Mormon Church's new position on gay rights applauded, condemned

Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah

Carol Forsloff---The Mormon Church opposed legislation in California, Proposition 8, to allow gay marriage and many of its members have marched in opposition to it.  The Church has now liberalized its policies in exchange for protection of its own rights to make personal decisions based on religious belief regardless of whether or not those decisions are viewed as discriminatory by others.

In the past the Mormon Church has contributed millions of dollars and its members canvassed whole neighbors in its campaigns against gay marriage.  It has now "abandoned its crusade," as Mother Jones and other publications have reported.

Religious freedom restricted in 1/3 of the world

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Carol Forsloff - While most Americans continue to reinforce the concept of religious freedom and the First Amendment rights of the Constitution, across the rest of the world religious tolerance and freedom have actually declined.

The Pew Forum conducted a three-year study on religious restrictions around the world.   The organization’s research found that 6.9 billion people or nearly a third of the world’s population live in countries where government policies on religion or social hostilities involving religion have increased substantially during the period 2006 -2009.

Illustrations of this growing trend are reflected in government and social policies that have developed in Denmark and France.  France has restricted Muslim women from wearing the burka and school children from wearing clothing that displays religious symbols.  French conservatives view the increasing multiculturalism of France to be a threat to the French way of life.  They point to a major difference in assimilation of Muslims in France and African Americans in the United States and that a lack of shared culture, language and religious belief is largely responsible for the problems France is experiencing with respect to dealing with immigrant groups.

White separatists and right-wing groups have found fertile ground in the stresses of assimilation. Dr. Orly Taitz is specifically directing Europe’s struggles with Muslim groups and tying this to America’s policies with the Middle East while targeting President Barack Obama as being sympathetic to the Muslim causes due to his father’s religious affiliation with Islam.  She uses Denmark’s growing restrictions on Muslims as an example of the risks America faces if it continues to court Middle Eastern favor.

Recently England has faced riots in many sections of its major cities that the media has observed comes primarily from the youth in impoverished areas.  Like Denmark and France, new immigrant youth find it difficult to find jobs in a recession, and many of these same youth do not wish to comply with new traditions in order to assimilate.  US News and World Report pointed out in 2006 the growing problem Europe faces with respect to its immigrant population and the children of those immigrants and wrote:     "Europeans are uncomfortable with Islam, and they see it as an alien body in their midst. ... Europe's got a huge problem, and they're just getting their minds around it now."

These cultural pressures in the middle of economic strife and competition are, according to experts, at the heart of the tensions among population groups, a tension that will likely grow and produce the right wing political growth, religious restrictions and community violence in response.

Group says VA discriminates about prayer, God at funerals

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GHN Editor - "The hostile and discriminatory actions by the Veterans Affairs officials in Houston are outrageous, unconstitutional and must stop," said Jeff Mateer, Esq., general counsel of Liberty Institute.

With this the Liberty Institute sets forth its concern that the separation of church and state in its interpretation by the Veterans Affairs has gone too far.  So with VFW District 4, American Legion Post 586, National Memorial Ladies  they have joined a lawsuit against the VA as well as the Director of Houston National Cemetery for Religious Hostility.

This lawsuit represents the continuing controversy over how much religious symbolism and behavior and of what type should be presented in a public place.  Some organizations have even been set up to fight for the right to celebrate Christmas publicly.

Recently the Louisiana legislature passed a bill allowing a monument of the Ten Commandments to be placed on government grounds in Baton Rouge.  A similar memorial was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court.  But there are instances where the conflict has been over Christmas displays, prayers and religious meetings that take place in areas and gatherings that have no intrinsic religious orientation.

Liberty Institute protests the inability for people to have Christian readings and prayers at veterans funerals at a national cemetery.  The organization maintains this level of restriction in religious practice is discriminatory.  In a recent press release, the Liberty Institute points out how it successfully represented a Houston pastor by the name of Scott Rainey in a suit in federal court where the Houston VA had prohibited him from saying a prayer in Jesus name on Memorial Day.

“Government officials who engage in religious discrimination against citizens are breaking the law. Sadly, this seems to be a pattern of behavior at the Houston VA National Cemetery."Mateer maintains.

The VA has violated the First Amendment is Liberty Institute's claim, describing its concern that the VA will not allow God to be mentioned at the funeral of Veterans and that prayers have to be submitted to the Government for approval.  The Institute further maintains that the one of the government officials, Jose Henriquez, had told key VFW leadership that the word “God” is forbidden  on greeting cards and at burial services.

In 2010 the Supreme Court in a vote of 5 to 4 overturned a decision that had been made by a federal judge objecting to the erection of a white cross that had been constructed in the Mojave desert 75 years ago to honor World War I war dead.   The objection to the cross had been made by the ACLU that had contended practitioners of other faiths, such as Judaism, would not want to be memorialized by a cross and that it did not represent all people since the cross was a religious symbol only for Christians.

Liberty Institute believes there is precedent for veterans to have prayers and religious symbols at their funerals whether on public or private property, and in doing so it brings up the argument once again over church and state, one that continues despite the previous decisions made on the subject.

Vigilante justice remains part of the West's traditions

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GHN News Editor - A
recent case in the State of Arizona reveals vigilante justice continues
to be the way some people settle problems, but that doesn't mean it
something the law allows, as in the case of border vigilante Roger
Barnett.
Barnett, it is said, accosted a group fo 16 illegal

immigrants in 2004 near Arizona on State Highway 80.  He held the
immigrants at gunpoint until Border Patrol arrived.  This is that vigilante justicethat historically took place in border towns of the past.

He
is now being held for $73,000 damages in the case, following an Arizona
jury's award, although the 9th Circuit is deciding whether the verdict
should be reversed.

According to the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, which represented the group, Barnett had
hollered to the women in Spanish,
"My dog is hungry, and he's hungry
for ass."   The jury decided to award damages to the victims for
emotional distress and assault claims in February 2009.

Last
Wednesday Barnett's lawyer John Kaufmann maintained that these damages
should not have been awarded and that the case itself "should never have
been presented to the jury."  He maintains the jury is simply punishing
his client for bad behavior.

In the meantime Arizona remains at the crucible in the area of immigration with its new law
continuing to draw fire as well as imitators, both inside and outside
the state, as the federal government continues to maintain the state
stepped outside the limits of the law in enacting its own laws on the
subject.  That too is a form of justice the federal government in some

words declares a form of vigilantism in itself.