VOICE OF THE TURTLE Online - July 20-26, 2004
Religious Freedom Must Be Preserved
Religious freedom is enshrined in our Constitution, remembering Roger Williams, the Rhode Island colony he founded and a group of religious refugees who moved there. It is know that the first Jewish families to come to the New World came to Rhode Island in 1654 after being forced out of their earlier homesteads in Brazil by an intolerant Portuguese governor. A more indulgent previous viceroy had tolerated the Jews there before, but had not ensured their absolute freedom.Toleration by government is not enough, since it can easily be taken away. Even when it is limited, it is not freedom. And, sadly to write, it appears that many people in America believe it should still be that way.
By 1658, a second boatload of Jewish colonists had landed in Rhode Island - the world’s first government offering absolute religious freedom. For a people who had been persecuted and sometimes slaughtered for their faith in many different countries across hundreds of years, the Jewish settlers in Rhode Island were thrilled to find a place where for the first time in human history, one’s standing in the religious community didn’t affect your acceptance in the civil community.
However, Roger Williams’ commitment to religious liberty in a civil context didn’t mean that he thought all religions were equal right or good. He has been identified as a eccentric, strange and wonderful man, who thought that religious liberty “is what God required.” Williams wanted everyone to come to understand the gospel as he did. However, they could only do that truly and freely without the pressure or aid of government.
History records that the Jewish settlers founded what would later become the oldest Jewish house of worship in the New World - Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI, built in 1763, which includes a trap door by the pulpit, which might have come in handy for the Jews in the Old World, who were regularly subject to pogroms and other persecutions. But thanks to God, the Jews have never had to use that trap door to avoid persecution.
The legacy needs to continue, despite pressures to limit religious freedom or curtail the rights of religious minorities. It is evident to many of us that we need to preserve, and even expand, the world’s greatest experiment in religious liberty. As we celebrate the Fourth of July, let us spend some time in prayer asking our loving creator to reach into the hearts and minds of our religious, civil and government leaders, to seek to restore the religious freedom of all people.
Adapted from an article
by Robert Marus in Baptists Today, June, 2004.
Thanks to Focus, newsletter of Telos Ministries.
Spaniards Leave Catholic Church In Protest Against Anti-Gay Stance
Spain: Gay rights activists have handed in 1500 letters to the Catholic
Church from people renouncing their faith in anger at its opposition to
gay marriage, which the Socialist Government plans to legalize. The mass
apostasy last week was a powerful gesture in a country where 95 per cent
of people define themselves as Catholics.
In the battle to regain the Christian heart of Europe, Spain -
birthplace of some of the most conservative Catholic movements - is a
disappointment. The Vatican sees Spain as having deteriorating Christian
values, and the Pope has recently told Prime Minister Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero that Spain had to conserve moral and cultural values.
Spain's Catholic bishops
have already spoken out strongly against the adoption of children by
homosexual couples.
The Socialist Government, which won power in April, quickly announced it
would seek to legalise same-sex marriage and says a draft law will be
presented in September - a radical move in a country where homosexuality
was illegal until 1975. Indeed, legalizing gay marriage was one of the
campaign platforms of Prime Minister Zapatero.
“The moment has finally arrived to end once and for all the intolerable
discrimination which many Spaniards suffer because of their sexual
preferences,” Zapatero told parliament during a debate which ended with
a vote to confirm him in office last April. "Homosexuals and
transsexuals
deserve the same public consideration as heterosexuals," he said. "As a
result we will modify the Civil Code to recognize their equal right to
marriage with the resulting effects over inheritance, labor rights and
social security protection."
“I do not wish to belong to an institution that crushes gays, lesbians
and transsexuals daily,” said Pedro Zerolo, a member of the Socialist
Party executive board and one of the 1500 who asked that their names be
struck from church records.
Gay activists said the church should not interfere in politics.
“That's... out of the Middle Ages and there is no place for it,” said
Arnaldo Gancedo Senra, head of the gay rights group that staged the
protest. "The Government is doing something big for us... and if it
needs our support we gays, lesbians and transsexuals will be there for
it."
While the Government's anti religious agendas have stirred heated debate
in parliament and prompted protests from bishops, there has not been
much grassroots resistance amongst the faithful in Spain. There are
already nine other countries in Europe which have some form of
recognition for same-sex couples.
From International Herald Tribune