Christian groups seek to keep National Day of Prayer despite having, oh, every other day

Argument over the federally-declared National Day of Prayer has only intensified as the date–tomorrow, May 6–draws ever nearer. On April 15, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of Wisconsin ruled that the National Day of Prayer, created by a 1952 law, is unconstitutional. According to a post on the In Queen Anne blog hosted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,

U.S. must fight proposed Ugandan anti-LGBT law

Originally published December 3, 2009.

AIDS Awareness Month began with World AIDS Day on Tuesday. The color red was everywhere, and discussion ensued on promises and goals for the year to come.

But in the HIV/AIDS conversation, no topic has been hotter in the last few weeks than Uganda. A country hit hard by HIV/AIDS, Uganda has benefited from U.S. funding in its struggle against the disease since President Bush set up the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003. Ugandan Christian ministries have also increasingly received financial contributions from conservative American anti-LGBT figures like Pastor Rick Warren.

The relationships of people like Warren, Scott Lively, and Don Schmierer with Ugandan churches aren’t the only cause of extreme homophobia in the country. But their influence, coupled with continued U.S. financial support to combat HIV/AIDS, has enabled and encouraged Ugandan leaders to target LGBT individuals as scapegoats.

Ugandan law already criminalizes same-sex sexual activity. But as far back as mid-October, Ugandan legislators have been considering a law that would make “repeat offenses” and sexual interaction with HIV-positive individuals punishable by death.

Somehow, it’s taken until the end of November for most people in the U.S. to even begin talking about this despicable legislation. More importantly, the person who should be talking about it—Rick Warren, someone with undeniable financial and ideological involvement in the development of the law—refuses to “take sides” in any discussion of the issue. Even Lively, author of The Pink Swastika (which likens being gay or lesbian to Nazism) has suggested that this new law is a bit extreme.

In addition to being a flagrant violation of human rights and essentially legalizing genocide, Uganda’s proposed law reinforces attitudes that impede the ability to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. It mistakenly singles out the LGBT community as a huge cause of HIV/AIDS. It also prevents any LGBT individuals from seeking information about safe sex in a same-sex context and from seeking treatment if HIV-positive.

In addition, the law would attempt to force others to inform on people they believe to be gay or lesbian within 24 hours of suspected same-sex sexual interaction. If they don’t, they could face up to three years in jail. If this doesn’t sound like a witch hunt, I don’t know what does.

In this particular circumstance, though, something can still be done.

First, Rick Warren needs to come clean. At the moment, his money speaks for him.

His current choice to keep mum about the subject demonstrates quite clearly that he supports legalized genocide in Uganda because he can’t openly fund its promotion in the United States. If this isn’t the case, then he needs to stand up and say it. Otherwise, he might as well be as ragingly bigoted as Fred Phelps instead of hiding behind his false “respectful evangelical” demeanor.

Second, the United States needs to step up to the plate and engage with the Ugandan government about this appalling proposal. We cannot continue to fund efforts to treat and stop HIV/AIDS in a country which dumps undue blame on a group of people and hopes to wipe them out. It must be communicated that we will not fund fatal prejudice.

Anyone’s individual feelings about the LGBT community aside, it is imperative to protect their rights as human beings. While we argue about LGBT individuals’ rights as American citizens to marry, to live free from discrimination, and whether it’s okay for Adam Lambert to kiss another man on television, the developing situation in Uganda is a question of life or death.

In making commitments for the coming year to do more in the fight against HIV/AIDS, I cannot imagine anything greater than dedication to the protection of the lives of those being unduly persecuted for the existence of a disease that does not discriminate in its choice of victims. We need to take responsibility for a problem aggravated to this point by our own countrymen.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Islamic banking may secure freedom for French Muslims

Originally published October 15, 2009.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his opinion on the burqa very clear over the summer, and after getting some legal snags worked out, he’s also strongly indicated his feelings about Islamic banking. France’s Finance Minister Christine Lagarde put it succinctly in a new government television ad, reported in an NPR article on Tuesday: “I would like to convince you that London is not your only choice for Islamic investment, but that Paris is also ready to welcome you and any of your clients who are looking for an alternative.”

Burqas are out but banking is in for Sarkozy’s France, launching some other French politicians into an uproar. Henri Emmanuelli, a deputy leader of the Socialist Party, calls Sarkozy’s activities threatening to France’s secularism. The Front National, the party of the French far-right, claims that Islamic banking will put communities at risk due to increased immigration of Muslims into France.

Banks that observe Islamic Shari’ah seem to have been unaffected by current global financial troubles, and according to NPR, Moody’s rating agency suggests that such banks hold $700 billion in assets. Given that France has the largest Muslim minority in Europe, it sounds like Sarkozy would like to see some of that dough revitalizing the country’s economy.

Similar to most environmental initiatives anywhere else in the world, people have to be pushed to make change that puts more money in someone else’s pockets. If tolerating France’s significant Muslim population could yield some profit, the French government is much more likely to comply. Banking, unlike burqa sales, could seriously benefit France.

While Sarkozy clearly only wants to gain convenient profit from his appeal to Muslims in France and abroad, that money could secure greater freedom of choice for practicing French Muslims. Establishing outlets for Islamic banking could encourage greater tolerance of Muslim observances in the future. If things get off to a good start (the Islamic Bank of Qatar has already applied for a license to open), maybe even the burqa ban will be quelled.

France’s fervor for secularism is aggressively one-sided, tipped in favor of, well, secularism. It presents the argument for the separation of church and state in a totally different manner, mandating in many circumstances that everyone forcibly maintain the secularist attitudes of said state. As others have argued in the instance of the burqa, a number of women opt not to wear them. The choice must belong to Muslim women individually—not their families, not men they don’t know, not religious leaders, and not to the French government.

What we have in the case of Islamic banking being legalized is choice in a particular instance being returned to Muslims. And while there’s no money in giving people a choice over what they wear, it becomes a little more difficult to outlaw one aspect of religious observance when another has already been given the government’s green light.

Despite angry rhetoric from other French politicians, I’d like to approve of Sarkozy’s politics of convenience just this once. If he uses it correctly, he’s given himself the opportunity to step back just slightly from his motions to cram an extremist, pompous brand of purported secularism down the throats of the citizens he represents.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Behavioral science, quant II…diversity ed?

Originally published February 5, 2009.

Every year, University housing sends new paraprofessionals through a variety of training sessions in order to prepare them for their residence hall positions. One of the training requirements for these students is an actual course, EOL199.

While new housing staff takes a specific version of this course, many sections are offered for undergrad students, recently revamped from EOL199 to EPSY203. Titled “Social Issues Group Dialogues,” the class “provides students with opportunities to converse on specific diversity and social justice topic areas offered as separate sections,” according to its description in the spring semester course catalog.

Essentially, the idea behind the course is to spend the latter part of the semester engaging in in-depth conversations with a small group of other students about specific social-identity-related topics such as sexual orientation, religion, race and ethnicity, among others.

Given the University’s current climate regarding issues of diversity, especially race and ethnicity, it’s encouraging to see that so many sections of this potentially eye-opening course are being offered for this semester (nine in all).

At the same time, I don’t think this is an effective implementation of this course. Its potential to do a lot of good for the University community is being stunted by its presentation.

First, it’s not even a full-semester course. That makes no sense given the complexity of the topics under discussion. One semester may only be enough to scratch the surface of subjects within gender, racial and religious studies, but six weeks is not even enough to make a mark.

Second, each course section admits students only by application. This may not be a big deal for students interested in taking EPSY203, but it eliminates campus-wide appeal. A student’s desire to take the course is likely precipitated by some interest or experience in diversity education, and while it’s fantastic for everybody to think deeply about social issues, this is not necessarily the type of person who really needs to take classes such as these. Rather, it’s the students who won’t go through the hassle of filling out an application, the students who have never given a thought to social identities and issues – the students who believe “diversity” is just some politically correct term that will disappear after graduation.

What we need is a broader version of EPSY203, one that lasts a full semester and examines social issues related to not just one specific aspect of social identity but to all of them. Courses meant to fulfill the non-Western/U.S. minority culture and behavioral science gen ed requirements don’t put students in a room together with the object of engaging them in dialogue about their life experiences being black, lesbian, Christian, poor, straight, differently abled, Muslim or white. For many students, the gen ed requirements put in place to make them “well-rounded young leaders in today’s world” are forgettable lectures in which their instructor doesn’t know their name or grade their assignments, much less push them outside their comfort zones.

Ideally, this introductory social issues course would be required for all undergrads during freshman year, first semester. It’s not intended to convert anyone to hardcore liberal thinking, as many might complain, but simply to act as an introduction: to make students aware of their surroundings.

Although campuses may promote diversity and tolerance differently than “the real world,” the knowledge that there are more types of people out there than just themselves equips students not only to better understand their society but also to better understand the increasingly global market. It encourages respect for others and creates cultural learning opportunities by enabling thought-provoking discourse instead of an evangelism of opinions.

Let’s face it: The campus perceives diversity initiatives like Inclusive Illinois as almost as badly managed and ineffective as Global Campus, but a required introductory diversity course has the power to really highlight social issues in a way many students may never have thought about them – through the eyes of a friend or classmate met in an intimate discussion setting every week.

Perhaps instead of just making us take a physical science or some quantitative reasoning classes, the University could include little things such as, say, teaching us to coexist with one another, too.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and is trying to learn to evenly apply 30 lbs. of pressure with her espresso tamper while rotating it 720 degrees.

Playboy, Penthouse…Gospel Today?

Originally published September 25, 2008.

Women receive a lot of mixed messages from society. These days, we encourage women to see themselves as a variety of things that were once discouraged: businesspeople, politicians, astronauts, soldiers, breadwinners and independents. We then appallingly show more of women’s bodies in advertisements, television shows, films and music videos than we ever have.

We tell women they can reach for whatever they want to be in life, and that they can literally bare almost all for the world around them. It’s OK to be the first female president, we say, and it’s OK for your body to be exploited for entertainment. It’s even OK for us to be offended by your nakedness after we’ve used you for it.

But according to the Southern Baptist Convention, fully clothed women can be just as offensive – particularly when they are pastors.

The SBC owns and operates Lifeway Christian Stores, which sell a number of books and periodical publications related to Christianity. Gospel Today resides among that number, and when the most recent issue of Gospel Today hit Lifeway shelves, the SBC wasn’t having any of it.

They pulled the issue of Gospel Today from the shelves and relegated it to sale from behind the counter, analogous to purchasing the current copy of Playboy at your non-Christian bookstore of choice. Why?

Because, as the Southern Baptist Convention’s Web site explicitly states, “pastoral leadership is assigned to men.”

That’s right. Gospel Today’s cover for their September/October issue features five smiling, immaculately dressed (gotcha!) female pastors. The piece within relates their experiences while trying to “break the stained-glass ceiling,” as the Atlanta Journal Constitution stated appropriately in an article on Sept. 18.

Some of you might be thinking, “You’re an atheist, why do you care?” Well, here’s the straightforward answer: We’re allowing people to condone sexism because of the use of religious justification.

Here’s the quote I used earlier from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Web site in its entirety: “While Scripture teaches that a woman’s role is not identical to that of a man in every respect, and that pastoral leadership is assigned to men, it also teaches that women are equal in value to men.”

What the SBC tells us, then, is that Scripture can be manipulated to keep women out of pastoral leadership roles. Conveniently, no specific reason is supplied as to why women are inadequate, which means men can supply reasons until the Second Coming – and they’ve already been doing that for quite some time. We’ve heard all the things that we are, apparently, according to supporters of the status quo: overly emotional, lascivious sex fiends, intellectually inferior; you name it; we’ve been called it. None of these description makes women sound as though we are of equal value.

But let’s go with it for a minute. Let’s say that women’s social roles are not entirely identical to those of men. We imply a degree of difference, or a separation, between men’s roles and women’s roles. Does anyone remember another time in which we decided that separate did not constitute equal? It’s impossible to assert that women and men are of equal value when even a partial separation in social roles exists.

Women’s inability to serve as pastors in the eyes of the SBC may seem like a small and specific insult, but it is only the tip of the inequality iceberg touched upon in the Convention’s statement on gender roles. And certainly the SBC is not the only propagator of such deeply rooted gender discrimination when it comes to religion (not just Christianity, by any means). We need reformation.

When I say “we,” I mean it – atheists like myself included. Just because I’m not personally religious doesn’t mean I condone the “scriptural” justification of any faith to diminish the value of women by rendering them unequal (and that is exactly what separating men’s and women’s roles does). If a woman feels called upon by God to lead a congregation, I support her right to do it. Solidarity extends past religious boundaries.

To these five women on the cover of Gospel Today, I offer only half-congratulations.

While I’m excited to see only a few of the faces of the growing number of female pastors, I also feel that congratulations are unnecessary, because they belong in the public sphere.

They belong in the mainstream. Most of all, they belong on bookstore shelves in full view, not behind the counter or shamefully tucked away in a brown paper bag.

Chelsea is a senior in English and music and has got to get this bookshelf sanded.