Atheism a creed that needs the same religious protections of Christianity and Islam: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal

Tristin Hopper ("The National Post," August 28, 2013)

Atheism is a creed deserving of the the same religious protections as Christianity, Islam, and other faiths, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ruled in a new decision.

“Protection against discrimination because of religion, in my view, must include protection of the applicants’ belief that there is no deity,” wrote David A. Wright, associate chair of the commission, in an August 13 decision.

The ruling was spurred by a complaint from self-described secular humanist Rene Chouinard, who was opposing the District School Board of Niagara’s policy regarding the distribution of Gideon bibles.

Since 1964, as in the rest of Canada, the Gideons had offered free red Bibles to Grade 5 students in the district—provided the students had first obtained parental consent.

Three years ago, in a protest move, Mr. Choinard, a Grimsby, Ont. father of two school-age children, offered to similarly distribute the Atheist text “Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children.”

When, as Mr. Chouinard expected, the board rejected his offer, he took his case to the Human Rights Tribunal, alleging that the school district has “discriminated against them … because of creed.”

The District School Board of Niagara has since updated their policy to welcome the distribution of other religious texts, so long as the religion is included in the Ontario Multifaith Information Manual, a periodically updated book detailing the beliefs, holy books and dietary restrictions of groups ranging from Hare Krishnas to to Rastafarians.

So far, no other religious group aside from the Gideons has taken the school board up on the offer and, as the manual does not include atheists or other non-believers, Mr, Chouinard’s proposal remained ineligible.

For that reason, on August 13th the Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the policy was biased.

“The policy was discriminatory because its definition of acceptable materials violated substantive equality by excluding the kinds of materials central to many creeds,” reads the decision.

Not only did it block Atheist texts, wrote the Tribunal, but texts by Falun Gong and other “emerging or non-traditional creeds.” The decision also noted that some creeds, such as Native Spiritual Beliefs, do not even have texts.

Even some Christian texts, if they were not deemed sacred enough, were banned by the policy.

“The restriction to sacred or foundational texts excludes some creeds and is therefore discriminatory,” read the ruling.

Throughout, Mr. Chouinard has maintained that his intention was not to put bundles of “Just Pretend,” a book that treats God as a make-believe figure, into the hands of schoolchildren — but rather to critique the current policy.

“We believe that if non-theistic materials were distributed in an Ontario Public School … people would insist that the Public School system is not the place for people with a religious agenda; and that is exactly our point!” he wrote in a letter to the school council.

Ultimately, the Human Rights Tribunal had no objection to the Gideons distributing bibles, provided that “participation is optional” and that all creeds were included under school policy.

“If [the school board] is prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of Christian texts to committed atheists, it must also be prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of atheist texts to religious Christians,” wrote Mr. Wright.

Under a Human Rights Tribunal Order, if the school board wants to continue to allow the distribution of Gideon bibles, it has six months to draw up a new policy “permitting distribution of creed and religious publications in its schools.”

Islam's ability to empower is a magnet to black British youths

Abdul Haqq Baker ("The Guardian," August 19, 2013)

A seminar was hosted last month by Christians Together in England to consider ways to "stem the flight of black British youths to Islam and radicalisation". In an unprecedented move, Muslims were invited to attend – and they did. Together, both faith groups discussed the reasons why a growing number of young black people are choosing Islam in preference to Christianity. According to this morning's BBC Radio 4's Today programme, one in nine black Christian men are converting to Islam.

Following in my father's footsteps, I was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Sunday mass regularly as a child. I also attended a Roman Catholic secondary school – initially a cultural shock as I found myself the only black student among a predominantly white class. The religious focus of the school was, however, a refreshing contrast to my urban, street background. Teachers and students were more serious about God than at my previous schools. A student was not considered "nerdy" or "odd" due to their religiosity. I was therefore able to excel in religious studies and was successful in my final O-level exam.

During these lessons, the more we learned about religion, the more we questioned and challenged particular concepts, particularly relating to Christianity. Questions about the concept of the trinity – the Godhead being three in one – caused many debates as some of us; myself and others did not find this logical or feasible. Our religious studies teacher became exasperated by persistent questions on this topic, and arranged for the local priest to attend and address the question. His explanations did little to remove our doubts in this very fundamental and important area of faith.

I recall one particular lesson where we were doing Bible studies and I queried why we, as Christians, failed to prostrate in the same manner that Jesus had in the garden of Gethsemane prior to his arrest. I was unable to identify any relationship between Jesus's prayer and ours as his Christian followers. However, the Muslim prayer most closely resembled Jesus's.

After leaving school, I lost contact with most of my school friends. I also abandoned many aspects of Christianity and instead submerged myself into the urban street culture of my local friends and community – we would make our own religion based on the ethics and beliefs that made sense to us.

The passivity that Christianity promotes is perceived as alien and disconnected to black youths growing up in often violent and challenging urban environments in Britain today. "Turning the other cheek" invites potential ridicule and abuse whereas resilience, strength and self-dignity evokes respect and, in some cases, fear from unwanted attention.

I converted to Islam after learning about the religion's monotheistic foundation; there being only one God – Allah who does not share his divinity with anything. This made sense and was easy to comprehend. My conversion was further strengthened by learning that Islam recognised and revered the prophets mentioned in Judaism and Christianity. My new faith was, as its holy book the Qur'an declares, a natural and final progression of these earlier religions. Additionally, with my newfound faith, there existed religious guidelines that provided spiritual and behavioural codes of conduct. Role models such as Malcolm X only helped to reinforce the perception that Islam enabled the empowerment of one's masculinity coupled with righteous and virtuous conduct as a strength, not a weakness.

My personal experiences are supported by academic research on the same topic: Richard Reddie, who is himself a Christian, conducted research on black British converts to Islam. My own studies revealed that the majority of young people I interviewed converted from Christianity to Islam for similar reasons to me.

Islam's way of life and sense of brotherhood were attractive to 50% of interviewees, whereas another 30% and 10% respectively converted because of the religion's monotheistic foundations and the fact that, holistically, the religion "made sense" and there were "no contradictions".

My research examined whether such converts were more susceptible to violent radicalisation or more effective at countering it. The overwhelming conclusion points to the latter – provided there are avenues to channel these individuals' newly discovered sense of empowerment and identity towards constructive participation in society, as opposed to a destructive insularity which can be exploited by extremists.

Many Muslim converts – not just black British ones – will confirm the sense of empowerment Islam provides, both spiritually and mentally. It also provides a context within which such individuals are able to rise above the social, cultural and often economic challenges that tend to thwart their progress in today's society. Turning the other cheek therefore is never an option.

State Department Finds Religion, But Whose?

Kelani McAlister ("Religion Dispatches," August 12, 2013)

So here’s the question: is the State Department’s newly created Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives the long-awaited answer to the problem of a myopically secular US diplomacy? Or, instead, is it another example of a long line ham-fisted US attempts to shape religion elsewhere to fit the needs of its foreign policy?

Scholars of religion and foreign policy have argued both positions, and for good reason, since the US government isn’t quite sure what it means when it says it wants to engage “religious groups,” and advocates for more engagement—both within and without the State Department—have their own agendas.

The problem is that people mean very different things when they talk about supporting a US foreign policy that is more attentive to religion.

First, people sometimes mean that the US should promote religious freedom, a principle enshrined in US law by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, a seemingly unassailable but in fact intensely problematic legislation that has put the US on record as supporting religious freedom—sometimes.

(This meant a good deal in the development of US policy toward Sudan, which IRFA-associated groups named as the Number One violator of religious freedom for five years in a row, as US policy evolved to support the country’s division into Sudan and South Sudan in 2010. But the law plays virtually no role in US policy toward Saudi Arabia, given that, for 15 years, the president has waived sanctions on the basis of US national security interests.)

More recently, people generally mean that the US should engage “religious actors,” particularly groups on the ground in the Global South. Sometimes these groups are doing humanitarian work and may help implement US development programs. In theory, I’m not terribly worried about this, since I think religious groups of all types are indeed crucial actors in things like anti-poverty work and medical programs. In fact, this is already happening, as the USAID generously supports international aid organizations with a religious mission, as long as they don’t use the money for proselytizing.

There have been serious problems with the implementation, however, since many of the groups that get USAID funds themselves work with local (usually Christian) NGOs, thus shoring up the authority and resources of certain groups over others. The question is whether it is possible to do this better, or if the whole project is inherently flawed and unsalvageable.

In addition, through the new office, the US is also likely to directly support groups that promote particular interpretations of their own religion—specifically those that are friendly to US policy. Here, “moderate Muslims” are first on the list. As Elizabeth Shakman-Hurd has pointed out, the decision of which groups to support, with funds and perhaps visits from the Secretary of State, is fraught in ways that US policy barely acknowledges.

Throwing US power and money behind some groups and not others may exacerbate religious or other conflicts, and certainly can affect the self-definition of people who quickly figure out the lay of the land. I saw this first-hand when I interviewed Sudanese refugees in Egypt in 2006; they were quick to realize that being a “persecuted Christian” was a good idea if you wanted to get asylum status or help from UN programs.

Finally, when people talk about religion and international affairs, they sometimes mean that religious people in the US should play a leading role in developing foreign policy on religious issues. Since, as advocates are very fond of saying, the diplomats at State don’t really know how to handle religion, then somebody needs to teach them. The new State Department office is a dream come true in this regard, and it emerged in part from the work of folks who see their own religious values as particularly beneficial in helping the US engage religious groups abroad.

Let’s take the Institute for Global Engagement, for example. IGE is one of the most important think tanks in this game, perhaps along with the Berkely Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown. IGE’s leader Chris Seiple has been an indefatigable advocate for more US foreign policy attention to religion. He writes for Foreign Affairs, works with the State Department on training its diplomats, and publishes an impressive journal, the Review of Faith and International Affairs.

Under his leadership, IGE has also led a series of international delegations to places like Laos, China, and Vietnam. It has also sponsored a series of visits to Pakistan’s Peshawar region, where it created a group called “Faith Friends” to promote “tolerance” and interfaith cooperation. In part, IGE can do things like this because, unlike the many right-wing think tanks focused on “Islam,” it is genuinely interested in dialogue.

But what kind of dialogue? Although IGE sounds like a typical (read presumably secular) inside-the-Beltway think tank, it isn’t. The organization was founded by Chris's father Robert A. Seiple, who first made his name as the head of the evangelical international aid and development agency, World Vision; before that, he was president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Seiple then became the first US Ambassador for Religious Freedom in 1998.

Ultimately Seiple resigned his position as ambassador after it became clear that he was facing down a far more powerful faction that demanded that the US take a highly confrontational approach in dealing with what they saw as Muslim persecution of religious minorities, namely Christians. It wasn’t that Seiple opposed the agenda of supporting “persecuted Christians” and other religious groups; he just thought that careful engagement, support for “moderates,” and so-called Track II diplomacy was the way to go. And he thought Christians had been too long part of the problem. In 2005, for example, I attended a Christian (largely evangelical) conference on “Proselytism and Persecution” organized by IGE. There, Seiple argued that evangelicals, with their commitments to open proselytization—walking through Riyadh randomly throwing Bibles into courtyards, for example, were not being helpful.

But Seiple’s own evangelical investments were equally clear: he believed that moderate Muslims could be engaged, but that moderate evangelicals were key to that engagement, serving both in and out of government.

Robert Seiple is an evangelical leader who knows how to reach evangelical audiences. Thomas Farr, who directs the religious freedom project at the Berkley Center, described how Seiple could “draw at will from an enormous reservoir of biblical imagery, delivered in the cadences and tones of an evangelical preacher.” Seiple can speak to secular audiences too, and from the beginning his message at IGE was that American evangelicals could do better in understanding and engaging with people from other religions, and that, when they did, they could also do important work in cultivating more “moderate” religion abroad.

Most recently, IGE has developed a program called “Women of Faith for Peace and Security,” which, among other things, cultivates collaboration between US Christian women and Muslim women in the Middle East, supporting Muslims who interpret their faith in ways that “they are not oppressed by it through misinterpretation.” The project is based on the rather unimpeachable idea that women should be involved in thinking and planning initiatives around peace and security; the presumption, however, is that “women of faith” are particularly of interest in this regard.

The Women of Faith project does on-the-ground support for Syrian women in Jordanian refugee camps. Perhaps more significantly, it has done impressive work bringing together for conferences and meetings various religious NGOs and think tanks (TEAR Fund, the group Religions for Peace, The Princeton Univ. Office of Religious Life) along with faith-friendly organizations like the Carter Center and the Committee of Religious NGOs in the United Nations. In other words, IGE is a player, and it knows how to connect across lines that might once have separated openly proselytizing organizations like the TEAR Fund from more mainstream and vaguely religious institutions like the Carter Center—and to give that collaboration the salutary imprint of a push for women, peace, and reconciliation.

The point is not that IGE is a bad organization. In the world of evangelical foreign policy activism, it is quite a good one. But the organization has a mission, which includes both teaching evangelical Christians to think about global issues and teaching supposedly secular Washington that religious groups matter a great deal for the conduct of US foreign policy. The surge of enthusiasm about State’s new agenda has too often carried with it the assumption that when the US government decides to engage religion abroad, religious Americans are best equipped to teach us how to do the work.

Winnifred Sullivan has usefully argued that the problem with the new office is not a legal problem: there is nothing in the constitution that would be a barrier to this new office, and, after all, the US government “engages” religion all the time. Church and state are not now and never have been entirely separate. And of course the state department does need to understand religion, to take it seriously, to engage with religious and non-religious NGOs around the world.

But now, having found religion, the State department needs to watch out who they give it to: if it is taken to be true that the US government needs to turn (first or primarily) to religious people to do the work of engaging religious groups abroad, then religion, and inevitably specific religious groups, will be part of US foreign policy in ways that raise serious questions about our commitment to disestablishment.

Richard Dawkins' Anti-Muslim Tweets Spark Furor, Even Among Atheist Supporters

Yasmine Hafiz ("The Huffington Post," August 9, 2013)

Richard Dawkins responded to outrage over his controversial anti-Muslim tweets by calling the incident a "storm in a teacup."

The outspoken atheist started a Twitter furor by writing on August 8:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.

August 8, 2013 2:04 pm via web

The statement appeared to say, "Muslims as a group haven't achieved anything worthwhile since the Middle Ages." He's said before, "I think Islam is one of the great evils of the world," as he subscribes to the "New Humanism" brand of atheism which places little to no value in religion.

Dawkins played dumb after receiving a flurry of indignant tweets which accused him of bigotry; tweeting in response:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

You can attack someone for his opinion. But for simply stating an intriguing fact? Who would guess that a single Cambridge College . . .

August 8, 2013 2:22 pm via web

He continued to defend himself by claiming that he was just sharing a fact, implying that all of his critics were irrational and biased.

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

Interesting concept: a simple statement of undeniable FACT can be offensive. Other examples where facts should be hidden because offensive?

August 8, 2013 5:55 pm via web

The reactions ranged from outraged to bemused, as many pointed out the dubious science behind the apparently irrelevant comparison, as Trinity College has won so many Nobel Prizes that many groups would fall short when compared to their record, including all countries except the U.S.A., Britain, Germany, and France. But what's the point of pointing that out?

The goal of his tweets was clearly to provoke, as some commenters responded to his defense with:

Sean Biggerstaff @Seanchuckle

@RichardDawkins This is disingenuous. It was a wilfully provocative statement.

August 8, 2013 5:58 pm via Twitter for iPhone

Harry Alffa @HarryAlffa

@RichardDawkins I appreciate your own contribution to extelligence, but you knew the implication making/inference taking would hit home.

August 8, 2013 2:25 pm via web

Zoe Mavroudi @zoemavroudi

.@richarddawkins Why was this fact important to state? Does it lead to a conclusion about something substantive and important?

August 8, 2013 2:25 pm via Mobile Web (M2)

Even some of his admirers were disgusted, as Tom Chivers published a blog on the Telegraph titled, "Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, I'm begging as a fan." He makes the point that Dawkins has strayed from providing critiques of religious beliefs and practices grounded in logic to blindly attacking faiths as monolithic groups, manipulating facts to further an agenda.

The Atlantic published "A Short History of Richard Dawkins vs. The Internet" that thoroughly chronicles Dawkins' long history of anti-Islamic speaking and writing, as well as his admiration for Geert Wilders, the notoriously far-right and anti-Muslim Dutch politician.

He once appeared to compare Islam with nazism, tweeting:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an. You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about nazism.

March 25, 2013 8:18 am via web

Dawkins published a blog post on his website a day after the incident, titled, "Calm reflections after a storm in a teacup." He pointed out that there are 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet and that many claim that Islamic science is worthy of respect, given their historical achievements particularly in the Dark Ages. He finally made the point that was implied by his tweet, blatantly saying:

Putting these two claims together, you almost can’t help wondering something like this: “If you are so numerous, and if your science is so great, shouldn’t you be able to point to some pretty spectacular achievements emanating from among those vast numbers? If you can’t today but once could, what has gone wrong for the past 500 years? Whatever it is, is there something to be done about it?”

He then admitted that he was thinking of posting an even more provocative tweet:

I thought about comparing the numbers of Nobel Prizes won by Jews (more than 120) and Muslims (ten if you count Peace Prizes, half that if you don’t). This astonishing discrepancy is rendered the more dramatic when you consider the small size of the world’s Jewish population.

Religions ask if test-tube burgers allow them to keep the faith

Tom Heneghan (Reuters, August 9, 2013)

Paris - When the world's first test-tube beef burger was cooked and eaten this week, food critics all asked about its taste. For many Jews, Muslims and Hindus, the first question was whether their faith allowed them to try it.

Religious websites were abuzz with questions and opinions this week after biologist Mark Post of Maastricht University presented his innovation to the media in London on Monday.

"Is the lab-created burger kosher?" the Hasidic Jewish movement Chabad Lubavitch asked on its website.

Dietary laws exist in many religions, but came about so long ago that not even their prophets could have imagined a ready-to-fry beef patty grown in-vitro from the stem cells of a cow.

If religious authorities interpret their ancient texts in a way that allows them to give this new food their blessing, now-banned kosher cheeseburgers and Hindu hamburgers, as well as an undisputed method of producing halal meat, could be possible.

Chabad's Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin wrote the Talmud tells of "miraculous meat" that fell from heaven or was conjured up by rabbis studying a mystic text.

Since it was automatically kosher because it wasn't from a real animal, this could be a model for test-tube meat.

But he said if the stem cells are real meat, they have to come from a cow slaughtered according to kosher law, which says the animal's throat must be slit while it is still conscious.

Expert rabbis need to study this more carefully "when the issue becomes more practical and petri-dish burgers become and affordable option," Shurpin concluded.

The kosher ban on mixing meat and dairy products presents another hurdle for observant Jews considering a cheeseburger.

Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union in New York told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that test-tube beef could be considered "parve" (neither meat nor dairy) under certain conditions and so kosher cheeseburgers could be allowed.

LIKE YOGURT AND PICKLES

Islam's halal laws require ritual slaughter similar to kosher butchering, but with fewer restrictions.

"There does not appear to be any objection to eating this type of cultured meat," the Islamic Institute of Orange County in California responded to a questioner on its website.

Animal rights activists see the Muslim and Jewish slaughter methods as unnecessary cruelty and calls to ban this kind of butchering have grown in Europe in recent years as halal meat has become increasingly available in shops and restaurants.

Gulf News in Dubai quoted Abdul Qahir Qamar of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, as saying in-vitro meat "will not be considered meat from live animals, but will be cultured meat."

As long as the cells used are not from pigs, dogs or other animals banned under the halal laws, he said, the meat would be vegetative and "similar to yogurt and fermented pickles."

Several Muslim websites left fresh questions about this new meat unanswered, probably because Muslims were more concerned this week with celebrating the end of the fasting month Ramadan.

NOT FOR VEGETARIANS

The prospect of meatless beef has also prompted debate in India, where the Hindu majority shuns steaks and burgers because it considers the cow sacred.

"We will not accept it being traded in a marketplace in any form or being used for a commercial purpose," Chandra Kaushik, president of the Hindu nationalist group Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, told the India Real Time blog.

Religious websites have been debating the test-tube meat issue for some time now, especially since news about biologist Post's project began circulating about four years ago.

Many Hindus and Sikhs are vegetarians, so several of them posted comments saying they probably wouldn't like the taste of artificial meat even if it was declared permissible.

"Who wants to eat a carcass anyways, lab grown or not?" one reader asked on the Hindu Dharma Forums website.

Indigenous Communities Want Religion Scrubbed From ID Cards

By Amir Tejo ("Jakarta Globe," November 28, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38609/

Surabaya, Indonesia - A coalition of indigenous tribes urged the Indonesian government to omit a citizen’s religion from national identification cards on Wednesday, arguing that an adherence to six officials religions fails recognize their traditional faiths.

More than 700 representatives from 300 traditional communities from across the archipelago voiced their opinion during the closing ceremony of the National Congress of Faiths To One and Only God on Wednesday.

“ID cards only displays six religions, not traditional faiths,” congress chairman A. Latif said.

Indonesia only recognizes six official religions: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Catholicism and Confucianism. Some of the nation’s traditional indigenous people practice forms of animism that predate the six official religions’ dominance in Indonesia.

But practitioners of traditional religions have to choose one of the official faiths when applying for a national ID card.

“To justly accommodate the beliefs of cultural and traditional faith communities, the religion section must be omitted,” Latif said.

The congress also recommended the government institute moral education classes in the national curriculum and urged lawmakers to pass a law protecting the free practice of traditional faiths.

The Ministry of Education and Culture said it would bring the recommendations to the House of Representatives, but said it could not guarantee any action.

“The government’s authority is limited because it has to coordinate with the House of Representatives, so the government will ask for support from cultural communities,” said Gendro Nur Hadi, director of traditional faith development at the ministry.

Gendro told the assembled people that the government would not turn a blind eye to the nation’s traditional faiths.

Man behind anti-Islam film that stoked riots has no regrets: New York Times

By Peter Rudegeair (Reuters, November 26, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38594/

The Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who made the anti-Islam film that sparked protests across the Muslim world has no regrets about his insulting portrayal of the Prophet Mohammad, according to an interview with the New York Times.

In his first public comments since the 14-minute trailer for his film, "Innocence of Muslims," gained notoriety in September, Mark Basseley Youssef told the newspaper he wanted to reveal what he called "the actual truth" about Mohammad and raise awareness of the violence committed "under the sign of Allah."

The film portrayed Mohammad as a womanizer, ruthless killer and child molester. The film touched off a torrent of anti-American unrest in Arab and Muslim countries. For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is considered blasphemous.

In explaining his reasons for the film, he cited "atrocities" by Muslims. After a Muslim gunman killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009, "I became even more upset and enraged," he said in written comments conveyed to the Times through his attorney. A Times request to interview him in person was blocked by prison authorities.

"I thought, before I wrote this script that I should burn myself in a public square to let the American people and the people of the world know this message that I believe in," said Youssef.

Youssef, a former gasoline station owner identified in some public records by his birth name, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, received a one-year prison sentence in early November for violating terms of his 2011 supervised release from prison on a bank fraud conviction. In the course of making the film, he made use of false identities and lied to his probation officer, both of which were prohibited under his probation.

As early as 2008, Youssef had completed a brief treatment for his movie, which he originally wanted to call "The First Terrorist." After going through five versions of the script, he raised $80,000 to finance the film, apparently through his second ex-wife's Egyptian family and donations from other Copts.

The shoot for "Innocence of Muslims" lasted only 15 days. Although only the film's 14-minute trailer has been released online, a feature-length movie does exist, running about one hour and 40 minutes, the newspaper said.

Some actors were under the impression that they were performing in an adventure drama called "Desert Warriors" whose villain was named George. Youssef, who worked on the film under the alias Sam Baccil, later dubbed the name Muhammad whenever an actor said George.

At least one actress has sued Youssef, claiming her image and reputation were harmed and her safety put in jeopardy, citing a religious edict she said an Egyptian cleric had issued against anyone connected with the movie. Youssef, however, has no qualms about how he handled the cast.

"They had signed contracts before they went in front of any camera, and these contracts in no way prevented changes to the script or movie," Youssef told the New York Times.

Canadian Islamic group charges Jewish school using racist textbook

By ("Haaretz," November 23, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38584/

A Canadian Islamic organization is accusing a Toronto-area Jewish day school of using a textbook that vilifies Muslims.

In a Nov. 19 letter to Jewish groups, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-CAN, charges that a textbook used at the Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School employs "inflammatory and hateful terms in describing Muslims."

CAIR-CAN alleges the book, "2000 Years of Jewish History," describes Muslims as "rabid fanatics" with "savage beginnings."

"The entire chapter devoted to Islam presents a pernicious and extreme portrayal of Muslims and the Islamic faith. The material further denigrates the Prophet Muhammad as a 'rabid Jew-hater,' and falsely portrays Islam as inherently anti-Semitic and devoted to hating Jews," the group said in its letter to the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center For Holocaust Studies and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA.

It said the text is used in grade 7 and 8 girls' classes at the Orthodox Jewish day school and "leaves impressionable young Jewish readers with a sense of suspicion and even intolerance towards their fellow Canadians."

The group wants the Centre for Jewish Education of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to investigate.

No one from CIJA, the Wiesenthal Center or Ohr HaEmet responded to JTA's requests for comment.

CAIR-CAN's salvo comes on the heels of an investigation by Toronto-area police of a local Islamic school. Earlier this month, police cleared the school of hate crimes allegations following a complaint by Jewish groups. York Regional Police found that teaching materials at the East End Madrassah attacked Jews and "suggested intolerance," but were not criminal.

Part of the madrassah's curriculum encouraged boys to keep fit for jihad, compared Jews to Nazis, and referred to "Jewish plots and treacheries."

The complaint "prompted change" at the madrassah, noted CAIR-CAN in its letter, adding that the group "welcomes that change."

When police began their probe, the Toronto District School Board, which rented space to the school, revoked its permit and the madrassah had to relocate.

Saudi reforms detour through Vienna faith center

By Tom Heneghan (Reuters, November 21, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38573/

The road to reform in Saudi Arabia is long and winding. In the rigidly restricted field of religion, the path is so circuitous that part of it even runs through traditionally Catholic countries like Austria and Spain.

Next Monday, a pioneering Saudi-backed centre for worldwide interfaith dialogue will open in a baroque palace on Vienna's elegant Ringstrasse boulevard. Riyadh paid for the building and will foot the centre's budget for the first three years.

Such largesse from a country often ranked as one of the most religiously repressive has stirred suspicion and protest in Vienna, where critics accuse the Saudis of everything from hypocrisy to plotting to spread radical Islam in the Alps.

But the centre has supporters in unexpected places, most notably in Israel. Rabbi David Rosen, the Jewish member of the centre's multifaith board of directors, says it presents an opportunity the world's religions cannot let pass.

"This is the first multifaith initiative from a Muslim source, and not just any source, but from the very hardcore heartland of Islam," said Rosen, International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

"It is an essential stage in King Abdullah's efforts to change Saudi Arabia itself," the Jerusalem-based rabbi said. "If there are possibilities of good things coming from this, we have to give it a try,"

The new head of the centre said other faiths would play into the hands of Saudi hardliners if they refused to join before Riyadh made changes like letting Christian churches open there.

"There are 1,000 extremists just waiting to hear that," said Faisal bin Abdulrahman bin Muaammar, a former Saudi vice-minister of education. He has led the National Dialogue Centre set up in 2003 after a series of bombings convinced Riyadh it had a problem with domestic Islamist militants.

"The only way to deal with this is dialogue," he said, stressing the centre will be an international organization.

SLOW PROGRESS ON LONG PATH

Considered a reformer in the arch-conservative Saudi power structure, King Abdullah, believed to be about 89, has been slowly trying to get his kingdom used to the idea - foreign to many in the powerful religious establishment - of cooperating with other faiths.

The idea is daring in a country where many clerics have no experience of other faiths and preachers and teachers have traditionally denounced non-Muslims as infidels.

But the radicalization of young Saudis raised in this blinkered atmosphere rang alarm bells in Riyadh, where the king and his aides decided a cautious opening on the religious front was needed as an antidote to intolerance.

Abdullah started by hosting a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Mecca in 2005 that endorsed interfaith dialogue to redress "the existing lack of mutual understanding among cultures and civilizations".

He visited Pope Benedict at the Vatican in 2007, a first for a Saudi king. The following year, he convened 500 Muslim religious leaders in Mecca - including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of rival Shi'ite Iran - to give their blessing to large-scale talks with leaders of other faiths.

Saudi Arabia then hastily arranged a major multireligious conference in Madrid in July 2008, where the king openly met Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist leaders.

This meeting was not only impossible to stage in Saudi Arabia; so strong was their rejection of the conference idea that neither the country's grand mufti nor any of its leading clerics would agree to attend it.

The king plowed on, sponsoring a discussion on religious tolerance at the United Nations four months later that was attended by then U.S. President George W.Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

This year, Abdullah took a further step by proposing a dialogue centre in Riyadh to promote harmony among Islam's various sects, a signal he wanted to foster greater tolerance among Saudi Sunnis towards the Shi'ite minority.

NOT A SAUDI CENTRE

Although launched by Riyadh and named the King Abdullah International Centre for Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), bin Muaammar stressed it is not a Saudi entity.

"This is an international institution," he said. "About 70 percent of the world's religions are on its board. The centre will be a neutral place to exchange ideas."

In fact, the centre is the first global organization focused on religion and is backed by an international treaty signed by Austria, Spain and Saudi Arabia. Most other dialogue efforts are linked to churches or non-governmental organizations.

The Vatican, a strong supporter of the project, has joined as a founding observer and will be represented on the board, which according to the treaty must have three Christians, three Muslims, a Jew, a Hindu and a Buddhist.

Both the three sponsoring states, which appoint the board and approve its budget and projects, and the board of directors will take their decisions by majority vote, a provision that ensures Riyadh cannot control the centre unilaterally.

Saudi Arabia has footed the start-up bills - about 15 million euros for the Sturany Palace building, the former library for Vienna University's theology faculty, and 10-15 million euros annually for the first three years.

But the centre will have to finance itself after that. Although bin Muaammar is a Saudi, there is no statute saying the secretary general must be from the kingdom.

INITIAL PLANS, FURTHER POTENTIAL

The centre plans initial work in three fields. Its "Image of the Other" program will have experts study how other faiths are portrayed in their media and education, with an eye to improving schoolbooks and public perceptions of religions.

A fellowship program will bring young leaders from all religions together for three to four months in Vienna to study selected issues and learn how each faith deals with them.

A program with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) will involve religious leaders in Africa in efforts to support health projects for children, which militants sometimes sabotage by telling people their religion forbids them.

Given its multifaith approach, Rosen said the centre had the potential to address not only global issues such as education and health but also bring religious authority, especially from the Muslim world, to bear on social and political issues.

"It hopes to contribute to make religion part of the solution where very often it is part of the problem," he said. "I'm referring specifically to places of conflict ... and that includes in particular the Holy Land."

Another board member, Metropolitan Emmanuel of the Greek Orthodox Church, said the centre could be "an opportunity for Muslim communities around the world to get better acquainted with other religions".

FROSTY WELCOME

Austrian media have given the centre a frosty welcome, some going so far as to portray it as a front to spread radical Islam in the Alpine republic, and several opposition politicians have repeatedly criticized the government for supporting it.

Alev Korun, a Green Party deputy in the Austrian parliament, said Riyadh's ban on practicing other religions beside Islam in Saudi Arabia "stands in amazingly crass contradiction to the dialogue the king wants to have here".

She said the centre would give undue prominence to Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi tradition, a minority sect that had already undermined a more moderate interpretation of Islam in Bosnia, which was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

"Sarajevo is not far from Vienna," she said, adding that Saudi Arabia had financed the building of Wahhabi mosques there during and after the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s.

Saudi human rights activists also ask why Riyadh should promote interreligious dialogue in Vienna while relations even with its Shi'ite and Ismaili Muslim minorities were strained.

"They should have established the centre in Saudi Arabia," said Saudi dissident Mohammad al-Qahtani, now on trial for his human rights activities. "Before you educate your neighbor, you should educate your own people first."

For Bin Muaammar, criticism of the centre confirms the need for it. "As we are facing some criticism here, we are facing some criticism in Saudi Arabia and everywhere in the world, but dialogue is the answer for this," he said.

EXIT IF NEEDED

Rosen said the fact Saudi Arabia had launched the centre with royal approval meant some changes could be expected there. One would be holding a meeting of the board in Saudi Arabia, which now is not possible because he is an Israeli citizen and none are allowed in the kingdom.

"I would expect at some stage the whole board would be invited to Saudi Arabia," he said.

If he were not allowed to enter, that would be a reason to quit the board, Rosen said. Other possible adverse developments, such as a worsening of conditions for religious minorities or women in Saudi Arabia, could also trigger a departure.

"We are not going in there in any way in which we can't get out of it," he said. "If we feel that we - God forbid - are being exploited in any way, it is possible for us to exit."

Bin Muaammar said he had met visiting Jews in Saudi Arabia only a week or so ago and hinted some arrangement could be found to allow Rosen to attend a board session in the kingdom.

"I'm sure there will be a meeting," he said.

Among its directors are leading figures in interfaith dialogue such as Rabbi Rosen, Metropolitan Emmanuel of the Greek Orthodox Church, Rev Miguel Ayuso of the Vatican interreligious department and Rev Toby Howarth of the Church of England.

The Muslims are two Sunnis - Saudi education professor Hamad al-Majed, Mohammad Sammak of Lebanon's National Committee for Christian-Muslim Dialogue - and the Shi'ite historian Seyyed Mohajerani from Iran.

Swami Agnivesh, Indian head of the Hindu reform movement Arya Samaj, and Rev Kosho Niwano of the Japanese Buddhist lay movement Rissho Kosei-kai are the other two directors.

California Terror Suspects: 2 of 4 Were New Islamic Converts

By Gillian Flaccus (AP, November 21, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38563/

Upland, USA — Three of the young men swept up in a federal terrorism probe grew up in the Southern California suburbs where they played pick-up basketball, ran for homecoming court and sparred in video games with neighborhood kids – a far cry from the wannabe terrorists described by the FBI.

Two of the men converted to Islam less than two years ago and the third, an American-born Vietnamese Muslim, drifted into their orbit as recently as September after a game of paintball. He also is an unemployed high school dropout and new father.

The rapid evolution from suburban teen to aspiring jihadist alleged in court documents blindsided family members, but experts who study homegrown terrorism said the case highlights the susceptibility of new converts to radicalization, particularly among the young.

Conversion to Islam requires just a single statement of faith, but the newly faithful must then choose among a universe of competing interpretations of Islam, many overtly political and easily available on the Internet.

"To convert to Islam you just have to make one statement of faith: `There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.' But these people did that and then they feel they are Muslim," said Muhamad Ali, an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, and an expert in Islamic studies.

"They might pray five times a day, they might fast, but they don't see Islam in a comprehensive way. Education and understanding are critical and one of the challenges in the United States is to make sure that these converts are in the right hands."

According to court documents, the four men arrested late last week found trouble from the start.

Two of the members of what the FBI called an extremist network – Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, and Ralph Deleon, 23 – converted after meeting Sohiel Omar Kabir in an Ontario, Calif., hookah bar. The naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan introduced them to the radical Islamist doctrine of the U.S.-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed last year in an American airstrike in Yemen, according to court files unsealed this week.

Kabir, 34, later returned to Afghanistan but continued to give direction to the Southern California men on Skype. He was taken into custody last weekend.

The fourth defendant, 21-year-old Arifeen David Gojali, joined the group in September after they played paintball together to sharpen their shooting skills, according to court documents.

The father of a baby girl had moved out of his parents' home two months ago and drifted away as he fell under the sway of Deleon, who was a charismatic and popular worshipper at the mosque the two attended, Gojali's younger sister told The Associated Press.

His family didn't know of his arrest until news reports earlier this week and was shocked at what they heard, said the sister, 18, who requested anonymity because she did not want to be associated with the alleged crimes.

"What a lot of the news channels are saying is the first time I'm hearing about it and the first time my family's hearing about it," she said.

All four men are facing charges of providing material support to terrorists, which can carry a maximum 15-year prison sentence.

Authorities won't say how the investigation began, but at least two members of the group shared their beliefs on Facebook and held Skype phone calls with Kabir – all of which was recorded by an FBI informant or captured by agents monitoring their activity.

Covert FBI agents had conversations with Santana online, where he expressed his support of jihad and desire to join al-Qaida, authorities said.

Defense attorneys for Gojali and Santana did not return calls seeking comment. Deleon's lawyer, Randolph Driggs, declined to comment about the charges against his client.

Their plans were to advance Sunday with a flight to Istanbul – and then to Afghanistan where Kabir said he had set up meetings with terrorists – but the men were arrested two days before. Before their departure, they had scrubbed their Facebook profiles of Islamic references and planned to leave goodbye letters and invented a cover story about attending a wedding in Afghanistan.

Despite their aspirations, the three probably weren't likely to find themselves on the front lines of a jihad any time soon, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan think tank focused on national security and foreign policy.

Recent history is cluttered with instances of radicalized Muslims from the U.S. and other Western nations who traveled to Afghanistan or Pakistan to join the jihad, only to find themselves turned away or strung along, he said. Little has been publicly released about Kabir, the alleged recruiter, but it's unlikely he would have been in a position to secure a spot for the three in any important operations, he added.

"It's quite possible these guys would have gotten the cold shoulder had they gone over there," he said. "They're not really useful guys, they're not people who have a great deal of knowledge about the U.S. that could benefit the Taliban organization, they don't have skill sets. The best things they have to offer are their passports and their ethnicity."

That's little solace for their families – or for Muslims who worry cases like this are a symptom of a whole generation of new converts who have little in common with organized worship and the mosque communities that traditionally provide religious education and spiritual guidance.

"The imams should reach out. They have to make the mosques interesting and attractive to young generations and try to understand their psychology, try to address their concerns and have a dialogue," said Ali, the UC Riverside professor.

"They cannot just say `Islam is a religion of peace' and do nothing. To me, this is a really a challenge for imams, to really address the issue," he said. "They cannot deny it's happening, even though it's a very small minority."

70% of French people favor establishment of Islamic parties: Poll

By ("Press TV," November 22, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38562/

A new opinion poll indicates a growing support for political Islam in France, with nearly 70 percent of respondents advocating establishment of Islamic political parties in the country.

The survey conducted by IFOP (French Institute of Public Opinion) in October 24-27, was released on November 7 showing that 68 percent of the respondents agreed with the idea of establishment of Islamic political parties in France.

Meanwhile, 26 percent of the respondents were against this issue and six percent had no idea, the poll said.

The results of the new survey show a growing support for and declining opposition to the idea of forming Islamic parties in France, as a previous IFOP poll in 2011 indicated that 52 percent of the respondents agreed with the issue while 45 percent of them opposed the idea.

Many prominent sociopolitical analysts, including Francois Picard and Gilles Kepel, contend that institutionalizing Islamic movements in the West will benefit both the Muslims and the political systems in the Western countries, as political participation of the Islamic groups prevents illegal and underground political activities.

The growing support for promotion of political Islam in France comes in defiance of the West’s orchestrated campaign to incite Islamophobia across the world.

In a latest instance of the West’s Islamophobia campaign, the sacrilegious US film “Innocence of Muslims” sparked an outrage across the Muslim world and triggered mass demos outside US embassies in many countries in Early September.

Anti-West sentiments among Muslims reached a new high when the French weekly Charlie Hebdo printed insulting cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) on September 19.

What do religious leaders want for Obama’s next four years?

By Adelle M. Banks ("The Washington Post," November 7, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38533/

Washington — Addressing poverty. Seeking reconciliation. Protecting religious freedom. Religious leaders already have their wish lists ready for President Obama’s second term. Here are 10 officials’ thoughts about what they’d like to see in the next four years. Some responses have been edited for length and clarity:

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council

It’s an opportunity to build on the foundation built the last four years, one of engagement and more inclusion of American Muslims in policy-making, both on the domestic and international fronts. Key issues will be bolstering partnerships with law enforcement for national security, working within faith-based government programs, and building bridges with the Muslim world that will help the U.S. navigate new frontiers of democracy and old battlegrounds of violent extremism.

Kathryn Mary Lohre, president of the National Council of Churches

As followers of Christ, we hope and work for a world in which people have nutritious food to eat, safe water to drink, affordable places to live, access to quality medical care, and opportunities for fulfilling work. Recent figures show that more than one in seven Americans — and one in five children — are living in poverty. President Obama, we now join others in calling you to account for this commitment ... to adopt and implement bold policies that will provide for “the least of these” (Matthew 25), addressing the root causes of poverty, and creating life-giving vocational opportunities. Eradicating poverty is a moral issue. As we join you in partnership, we will join you also in prayer.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

President Obama’s re-election offers an opportunity for the gifted motivator to convert rhetoric into action. My prayer is that our president advances an agenda that protects life, strengthens the family, protects religious liberty, while globally advocating for religious pluralism, especially in Muslim nations. In addition, I pray that our president engages his Christian optics in the spirit of reconciliation for the purpose of healing our nation. This will require him to provide not just political but moral leadership that refuses to sacrifice truth on the altar of political expediency. Let President Obama re-emerge with the spirit of his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, resulting in a collective understanding that the kingdom of God is not red state or blue state, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops hopes the 2013-2016 Presidential administration:

* Will back legislation that protects the vulnerable, including infants in utero or the elderly in their waning days on earth and everyone in between.

* Will support efforts to help immigrants seeking refuge and citizenship in America.

* Addresses the problem of the widespread poverty that stands as blight upon our nation.

* Recognizes the need to show support for religious liberty, a concern of many different religious groups.

* Supports legislation on the institution of marriage that guarantees a child’s right to be raised in a loving home by a caring mother and father.

* Works to restore civility in dialogue and bipartisanship in government so all Americans can work as one for the spiritual and material health of our country and our world.

The Rev. Carroll A. Baltimore Sr., president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention

It is my sincere desire that President Obama will lead in addressing the issues of poverty and its long-term effects on our entire society. We rarely hear the term “poverty.” It’s a very revealing term and other words have been substituted to remove the reality and responsibility that we have to deal with poverty. Over the past decades, we have cut critical social and educational programs that have plummeted countless children and adults into poverty. The economic implications of poverty are felt globally, and really need to be addressed on an international scale. We need to enact policies and practices that lift people out of poverty. The religious community, and other entities are doing a great deal to help, but our policies and laws need to be revisited. It is impossible to secure the future of our children under these circumstances. As we claim to be the wealthiest nation in the world, my desire is that President Obama will lead the way in bringing other global leaders together and develop global policies and practices that will alleviate the staggering number of children and adults experiencing abject poverty.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

The people have spoken. Now the really difficult battles are about to begin. Our nation is in dire need of sound, principled leadership. I submit the following requests, which I believe are essential to the future stability and prosperity of our nation:

* Defend the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death in all laws and all medical programs, government and private;

* Respect and protect religious freedom and freedom of conscience for all Americans in any medical delivery and health insurance programs;

* Defend the sanctity of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman in federal and state law;

* Forge a bipartisan program to cut the national debt and stimulate economic growth;

* Lead a bipartisan effort to bring about significant, meaningful, fair, and just immigration reform;

* Unequivocally support Israel’s right to exist within secure and defensible borders and her right not to be threatened with nuclear annihilation by the genocidal regime in Tehran;

* Lead a national bipartisan effort to reduce the impact of hardcore pornography and to eliminate the sex trafficking for which pornography produces the consumer demand.

Clearly, this would be an ambitious agenda. Yet I believe the American people are ready and would help advance each of those goals. We are ready for principled leadership. I commit to pray that God will enable President Obama to lead us to real, God-honoring solutions that will make a significant impact toward us becoming a more moral, more unified people.

The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World

This election is the first step in what we are hoping will be a strong U.S. commitment to ending hunger — both domestically and globally. For more than a year, Christian leaders have come together to advocate for the formation of a “Circle of Protection” around funding for programs that are vital to hungry and poor people. As people of faith, it is now our responsibility to hold our newly elected president accountable for taking a stance against hunger and poverty.

There is more than enough food to feed the more than 7 billion people around the world, yet hunger and poverty persist on a large scale, even in the United States. Finding solutions to these issues will require the dedication of all leaders — whether they be Republicans or Democrats. As the new president takes his oath of office, we want him to lead the way in ending hunger at home and abroad. During his four-year term, we expect the president to set a goal to end hunger while ensuring that we do not balance the federal budget on the backs of hungry and poor people.

Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals

Most campaign speeches end with the words “God bless the United States of America.” I believe God has blessed our nation and my number one prayer and hope for the president over the next four years is that God will continue to bless America under his leadership. My desire is that President Obama and his administration will bring Americans together in peace without a national crisis and will fulfill the vision of the Old Testament prophet Micah: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

I would like to see a president committed to continued American leadership in the defense of civil liberties. The president should work with Congress to end indefinite detention without trial of citizens and others. The president should also lead a vocal campaign in opposition to anti-Islam legislation that is sweeping the nation. And I think it is time we found out why some American citizens, almost exclusively Muslim, are being denied the fundamental right to return to their country.

My “wish list” for the White House:

* Repeal the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.

* Work to pass both the End Racial Profiling Act and Safe Schools Improvement Act.

* Close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and end the unconstitutional practice of prolonged detention outside of our nation’s justice system.

* Reassess the nation’s CIA/military drone strike program that has led to civilian deaths in Pakistan (now being expanded to the Horn of Africa) and harmed America’s image and interests.

* Reassess the nation’s policy of assassinating American citizens overseas.

* End the questioning of Muslims at the U.S. border about their faith and religious observances.

* Reassess the nation’s policy of preventing some American Muslim citizens from returning home after overseas travels.

* Review the nation’s Watch List program to make it easier for individuals wrongly placed on the list to have their names removed.

* End the CIA’s relationship with the New York Police Department to spy on American Muslims.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Someday, a president may take the oath of office and find himself with a prospering nation, budget surpluses and a world at peace. Jan. 20, 2013 will not be that day. Instead, the newly inaugurated president will face a host of challenges at home and abroad. The voices of people of faith “speaking truth to power” as the president decides how to meet those challenges will be more vital than ever.

During the campaign, discussion of our responsibilities to provide a safety net to the poor were alarmingly absent. Our voices must be raised on behalf of Americans struggling to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, even as some misguidedly call for weakening parts of that safety net from food stamps to Medicaid to Social Security.

It is unlikely that we will quickly find consensus on gay marriage; allowing states to continue to make their own decisions is the right course to follow at this time. But until the past few years, there was significant Republican support for a law that would ban employment discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. A concerted effort for passage now could attract the support of those Republican legislators determined to heal some of our nation’s wounds.

So, too, on immigration. Actions must be taken to address the plight of undocumented immigrants who too often live in the shadows even as they contribute to and are a vital part of the fabric of our communities, including implementation of the Dream Act provisions the first Obama administration began. The results of this election reflect the need for both parties to address the needs of the Latino community more assertively than they have before.

Pakistan's minority Hindus feel under attack

By Rebecca Santana (AP, November 8, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38541/

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — They came after dusk and chanted into the night sky "Kill the Hindus, kill the children of the Hindus," as they smashed religious icons, ripped golden bangles off women's arms and flashed pistols. It wasn't the first time that the Hindu temple on the outskirts of Pakistan's largest city was attacked, and residents here fear it will not be the last.

"People don't consider us as equal citizens. They beat us whenever they want," said Mol Chand, one of the teenage boys gathered at the temple. "We have no place to worship now."

It was the second time the Sri Krishna Ram temple has been attacked, and this time the mob didn't even bother to disguise their faces. The small temple, surrounded by a stone wall, is a tiny religious outpost in a dusty, hardscrabble neighborhood so far on the outskirts of the city that a sign on the main road wishes people leaving Karachi a good journey.

Local Muslim residents blamed people from a nearby ethnic Pashtun village for the attack, which took place in late September on the Day of Love for the Prophet, a national holiday declared by the government in response to an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. No one was seriously injured in the attack.

It was the latest in a rising tide of violence and discrimination against Hindus in this 95 percent Muslim country, where Islamic extremism is growing. Pakistan's Hindu community says it faces forced conversions of Hindu girls to Islam, a lack of legal recognition for their marriages, discrimination in services and physical abuse when they venture into the streets.

The story of the Hindu population in Pakistan is one of long decline. During partition in 1947, the violent separation of Pakistan and India into separate countries, hundreds of thousands of Hindus opted to migrate to India where Hinduism is the dominant religion. Those that remained and their descendants now make up a tiny fraction of Pakistan's estimated 190 million citizens, and are mostly concentrated in Sindh province in the southern part of the country.

Signs of their former stature abound in Karachi, the capital of Sindh. At the 150-year-old Swami Narayan Temple along one of the city's main roads, thousands of Hindus gather during the year to celebrate major religious holidays. Hindus at the 200-year-old Laxmi Narain Temple scatter the ashes of their cremated loved ones in the waters of an inlet from the Arabian Ocean.

But there are also signs of how far the community has fallen. Residents in a city hungry for land have begun to build over Hindu cemeteries, the community's leaders say. Hindus helped build Karachi's port decades ago, but none work there now.

Estimates of the size of the Hindu population in Pakistan are all over the map — from 2.5 million or 10 million in Sindh province alone to 7 million across the country — a reflection of the fact that the country hasn't had a census since 1998.

It isn't just Hindus who are facing problems. Other minorities like Christians, the mystical Muslim branch of Sufis and the Ahmadi sect have found themselves under attack in Pakistan, where the rise of Muslim fundamentalists has sometimes unleashed a violent opposition against those who don't follow their strict religious tenets.

The discrimination has prompted some Hindus to leave for India, activists warn, though the extent is not known. Around 3,000 Hindus left this year, part of a migration that began four years ago, sparked by discrimination and a general rise in crime in Sindh, said DM Maharaj, who heads an organization to help Hindus called Pakistan Hindu Sabha.

He said he recently talked to a group of Hindus preparing to move to India from rural Sindh, complaining that they can't eat in Muslim restaurants or that Muslim officials turned them down for farming loans. Even during recent floods, they said Muslims did not want them staying in the same refugee camps.

Other Hindu figures such as provincial assembly member Pitamber Sewami deny there's a migration at all, in a reflection of how sensitive the issue is. Earlier this year, there were a string of reports in Pakistani media about Hindus leaving the country, sparking a flurry of promises by Pakistani officials to investigate.

In India, a Home office official said the Indian government noticed an upward trend of people coming from Pakistan but called reports of Pakistanis fleeing to India "exaggerated." He said he does not have exact figures on how many Pakistani Hindus have stayed in India after entering the country on tourist visas. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

There's more of a consensus of the seriousness of the problem of forced conversion of Hindus.

Zohra Yusuf, the president of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says the pattern goes like this: A Hindu girl goes missing and then resurfaces days or weeks later married to a Muslim boy. During court hearings to determine whether the conversion was voluntary, students from nearby Islamic schools called madrassas often flood the room, trying to intimidate the judges by chanting demands that the conversion be confirmed.

Maharaj says he's tried to intervene in roughly 100 cases of forced conversions but has only succeeded in returning a girl safely back to her family once. If a girl decides to renounce Islam and return to Hinduism, she could be signing a death warrant for herself and her family even if her conversion was forced.

The Hindu community has also been hurt by a lack of unity within its ranks. Hindu society within Pakistan and elsewhere has historically been divided by caste, a system of social stratification in which the lower castes are often seen as inferior. Members of the lower castes in Pakistan say it wasn't until two girls from a high-caste family were forcibly converted this year that high-caste Hindus took the issue seriously, although it's been happening for years.

"We always fight our war ourselves," said Bholoo Devjee, a Hindu activist from Karachi, speaking about the lower castes.

In recent months the government has begun to take the concerns of the Hindu community more seriously. In Sindh province, legislators proposed a law to prevent forced conversions in part by implementing a waiting period before a marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim can go forward, and there's discussion about proposing such a law on the national level as well.

In the case of the Sri Krishna Ram temple, law enforcement authorities opened a blasphemy case against the people who rampaged through the building. But residents here are skeptical that these developments signify any long-term improvement in their plight. Weeks after the incident no arrests have been made, and the Hindus complain that no high-ranking Hindu officials have come to visit them or help them get compensation.

Sunda Maharaj, the spiritual leader at the temple, which was first attacked in January 2011, said he and the other residents do not want to move to India. "We are Pakistani," he said.

But he would like more help from the government, specifically a checkpoint to stop people from getting close to the temple and money for the Hindus to buy weapons.

"Next time anyone comes we can kill them or die defending our temple," he said.

Religious Vote Data Show Shifts In Obama's Faith-Based Support

By Jaweed Kaleem ("Huffington Post," November 7, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38539/

Just as President Barack Obama's support varied greatly from state to state on Tuesday, he also did well among certain religious groups and not so well among others in his defeat of Mitt Romney. A Pew Forum analysis of nearly final exit poll data, released on Wednesday, found that Obama won among Catholics, Jews and non-whites across religious traditions, but saw dips in his support among white evangelicals and white Catholics, among others.

"The basic religious contours of the 2012 electorate resemble recent elections -- traditionally Republican groups such as white evangelicals and weekly churchgoers strongly backed Romney, while traditionally Democratic groups such as black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated backed Obama by large margins," said the Pew analysis.

While the broad makeup of religious preferences did not drastically change, there were shifts in support for Obama since 2008. His share of the vote increased among four religious groups identified in exit polling data: Hispanic Catholics (from 72 percent to 75 percent), black Protestants (from 94 percent to 95 percent), non-Protestant black Christians (from 94 percent to 95 percent), and those affiliated with Islam and "other faiths" (from 73 percent to 74 percent).

The president lost support among most religious groups as defined by the exit polls. The biggest drop came in the Jewish vote, which fell 9 points, from 78 percent in 2008 to 69 percent this year. Forty percent of white Catholics supported Obama, compared to 47 percent when he beat Sen. John McCain, and 20 percent of white born-again Christians and evangelicals backed the president, compared to 26 percent the last time.

Romney won the white born-again Christian and evangelical vote handily, with 79 percent nationwide saying they had cast ballots for him.

Yet in one battleground state, Ohio, the president improved his share among white evangelicals by 8 points to 29 percent. The group's slice of Ohio's electorate was 31 percent, nearly the same as in 2008.

The GOP nominee's own faith, Mormonism, was a hot topic during the campaign, and 78 percent of the traditionally Republican Mormon electorate supported their coreligionist. Obama took 21 percent of the Mormon vote, a 3-point increase over the percentage who said they voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004. That year, President George W. Bush received 80 percent of Mormon votes. (National exit poll data on Mormon voter preferences were not released in 2008.)

The division between people who attend religious services more often and those who attend less often was similar to that of previous elections. "Nearly six-in-ten voters who say they attend religious services at least once a week voted for Romney, while 39 percent backed Obama. Romney received as much support from weekly churchgoers as other Republican candidates have in recent elections," the Pew analysis noted. "More than six-in-ten voters who say they never attend religious services voted for Obama. Voters who say they attend religious services a few times a month or a few times a year also supported Obama over Romney by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin."

Demographically, exit poll results echoed prior surveys in finding a decreasing share of Protestants and white Protestants among the nation's religious population. About 53 percent of voters on Tuesday identified as Protestant, compared to 54 percent in the three prior presidential elections. Some 39 percent were white Protestants, a group that made up 42 percent of voters in the prior two elections.

But white evangelical Protestants increased their slice of the electorate -- from 21 percent in 2004 to 23 percent in 2008 to 24 percent this year.

About one-quarter of 2012 voters were Catholic, a decrease of 2 percent since 2008. About one-fifth of those Catholic voters were Hispanic.

The exit polls showed that Jews made up two percent of the electorate, which is unchanged since 2008. Muslims and people of "other faiths" made up about 7 percent of voters this year, while religiously unaffiliated voters were about 12 percent of the electorate.

"The religiously unaffiliated share of the electorate is unchanged from 2008, even though the religiously unaffiliated share of the adult population has grown significantly over this period," the Pew report noted.

Exit poll results are collected by New Jersey-based Edison Media Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of ABC, Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS and the Associated Press. National results are based on a sample of 20,000 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.

While a host of questions, including religious identification and views on abortion, were asked in each state, the kind of data on religious voters that's available differ by state. That's because some states do not have enough minority religious group members, such as Mormons and Muslims, to provide statistically significant numbers given the sample size, said Joe Lenksi, executive vice president of Edison Research. In addition, Lenski said, the National Election Pool decreased its sample size in 19 states this year -- including several with major populations of conservative Christians, such as Kentucky and Georgia -- and therefore did not have a large enough sample to produce a state-specific breakdown of exit polls for those states.