MS SB2681- Not Just Against the Gays

The Mississippi legislature is in the process of enacting SB2681, a so-called Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This law is not just about shop owners being able to discriminate against homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders, and bi-sexuals. It's an open assault on everyone's civil liberties.

 Look at the wording in this section:

 58         (c)"Exercise of religion" means the practice or
 59 observance of religion. "Exercise of religion" includes, but is
 60 not limited to, the ability to act or the refusal to act in a
 61 manner that is substantially motivated by one's sincerely held
 62 religious belief, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or
 63 central to a larger system of religious belief.

This is going back to the times when hospitals could refuse treatment of blacks.  This is going back to a time when businesses had signs hanging in their windows that Jews were not allowed.

The Founding Fathers knew what great harm religions could do.  I believe they wrote the 1st Amendment because the US was a haven for those who could not practice their religion freely in other countries.  Baptists, Quakers, Calvinists, and other Protestant sects flocked here.  So did Jews and other non-Christians.  They wanted people of faith to be able to worship as  they wanted without interference from the government.

This intended law can have dire consequences and to me is a danger to all.  This law can be used to discriminate against Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and others as long as the person doing the discriminating is acting on "the refusal to act in a manner that is substantially motivated by one's sincerely held religious belief".

My grandfather at the age of 10, with his family, immigrated to this country because of real persecution and not the made up persecution of Fox News .  As Jews living in Ukraine they were unable to hold certain jobs, land, etc.  They faced pogroms were their villages were burned to the ground, women were raped, and all could be killed.  It was especially bad around Easter.

They came to this country because they knew that there was freedom.  There was religious freedom and they didn't have to worry about government interference.  There was bigotry.  Jews were not allowed in certain places but it was not government sanctioned discrimination.

This proposed law would allow government sanctioned discrimination against the LGBT community, non-Christians, non-whites, atheists, and even against Christians.  It must be stopped if the US is truly to be the Land of the Free.

Anne Frank Banned!

This year, UNESCO is holding its "World Book Capitol Day" in Beirut Lebanon. The Dairy of Anne Frank has been banned. Others banned include:

Even a partial list of books banned in Lebanon gives pause: William Styron's "Sophie's Choice"; Thomas Keneally's "Schindler's List"; Thomas Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem"; books by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. In fact, all books that portray Jews, Israel or Zionism favorably are banned.

Writers in Arabic are not exempt. Abdo Wazen's "The Garden of the Senses" and Layla Baalbaki's "Hana's Voyage to the Moon" were taken to court. Syria's Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was prosecuted for his "Critique of Religious Thinking."

Censorship is carried out by the Sûreté General, which combines the functions of the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security. It does not post a list of banned works, much less answer questions. However a major book importer, in an email, provided a list of banned films and the reasons given by the Sûreté. Here are some: "A Voice From Heaven" (verses of Koran recited during dance scenes); "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (homosexuality); "Barfly" ( blacklisted company Canon); and "Daniel Deronda" (shot in Israel).

All of Jane Fonda's films are banned, since she visited Israel in 1982 to court votes for Tom Hayden's Senate run. "Torn Curtain" is banned: Paul Newman starred in "Exodus." And the television series "The Nanny" is banned because of Fran Drescher.

According to Beirut newspaper L'Orient, any one of the recognized religions (a system known as "confessionalism") can ask the Sûreté to ban any book unilaterally. The Muslim Dar al-Fatwa and the Catholic Information Center are the most active and effective. (The latter got Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" banned.) Even works by self-proclaimed Islamists such as Assadeq al-Nayhoum's "Islam Held Hostage," have been banned, and issued only when re-edited in sympathetic editions (in Syria).

Censorship is a problem throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Though a signatory of the Florence Agreement, the Academy of Islamic Research in Egypt, through its censorship board al-Azhar, decides what may not be printed: Nobel Prize winner Naghib Mahfouz's "Awlad Haratina" (The Sons of the Medina) was found sacrilegious and only printed in bowdlerized form in Egypt in 2006. Saudi Arabia sponsors international book fairs in Riyadh, but Katia Ghosn reported in L'Orient that it sends undercover agents into book stores regularly.

It is troubling that many books and movies that have are about Jews and the Shoah are banned. It is troubling that shows and movies that have Jews in them are banned. It is troubling that any books are banned at an event sponsored by the United Nations, especially and event that is supposed to celebrate freedom of expression. Jews have cooties?


H/t: Soccer Dad