speaks, and hears.

"As of right now, we are not backing down," Terry Jones told NBC on Wednesday.

But, he added, "If God told us to do it" -- burn the Korans -- "then I guess he could tell us to do something different."

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U.S. Muslims Try to Counter Suspicion and Attacks With Video Message

David Gibson — 2010-08-30T11:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Viral Video, Terror, National Security, Culture, Disputations, Hate Crimes, Tea Party, Middle East, Ground Zero Mosque

A video designer and his friends in northern Virginia on Monday launched an affecting public service announcement featuring a montage of American Muslims, including children and senior citizens, a doctor and a cop, a Phillies fan and faces of different races, all aimed at countering the wave of suspicion and Islam-bashing stemming from the mosque proposed near Ground Zero.

The new effort, called "My Faith My Voice," resulted from a brainstorming session by a group of young Muslim professionals in the DC area who were upset at the rising tide of Islamophobia in the country. The video was produced by David Hawa, a 37-year-old Muslim who was born in Washington and raised in Virginia "as just another kid who happened to speak two languages."

Hawa and his friends came up with the idea on Tuesday, Aug. 24, filmed some three dozen people out of 100 who showed up for a casting call on Friday, and now the video appears to be going viral, drawing more than 100,000 hits to the site by Tuesday. The video has been featured on leading networks and Hawa continues to get media requests.

The PSA comes as authorities in various states are investigating a number of possible bias and hate-crime incidents directed at Muslim targets. On Sunday, the FBI announced it was joining the investigation of a fire at the future site of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., that has been a catalyst for protests.

A brick was thrown through the window of a California mosque last week and a few days earlier signs were left at the mosque that read, "No temple for the god of terrorism at Ground Zero." Earlier this month, a plastic pig inscribed with messages such as "Remember 9-11" and "MO HAM MED the Pig" was stuffed into the mailbox of another Islamic center in California. (Like Jews, Muslims have a prohibition on eating pork.)

The public service video was initially posted Monday on YouTube and hopes to reverse the dynamic of bias.

"In recent weeks, a lot of people have been telling you what to think about Muslims," the nearly three dozen speakers say in the minute-long video. "They say you should fear me, suspect me, hate me. But the truth is, I don't want to impose my faith on you. I don't want to take over this country. And I don't support terrorism in any form."

And in a patriotic flourish worthy of Glenn Beck's rally on the Mall on Sunday, the Muslim speakers add:

"Islam teaches me to respect all people, improve society, stand up for justice for all. I am here and have been here for generations wanting the same thing you do: the chance to pursue life, liberty, peace and happiness."

It concludes: "I am an American. I am a Muslim. This is my faith. This is my voice."

Hawa says the video is explicitly not attached to any Islamic group or other advocacy organization because "then there would be an agenda."

Neither Hawa nor the speakers in the video take any position on the controversial Islamic center, Park51, proposed for Lower Manhattan near Ground Zero.

"We thought this would be a nice opportunity to give Muslims a soapbox," Hawa said. "It seems that in the Park51 controversy, a lot of people are speaking on our behalf, but Muslims themselves haven't been heard."

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'Ground Zero Mosque' Imam in 2005: U.S. Has 'Muslim Blood on Its Hands'

Politics Daily Staff — 2010-08-26T13:03:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Terror, Culture, Hate Crimes, Ground Zero Mosque

The imam of the proposed mosque and Islamic center that supporters want to build two blocks from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan has been mostly silent as controversy engulfs the issue. But words he spoke in 2005 are beginning to bounce around the Internet and will likely provide fodder for opponents of the project: Feisal Abdul Rauf once claimed that the United States "has more Muslim blood on its hands" than the terrorist group al-Qaeda has on its hands from attacks on innocent non-believers.

An audio of Rauf, speaking in Australia in five years ago, was posted by the libertarian website AtlasShrugs2000, which said media outlets are not adequately vetting the imam, who has been out of the country during much of the mosque controversy. In the audio, Rauf is heard calmly saying, "We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This had been documented by the United Nations." He went on to say: "The West needs to see themselves through the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world, and when you do, you will see the predicament that exists within the Muslim community."

At the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Adelaide, where Rauf spoke in July 2005, Director Elizabeth Ho said the audio clips currently circulating were misleading. In much of the full presentation, Rauf was answering spot questions, she said. "I offer no opinion on the remarks made by Imam Rauf, but defend his right, or that of any other speaker in our program, to be heard in full."

Since 9/11, Rauf has made diplomatic trips on behalf of the U.S. State Department to promote religious tolerance.

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Lady Gaga Takes on Westboro Baptist

Suzi Parker — 2010-07-17T20:48:00+00:00

Filed under: Gay Rights, Woman Up, Culture, Hate Crimes

Lady Gaga isn't afraid of some gay-bashing protestors. On Saturday evening, the goddess Gaga posted a note entitled "At the risk of drawing attention to a hateful organization" to her "little monster fans" via her Facebook page addressing the protest by the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church. The church has protested a litany of events - veterans' funerals, football games, political events, and even Michael Jackson's funeral. They waved their signs outside Lady Gaga's concert Saturday night at St. Louis' Scottrade Center.

She wrote that "this group of protesters are hate criminals and preach using lewd and violent language and imagery that I wish I protect you all from. Their message is of hatred and divisiveness, but inside at the Monsterball we preach love and unity."

The Westboro Baptist Church, which is based in Kansas, is designated a hate group by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was founded by Fred Phelps, 80, in the 1950s.

Earlier this year, the father of a Marine killed in action in Iraq had to pay the legal costs of Westboro Baptist Church. He sued them after they picketed his son's funeral, carrying placards bearing anti-homosexual epithets.

The independent church, which is not affiliated with other Baptist churches, targeted Lady Gaga earlier this year with flyers that said, "God hates 'Lady' Gaga" and quoting Jeremiah 3:3-5. The flyer said Lady Gaga used art and fashion as euphemisms and guises "under which proud whore Lady Gaga teaches rebellion against God."

On their website, Westboro says of Lady Gaga: "There appears to be little to no hope for her, but who is to say what is doing with the souls of those who may be swarming to listen to your less-than-beautiful singing program?"

Then there's the kicker. Comparing Lady Gaga to President Barack Obama. "Keep your eye on this silly woman, as she and the Beast Obama are good examples of what you all love most about this vile nation."

In her Saturday Facebook note, Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, wrote, "Although I respect and do not judge anyone for their personal views on any politics or religion, this group in particular to me is violent and dangerous. I wanted to make my fans aware of my views on how to approach, or rather not approach, these kinds of hate activists."

In a Twitter post after Saturday night's concert, Lady Gaga wrote, "Tonight love and hate met in St. Louis. And love outnumbered the hate, in poetic thousands. Hate left. But love stayed. + Together, we sang."

She should remember that come Tuesday night. Hate is visiting her again when Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket her Oklahoma City concert. The group will be busy that day. Before the Lady Gaga concert, they plan to picket at the Oklahoma state capitol because Oklahoma wants "to kill the servants of God." They will then take their signs to the Cox Convention Center to protest the National Association of Free Will Baptists Convention before ending the day with Lady Gaga fans.

Fans responded enthusiastically to Gaga's message of love not war.

One fan wrote, "you don't discriminate YET they discriminate against you, they hate you, they spit on you, call you names, put you down, and you ask us to not pay them attention. You are a strong person, and you followed your dreams, that's a message EVERYONE should be sending."

Other comments centered on the political nature of Westboro. "Dont know why the American Government still allow these Westboro rats to spew their vile guts on the street, they shouldve been sent to Coventry as soon as they went on about gays and soldiers."

Lady Gaga may have been attempting trying to halt any verbal or physical escalation that might occur before or after her concert. She asked fans to "pay these hate criminals no mind. Do not interact with them, or try to fight, Do not respond to any of their provocation."

Westboro Baptist Church has created parody videos aimed at Lady Gaga. In June, Fred Phelps' grand-daughter recorded a song that took aim at Lady Gaga's song "Telephone." The parody version, called "Ever Burn" told Lady Gaga she was destined for hell and called her a "devil spawn." It was the second such video. Earlier this year, the group recorded another song to one of Lady Gaga's tunes, "Poker Face," with the lyric, "You pissed off God, you'll see what he's got."

In her Facebook note, Lady Gaga said that Westboro's message was "ignorant" and that fans should "feel gratitude in your heart that you are not burdened or addicted to hate, as they are."

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Who Do We Blame? (Religion? Government? Bill Maher?)

Earl Pomerantz — 2010-06-26T23:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Culture, Hate Crimes

I was watching Bill Maher recently, and, as usual, he was clobbering his favorite target -- religion -- yammering away about it being being responsible for the annihilation of millions of people. Somebody on his panel asked, "What about Communist Russia?"To which Maher shot back, "Communism is just state-sponsored religion."

That's when I jumped in -- in my head. I wasn't actually on the show. I imagined myself a panelist, who'd been noticeably quiet to that point, but who now suddenly finds his voice. "You know," I tentatively begin, "My cousin Herschel used to joke: 'There are two kinds of bald people - those with hair and those without hair.'" The audience stares blankly. Maher immediately steps into the void. "What does that have to do with anything?"

To which I reply, "Lumping Communism in with religion is like saying: 'There are two kinds of religious people - those who believe in God and those who don't.' "

Maher had been careless in his computation. Communists, and the millions of deaths they inflicted, rightfully belong on the side of the ledger headed: "Murdering Atheists." There is no question that religion is responsible for many wars, centuries of intolerance, and countless deaths. If there's an afterlife, I hope those champions of "The One, True Faith" have to face a very angry "Maker" who stares them straight in the eye and says, "What the hell were you thinking?" However, religion is merely one of a subgroup of culprits, all of which sit under an overarching umbrella of hate mongering and devastation, which I view as the primary culprit. That culprit is the seemingly universal concept of "Them."

Sure, "Them" is people of a different religion. But "Them" is also people from a different country. Or they could be people of a different gender, or the same gender, but they act differently. These, and dozens of others, are simply separating categories, distinguishing the good, righteous and deserving "Us" from the disgusting, subhuman and undeserving not "Us," which is "Them."

Throughout human history, the "We" have made the "Thems" targets and scapegoats. "Them" are demonized as "The Other." They're the monsters who walk among us. Our darkest, most shameful impulses, which we can't accept in ourselves -- because we're so wonderful -- we project them all onto "Them." Then we kill them. Or treat them to a lifetime of discriminatory abuse.

"Them" is anybody who isn't you, or people like you. Sometimes, the "Them" changes. Over they years, America has enjoyed serial "Thems." First, it was the Indians. Then, it was the immigrants. (It's always the immigrants.) Then it was the Communists. Then, it was the Iraqis. And now, it's apparently all Muslims.

Even I had a "Them" once. His name was Danny. Danny was charged with the unforgivable crime of being quiet. I treated Danny horribly. Why did I need a "Them"? I don't know. Everyone else had a "Them." I wanted one too.

I once heard this psychoanalyst named Vamik Volkan speak at a psychoanalytic conference. (My wife attended, and I went along for the ride.)

Volkan, who has been involved in international mediation efforts between longstanding enemies, spoke about his home country of Cyprus, an island shared by the Greeks and the Turks, but they hate each other. Over the years, the two sides have developed a number of signifying identifiers. Each side loops their belts in a slightly different manner. And each side smokes a different brand of cigarette -- I believe one side smokes Camels and the other side smokes Lucky Strikes, though I can't remember which group does which, which would be injurious to me if I happened to visit there and I smoked.

Espousing the idea of "Large Group Identification," Volkan believes that the concept of "Them" goes very deep. Apparently, we need "Them" to define what it means to be "Us." If he's right, this issue and its destructive consequences will not be going away soon. Of course, we all know who's responsible for that.

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Dick Cheney Hospitalized in Washington after 'Discomfort'

Politics Daily Staff — 2010-06-25T23:40:00+00:00

Filed under: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Hate Crimes, Medicine

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a history of heart trouble, was hospitalized in Washington Friday night after experiencing discomfort.

The 69-year-old Cheney was at George Washington University Hospital where he went earlier in the day to see his doctors because he wasn't feeling well, the Associated Press said. On their advice, he was admitted, but it was not clear whether his condition was related to earlier heart problems. A spokesman said Cheney would undergo tests and likely remain in the hospital over the weekend.

Cheney suffered a mild heart attack in February, his fifth since the age of 37.

Since leaving the vice presidency in January 2009, he has been an outspoken critic of President Obama and his administration. In addition to his eight years as George W. Bush's second in command, Cheney served in Congress, is a former defense secretary, and was White House chief of staff under President Ford.

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Obama and Elie Wiesel Talk Mideast Peace Over 'Good Kosher Lunch'

Tom Diemer — 2010-05-04T16:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Religion, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Ethics, Hate Crimes

What's on the menu when two Nobel Peace Prize winners sit down for a meal? "A good Kosher lunch," according to Elie Wiesel, who met privately with President Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday.

Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate, said the two men discussed the Obama administration's attempts to break the stalemate in Middle East peace talks, the AP reported in the Washington Post.. Wiesel acknowledged the recent flareup in U.S.-Israeli relations over Israel's announcement of plans for new Jewish housing in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. "There were moments of tension (in relations)," he said in a USA Today account. "The tension, I think, is gone."

The two men have a history. When Obama, on a visit to Germany last June, toured the Buchenwald concentration camp, Wiesel was at his side. During World War II, he was a captive at Buchenwald and Auschwitz, but survived and went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his efforts to shed more public light on the Nazi atrocities and to promote human rights worldwide. Obama won his Nobel prize last year.

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Benjamin L. Hooks, R.I.P. in Memphis

Jamie Stiehm — 2010-04-18T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Obits, Race Issues, Culture, Ethics, Hate Crimes

Requiem for a preacher, a lawyer, a judge, a head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Add all that up and it doesn't equal the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, who died at 85 in his native Memphis, Tennessee by the waters of the Mississippi River this week. Rest in peace.

One writer whose life he graced will never forget his kindness to a stranger.

As a journalist, I interviewed the Baptist Rev. Hooks and his striking wife Frances in Maryland on the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday a few years ago. Rev. Hooks looked like a fragile octogenarian and I wondered if he would have enough strength for his speech. As soon as his voice lifted up into the room full of listeners, he needed no cane or anything else to support him. Energized and clear, his voice sounded like a mighty instrument as he repeated this refrain: "They murdered the dreamer, but not the dream."

To hear this defiant optimism from a civil rights hero who had seen many sorrows was bracing. It was more than another line to write down in my reporter's notebook. Afterwards, I spoke with the Rev. and Mrs. Hooks and they told me about "Martin" staying in Memphis his last days in April 1968 when Dr. King led the sanitation workers on a strike and gave his last speech. a haunting vision of seeing the Promised Land. Days later, King was gunned down on the Lorraine Motel balcony.

As the couple talked about their friend "Martin," the slain Southern Baptist preacher and Nobel Peace Laureate suddenly became humanized, down to earth, someone who laughed and enjoyed meals with the camaraderie of friends while he was leading a movement.

They invited me to come to Memphis, where they'd show me some Southern hospitality. "Really," I said. "Really," they said, just call us up - we're always up late - and let us know when you'll be there.

I loved that they were up late and I was free to call; how many people say that anymore? The Reverend and Mrs. Hooks didn't let fuss or formality get in the way of making me feel welcome. My sister Meredith, a writer on the West Coast, and I made our way to Memphis later that year. We both felt a lingering sadness in the air, as if blues was the background music even in the bright light of day.

The Rev. Hooks was not well the day we were slated to meet, but Mrs. Hooks arrived at our hotel downtown, where everyone knew her - many as their former schoolteacher. All doors opened for Mrs. Hooks, wherever we went. She showed us how segregated Memphis still is to this day on a neighborhood tour.

Then we took a tragic turn, into the 1950s-vintage (segregated) motel where Dr. King died, now a museum.

Mrs. Hooks said, "My husband said I must take you to the National Civil Rights Museum. It's closed today, but we'll get in." In fact, there was a board meeting and Mrs. Hooks took us in and introduced us around the room. The rabbi next to us greeted us warmly. So did the Rev. Billy Kyles, who was with Dr. King in his last hour as they chatted with the late Rev. Ralph Abernathy. Kyles took us to the room itself and relived the conversation and its last words. He is now in his 70s, but he traveled back in time like a pilgrim - telling us he felt it was his responsibility as the last living witness.

The Rev. and Mrs. Hooks opened up their Memphis to us, complete with the saddest story we'd ever heard someone tell us as an act of remembrance. Meredith was a baby and I was a child the day Dr. King died in 1968.

The Rev. Hooks died on a April day, too. He outlived his friend Dr. King by 42 years. They were born only four years apart and marched together in the generation of civil rights champions who had the power of the word. "My life was built around being in those pulpits on Sunday," the Rev. Hooks said, according to the New York Times.

They gave us gifts and dreams in their wake, which keep on flowing.

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GOP's McCollum Widens Lead Over Sink in Florida Governor Race

Bruce Drake — 2010-03-31T13:29:00+00:00

Filed under: Polls, Governors, Poll Watch, 2010 Elections, Hate Crimes

Florida's Republican attorney general, Bill McCollum, is leading Democrat Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer, by 49 percent to 34 percent in the race for governor, according to a Mason-Dixon Research poll conducted March 23-25 for Florida newspapers.

McCollum has been in the forefront of a movement by some of his counterparts in other states to block health care reform by filing lawsuits asserting its unconstitutionality on a variety of grounds. That appears to have boosted his stock in a state where Mason-Dixon says voters opposed the health overhaul measure by 54 percent to 34 percent.

Fifty-one percent of Florida voters approve of the lawsuit McCollum has filed while 39 percent are opposed.

However, Mason-Dixon's Brad Coker told the Miami Herald that while "the lawsuit probably gave McCollum a little lift and has put him in a strong position...there's more going on here." He pointed out that McCollum is supported by 24 percent of Democrats while Sink attracts only 3 percent of Republicans, and also that Sink is not leading among women.

"That's a problem for Sink,'' Coker told the Herald.``A Democratic woman can't win without the strong support of women.''

A Rasmussen Reports poll conducted March 18 showed McCollum ahead by 47 percent to 36 percent with five percent preferring some other candidate and 12 percent undecided.

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