8.8.02

VVV

Partisan Politics From the Pulpit? A bill that would allow houses of worship to engage in partisan politicking will face a vote in the House of Representatives in early September, observers in Washington say. Rep. Walter B. Jones' "Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act" (H.R. 2357) was drafted by attorneys with TV preacher Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice and is being aggressively pushed by numerous Religious Right organizations. The measure would change the Internal Revenue Code to allow houses of worship to use personnel and resources to endorse or oppose candidates for public office. Federal tax law currently forbids non-profit groups, including houses of worship, from intervening in partisan campaigns if they are tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. The Jones bill would lift that regulation -- but only for houses of worship.

I'm linking to the Witchvox version of this story because I found the angle of the comments made in the discussion section interesting. (And maybe it's sneaky to be talking about them behind their back, but I don't feel like it's my place to be butting into their discussion.) It seems like their reaction -- while correctly opposed to the bill -- is backward.

The reaction on Witchvox seems to be "this is wrong because churches shouldn't be involved in politics." Now, I agree with this philosophically. And I think enough religious people in the US agree that the vast majority of religious organizations wouldn't take advantage of the bill if it were passed. But Constitutionally speaking, the argument doesn't hold up. As I see it, the intent of the First Amendment religion clauses is to prevent the government from making decisions on questions of religion. So for the government to maintain a ban on church-backed political action in order to prevent churches from getting involved in politics would be government making a decision on a question of religion (i.e., should a religious community be political). This closely parallels the (in my opinion) correct argument against this bill. What is being proposed is a special exemption for religious organizations. The government is granting a special privilege to certain organizations based on their religious nature (and thus deciding what is and isn't a religion). To pass the First Amendment test, a policy must treat organizations based on criteria other than their religiousness. Currently, all non-profit organizations -- be they sacred or secular -- follow the same rules. If you want to be tax-exempt, you have to eschew politics. Period. Repealing the political restriction on all non-profits would also be Constitutional (though not necessarily desirable, though that's a different issue). But treating religious non-profits differently from non-religious ones is clearly unconstitutional.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 12:43 -- link --

VVV

Court Rules Aborigines Have No Right To Minerals Australia's highest court ruled on Thursday that Aborigines had no rights to mineral or petroleum resources in a landmark decision viewed as a victory for the mining industry that could scupper other native title claims. The High Court also clarified that while mining and farming leases granted by the government did not necessarily extinguish Aboriginal claims to the land, the leases did prevail over native title rights in any conflict of interest. "The court has held that there is no native title right to any minerals or petroleum," High Court Chief Justice Murray Gleeson told the court. The complex, 500-page judgement was welcomed by the resources sector because if the court had ruled differently, mining companies may have been legally bound to compensate Aborigines or grant them royalties.

Well, at least the Aussies are honest about it, which means it might be open to a direct challenge. Of course, given how resistant John Howard has been to apologizing for the terrible things the government did to Aborigines over the past 200 years, I somehow doubt parliament will be jumping to pass a bill granting Aborigines mineral rights. The U.S. pretends that Native Americans are going to get money from the lands that the federal government administers on their behalf, but bureaucratic masmanagement (which is in some ways understandable -- it doesn't win you many votes to make reform of the BIA a campaign priority) means they don't see much of the proceeds.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 12:21 -- link --

7.8.02

VVV

UNC Draws Fire, Lawsuit For Assigning Book On Islam But this year, the university in Chapel Hill is asking all 3,500 incoming freshmen to read a book about Islam and finds itself besieged in federal court and across the airwaves by Christian evangelists and other conservatives. The university chose "Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations" by Michael A. Sells, a professor of comparative religion at Haverford College, because of intense interest in Islam since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said UNC Chancellor James Moeser. "We're obviously not promoting one religion," Moeser told concerned university trustees last month. "What more timely subject could there be?" But a national TV talk show host, Fox News Network's Bill O'Reilly, compared the assignment to teaching "Mein Kampf" in 1941 and questioned the purpose of making freshmen study "our enemy's religion."

I won't bother addressing O'Reilly's quote. Anyone who can't see the many ways in which it's wrong is beyond hope of being reached by reason.

It seems clear to me that there's nothing unconstitutional about having students read a book on Islam. The difference between "teaching a religion" and "teaching about a religion" seems pretty basic. A university would be remiss in its mission of producing graduates with well-rounded understanding of the world if it strictly avoided mention of a subject that has had such a significant impact on the lives of people past and present.

But I don't know that Approaching the Qur'an was necessarily the best choice. The university said that the motivation for using a book on Islam was, of course, the increased interest in the topic following September 11. This is an interest generated by the high profile of violence in the name of Islam. Yet the book's author is quoted as saying he specifically avoided addressing that issue. This is not to say that the book itself is bad -- I hardly expect every book on Christianity to cover the Inquisition. But it seems strange that in response to growing interest in Islam because of its political manifestation, the university would pick a book that does not address that.

I understand the desire to see the other aspects of Islam. It's certainly not just about terrorism, and it would do the nation well if people understood the non-political side of it. But university administrators are fooling themselves if they think that political Islam won't be the focus of discussion about the book. That's the topic that will be on students' minds, especially when Bush ratchets up the saber-rattling in time for the elections this fall. So it seems that students would be better served by a more historical or poli-sci type of analysis, giving them a body of facts about violence in the name of religion that would enlighten their discussions (I'm told that Terror in the Mind of God, which addresses Christian fundamentalist attacks on abortion clinics and ultra-Zionist violence as well, is good).

The people filing the lawsuit made a similar point -- The real problem, he said, "is not the sin of the author, it's the sin of the university, which knows this book presents nothing controversial about Islam. ... Anybody who has read this book and this book alone is still going to be ignorant about why people are killing other people in the name of Allah."

But should there be a lawsuit over that? Hardly. It's interesting that the conservative Christian commentators who drummed up the lawsuit tend to be the first to gripe about "judicial activism" (not to mention posting the 10 commandments in schools...).
posted by Stentor Danielson at 16:01 -- link --

5.8.02

VVV (yes, I'm still playing with my stylesheet.)
posted by Stentor Danielson at 21:05 -- link --

VVV

Why We Need Heaven The urge for heaven is universal; we need it the way we need love. “It’s threatening to one’s entire sense of self” to imagine the end of life, says Sherwin B. Nuland, author of “How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter.” “So essentially we have to convince ourselves that there is an afterlife. Even those of us who don’t believe in one sneakingly wish there was one.”

This is a strikingly narrow view of things, and stated high up in a fairly lightweight article that's more musing than actual reporting. But it points out a big problem with the dominance of Christianity in our society, where for most people "religious diversity" means "Lutherans and Presbyterians and Episcopalians." People tend to assume that all religion is basically patterned the way Christianity is. Every religion has a holy book, its rules for getting into heaven, its clergy, and its god you have to worship or else. The article makes it seem as if the basic idea of heaven is the same and is equally appealing to everyone. It hints at the salvation by faith versus salvation by works debate, but for the most part disagreements about heaven are presented as questions of its decor and whose side you need to be on to get there.

If all religions basically work the same way, religious differences go from being serious philosophical disputes to being like picking a sports team -- you always want your side to win, but there's no objective standard for why one or the other ought to. This is a nice way to get people to be accepting of diverse religions instead of seeing all others as destined for hell, but in its over-simplicity it ultimately saps the meaning out of serious religious study. Few sports fans go through long periods of soul-searching as they decide what team to root for. We should be able to say that one religion is right and another is wrong, without having to add "for everybody."
posted by Stentor Danielson at 13:09 -- link --

4.8.02

VVV

GOP, Democrats Locked In Race Toward Decline "Party allegiance is nothing with people my age. Party stuff is silly," says Dan Davila, 29, an easygoing college student. Like a lot of Minnesotans from around the Twin Cities, Davila comes from a long line of Democrats. But now he says with a shrug: "Who the hell cares who Grandma voted for?" Davila is sitting behind a table at the Anoka County Fair. It is a summer evening; a light breeze stirs the aroma of grilled pork chops and live cows. Somewhere nearby, an Elvis impersonator is braying. On Davila's table are buttons and pamphlets extolling former representative Tim Penny for governor. Penny recently bolted from the Democratic Party to campaign as an independent -- a move that certainly hasn't hurt him, and in fact might account for his instant front-runner status.

This article explains why the Green Party, despite all the hopes of campus radical leftists, is probably not going to become a major force in American politics (and neither are the Libertarians, though it's possible that they could adapt).

The basic argument of the article is that cultural partisanship -- voting for candidate X because he's a Democrat (and your family or region has always voted Democrat), rather than because he's a competent leader or because his stands on issues make sense -- is on the decline. Candidates are increasingly appealing to their committed interest groups -- for example, evangelical Christians for the Republicans, and organized labor for the Democrats -- and leaving nonpartisan (and generally centrist) voters out of it. The loss of these voters shifts power into the hands of extremists, leading to even more extreme candidates being selected, which further alienates centrists. Races become more about getting turnout from your interest groups than appealing to a broad selection of voters.

The Green Party is not set up to take advantage of this phenomenon. In fact, it premises its existence on the opposite idea -- that the Democrats aren't radical enough. While this may prove true in the presidential race, when candidates follow the "go extreme to get the nomination, then go center to win the race" game plan, most other races never have that second stage. And if the vicious cycle of alienation and radicalization continues, the Democrats could co-opt the Green agenda (certainly not completely, but enough to prevent the Greens from ever becoming a major force). And it would be very difficult for the Green Party to recast itself as the centrist alternative to the corrupt (or just disconnected, as the nonpartisan center is more disappointed than angry) party machines. The Green agenda is based on radical social change and a dependence on government intervention, while most nonpartisans are culturally moderate and skeptical of politcs.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 09:56 -- link --

VVV I ate this really nasty reuben for dinner last night. Now, I thought that wouldn't be an issue for me today. But then I realized what the body does when it breaks food down into nutrients. That reuben is currently in my cells...
posted by Stentor Danielson at 00:13 -- link --