New Law Would Protect California Religious Freedom

LOS ANGELES TIMES, August 29-The Los Angeles Times reported that a bill on Governor Wilson's desk would deliver greater religious freedom — but not school prayer — to students at public schools.

“AB 1617, the Religious Freedom Protection Act, would prevent state and local governments from interfering with religious observances unless a compelling reason could be shown,” said the report.

It cited several examples: it would allow Jewish students to wear a Yarmulke and Sikh youth to wear a turban, even if there was a “no hat” policy at the school. The school could maintain its policy for a serious reason, the report said.

Another: the law would allow students to get perfect-attendance awards, even if they missed school for Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, or observed the Jewish new year or the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival.

It might also address situations like that in one Southern California school district, which from 1995-1997 consistently scheduled important school events on Jewish High Holy days, apparently unaware of them.

Said the report, “The bill is a direct response to a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed by Congress in 1993.” The California measure institutes the provisions of RFRA on the state, rather than the federal, level.

Caution Called for in Assessing Global Warming

NEW YORK POST, August 27-David Gelernter's expertise is twofold: art and computers. But since becoming a victim of the unabomber — Gelernter was targeted for his interest in technology — he has studied the brand of radical environmentalism that drove Ted Kaczinsky, who is serving time for attacking him.

He criticized the World Council of Churches for being too quick to endorse the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty that would see Americans spend some $7 to $12 billion annually to reduce carbon monoxide emissions in an effort to save the world from over-heating.

He wrote, “The problem is, first, that there is no scientific consensus on global warming.” He cited Facts, Not Fear, a book by Michael Sanera and Jane Shaw, and pointed out that temperatures have only risen one degree in one century — and for reasons that are not clear.

“It's possible that our carbon-dioxide exhaust is trapping heat like the glass of a greenhouse, and thereby heating things up. But if you endorse this theory, why did average temperatures rise faster in the 1910s and ‘20s (before the modern surge in carbon dioxide) than over the last few decades? Why did they fall between 1938 and 1970, as carbon dioxide increased? Does your theory account for the long-term temperature cycles that happen by themselves? There has been a lot of global warming since the last Ice Age.”

He said the Catholic and Orthodox Jewish positions on global warming are the wisest: that it is in the realm of scientific speculation, not religious faith, and that it does not pose a clear enough threat to justify large expenditures of money.

Gelernter said that the money some would spend on global warming could be better spent on charity. “How about if we established a national grant program for mothers who want to stay home and rear their children but can't afford to, or have husbands who won't let them? I'm not proposing such a program. But it would make far better sense on moral terms than what Church leaders are promoting.”

Reader Defends Faith

TOLEDO BLADE, July 30-Greg Fawcett, a Toledo Blade reader, recently responded to an op ed that the paper published by Eileen Foley that he called, “one of the most offensive and mean-spirited I have ever read.”

He said, “I can't help but wonder when will The Blade, ‘One of America's Great Newspapers,’ give one-fourth of an editorial page so an anti-Semite or an anti-Muslim can trash and disrespect those that they dislike. Apparently, if you want to slam and print anti-Catholic remarks or attack Christian values, it's open season at THE BLADE given Ms. Foley's disrespectful tirade about a faith followed by more than 950 million people worldwide.”

He pointed to Mary as a refutation of Foley's claim that the Church is antagonistic to women.

He concluded that Foley “apparently is a fallen-away Catholic. That is sad, for it is apparent that she is… uninformed on the Catholic faith. … Peace be

with Ms. Foley. Maybe she let her anger go. Try to be the open-minded, tolerant, and compassionate person that followers of the Catholic and other religious faiths struggle to model and live up to every day. I'll pray for her.”