The Intersection of Church & State

Scholars and Rogues has an interesting article about, "Jesus Gone Wild! It's time to separate Church and State, once and for all!"

The Constitution is clear that what you believe is your business, and I have no problem with that. But when your beliefs inspire actions that hurt the innocent, that systematically victimize those who believe other things, then I start to care. When those beliefs fuel actions that harm me and impinge on my freedoms, well, that’s the point where it becomes self-defense, isn’t it?

For instance:

Item: Pope warns against witchcraft in Angola

(AFP) – Mar 21, 2009

LUANDA (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI issued a warning against witchcraft Saturday during his visit to Angola, after calling on African leaders to battle corruption and drawing a tough line against abortion.

Item: Pope in Africa reaffirms “no condoms” against AIDS

YAOUNDE, March 17 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict on Tuesday reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS as he started a visit to Africa, where more than 25 million people have died from the disease in recent decades.
…
“It (AIDS) cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem,” he said in response to a question about the Church’s widely contested position against the use of condoms.

The disease has killed more than 25 million people since the early 1980s, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and some 22.5 million Africans are living with HIV.

Item: Rape row sparks excommunications

By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins.

It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.

The excommunication applies to the child’s mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.

The pregnancy was terminated on Wednesday.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother’s life is at risk and doctors say the girl’s case met both these conditions.

Police believe that the girl at the centre of the case had been sexually abused by her step-father since she was six years old.

Item: Did the Mormons baptize Obama’s mother, after her death, without his knowledge or consent? A: Yes, they did.

A reader contacted me last week, saying that last year, in the heat of the presidential campaign, the Mormons had posthumously baptized Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Baptizing the dead of other faiths, secretly and without the consent of their families, is a common Mormon practice. For the past fifteen years the Mormons have caused quite a stir by forcibly baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims – in other words, converting them to Mormonism – despite strong objections from the Jewish community.

Thus, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine the Mormons’ doing this to Obama’s mother. Still, I had no proof. Then yesterday, I received a document. It’s allegedly a screen capture of the registration-only section of the Mormon-run Web site, FamilySearch.org. In that screen capture, excerpted above, is clearly the name and correct date of birth and death of Barack Obama’s mother (Stanley Ann Dunham, born 29 Nov 1942 in Kansas, died 07 Nov 1995) and the date of her alleged post-death baptism by the Mormons.

Item: Catholic schools bans child whose parents are gay

Last week, a standing policy of the Archdiocese of Denver denied a child from enrolling in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School for kindergarten next year because the student’s parents are lesbians.

Currently the student is in the school’s preschool program and will be allowed to finish the year, according to Jeanette DeMelo, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese.

“It’s clear if they only accept students with perfect parents, they would have almost nobody,” said Beth Osnes, an organizer for the protest. “I know they have the right to, but why would they want to?”

Inside the church, the Rev. Bill Breslin addressed the issue in his sermon. He also posted his comments on his blog.

“If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad,” Breslin said on his blog. “We don’t want to put any child in that tough position.”

Please note: this is happening in the People’s Republic of Freakin’ Boulder!

That’s some big picture, huh? It’s gotten so bad that even former president Jimmy Carter, a man as responsible as any for introducing the poison of evangelical influence into the mainstream of modern politics, has had enough.

There's more.

Denver Archdiocese bars student from Catholic preschool since parents are lesbians.

A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.

Governor Gary Herbert of Utah signed a bill titled "Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions" (HB462), that "charges pregnant women and girls with murder for having miscarriages caused by intentional or knowing acts."

Have you had enough of other people's religious beliefs dictating what you can and can not do with your life and body?

The following video, says it succinctly: "Keep your Jesus off my Penis"...and my addition...and away from my womb!!!

Prayer and Politics

Prayer is part of the politics of Washington. The famous National Prayer Breakfast has been taking place since 1953. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attended the breakfast this morning.

Although the National Prayer Breakfast is hosted by members of the U.S. Congress, some groups had asked President Obama not to attend the breakfast this year. The prayer breakfast is organized by the Fellowship Foundation which is a secretive, Washington, D.C.-based, conservative Christian organization known as The Family. "The Fellowship" or "The Family" has been linked to the introduction of legislation in Uganda that would sentence homosexuals and people who are HIV-positive to death.

Apparently the Ugandan President Museveni is a member of The Family. Jeff Sharlet, author of the bestseller "The Family," has been investigating this link for years. Sharlet spoke of the connection in an interview with Terry Gross from NPR.

GROSS: This legislation has just been proposed. It hasn't been signed into law. So it's not in effect yet and it might never be in effect. But it's on the table. It's before parliament. So is there a direct connection between The Family and this proposed anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda?

Mr. SHARLET: Well, the legislator that introduced the bill, a guy named David Bahati, is a member of The Family. He appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda.

GROSS: So you're reporting the story for the first time today, and you found this story - this direct connection between The Family and the proposed legislation by following the money?

Mr. SHARLET: Yes, it's - I always say that The Family is secretive, but not secret. You can go and look at 990s, tax forms and follow the money through these organizations that The Family describe as invisible. But you go and you look. You follow that money. You look at their archives. You do interviews where you can. It's not so invisible anymore. So that's how working with some research colleagues we discovered that David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family's work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni's kind of right-hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family's National Prayer Breakfast. And here's a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda's executive office and has been very vocal about what he's doing, in a rather extreme and hateful way. But these guys are not so much under the influence of The Family. They are, in Uganda, The Family.

According to Center for Media and Democracy, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) had asked President Obama not to attend this year's National Prayer Breakfast.

The Fellowship has also designed the prayer breakfast to have the appearance of a government-sanctioned event; Sharlet says the event "appears to the world to be an official function of the federal government," and reports that when he attended the National Prayer Breakfast in 2003, he obtained his press credentials through the White House.

The Fellowship also operates the C Street House, a Congressional residence for which The Family illegally escaped paying taxes on the building by claiming it was church instead of a rooming house.

The Huffington Post notes that CREW believes The Fellowship is cult-like:

The group, Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, lashed out at the fundamentalist Fellowship Foundation, which has organized the breakfast with presidents and prominent Washington and world leaders since 1953.

"The National Prayer Breakfast uses the suggested imprimatur of the elected leaders who attend to give the Fellowship greater credibility and facilitate its networking and fundraising," CREW director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. "The president and members of Congress should not legitimatize this cult-like group -- the head of which has praised the organizing abilities of Hitler and Bin Laden -- by attending the breakfast."

The White House confirmed to the Huffington Post that Obama plans to attend the breakfast, scheduled for Thursday, but had no response to CREW's letter. The Fellowship is closely connected to the now-notorious C Street House near the Capitol -- essentially a dorm for ethically-troubled Republicans.

"For those who have been housed in or sought refuge at C Street House," says Sloan's letter, "a shocking pattern of unethical behavior has emerged, sparking public outrage. For example Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who lived in the house, is being investigated by the FBI and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics for events surrounding an affair he had with a former campaign staffer and his efforts to cover up that affair by helping her husband, his former chief-of-staff, become a lobbyist in violation of federal law."

The letter also mentions ethical troubles for C Street House guests Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

Today President Obama did attend the prayer breakfast and among his comments he mentioned the intolerable attitude against gays in the US as well as in Uganda.

We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

President Obama also spoke about the need for civility.

But there is a sense that something is different now; that something is broken; that those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should. At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate. And this erosion of civility in the public square sows division and distrust among our citizens. It poisons the well of public opinion. It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other. It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on truth. And then we lose sight of the children without food and the men without shelter and the families without health care. Empowered by faith, consistently, prayerfully, we need to find our way back to civility.

Now, I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. But surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith, or, for that matter, my citizenship.

It is this spirit of civility that we are called to take up when we leave here today. That's what I'm praying for. I know in difficult times like these -- when people are frustrated, when pundits start shouting and politicians start calling each other names -- it can seem like a return to civility is not possible, like the very idea is a relic of some bygone era. The word itself seems quaint -- civility.

Because of the political divide and the divisive tone of Congress, President Obama really couldn't protest this prayer breakfast. For if he did, the GOP, the Christian Right, the Whollier-Than-Thous would have screamed and yelled that Obama is not a 'Christian'. That is how far we have deviated from the doctrine of Separation of Church and State.

The issue isn't that he attended the prayer breakfast. The issue is what he felt he needed to say at the prayer breakfast.

I come here to speak about the ways my faith informs who I am -- as a President, and as a person. But I'm also here for the same reason that all of you are, for we all share a recognition -- one as old as time -- that a willingness to believe, an openness to grace, a commitment to prayer can bring sustenance to our lives.

His statement speaks volumes about how far to the right President Obama feels he needs to go to appease the religious fervor of this country.

'Hunting People for Jesus'

[UPDATE Below]

When did the constitutional principle of Separation of Church and State get diluted and trumped upon by various religious factions? In the 1800's, Thomas Jefferson knew that in order to protect the establishment of religion from the state, a wall of separation was needed between religion and government.

Even though Thomas Jefferson was a man of deep religious conviction - he believed that the government had no business getting involved in religion since religion was such a personal matter. In 1802, Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in response to their concern about religious liberties. The letter has become known as Jefferson's 'Wall of Separation' letter:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

Now over 200 years later, we need to re-educate the religious faction in the military about this doctrine. A new video has surfaced showing U.S. military soldiers being instructed to "spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population." Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility “to be witnesses for him.” WATCH:

Evangelical Christians have found that the military is not only a haven for their proselytizing but in Afghanistan it is 'Heaven'.

UPDATE: A defense official tells the Huffington Post that the preacher did not mean that soldiers should hunt for Afghani souls, but was speaking in general terms. He also said that the Pashtun and Dari Bibles were confiscated so that they could not be distributed to the population.