ExChristian.Net - News and Opinion

2010-02-21T16:05:00.003-05:00

It's Trendy to have a Non-White Child

2010-02-01T18:14:00.001-05:00

By Daniel Brown

The American Baptists who journeyed to Haiti in recent days to round up black kids and take them to the Dominican Republic no doubt had plans to make them available for adoption in the US. The ultimate plan was not part of “doing the right thing for Jesus”, but rather a need to feed the trendy movement in suburban, white, Christian circles to have a dark-skinned child. Once adopted, these children are held up as trophies symbolizing the parents’ religiosity. “Steven Curtis Chapman does it, so we should do it.”

Some of the children begged, “Don’t take me. I have parents!” These objections were overlooked in the name of Jesus and American chauvinism. It’s pathetic and wrong. It makes you wonder how many other non-white children adopted into Christian families were stolen.

Baptist "Human Trafficking" Update: Some Haitian Children Weren't Orphans

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CBS/AP) As a group of American Baptist charity workers waits to hear if they will be tried on child trafficking charges for attempting to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the Associated Press has learned that not all of the children they were transporting were orphans.

Photo: Infant who was amongst group that Baptists wanted to move to Haiti is seen at SOS Children's Villages.

"One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," George Willeit, a spokesman for SOS Children's Villages, said. SOS, an Austrian-based charity working in Haiti, now has custody of the children.

Willeit said the children arrived "very hungry, very thirsty." A 2- to 3-month-old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. Workers were searching for their families or close relatives.

Child welfare groups expressed outrage over Friday's attempt to move the kids to a hotel in the Dominic Republic, saying some of the children had parents who survived the Jan. 12 earthquake. Prime Minister Max Bellerive denounced the group's "illegal trafficking of children" in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

But while the church workers may be viewed as "traffickers" in Haiti, they say they came armed only with good intentions. They were "just trying to do the right thing," said Laura Silsby, a spokeswoman for the Idaho church group. She conceded that amidst the chaos, she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children.

The Baptists' "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.

They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children's home.

The group's actions are further complicated by a view amongst some Haitian parents that giving a child up for adoption to foreigners may be their best chance for a future.

"My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance," Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six living outside in a tent camp near the airport said Sunday. "My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn't affect my decision."

"Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners," said Adonis Helman, 44. "I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give."

For now, the Haitian government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake. Prime Minister Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

Haiti has long been a hub for sex trafficking as well as the trafficking of children for domestic slavery within the country.

A commission will meet Monday to decide if the church members would go before a judge. They remain in custody, but not in jail.

The arrested Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.

The Idaho churches had elaborate plans before the earthquake to shelter up to 200 Haitian and Dominican boys and girls in the Magante beach resort, complete with a school and chapel as well as villas and a seaside cafe catering to adoptive U.S. parents.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Should the Baptist group be viewed as saviors or kidnappers?

-- STORY LINK

Irish Blasphemy Law

2010-01-22T03:15:00.000-05:00

Image by altemark via Flickr

By Dealdoctor

You might enjoy reading about this historic American blasphemy trial before reading the article below which points out that Ireland has brought it all back again.

I understand as well that the United Nations also wants to make it unlawful to speak against religion, supposedly in the interest of community cohesion. Can you imagine cops standing behind a preacher to insure you either say "Amen" or keep your mouth shut?! No free speech and no free press where religion is in control! Remember the time of book burnings?

Welcome back to medieval times

By John Shelby Spong

The recently passed law in Ireland against blasphemy, which threatens $35,000 fines for any person who "publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion," is a weird throwback to the medieval mentality. It also reflects a period of Irish history in which the tie-in between church and state was so intertwined as to be synonymous. To be Irish was to be Roman Catholic. To be Roman Catholic was to be Irish. If this law is not overturned Ireland can no longer claim to be a participant in the modern world.

The existence of this law also reveals the low status now enjoyed by traditional forms of religion that needs to be examined and raised to consciousness. First, do religious leaders not understand any religion that needs to be protected from criticism by an imposed legal requirement indicates that it has no ability to stand on its own? Second, surely it must be assumed that any religious system seeking the protection of such a law is admitting that it intends to force its agenda on the entire nation and that this law will be used to mute any opposition to that agenda.

I have no problem with any religion entity requiring that its beliefs and values be honored by its own members, even by the imposition of excommunication from that faith community of those who in good conscience cannot accept those beliefs and values. No one, however, should be subjected politically or legally to the values of a religious system that is not his or her own. It seems to me that the separation of church and state was designed to meet that situation quite specifically.

We have seen the harm created in the past when this line was crossed and the legal process was used to obstruct birth control and family planning, to outlaw abortion in all situations and to make illegal any end of life counseling, including the use of palliative techniques that end suffering, but may shorten life. Such practices almost inevitably will make religion a political issue and this law would require opponents of such practices to be silent.

Did the Muslims who were being killed as infidels by Christians during the Crusades not have a right loudly and publicly to denounce Christianity for initiating these killings? What would this law have done to them? Did those Christians, atheists or the non-believers who were defined by their attackers as "infidels" and killed or who had their loved ones killed by fundamentalist Muslims not have a right loudly and publicly to denounce the religion that was destroying them? Would the existence of a law like this Irish law not have commanded their silence? Do the Jews who have suffered centuries of anti-Semitism at the hands of the Christians who have controlled the governments of most Western nations in modern history, not have a right loudly and publicly to condemn their persecutors and the religion that seems to inspire their suffering? Would not a law like this have criminal their just protest?

The assumption behind such a law seems to be that it is impossible for religion to do wrong and thus religion is allowed legally to stand above criticism. History has rendered such a sentimental judgment to be non-sensical. I was raised inside an evangelical Southern Christian tradition that taught me that segregation was the will of God, that women were by nature inferior, that it was OK to hate other religions and especially the Jews, and that homosexuality was either a lifestyle choice made by morally depraved people so that ought to be suppressed, punished and even executed. Matthew Sheppard in Wyoming is a recent victim of this reality. If homosexuality is not a choice, I was taught that it was a mental disease for which a cure should be sought. That was what their religion had taught them to believe and so they passed it on as a virtuous thing to do to me.

The leaders of my Southern church quoted the scriptures that they called "the Word of God" to justify each of these evils. Had this Irish law been in effect, members of the civil rights movement, the women's liberation movement, those who worked against anti-Semitism and the Gay Rights movement, to say nothing of the movement toward critical biblical scholarship in the life of Christianity itself, would all have been subject to these fines. Criticism of the abuses of religion is as essential to human freedom as criticism of the abuses of government is. This law would make such criticism illegal and punishable by significant penalties

If I lived in Ireland and had to face the imposition of this law, I would begin my attack on its credibility by seeking to discover and to expose the sources of support for such a law. Who is pressing for the creation of such a law? What is their agenda? How hidden are their real motives? Since the overwhelmingly dominant religious tradition in Ireland is the Roman Catholic Church, I would be compelled to wonder how and why its passage might serve that institution's needs. Would such a law, for example, be used to stop Irish citizens from criticizing the behavior of Roman Catholic leaders in Ireland as the atrocious record of child abuse on the part of its priests and nuns and its hierarchy's shameful record in covering up these overt crimes becomes public knowledge? Is this the source of the public pressure to pass this law? Would it be used to stop lawsuits that are based on both the abuse and the official cover-up that have now issued in multi-million dollar settlements as well as the resignation of several bishops and the documented fact that successive Irish archbishops were thoroughly involved in the cover-up?

Only when I see who and what would be protected under this law and who and what might be imperiled, can I make sense out of such an arcane and offensive new law. Religion, no less than any other human institution can become demonic. No state should assist in that process by making critical statements about religious practices that might be offensive to religious adherents illegal. I hope this law will be overturned by the good sense of the Irish people. To start that overturning process today would not be soon enough.

Pastor Convicted of Killing Wife

2010-01-21T13:46:00.001-05:00

WACO, Texas — After convicting a former Texas minister of killing his wife, jurors on Thursday were to hear new evidence — possibly about sexual advances toward other women — as the punishment phase began.

Matt Baker, 38, faces up to life in prison for drugging and suffocating his wife, Kari, then faking her suicide note in 2006. Jurors deliberated more than seven hours before finding him guilty late Wednesday.

Prosecutors notified defense attorneys before the trial began that they planned to present evidence that Baker made sexual advances toward at least a dozen women, including some underage girls, over the past 18 years. Testimony about the allegations could come during the sentencing hearing, as they were mentioned during trial only in a vague comment by Baker's ex-mistress.

The case almost never went to trial. Kari Baker's death was originally ruled a suicide, but authorities reopened the case several months later after her parents shared evidence obtained for their wrongful death lawsuit against Baker.

"We did it," a sobbing Linda Dulin, Kari's mother, said late Wednesday as she left the courtroom and embraced relatives and friends.

Baker did not testify during the seven-day trial and showed no emotion when the verdict was read. After the judge revoked his bond, Baker shook his attorney's hand and said "thank you" before a sheriff's deputy took him into custody.

A gag order on attorneys was to remain in effect until after sentencing.

Jurors were instructed that to find Baker guilty, they had to agree on two things: that Baker drugged his wife and that he suffocated her with a pillow.

Earlier Wednesday, jurors asked whether they could find Baker guilty without agreeing he smothered her. State District Judge Ralph Strother told them in a note to follow the original instructions, but he did not repeat the wording.

Jurors also found themselves at odds over the testimony of Vanessa Bulls, Baker's former mistress.

They sent the judge a note saying there were disagreements about her testimony regarding "what went on" between her and Baker at his daughter's birthday slumber party two weeks after his wife's death, and what she told investigators last year.

Bulls had testified that during the party, she stayed up all night talking to the girls and did not have sex with Baker. Bulls also testified that she told investigators last year that she and Baker had sex that night. Jurors requested and were given part of the trial transcript.

During closing arguments, Susan Shafer said Baker had told a "web of lies" since his wife's death in their home in Hewitt, a Waco suburb.

She said Kari's upbeat e-mails about a new job just before her death contradicted Baker's story that she killed herself because she was depressed over their middle daughter's 1999 cancer death.

Bulls, who was granted immunity, testified that Baker told her he slipped his wife the prescription sleep aid Ambien, handcuffed her to the bed under the guise of spicing up their marriage, and smothered her with a pillow after she fell asleep. Baker then typed a suicide note and rubbed his wife's lifeless hand over it in case authorities tested for fingerprints, Bulls testified.

The medical examiner overseeing the autopsy testified that signs of smothering were hard to detect and that he did not see any trauma to Kari's body. But another medical examiner who reviewed the autopsy results said he saw an abrasion on Kari's nose consistent with being smothered.

Shafer also urged jurors to note Baker's contradictory statements in his civil lawsuit deposition and in television interviews.

"She was in the way of the life that he had envisioned for himself, and he was a Baptist preacher and he couldn't divorce; he'd lose his job, and he'd have trouble getting another one," Shafer told jurors.

Defense attorney Guy James Gray said Baker was on trial for murder only because he had lied about having an affair.

Gray said an autopsy report listed the cause of death as undetermined, and the partial palm print on the suicide note could have been Kari's because an expert ruled out Baker and investigators who may have touched it.

Kari Baker's fingerprints and palm prints could not be obtained. Her body was exhumed for the autopsy three months after her death amid suspicions she did not kill herself.

Defense attorney Harold Danford said many prosecution witnesses were brought in "to make you mad at Matt" and urged jurors not to vote with their emotions.

Gray also said Bulls was not credible and "may be pathological" because she repeatedly lied to police and others during the investigation.

Prosecutor Crawford Long said Bulls eventually told the truth about her affair and knowing how Kari died, even though "everything she said makes her look worse and worse, and that's why you know it's true."

STORY LINK

Related Story: LINK

Bible Band-aide

2010-01-20T19:51:00.002-05:00

By Ayhwh

What do you do when praying for the Haitian disaster just does not seem to be enough? When you feel like you should do something more concrete to help? No, don’t send aid money . . . that would be just stupid. You should send solar powered audio Bibles called Proclaimers.

In an echo of the biblical story of Joshua and the destruction of Jericho. After, according to Pat Robertson, God destroyed Haiti, a group called the Faith Comes by Hearing Organization has stormed in to convert the sinners. USA Today reported:

“Amid the massive effort to ship tons of food, water and medicine to quake-ravaged Haiti, one U.S. religious group is rushing in hundreds of solar-powered Bibles. The Bibles, sent by the Faith Comes by Hearing organization, can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time.

Jon Wilke, a spokesperson for the Albuquerque-based group, says 600 audio Bibles, called ‘Proclaimers,’ are en route and there is an ‘immediate need’ for another 3,000 Proclaimers.”

How in the world does Wilke come to the conclusion that there is an “immediate need” for another 3,000 of his groups audio bibles. Buildings are collapsing, people really do need food and water, there are thousands and thousands dead and dying, but what they really need is an audio bible. It is beyond ridiculous.

"We want to equip short-term groups, disaster relief teams, church teams and other ministries with the Word of God in a format the people can use," Wilkes says in a statement on the group's website.”

Because that is what people going down in disaster relief teams should really be concerning themselves with. This shows the complete and utter insensitivity of these people. With over 100,000 people sleeping on the streets, they are attempting to proselytize.

This kind of profiteering on such a horrible disaster makes me sick. If Jesus could bring any sort of help to these people, then there would have been no earthquake in the first place. It just goes to show you that Christians don’t really care about the victims and what they have gone through. The only thing they care about is proselytizing. The virus must be past on, and who better to infect than the weak?

Pastor indicted on child pornography related charges

2010-01-15T04:32:00.003-05:00

LUBBOCK, TX - A federal grand jury indicts a former Lubbock pastor for his alleged involvement in child pornography.

Fifty-seven year old Dean Richard Tarkington, who was arrested last month, is indicted on two counts of attempted enticement of a child, two counts of attempted production of child pornography, and two counts of attempted possession of child pornography.

If convicted on all counts, Tarkington would face up to life in prison and a $2.25 million dollar fine.

Tarkington was pastor of Word of Faith Christian Center in Lubbock Texas.

More on this story at http://lubbockonline.com/stories/010710/loc_543692220.shtml

Christian Hypocrisy

2010-01-14T04:49:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

By Yellowcat

I was watching "Hardball with Chris Matthews" when I witnessed what might be the most offensive thing I have ever seen or heard in my life. While discussing the tragedy unfolding in the impoverished nation of Haiti, Mr. Matthews played a clip from Televangelist giant Pat Robertson. Mr. Robertson, one of the most vile humans to ever draw breath, gave an "explanation" for this disaster.

During the colonial days of Haiti, the people, suffering under the tyrannic rule of Napoleon, (he actually said it was Napoleon the 3rd. I am not familiar enough with the history of Hispaniola to judge accuracy) asked Satan to deliver them from the rule of their oppressors. So, according to Robertson, Satan agrees and drove the French from the Island. Feeling betrayed, God, that pillar of compassion and benevolence (sarcasm mine) has been punishing the people of Haiti ever since for their fall from Grace.

Besides the obvious depravity of Pat Robertson, using human suffering on such a scale to score cheap brownie points with his creator, he may have said something he never intended. By his own recount, the people of Haiti were suffering under a tyrant. God did nothing to held the oppressed, but Satan did lend a hand, for which God has been trying to get even for generations. By his own account, God is a monster, apathetic to suffering and petty in posterity, and Satan is the only member of the divine echelon to give a shit about poor, suffering people under the thumb of a cruel dictator.

Of course, the reason for this grotesque rationalization: why does God allow horrible things to happen to good people. There is no satisfactory answer to this question for the Christians, so an excuse must be manufactured. Furthermore, Mr. Robertson is setting on a tax-free empire worth billions; he could solve all the problems in Haiti with a single check, but that would make him less intensely wealthy.

Oregon City trial raises new questions in faith-healing debate

2010-01-12T02:06:00.001-05:00

Jeff Beagley (center) reacts minutes after his son-in-law, Carl Brent Worthington (right), was sentenced to two months in jail for criminal mistreatment in the faith-healing death of his 15-month-old daughter, Ava. Beagley, the father of Raylene Worthington (left), and his wife, Marci, now face trial in a similar case, the faith-healing death of his 16-year-old son, Neil.

When an Oregon City couple go on trial this week in the faith-healing death of their son, the case will raise a new wrinkle in Oregon's debate over religious freedom:

Online coverage

For same-day coverage of the faith-healing trial of Jeff and Marci Beagley, visit oregonlive.com. The Oregonian will provide coverage of the trial once a jury is selected, a process expected to take up to a week. The entire trial could take three weeks or more.

Can a juvenile's right to obtain medical treatment absolve parents of responsibility for providing health care to a sick child?

Jeff and Marci Beagley are charged with criminally negligent homicide for failing to provide adequate medical care for their 16-year-old son, Neil, who died in June 2008 of an untreated urinary tract blockage.

The Beagleys are also the grandparents of Ava Worthington, whose 2008 death prompted last year's high-profile trial of Ava's parents, Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington. Raylene Worthington, who is the Beagleys' daughter and Neil's sister, was acquitted in that case. Her husband was convicted of criminal mistreatment.

The entire family belongs to Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church, which shuns medical care in favor of prayer, anointing with oil and laying on of hands.

Oregon law once allowed parents to avoid homicide charges if they relied solely on spiritual treatment and their child died. The law changed in 1999, mainly due to the church's long history of children dying from untreated medical conditions.

The Beagley trial will cover some of the same ground as the Worthington case, such as the clash between a parental rights and child-protection laws. But Neil Beagley's age presents a new challenge for prosecutors.

Under Oregon law, children 15 and older are allowed to obtain medical treatment without parental permission. That fact raises compelling questions for jurors in the Beagley case.

How can teenage children make informed decisions if they've never been to a doctor, have no understanding of their condition and have been raised to reject medical treatment? Do children have the right to refuse medical care? How much responsibility do parents have for the health of teenage children?

Lead prosecutor Greg Horner and the Beagleys' attorneys, Wayne Mackeson and Steve Lindsey, declined to be interviewed for this story.

At a hearing last month, the Beagleys' attorneys said that Neil knew he could go to a doctor at any time but decided to rely on the faith-healing practices endorsed by his family and his church.

Mark Cogan, who represented Brent Worthington but not involved in the Beagley case, offered an analysis from the defense perspective.

"Oregon law gives him (Neil) the authority to have medical care or not," Cogan said. "It's not for the government to decide. Neil was old enough to make his own decision, and he very clearly made his own choice."

Church members offer a circular argument that prosecutors must crack.

Since Followers rarely go to doctors, most have no medical records, which makes it hard to document the progression of an illness. Their lack of medical experience, they argue, also leaves them unaware of symptoms that may indicate a medical emergency.

The Worthingtons, for example, said they thought their daughter had a bad cold rather than a life-threatening blood infection. The 15-month-old child also had a growth on her neck that would swell to softball-size lump, but it was never evaluated by a doctor.

If the Beagleys contend that Neil also showed no signs that he was nearing death, prosecutors will be challenged to show otherwise.

An autopsy determined that Neil had a constriction where his bladder empties into his urethra, a typically painful condition that caused his kidneys to stop extracting urea from his bloodstream and triggered heart failure.

Dr. Cliff Nelson, Oregon deputy state medical examiner, said the condition may have been congenital and that Beagley had suffered repeated episodes of blockage and pain, probably throughout his life. The condition was treatable, Nelson said, but there was no apparent medical intervention.

Yet no one outside the tight Followers of Christ circle got close enough to assess Neil's condition during the weeks before he died.

Neil was home-schooled. His world and personal relationships revolved around the church. There were no teachers, Boy Scout leaders, sports coaches or outsiders who would have routinely observed him.

It will be left to the prosecutions medical experts in pediatric urology and kidney disease to describe the symptoms a reasonable person would have noted as the boy's condition deteriorated in his final months.

The Beagleys also are expected to say they relied on statements from an Oregon Department of Human Services worker who met with the family more than two months before Neil died.

The state's child welfare hot line received two calls about the Beagleys' children in March 2008. The callers reported that Kathryn Beagley, then 14, had serious health problems, including a kidney infection and that Neil had been ill with a possibly life-threatening condition.

Jeff Lewis, a DHS worker, met with the family twice and determined no intervention was necessary. Neil said he was getting over a cold and did not want to see a doctor, Lewis testified at hearing last month.

After talking to Lewis, the Beagleys said they believed they were providing adequate care for their son and not violating the law, the Beagley's attorneys said last month.

It is unfair to penalize the couple for following the advice of a government employee and, in fact, it is entrapment, said the lawyers, who asked Clackamas County Presiding Judge Steven L. Maurer to dismiss the charges.

Maurer denied the motion and said the question should be posed to jurors.

That process started Monday with jury selection.

STORY LINK

Sexy Nativity scene draws chorus of critics

2009-12-21T14:50:00.002-05:00

This time of year, nativity scenes are going up, but one in particular is drawing a chorus of critics.

The display is at a 3rd Street boutique and features a scantily clad Virgin Mary near wise women posed with shopping bags.

"I'm not a Bible-thumper, not someone who is going to jam my beliefs down your throat," display critic Kaaren Benton said. "I just said to them, your display is degrading, it's disgusting and it is an insult to my religion."

Diane Gan, another critic of the display, said that she didn't like the display because it desecrated Mary and it showed a lack of respect.

The public relations representative for Madison, the boutique chain, says they are making no comment.

Some onlookers wonder why people are making such a fuss.

"It's done in good taste," Los Angeles resident William Smith said. "If the image had high heels and garter belts, yeah, but no."

"There is so much going on in the world," Los Angeles resident Beryl Smith said. "This should be the least of anybody's worries."

Although some people are OK with the display Benton says someone needs to take a stand and urge the store to remove the display.

Benton and her co-workers are reaching out to the faithful, even the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

"Cardinal Mahony, it was an e-mail and a couple of Protestant churches in the area," Benton said.

The response from one church said that the campaign to take down the display could backfire.

"We didn't want to bring publicity to the store. At the same time we wanted to speak out," Benton said.

A group that works across the street from the store said sex, their religion and shopping in a single tableau is too much for them to handle.

Said one woman, "The way they have presented Mary in a very provocative position with a baby in her crotch, and that baby is supposed to be Jesus... No."

The group is asking that the display be changed immediately.

If the store doesn't oblige, they plan to go to every church in the area to garner support for the removal of the display.

STORY LINKS: LINK | LINK

Ruling allows for atheist display

2009-12-15T15:34:00.011-05:00

Judge grants Freethinkers’ request for kiosk at Arkansas state Capitol

Winter solstice display to be erected at the Arkansas state Capitol. More information and photos of the display are available by clicking here. An atheist group’s display marking the winter solstice will join the traditional Nativity scene on the Arkansas state Capitol grounds as a result of a ruling by a federal judge Monday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, who sued Secretary of State Charlie Daniels after he refused to grant permission for the group to put up its display, dubbed the Box of Knowledge.

“We liked the outcome,” said Mark Love, an electrical engineer who is the registrar for the society. “We wanted to be included and to be able to express our message. It looks like it’s going to happen.”

STORY LINK

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Arkansas judge allows secular solstice display to join nativity scene at state Capitol

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels violated free speech rights when he rejected a “winter solstice” display at the state Capitol by a group opposed to the nativity scene displayed annually at Arkansas’ seat of government, a federal judge ruled today.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright’s ruling cleared the way for the display proposed by the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit after Daniels rejected the group’s written application to put up a display that would describe the meaning and history of the winter solstice.

The group had asked for an expedited hearing so it could erect the display before the winter solstice on Dec. 21. Freethinkers member Mark Love said his organization plans to put up the display Wednesday or Thursday.

“We like the outcome. We wanted to be included in the holiday season and we are,” Love said.

He said his group was not anti-Christian or anti-Christmas.

“No, this was about being included in the holiday … why not make the holiday time more inclusive, not less,” Love said.

Daniels told reporters after the hearing that his office would work with the group.
“We will comply with the order,” he said.

During the hearing, Daniels testified that he denied the group’s request because the display “did not go along with the Christmas theme or holiday theme.” He also said he didn’t like temporary displays in general.

“It didn’t look appropriate to me that it belonged on the Capitol grounds,” the secretary of state said.

The freethinkers first applied to put up a winter solstice display at the Capitol last year and were turned down. Daniels said at the time the proposed exhibit failed to maintain the order and decorum of the holiday season.

The organization submitted an application in October that met all of Daniels’ requirements, but still the application was rejected.

During Monday’s hearing, it was revealed that the secretary of state’s office has a written policy that allows anyone to apply to put up a display at the Capitol. The policy was established by Daniels’ predecessor, Sharon Priest. The nativity scene was exempt from the application process because it has been a temporary holiday display on the Capitol grounds since the 1940s.

No one had ever applied for permission to erect a temporary holiday display until the freethinkers, according to testimony.

“This was a massive violation of the First amendment,” said ACLU attorney John Burnett, adding the nativity scene “existed outside the scope of these particular guidelines.”

In her ruling, Wright noted that by allowing a nonprofit organization to erect a nativity scene annually, the secretary of state had “designated a public forum,” and that the freethinkers “have free speech rights and did follow the policy.”

“The court finds this policy is not content neutral as applied and it permits a Christmas display and denies another view point,” she said, adding the policy was “narrowly tailored.”

“This is a designated public forum for that type of speech,” she said.

Wright also said Daniels’ argument that the freethinkers display was not aesthetic enough for the holidays did not make sense because the nativity scene is made out of wood and is completely opposite from the festive decorations inside the state Capitol.

She said the freethinkers display would fit well near the nativity scene, and she expressed some concern that the secretary of state’s office may soon be inundated with requests for other temporary displays in the area.

“There might be enough room,” she said.

Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU chapter in Arkansas, told reporters after the hearing she was pleased with the ruling.

“I don’t know of any other state capitol that has set up a public forum the way this state had done,” she said. “Again, they didn’t have to do that, they didn’t have to invite anybody, but they did, and that set up a forum so that anybody with any idea … any time of year.”

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Judge says ‘winter solstice’ display OK for Capitol

Federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled in Little Rock on Monday that the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers has a First Amendment Right to set up their “kiosk” alongside the Nativity Christmas display on the grounds of the State Capitol. Judge Wright ruled that Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels had established a “public forum” by allowing a private organization, the owners of the Nativity, to set it up.

The Nativity has been a part of Christmas decorations at the state capitol at least since the 1940s. Wright issued an injunction ordering the Arkansas Secretary of State to allow the Freethinkers to set up their four-sided display celebrating the winter solstice. According to Mark Love, a member of the Society of Freethinkers, only one side of the display commemorates the Winter Solstice, the other three sides tell about Freethinkers, promote certain books, and contain an “ancestry timeline”. The monument measures a little over 4 feet square and, including the roof, stands about 10 feet tall. According to Love, the purpose of the monument is to educate people about Freethinkers.

Arkansas Secretary of State Daniels denied the groups application for a display in 2008. Daniels denied the group again in 2009, stating that their display did not fit the tone of the holiday decorum at the State Capitol.

The ACLU assisted the Freethinkers in filing a lawsuit against Daniels, and handled the case for them in Federal Court.

Attorneys for the Arkansas Secretary of State argued that no public forum had been established. Since the Nativity had been part of the State Capitol Christmas display for over 60 years, they argued that the Nativity was simply one of many decorations traditionally displayed at the Capitol during the holidays.

Judge Wright took the opportunity to speak against the Nativity in general. Even though the complaint filed by the Freethinkers argued that rejecting their display violated their free speech rights, Judge Wright interjected her own arguments and made it a religion case. She stated that in its current form the Nativity is likely in violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause which prohibits state sponsorship of religion. The fact that the Nativity was set up on a location on the south side of the Capitol, away from other holiday decorations, made it suspect, she said. She also pointed out that the Nativity contained no red, green, or white colors, colors normally associated with Christmas festivities. She said that the colors of the Nativity were colors normally associated with the common view of the birth of Christ.

In the 1980s artisans at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Arkansas, hand-carved life-size people and animals for a new Nativity. A 13 by 26 foot structure was built to house the outdoor display. The Nativity was the property of the State of Arkansas until around 1992, when it was donated to a private foundation known as the Foundation to Protect and Promote the Nativity. The non-profit group has been allowed to set up the Nativity on the Capitol grounds every Christmas since then. They bear all financial responsibility for the set-up, maintenance, and storage of the Nativity.

Secretary of State Daniels pointed out the fact that he is constitutionally and legally responsible for the Capitol Building and its grounds. He said that he and his staff routinely approve events, including displays, at the State Capitol. Daniels determined that an atheist display did not fit the decorum of the Holiday decorations at the Capitol. He said that they would be welcome to exercise their First Amendment rights by holding a rally or other event on the Capitol steps the same as other groups.

This lawsuit and today’s ruling has very little to do with the First Amendment rights of the atheist Freethinkers. It has everything to do with trying to get rid of the Nativity. They’ve tried and failed to have Nativities removed from public property. The one at the Capitol in Little Rock has stood in spite of objections by the ACLU. Now they’re trying to come in through the back door by making Nativity displays so controversial that public officials decide to remove all religious displays, including Nativities.

At the end of the hearing, the judge told everyone to have a “happy holiday, or solstice, or whatever.”

STORY LINK

Born With an Urge to Help

2009-12-04T04:12:00.002-05:00

Image by DQmountaingirl via Flickr

What is the essence of human nature? Flawed, say many theologians. Vicious and addicted to warfare, wrote Hobbes. Selfish and in need of considerable improvement, think many parents.

But biologists are beginning to form a generally sunnier view of humankind. Their conclusions are derived in part from testing very young children, and partly from comparing human children with those of chimpanzees, hoping that the differences will point to what is distinctively human.

The somewhat surprising answer at which some biologists have arrived is that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others. Of course every animal must to some extent be selfish to survive. But the biologists also see in humans a natural willingness to help.

When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help, Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October. Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

The helping behavior seems to be innate because it appears so early and before many parents start teaching children the rules of polite behavior.

“It’s probably safe to assume that they haven’t been explicitly and directly taught to do this,” said Elizabeth Spelke, a developmental psychologist at Harvard. “On the other hand, they’ve had lots of opportunities to experience acts of helping by others. I think the jury is out on the innateness question.”

But Dr. Tomasello finds the helping is not enhanced by rewards, suggesting that it is not influenced by training. It seems to occur across cultures that have different timetables for teaching social rules. And helping behavior can even be seen in infant chimpanzees under the right experimental conditions. For all these reasons, Dr. Tomasello concludes that helping is a natural inclination, not something imposed by parents or culture.

Infants will help with information, as well as in practical ways. From the age of 12 months they will point at objects that an adult pretends to have lost. Chimpanzees, by contrast, never point at things for each other, and when they point for people, it seems to be as a command to go fetch something rather than to share information.

For parents who may think their children somehow skipped the cooperative phase, Dr. Tomasello offers the reassuring advice that children are often more cooperative outside the home, which is why parents may be surprised to hear from a teacher or coach how nice their child is. “In families, the competitive element is in ascendancy,” he said.

As children grow older, they become more selective in their helpfulness. Starting around age 3, they will share more generously with a child who was previously nice to them. Another behavior that emerges at the same age is a sense of social norms. “Most social norms are about being nice to other people,” Dr. Tomasello said in an interview, “so children learn social norms because they want to be part of the group.”

Children not only feel they should obey these rules themselves, but also that they should make others in the group do the same. Even 3-year-olds are willing to enforce social norms. If they are shown how to play a game, and a puppet then joins in with its own idea of the rules, the children will object, some of them vociferously.

Where do they get this idea of group rules, the sense of “we who do it this way”? Dr. Tomasello believes children develop what he calls “shared intentionality,” a notion of what others expect to happen and hence a sense of a group “we.” It is from this shared intentionality that children derive their sense of norms and of expecting others to obey them.

Shared intentionality, in Dr. Tomasello’s view, is close to the essence of what distinguishes people from chimpanzees. A group of human children will use all kinds of words and gestures to form goals and coordinate activities, but young chimps seem to have little interest in what may be their companions’ minds.

If children are naturally helpful and sociable, what system of child-rearing best takes advantage of this surprising propensity? Dr. Tomasello says that the approach known as inductive parenting works best because it reinforces the child’s natural propensity to cooperate with others. Inductive parenting is simply communicating with children about the effect of their actions on others and emphasizing the logic of social cooperation.

“Children are altruistic by nature,” he writes, and though they are also naturally selfish, all parents need do is try to tip the balance toward social behavior.

The shared intentionality lies at the basis of human society, Dr. Tomasello argues. From it flow ideas of norms, of punishing those who violate the norms and of shame and guilt for punishing oneself. Shared intentionality evolved very early in the human lineage, he believes, and its probable purpose was for cooperation in gathering food. Anthropologists report that when men cooperate in hunting, they can take down large game, which single hunters generally cannot do. Chimpanzees gather to hunt colobus monkeys, but Dr. Tomasello argues this is far less of a cooperative endeavor because the participants act on an ad hoc basis and do not really share their catch.

An interesting bodily reflection of humans’ shared intentionality is the sclera, or whites, of the eyes. All 200 or so species of primates have dark eyes and a barely visible sclera. All, that is, except humans, whose sclera is three times as large, a feature that makes it much easier to follow the direction of someone else’s gaze. Chimps will follow a person’s gaze, but by looking at his head, even if his eyes are closed. Babies follow a person’s eyes, even if the experimenter keeps his head still.

Advertising what one is looking at could be a risk. Dr. Tomasello argues that the behavior evolved “in cooperative social groups in which monitoring one another’s focus was to everyone’s benefit in completing joint tasks.”

This could have happened at some point early in human evolution, when in order to survive, people were forced to cooperate in hunting game or gathering fruit. The path to obligatory cooperation — one that other primates did not take — led to social rules and their enforcement, to human altruism and to language.

“Humans putting their heads together in shared cooperative activities are thus the originators of human culture,” Dr. Tomasello writes.

A similar conclusion has been reached independently by Hillard S. Kaplan, an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico. Modern humans have lived for most of their existence as hunter gatherers, so much of human nature has presumably been shaped for survival in such conditions. From study of existing hunter gatherer peoples, Dr. Kaplan has found evidence of cooperation woven into many levels of human activity.

The division of labor between men and women — men gather 68 percent of the calories in foraging societies — requires cooperation between the sexes. Young people in these societies consume more than they produce until age 20, which in turn requires cooperation between the generations. This long period of dependency was needed to develop the special skills required for the hunter gatherer way of life.

The structure of early human societies, including their “high levels of cooperation between kin and nonkin,” was thus an adaptation to the “specialized foraging niche” of food resources that were too difficult for other primates to capture, Dr. Kaplan and colleagues wrote recently in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. We evolved to be nice to each other, in other words, because there was no alternative.

Much the same conclusion is reached by Frans de Waal in another book published in October, “The Age of Empathy.” Dr. de Waal, a primatologist, has long studied the cooperative side of primate behavior and believes that aggression, which he has also studied, is often overrated as a human motivation.

“We’re preprogrammed to reach out,” Dr. de Waal writes. “Empathy is an automated response over which we have limited control.” The only people emotionally immune to another’s situation, he notes, are psychopaths.

Indeed, it is in our biological nature, not our political institutions, that we should put our trust, in his view. Our empathy is innate and cannot be changed or long suppressed. “In fact,” Dr. de Waal writes, “I’d argue that biology constitutes our greatest hope. One can only shudder at the thought that the humaneness of our societies would depend on the whims of politics, culture or religion.”

The basic sociability of human nature does not mean, of course, that people are nice to each other all the time. Social structure requires that things be done to maintain it, some of which involve negative attitudes toward others. The instinct for enforcing norms is powerful, as is the instinct for fairness. Experiments have shown that people will reject unfair distributions of money even it means they receive nothing.

“Humans clearly evolved the ability to detect inequities, control immediate desires, foresee the virtues of norm following and gain the personal, emotional rewards that come from seeing another punished,” write three Harvard biologists, Marc Hauser, Katherine McAuliffe and Peter R. Blake, in reviewing their experiments with tamarin monkeys and young children.

If people do bad things to others in their group, they can behave even worse to those outside it. Indeed the human capacity for cooperation “seems to have evolved mainly for interactions within the local group,” Dr. Tomasello writes.

Sociality, the binding together of members of a group, is the first requirement of defense, since without it people will not put the group’s interests ahead of their own or be willing to sacrifice their lives in battle. Lawrence H. Keeley, an anthropologist who has traced aggression among early peoples, writes in his book “War Before Civilization” that, “Warfare is ultimately not a denial of the human capacity for cooperation, but merely the most destructive expression of it.”

The roots of human cooperation may lie in human aggression. We are selfish by nature, yet also follow rules requiring us to be nice to others.

“That’s why we have moral dilemmas,” Dr. Tomasello said, “because we are both selfish and altruistic at the same time.”

STORY LINK

Jesus Christ called for jury duty

2009-12-02T04:12:00.002-05:00

Court officials were skeptical at first when on Monday a potential juror submitted a name change form with "Jesus Christ" on it. But the 59-year-old Birmingham woman, who previously went by Dorothy Lola Killingworth, assured the presiding judge that was her name.

"It raised eyebrows, so I asked her if that were truly her name," Circuit Court Judge Scott Vowell said. "She assured me that it was. She had her name changed in the Probate Court, and she presented her driver's license."

Christ was sent to Judge Clyde Jones's courtroom for a criminal case. She was excused because she was disruptive, court officials said. Instead of answering questions, she was asking them, a court employee in Jones's office said.

Efforts to reach Christ today were unsuccessful.

Court administrator Sandra Turner said she and others in the jury assembly room were somewhat shocked at first when the woman insisted Christ was her name. And when her name was called, several potential jurors laughed out loud.

Unlike some Jefferson County residents, Christ did not try to get out of jury duty, Turner said.

"She was perfectly happy to serve," said Turner.

STORY LINK

Pastor under fire following revelation of criminal past

2009-11-24T19:23:00.002-05:00

The congregation at First 6th Street Baptist Church in Port Arthur got a surprise last Sunday, Nov. 15. Near the end of a sermon on forgiveness, their new pastor - the Rev. Donald R.A. Toussaint Sr. - said he had something he needed to tell them.

According to church members who were at the service, Toussaint waved some unspecified documents and disclosed that 28 years ago he was accused of robbery and murder. He added that he had nothing to do with those crimes and said he was forced into this admission because "someone had spent $19.95 to dig up old records" in the case. Toussaint said the matter was closed and did not need to be brought up again.

That expressed hope that the issue was settled was not to be, as shocked members of the church committee that had overseen the search for a new pastor - and selected Toussaint from a field of 20 finalists - wondered how that information had not come up on the background check they did on all the candidates.

By the time a meeting of the church deacons convened two days later, they had even more questions. Toussaint began life as Donald Ray Abram and grew up in Columbia, Miss. In 1982, at the age of 21, Abram - as he was then known - was charged with capital murder, kidnapping and armed robbery for his part in the robbery of a convenience store in which two people were killed with a shotgun. Also charged was Herman Barnes, 22.

The crime shocked the Columbia community. The store clerk at Jack's Quick Stop was high-school student Loretta Carson, 16, who was shot to death after handing over the money. A customer who arrived after she was killed, Percy Quin, 58, worked for the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board. He was killed when the robbers returned to the store.

Abram and Barnes were tried separately. Barnes, the acknowledged triggerman in the dual homicide, was convicted of capital murder. When the jury could not agree on the death penalty, he was automatically sentenced to life. Abram was not so lucky. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death on March 29, 1984. Execution of that sentence was postponed because of numerous issues raised at Abram's trial, including the validity of the confession obtained by law enforcement, the exclusion of blacks from the jury through challenges by the prosecution, and the fact the acknowledged triggerman was not sentenced to death.

Ultimately, the conviction was tossed out. Under a plea agreement in 1992, Abram pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of armed robbery and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The last 10 years of that sentence were suspended under the condition that he remain outside the state of Mississippi. With the time he had already served in prison while this matter was adjudicated, Abram was soon a free man.

It was a long way from that courtroom in Marion County to the pulpit at the church in Port Arthur. Members of the pastoral search committee now understood why their background check had failed to discover this case - because Toussaint was not his name when those events occurred. According to one member of the committee who did not wish to be identified for this story, when asked when he changed his name, Toussaint said he didn't remember but noted he had a passport with that name. He also backed away from previous claims that he was cleared in the case, did not take part in the robbery, did not know codefendant Barnes and had not served any time in prison - but refused to discuss the case.

Toussaint had gotten the job in the first place because he wowed the search committee - and the congregation - when he came to preach as a guest minister during the search process.

First 6th Street Baptist Church is a strong church that is more than 100 years old, though the West Port Arthur neighborhood where it stands has seen better days. Earlier urban renewal efforts in the surrounding blocks stalled after many older houses and commercial buildings were razed, leaving blocks of vacant lots where no rebuilding has occurred.

The congregation has dwindled to fewer than 400, with many who have left the neighborhood only returning for church services. But they have maintained a strong internal structure, and Toussaint was hired for his ability to preach the gospel, not to overturn decades of structured leadership, according to some long-time church members.

Even before the revelations about his real name and criminal background, some deacons were aghast at Toussaint's stated desire to change long-standing church by-laws in favor of a more "biblical" approach. Some interpreted that to mean transferring more power and control into the hands of the pastor in keeping with Scripture.

Under current church by-laws, Toussaint's selection as pastor earlier this year must be confirmed by a vote of the congregation. That vote could come as early as next Tuesday, Nov. 24, but these recent revelations could change the timing of the vote.

Toussaint apparently has an impressive manner with Baptist church pastoral selection committees. In 2006, he was selected by the Friendship Baptist Church in Trenton, N.J., as its pastor. Another long-standing church with strong community ties and a solid core of deacons and elders, Friendship felt fortunate to have snagged this charismatic preacher.

Toussaint was hired by Friendship in December 2006 and installed in an elaborate ceremony in March 2007 that the Rev. Al Sharpton was slated to attend before sending his regrets due to difficulties with air connections from California. But according to sources familiar with Toussaint's tenure with that church, the deacons soon became concerned with the actions of their new pastor when he made clear his desire to amend Friendship Baptist Church's by-laws to make them "more biblical."

According to Paul Maselli, an attorney with the Trenton firm that represents the church, the deacons had decided to terminate Toussaint's contract and were trying to determine the amount of his severance package. After an advance on his salary that had been granted for moving expenses was subtracted, the contract indicated Toussaint was owed around $7,000. Church officials were stunned when Toussaint produced a copy of the contract that called for him to receive a buyout worth $194,000. Maselli said no other copies of the contract contained the clause, which appeared on Toussaint's copy on a page initialed only by Toussaint.

Maselli said no members of Friendship Baptist Church or their attorneys were familiar with the background of their former pastor. Toussaint has filed a breach of contract suit against Friendship seeking the $194,000.

STORY LINK

Pastor jailed on church theft charges

2009-11-24T19:12:00.003-05:00

A former pastor at the Live Oak Community Church in Oakley was jailed Monday on charges he supported a lavish lifestyle by incurring debt in the church's name, including a $111,000 mortgage loan obtained by falsifying documents.

Arcadio "Larry" Pineda, 65, was charged Friday with three felonies — grand theft and two counts of filing false documents. Investigators with the District Attorney's Office arrested him at his Oakley home Monday and booked him into Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez on $110,000 bail.

Pineda filed falsified documents with the secretary of state and the county recorder in 2008 to gain false authority to obtain the mortgage loan that used the church building as collateral, deputy district attorney Ken McCormick said.

Pineda spent all but $10,000 of the $110,000 loan to make payments on numerous credit cards taken out earlier in the church's name and used to pay for a trip to Israel, dinners, donations to political campaigns, his DirecTV bill and more, McCormick said.

Pineda is further accused of using offerings for the church for his personal use. Meanwhile, the church was paying Pineda a $42,000 annual salary.

"He was living off these credit cards to support a lifestyle beyond his means," McCormick said.

McCormick said statute of limitations stopped prosecutors from filing charges related to the credit cards.

The District Attorney's Office began investigating Pineda in the spring after reading in the Times about a lawsuit that church trustees had filed against him, his wife, Lucretia Amendola, and former church secretary Ruby Hattaway. Amendola and Hattaway were also investigated but were not charged.

The civil case has since been dismissed after Pineda and Hattaway filed for bankruptcy.

Church leaders will now focus on a suit filed against a lender, who has a lien on the church building, said attorney Jim Price, who represents the church.

Pineda's arrest could help prove the documents used to obtain the loan were false, and therefore invalid, Price said.

"The church gets their decision without paying any legal fees," he said.

Price said the money left unspent was taken and given back to the lender as payment for a year, with any remaining funds to be spent on the principal balance.

Church officials say they are pleased the arrest was made because they can avoid paying future legal fees to prove their case, but church trustee Robert Reeves wasn't completely happy with what took place. On Monday, he and other trustees were in prayer for Pineda, he said.

"We prayed today for mercy," Reeves said, "and that he would be able to learn from the experience."

Pineda had been pastor of the close-knit Christian church since 1999. The church, known by many as "the little white church on Highway 4," operates in a former 1900s schoolhouse on Live Oak Avenue and Main Street.

Pineda resigned from the church in March and faces possible prison time if convicted.

"I wish there was another way to work it out," Reeves said, "but we had to prove fraud and the embezzlement without spending a lot of money."

STORY LINK

Police: Help us find Gaston County pastor charged with raping teen

2009-11-24T18:57:00.003-05:00

Police are searching for a Gaston County pastor charged with raping and molesting a teen girl.

Robert Lee Adams, 46, began sexually abusing the girl when she was younger than 13 and got her pregnant about three years later, according to the Gaston County Police Department. Authorities have been searching for Adams for nine months.

The girl gave birth in the summer of 2008, and an investigation led police to Adams, said Gaston County Police Capt. Joe Ramey.

Ramey said Adams was pastor of Mount Calvary Tabernacle at the corner of Linwood Road and Camp Rotary Road in west Gastonia. Adams’ last known address is 1319 Rosewood Drive, Dallas.

“We hope someone recognizes Mr. Adams and calls us so we can take him into custody,” Ramey said. “Obviously with these kinds of allegations and warrants outstanding, this is not someone we want to be loose in the community.”

Adams may be traveling in a 1970s-model orange pickup truck. People have reported seeing Adams locally in Forest City and out-of-state in Tennessee and Texas.

Investigators want to interview Adams, who does not have a prior criminal record.

“This would be his opportunity as well to come forward and share his side of the story,” Ramey said. “When someone’s on the run, it makes it difficult to do that.”

The alleged sexual assault took place between February 2004 and March 2007, Ramey said. The girl is receiving counseling and other help from social service agencies.

Adams is charged with statutory rape, first-degree sex offense with a child, taking indecent liberties with a child and other sex offenses.

“We’d like to get this individual off the streets,” said Ramey. “It would certainly make the victim and some family members feel relief, and maybe bring some closure to the whole situation.”

Anyone with information on Adams’ whereabouts is asked to call the Gaston County Police Department at 704-866-3320 or Crime Stoppers at 704-861-8000.

STORY LINK

Evangelist Tony Alamo Sentenced to 175 Years for Taking Girls Across State Lines for Sex

2009-11-17T19:39:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Evangelist Tony Alamo was sentenced Friday to 175 years in prison for taking little girls as young as 9 across state lines to have sex with them.

The decision punishes him for the rest of his life for molesting children he took as “brides” in his ministry.

Alamo, 75, had denied the charges, claiming they came from a Vatican-led conspiracy against the church he led, called the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.

During Friday’s hearing in Texarkana, Ark., some of Alamo’s victims testified about how their families were destroyed while the evangelist took over their lives.

Alamo was convicted in July on a 10-count federal indictment. U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes said Alamo used his status as father figure and pastor and threatened and threatened the girls with “the loss of their salvation.”

“Mr. Alamo, one day you will face a higher a greater judge than me, may he have mercy on your soul,” Barnes said.

[...more...]

Ministers from Community of Christ Church among those charged in sex case

2009-11-17T19:28:00.002-05:00

The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints via last.fm

LEXINGTON, MO (AP) -- Authorities on Wednesday were searching a rural property in western Missouri for bodies and buried glass jars containing notes written more than 15 years ago by children who may have documented sexual abuse by five members of their own family.

Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh pleaded for the public's help, saying investigators "believe that there are other victims out there, and we believe people in the public can give us more information."

Alumbaugh said authorities believe there may be bodies buried on the property outside Bates City, which is about 30 miles east of Kansas City. He refused to say to whom any of the bodies would have belonged. The property and a nearby home is owned by a man unrelated to the case who is cooperating with authorities.

A small excavator could be seen moving across the property Wednesday. Two ambulances were parked nearby, and crews were searching a creek with metal detectors.

"There has been an indication that there are body or bodies in numerous locations," Alumbaugh said.

The five men were arrested Tuesday and are charged with several felonies, including forcible sodomy, rape with a child younger than 12 and use of a child in a sexual performance. The allegations, which include bestiality and forcing an 11-year-old to have an abortion, date from 1988 to 1995.

All five were being held in the Lafayette County jail on cash bonds ranging from $30,000 to $75,000. It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys.

Three of the five men are lay ministers in the Community of Christ church whose licenses have been suspended, church spokeswoman Linda L. Booth said.

Cpl. Bill Lowe of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said one of the alleged victims, now 26, came forward to investigators in mid-August with the abuse allegations. A probable cause statement released by the Lafayette County prosecutor's office says other relatives of the woman have come forward accusing all five men of abuse, but it's unclear whether all the relatives were claiming to be abused.

Lowe said the woman told investigators that she and the other alleged victims buried glass jars around the property, filled with messages "about what was happening to them" when they were younger.

"Those jars have that information," Lowe said.

The woman told authorities she had "suppressed many of the memories of abuse perpetrated on her" and the other alleged victims, according to the probable cause statement.

Sgt. Collin Stosberg, a spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, said adults told the children that if they wrote down bad memories and put them in a jar, "the bad memories would go away."

"That was what they were told. Write these memories down, put them in a jar and bury it and the memories would go away," Stosberg said. "It was a way for them to cope."

The probable cause statement identifies the relationship between the alleged victims and the suspects. The Associated Press, however, is not revealing that relationship to avoid identifying the alleged victims of sexual assault.

The woman who came forward claimed some of the men sexually abused her and her siblings, forced her to have sex with a dog, forced the siblings into fake marriages with relatives and forced her to watch as her brother was abused.

"She became pregnant and was made to have an abortion at age 11 1/2. She doesn't remember any sexual abuse after that date," the probable cause statement said.

The Lafayette County Sheriff's Department, the Rural Missouri Major Case Squad and the Highway Patrol were investigating, with the help of the Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.

The suspects were identified as Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., 77, of Independence, and his sons, Burrell Edward Mohler Jr., 53, also of Independence; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48, of Columbia; Roland Neil Mohler, 47, of Bates City; and David A. Mohler, 52, of Lamoni, Iowa.

Police in Columbia seized a computer and discs from Jared Mohler's home on Tuesday, police spokeswoman Jessie Haden said. Jared Mohler is a database administrator at Carfax, a company that provides vehicle history reports to prospective buyers, a coworker said. He was arrested at work.

Another suspect, David Mohler, has worked for Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, for 27 years and was arrested on its Independence campus.

University President John Sellars said David Mohler periodically traveled to Independence to work on Graceland's phone systems there. He described David Mohler as "a very nice person who got along well with his colleagues."

Sellars said David Mohler and his wife, Michelle, has grown children, but he did not know their ages or where they lived.

Deborah Burris, who has lived across the street from Burrell Mohler Sr. for several years, described the suspect as a friendly, helpful neighbor.

"We didn't even know he had sons. We didn't know anyone but Burrell himself," Burris said.

She said she thought Mohler lived with his wife and a daughter, but she had never seen them. He was occasionally seen walking around the neighborhood but had appeared frail lately, Burris said.

She said Mohler's house has an apartment on the north side, and there had been "quite a bit of activity there at different times."

"I had thought maybe someone was moving in or out of there," Burris said.

Booth, the church spokeswoman, said none of the Mohlers served in leadership roles in the congregations they attended "nor did they serve as volunteer youth workers, teach children or youth church school, or work with children or youth."

"The church takes seriously the allegations that have been made and suspended the priesthood licenses of three lay ministers: Burrell Mohler Sr., David Mohler and Jared Mohler," the church said in a statement.

Booth said one of the men, whom she refused to identify, had been registered to work with children but that license has been terminated.

The Community of Christ, headquartered in Independence, split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1860 and was known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints until 2001. It has about 250,000 members worldwide.

STORY LINK

Report: Homosexuality No Factor in Abusive Priests

2009-11-17T19:17:00.003-05:00

BALTIMORE (AP) -- A preliminary report commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops on the roots of the clergy sex abuse scandal found no evidence that gay priests are more likely than heterosexual clergy to molest children, the lead authors of the study said Tuesday.

The full report by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice won't be completed until the end of next year. But the authors said that their evidence to date found no data indicating that homosexuality was a predictor of abuse.

''What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse,'' said Margaret Smith of John Jay College, in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. ''At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now.''

The entire story can be read by clicking here.

Death threats force removal of atheist billboard

2009-11-13T15:51:00.003-05:00

"Don't believe in God? You're not alone." was the message on a billboard put up by the Cincinnati Coalition of Reason (Cin CoR) on Reading Road at 12th Street, one block south of Liberty Street in Cincinnati. It went up on Tuesday but by Wednesday afternoon the group was told it would have to come down again. Lamar Advertising, the company that owns the billboard, leases the land on which it stands and the landowner wanted it taken down. He (or she) had been receiving death threats. Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason, said, "We weren't given the landowner's name or precise details, Nor did we pursue them. It was sufficient to learn that this person had received multiple, significant threats and that Lamar would act quickly to alleviate the problem. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before."

The billboard campaign in Cincinnati is only one of ten going on nationwide this year and, while the current situation is unique, threats are not. Additionally, Atheist billboards have been vandalized recently in Colorado and Idaho. Shawn Jeffers, co-coordinator for Cin CoR, said, "Everything that has happened shows just how vital our message is. It proves our point, that bigotry against people who don't believe in a god is still very real in America. Only when we atheists, agnostics and humanists come together and go public about our views will people have a chance to learn that we too are part of the community and deserve respect... Hopefully this turn of events will cause more and more nontheistic people in Cincinnati to realize how necessary it is to get organized."

Cin CoR announced today that the sign will be moved to a new location near the Sixth Street Viaduct where it won't be subject to landowner restrictions. They also announced that new billboards will be erected in Cleveland and Columbus.

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A video report from WKRC Channel 12 in Cincinnati can be viewed here:

Priests Spar Over What It Means to Be Catholic

2009-11-13T15:28:00.002-05:00

Image by Paul Keleher via Flickr

The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church traditionally couch even the harshest disagreements in decorous, ecclesiastical language. But it didn't take a decoder ring to figure out what Rome-based Archbishop Raymond Burke meant in a late-September address when he charged Boston Cardinal Seán O'Malley with being under the influence of Satan, "the father of lies."

Burke's broadside at O'Malley was inspired by the Cardinal's decision to permit and preside over a funeral Mass for the late Senator Ted Kennedy. And it has set the Catholic world abuzz. Even more than protests over the University of Notre Dame's decision to invite President Barack Obama to speak, disputes over the Kennedy funeral have brought into the open an argument that has been roiling within American Catholicism. The debate nominally centers on the question of how to deal with politicians who support abortion rights.

Read the entire article: Priests Spar Over What It Means to Be Catholic

Why I am not a Muslim

2009-11-13T03:57:00.003-05:00

(Amherst, NY) — In response to the recent tragic events at Fort Hood, Texas, the Center for Inquiry, a secularist think tank, has released a statement/editorial from Ibn Warraq, Islamic scholar and leading figure in Quranic criticism.

Warraq is a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry and author of five books, including Why I Am Not a Muslim and Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism (both published by Prometheus Books). The statement follows below.

Denying Reality, or the Heavy Cost of Political Correctness, by Ibn Warraq

In the wake of the murder of 13 and the wounding of 38 soldiers at Fort Hood on November 5, media analysts, politicians, and other sundry experts scrambled to present the accused perpetrator of the acts, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, as a victim. In so doing they served, knowingly or otherwise, as apologists for radical Islam. From CNN to the New York Times, NPR to the Washington Post, the killings were presented as a result of racism. They were attributed to fear of deployment in Afghanistan and harassment from other soldiers. Cited were Major Hasan’s supposed maladjustment to his life and his sense of not belonging, pre-traumatic stress disorder, and various personal and mental problems. All these explanations are variations on what I have called “the Root Cause Fallacy,” which has been committed time and again since the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. The Root Cause Fallacy was designed to deflect attention away from Islam, in effect to exonerate Islam, which, we are told, is never to blame for acts of violence. On this view we must not hold a great world religion of peace responsible when individuals of that faith resort to force. We must dig deeper: the real cause is poverty, U.S. foreign policy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Western colonialism and exploitation, marital problems of individuals, and so on. The present “psychological” interpretations in the case of Major Hasan are just the latest example of the Root Cause Fallacy at work.
The Australian tells us that the mindset of Major Hasan remains a “mystery,” yet his Jihadist intentions are there on the surface for everyone not paralyzed by political correctness to see. According to CNN (Nov. 7), on the morning of the shootings Hasan gave copies of the Koran to his neighbors. According to the Associated Press (Nov. 6), soldiers reported that Hasan shouted out “Allahu Akbar” [God is Great] – the war cry of all Jihadis – before firing off over a hundred rounds with two pistols in a center where some 300 unarmed soldiers had lined up for vaccines and eye tests. NPR informs us that Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues. The Associated Press (Nov. 11) adds that classmates who studied with Hasan from in that postgraduate program reported Hasan making a presentation during their studies “that justified suicide bombing” and spewed “anti-American propaganda,” denouncing the war on terror as “a war against Islam.” Classmate Val Finnell and another student complained about Hasan, shocked that someone with “this type of vile ideology” would be allowed to wear an officer’s uniform. But, importantly, no one filed a formal complaint about Hasan’s views and comments for fear of appearing discriminatory — in other words, out of political correctness. According to The Telegraph (Nov. 6), Army colleagues reported that Major Hasan had condemned U.S. foreign policy, that he clearly declared that Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans, that he expressed happiness when a U.S. soldier was killed in an attack on a military recruitment center in Arkansas in June, and that he said people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square. It has been widely reported that Major Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia Falls during the time that Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based al-Qaeda preacher with extensive terrorist connections, was its main preacher. Awlaki even praised Major Hasan as a hero on November 9, four days after the Fort Hood attacks. The Times of London revealed (Nov. 10) that Major Hasan had been in direct correspondence with Awlaki, in connection with which Hasan had already been under investigation by the F.B.I. Almost every news source has reported that Major Hasan was also under investigation by federal law enforcement officials for his postings to an internet site speaking favorably of suicide bombing.

Fortunately, not all in the media were hamstrung by political correctness. Here is Ralph Peters in the New York Post (Nov. 6): “On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim U.S. Army officer shouting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam. What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting. This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.”

There was a laudable concern among Americans about a possible “backlash” against all American Muslims. What backlash? Even following the September 11 attacks with their 2,976 victims, Americans behaved with exemplary restraint. They behaved in a civilized manner in the face of barbarism.

It is time to abandon apologetics, and political correctness. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all Muslims are implicated in the horrendous events of September 11, 2001 — or of November 5, 2009. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with 9/11 or the Fort Hood massacre is willfully to ignore the obvious. To leave Islam out of the equation means to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam, the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Osama bin Laden and his followers make little sense. Without Islam, the West will go on being incapable of understanding our terrorist enemies, and hence will be incapable to deal with them. Without Islam, neither is it possible to comprehend the barbarism of the Taliban, the position of women and non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or — now– the murders attributed to Major Hasan.

We are confronted, after all, with Islamic terrorists; and we must take the Islamic component seriously. Westerners in general and Americans in particular no longer seem able to grasp the passionate religious convictions of Islamic terrorists. It is this passionate conviction, directed against the West and against non-Muslims in general, that drives them. They are truly, and literally, God-intoxicated fanatics. If we refuse to understand that, we cannot understand them.

Jihad is “a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Koran and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” That is how it is described in no lesser source than the Dictionary of Islam, so we should not pretend surprise if Islamic terrorists see their mission in such terms.

In the wake of the Fort Hood Massacre, America’s armed forces, the F.B.I., C.I.A., Department of Homeland Security and other counter-terrorist bodies face some difficult decisions about Muslims employed in their services. After all, the view Major Hasan expressed – that Muslims in the U.S. Armed Forces should not serve in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anyplace where they might have to kill fellow Muslims – is precisely in keeping with fatwas issued by such Muslim leaders as Ali Gum’a, the mufti of Egypt, which forbade Muslim soldiers to take part in the so-called War on Terror.

When Muslim soldiers or agents or operatives feel that their primary allegiance is to Islam and not the United States, can we safely allow their service to continue? It is an agonizing question, but one we must confront; however, we cannot properly confront this question while we struggle to pretend that Islam itself is not part of the dispute.

The Center for Inquiry/Transnational, a nonprofit, educational, advocacy, and scientific-research think tank based in Amherst, New York, is also home to the Council for Secular Humanism, founded in 1980; and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), founded in 1976. The Center for Inquiry’s research and educational projects focus on three broad areas: religion, ethics, and society; paranormal and fringe-science claims; and sound public policy. The Center’s Web site is www.centerforinquiry.net.

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Pastor pleas guilty to sexual assault charge

2009-11-12T20:22:00.003-05:00

A pastor charged in connection with the sexual assault of a teenage girl has entered a guilty plea in the case.

Timothy Allen Ortiz, 44, Midland, appeared before Midland County Circuit Court Judge Jonathan E. Lauderbach late this morning to enter the plea.

According to court papers, Ortiz entered the plea to a count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct-incest, a charge that was added after he was arraigned. In return for the plea, the original charge of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving force or coercion will be dismissed. Each of the felony charges is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Ortiz was arrested Sept. 21 at his home by Midland County Sheriff's deputies, and was arraigned the next day by Midland County District Court Judge John H. Hart, who set bond at $200,000 cash. Ortiz last month waived a preliminary exam in the case, which is a hearing for a judge to decide if a crime was committed and if there is probable cause to believe it was committed by the defendant.

The Midland County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the victim is a 17-year-old girl.

Ortiz is being represented by Midland attorney Scott Isles.

Since 2000, Ortiz had served as the pastor of the Father’s Heart Ministries, 4606 James Savage Road.

Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 14.

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Catholic Church gives Washington an ultimatum on same-sex marriage

2009-11-12T17:11:00.005-05:00

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

Several D.C. Council members said the Catholic Church is trying to erode the city's long-standing laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination.

The clash escalates the dispute over the same-sex marriage proposal between the council and the archdiocese, which has generally stayed out of city politics.

Catholic Charities, the church's social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. City leaders said the church is not the dominant provider of any particular social service, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers.

"All of those services will be adversely impacted if the exemption language remains so narrow," Jane G. Belford, chancellor of the Washington Archdiocese, wrote to the council this week.

The church's influence seems limited. In separate interviews Wednesday, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) referred to the church as "somewhat childish." Another council member, David A. Catania (I-At Large), said he would rather end the city's relationship with the church than give in to its demands.

"They don't represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure," said Catania, the sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill and the chairman of the Health Committee.

The standoff appears to be among the harshest between a government and a faith-based group over the rights of same-sex couples. Advocates for same-sex couples said they could not immediately think of other places where a same-sex marriage law had set off a break with a major faith-based provider of social services.

The council is expected to pass the same-sex marriage bill next month, but the measure continues to face strong opposition from a number of groups that are pushing for a referendum on the issue.

The archdiocese's statement follows a vote Tuesday by the council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary to reject an amendment that would have allowed individuals, based on their religious beliefs, to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings.

"Lets say an individual caterer is a staunch Christian and someone wants him to do a cake with two grooms on top," said council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 6), the sponsor of the amendment. "Why can't they say, based on their religious beliefs, 'I can't do something like that'?"

After the vote, the archdiocese sent out a statement accusing the council of ignoring the right of religious freedom. Gibbs said Wednesday that without Alexander's amendment and other proposed changes, the measure has too narrow an exemption. She said religious groups that receive city funds would be required to give same-sex couples medical benefits, open adoptions to same-sex couples and rent a church hall to a support group for lesbian couples.

Peter Rosenstein of the Campaign for All D.C. Families accused the church of trying to "blackmail the city."

"The issue here is they are using public funds, and to allow people to discriminate with public money is unacceptable," Rosenstein said.

Rosenstein and other gay rights activists have strong support on the council. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the judiciary committee, said the council "will not legislate based on threats."

"The problem with the individual exemption is anybody could discriminate based on their assertion of religious principle," Mendelson said. "There were many people back in the 1950s and '60s, during the civil rights era, that said separation of the races was ordained by God."

Catania, who said he has been the biggest supporter of Catholic Charities on the council, said he is baffled by the church's stance. From 2006 through 2008, Catania said, Catholic Charities received about $8.2 million in city contracts, as well as several hundred thousand dollars' worth this year through his committee.

"If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes," Catania said. He also said Catholic Charities was involved in only six of the 102 city-sponsored adoptions last year.

Terry Lynch, head of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, said he did not know of any other group in the city that was making such a threat.

"I've not seen any spillover into programming. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen if [the bill] passes," he said.

Cheh said she hopes the Catholic Church will reconsider its stance.

"Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue?" Cheh asked. "I hope, in the silver light of day, when this passes, because it will pass, they will not really act on this threat."

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Aurora pastor suspect in child sex assault

2009-11-11T15:00:00.005-05:00

AURORA, Colo. - The pastor of an Aurora church was behind bars Tuesday evening, charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.

The Rev. Isaac Aryee was arrested on Oct. 26th at his church, Praise Chapel International Ministries, on E. Mississippi Ave.

The case has been referred to the Denver District Attorney's Office which says the case file is currently under seal. However, a D.A.'s office spokesperson confirms that the victim in the case in a 15-year-old girl whom Aryee met through the church.

Prosecutors believe it was an ongoing sexual affair.

Rev. Aryee and his wife moved to Colorado from Ghana in West Africa in 2002, according to the church's official Web site.

A background check shows Aryee was also arrested by Denver Police in 2002 for soliciting a prostitute.

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Pastor charged with stealing $50,000 from Habitat for Humanity

2009-11-10T13:16:00.004-05:00

State police have accused Pastor David L. Heckman Jr. of embezzling more than $50,000 from a Christian organization that helps build homes for the poor.

Heckman took more than $50,000 in cash mortgage payments from homeowners who reside in homes built by Tioga County Habitat for Humanity, police said. He was a member of the board of directors and treasurer of the Tioga County chapter of the nonprofit.

Pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Newark Valley until his arrest Sunday, Heckman is also charged with making unauthorized purchases in excess of $1,500 that were charged to the church.

Charges include one count of second-degree grand larceny and one count of fourth-degree grand larceny, both felonies.

"Heckman is currently on leave of absence from the church and has been replaced as treasurer for Habitat for Humanity," police said.

New York State Police at Owego arrested Heckman, 27, who lives on Court Street in Binghamton. The Tioga County District Attorney's Office, Tioga County Habitat for Humanity and Heckman's church assisted in the investigation.

Following his arrest, Heckman was arraigned in Town of Owego Court and sent to the Tioga County Jail in lieu of $50,000 cash or $100,000 property bond. Late Thursday, he had yet to post bail.

The investigation into Heckman's activities is ongoing, police said. Anyone with additional information is asked to contact state police at (607) 687-3961.

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Related stories: Habitat for Humanity chapter struggles after pastor's alleged theft