February 8, 2012 | 6:08 pm

Seventh Day Adventists celebrate 9th Circuit ruling on Prop. 8

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Look at all those numbers in the headline. Better yet, look at my classmate and the editor-in-chief of the UCLA Law Review, Julius Nam, featured in this Patch article about why Seventh Day Adventists opposed Proposition 8 and are celebrating the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’s decision yesterday to affirm a district court ruling that the the voter-approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

Turns out that Julius, also an associate professor of religious studies at Loma Linda University, was a spokesperson for Adventists Against Prop. 8. That’s him in the above YouTube video from 2008, when he said:

“As a Christian minister, as a theologian, I am very concerned about the type of ads and kind of campaign that is going on among the four Proposition 8 groups,” Nam said in 2008 in response to the information being put out by the proposition’s proponents. “It must stop. You must stop the lies you are propagating. You must stop the scare tactics and the fear mongering that is going on. It does not reflect well on the religious principals that we want to uphold as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as Buddhists, as followers of the divine.”

The Patch story doesn’t appear to report any Adventist reaction from yesterday’s ruling. But I do know that Julius thought the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to be “a just, moral and righteous decision.”

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February 8, 2012 | 2:40 pm

‘Poster couple’ for same-sex marriage files for divorce

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

When California briefly legalized gay marriage in June 2008, Robin Tyler, a Jewish activist, and Diane Olson were among the first to be wed. They were among the original plaintiffs to sue the state, pre-Prop. 8, for prohibiting same-sex marriages, and Gloria Allred officiated their ceremony.

So, you would expect them to be celebrating on the heels of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirming of a lower court ruling that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional.

Instead, they are getting a divorce.

MSNBC, which called Tyler and Olson the “poster couple” for gay rights, reports:

“We’re human and we went through difficult times,” Tyler said. The marriage ran its course, she said.

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The right to marry wasn’t meant to guarantee that gay couples would live happily ever after, Tyler said, but to provide a basic human civil liberty.

Tyler said her marital problems were no different than if the two parties had been a man and woman. Gays and lesbians shouldn’t be held to a different standard when granted the same civil rights as everyone else, she said.

To quote my old boss paraphrasing Chris Rock, “gay couples deserve the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us.”

Not that I actually agree with the premise that marriage makes folks miserable.

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February 8, 2012 | 2:24 pm

With Mormonism on mute, Romney’s persona takes a hit

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The conventional wisdom is that many Republican voters are uncomfortable with Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. Call them old fashioned. But could it be that Romney would have a better shot and defeating President Obama if he turned up the volume on his life story, a story that Mormonism is interwoven throughout?

Frank Bruni writes in the New York Times that “Mitt’s Muffled Soul” is hurting his ability to connect with voters in a real and meaningful way. The guarded Romney, who is getting tripped up by his comments about the poor and those he’s fired, comes off as a more distant man who is out of touch with most Americans. But voters care about getting to know the real Romney, and that includes his Mormon faith.

Bruni writes:

His aloofness, guardedness and sporadic defensiveness: are these entwined with the experience of belonging to a minority tribe that has often been maligned and has operated in secret? Do his stamina and resilience as a candidate reflect his years of Mormon missionary work in France, during which he learned not to be daunted in the face of so much resistance that he won a mere 10 to 20 converts, according to “The Real Romney,” a biography published last month?

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“His church experience is, I think, one of the great humanizing influences in Mitt Romney’s life,” said Patrick Mason, a professor of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University. Mason noted that if Romney would embrace that side of himself, he could beat the rap that he’s never been exposed to hardship by recounting his missionary experience. “That’s usually a very spartan lifestyle, and by definition most of the people you’re talking to are going to be poor.”

Should Romney step up and be more open about his faith, or should he keep it on mute? It’s likely that none of this will matter until this summer. But come the campaign against Obama, Romney is going to need to humanize himself.

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February 7, 2012 | 9:15 pm

Bloggingheads: On Komen and the funding of Planned Parenthood

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway and Amy Sullivan debate the fun that was the Susan G. Komen funding of Planned Parenthood PR debacle.

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February 7, 2012 | 4:46 pm

Another nugget from the 9th Circuit’s Prop. 8 ruling

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In affirming that the California voter-passed initiative banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, wrote for a 2-1 majority of a Ninth Circuit panel that the law served no other purpose than to discriminate:

Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for “laws of this sort”

That rationale goes back to what I’ve been saying since I wrote this post in 2008:

on an issue like same-sex marriage, I don’t think it matters whether I believe God is bothered by homosexuality. Proposition 8 has to do with fundamental rights—limiting them, that is. Marriage, despite what we always hear, is not a religious convention. It is a cultural convention. And the words “sanctity of marriage,” to my mind, have more to do with tax breaks and hospital visitation than ordaining a relationship before God.

As an evangelical Christian—as someone who, uncomfortable as it is to sometimes say this, reads in the Bible that homosexuality is a “perversion”—I don’t believe it is the job of government to legislate based on religion. We’ve seen how that works out.

Proposition 8 was not about marriage—not about protecting a sacred ceremony—but how the government treats a certain class of Americans.

On an semi-related and coincidental note, Reinhardt is the father-in-law of Daniel Sokatch, former Progressive Jewish Alliance executive director and now head of the New Israel Fund.

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February 7, 2012 | 11:39 am

Federal appeals court strikes down California’s gay marriage ban

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Gay Marriage advocates during a rally before hearing the news of the Proposition 8 over-ruling in San Francisco, Ca., Feb. 7. Photo by REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach

Affirming a ruling by the district court that California’s voter-passed ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, the Ninth Circuit struck down Proposition 8. In a 2-1 opinion, Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote:

“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable,” 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote, “it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently.”

“There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted,” Reinhardt wrote

More from Reuters. The full opinion is on the Los Angeles Times website.

This is the latest legal decision in a case that many people have expected would find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court since voters approved the measure in 2008.

One of my law professors, Adam Winkler, has a great piece at the Huffington Post that breaks down what’s next for same-sex marriage and how the Supreme Court might resolve this case. A snippet:

With four Justices expected to vote against gay marriage (Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito) and four others expected to vote in favor (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan), how the Court rules is expected to turn on the vote of Anthony Kennedy, the usual swing vote. And that, perhaps surprisingly, buoys the hopes of many in the gay rights community.

The Supreme Court has twice before squarely ruled on gay rights issues and, in both cases, Kennedy wrote strong opinions endorsing equality for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation. In the most recent of those cases, Kennedy wrote that “our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage” and “other family relationships.” ...

Students of the Supreme Court also recognize Justice Kennedy to be the Justice most likely to side with the individual against the government.

Read the rest here, where he also addresses the standing issue that I discussed in the fall. The Supreme Court could still dismiss this case by ruling that supporters of the state law, as opposed to the state government, are not the proper party to defend the law.

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February 6, 2012 | 12:37 pm

Defamatory to associate Romney with Sikh temple?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, India. Photo by Wikipedia/Julijan Nyča

Last month, Jay Leno showed a slide of Mitt Romney’s “summer home.” In fact, it was Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, a shrine of the Sikh faith. And now Leno and NBC are being sued over it.

From Reuters and TheWrap:

Dr. Randeep Dhillon, who does business as Bol Punjabi All Regions Community Organization, claims that Leno “hurt the sentiments of all Sikh people in addition to those of the plaintiff” with his joke. Dhillon further claims that Leno’s joke “clearly exposes plaintiff, other sikhs and their religion to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy because it falsely portrays the holiest place in the Sikh religion as a vacation resort owned by a non-Sikh.”

Was the joke false? Obviously. Was it funny? Maybe. But was it libel? I can’t possibly imagine how.

Libel pertains to false statements of fact. Parody doesn’t count. Just ask Jerry Falwell. (Well ... you can’t actually.) Did anybody seriously believe that the above image was of Romney’s summer home?

The lawsuit also raises interesting questions about whether Dhillon and other Sikhs think that it’s defamatory to be associated with Mitt Romney. I know that Romney appears to have the GOP nomination in hand, but can he really win the White House without the Sikh vote?

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February 6, 2012 | 10:33 am

If you OCeeker, you will find

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is definitely not your father’s faith column.

The OCeeker, a new feature from the OC Weekly, offers reviews of houses of worship in Orange County. It’s a great idea, and I can see why the alternative news weekly’s editor in chief—that Mexican guy—is so excited about it.

The OCeeker is Josh Dulaney, who comes by way of my old stomping grounds, the San Bernardino Sun, but brings a very different voice—complete with f-bombs and talk of Calvinists.

The inaugural review focuses on a Mars Hill’s OC offshoot, “where one will not find sh*tty little anthems of praise,” which coincidentally meets at the Observatory music hall. It turns out that when the OCeeker visited, Mark Driscoll was in town:

Driscoll is constant fodder in the evangelical blogosphere. Whether it’s his views on Christian manhood, or his tendency to wax long about all things Driscoll, he feeds the blog beast with one money quote after another. He was there to encourage the new church and give a message based on his controversial book, Real Marriage—a manual on matrimony and sanctified sex. Go Maaark! Git bizzy! Go Maaark! Git bizzy! It was standing room only in the temporary temple, where DJ Quik ironically is scheduled this month to bust rhymes about “Sweet Black P*ssy.”

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Ultimately, Driscoll urged the men, mostly in their 20s and sporting hip haircuts, to treat their wives, mostly in their 20s and flaunting SoCal couture, as Christ treats the church—with love, respect and understanding. It was an apt illustration plucked from the pages of the New Testament.

A high point of the message was Driscoll’s exhortation to men who probably aren’t ready for marriage:

“If you’re a guy who still thinks that The Big Bang Theory is interesting, that Zach Galifianakis is funny, that Seth Rogan has interesting insights, that David Spade contributes anything to the human race, (or) Adam Sandler has ever made a movie worth watching, punch yourself in the face.”

The OCeeker has an edge to it that makes it unique in the arena of religion reporting. (Funny, I’ve always told people that religion reporting is not about reporting what happened at St. Michael’s on Sunday—but for the OCeeker, it kind of is.) It’s also comes off as knowledgeable of the world of religion. However, the tone borders on condescending.

Maybe that came from a general dislike for Driscoll or a disagreement over the Mars Hill doctrine or a disdain for religion in general. I guess that that will become clearer as the OCeeker reviews more houses of worship. Gustavo Arellano, in an editor’s note, said that we can expect to see Josh Dulaney finding “Holy Rollers, mosques, parish, or Zoroastrianism center in the search for the holy, the sacred, and the freaky.”

I’m excited about this new feature, but also interested to see how it works out. Religion reporters certainly aren’t above having some fun with their stories—nor should they be—but they are best when they aren’t making fun of the people in their stories. That’s what Bill Maher didn’t get with “Religulous.” The result was a funny movie, even brilliant, but it wasn’t a sincere documentary and it didn’t reflect religion but only fringe fundamentalists.

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February 5, 2012 | 10:04 am

Ski resort Jesus statue gets another 10 years from Forest Service

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Aerial view of Whitefish Mountain Resort. Photo by Wikipedia/Donnie Clapp

There is a statue of a skiing Jesus at Whitefish Mountain Resort in Whitefish, Mont. The statue, a memorial to World War II veterans that has resided on federal land since 1995, was evicted by the U.S. Forest Service a year ago. That move led to protests from religious groups and Montana’s congressman.

Last week, the Jesus statue got a 10-year extension on its lease. The AP reports:

Forest Service supervisor Chip Weber said the revised decision took into account that the statue is eligible for placement on National Register of Historic Places, and that no substantive concerns related to environmental conditions were found in about 95,000 comments received by the agency.

The latest decision renews a 10-year special-use permit for the Knights of Columbus Council, members of which placed the statue there.

“I understand the statue has been a long-standing object in the community since 1955, and I recognize that the statue is important to the community for its historical heritage based on its association with the early development of the ski area on Big Mountain,” Weber said.

Of course, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which claims that the statue’s presence on federal land is a blatant violation of the separation of church and state, isn’t pleased with the issuance of a new special-use permit. Annie Laurie Gaylor, the organization’s co-president, called the permit a “sham.”

A lawsuit challenging the decision can be expected. And I don’t think that supporters can lean too much on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision upholding the constitutionality of the mojave cross—since stolen—which was heavily tied to the facts of that case and, in my opinion, was not the watershed moment that proponents of religious symbols on public land wanted it to be.

So how will this one turn out?

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February 3, 2012 | 10:20 am

Komen reverses course; resumes funding Planned Parenthood breast cancer screenings

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Race for the Cure 2005 Breast cancer fundraising race. Photo by Wikipedia/Aine D.

The Susan G. Komen-Planned Parenthood saga this week has come full circle.

After the Susan G. Komen Foundation said they would no longer fund breast cancer screening by Planned Parenthood, the public reaction showed just how divisive abortion remains in American society. And now, in a complete reversal, Komen says it won’t stop sending funds to Planned Parenthood.

Komen founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker reportedly announced the about-face on the foundation’s blog. That link appears dead, but NPR excerpted the announcement of a policy change while it was still accessible:

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”

More from NPR here.

Whether pro-choice or pro-life, we can all agree that cancer doesn’t care. And I think that is what made a lot of people so upset about Komen’s original decision to de-fund. But, at the same time, those who were protesting the decision were willing to stop supporting the leading advocate for women against a life-threatening disease. Now that Komen has reversed course, they can certainly expect a protest from the pro-life side.

It’s all a bit head-spinning and leaves you wondering how Komen can repair their brand and get back to doing what they do best: helping women.

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February 2, 2012 | 9:43 am

Obama grounds financial reform in ‘love thy neighbor’ at National Prayer Breakfast

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Barack Obama and Leader Nancy Pelosi at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Feb. 2. Photo by REUTERS/Larry Downing

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning—and not the People’s Prayer Breakfast—President Obama grounded his push for financial reform in the Bible. Specifically, Obama said:

And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’

Obama followed that up with an ecumenical tip of the hat—“I know the version of that Golden Rule is found in every major religion and every set of beliefs — from Hinduism to Islam to Judaism to the writings of Plato”—but it was still interesting to hear Obama putting such emphasis on biblical values in encouraging through and signing in the Dodd-Frank Act. And he didn’t stop there.

Now you’d expect Obama to be a bit more effusive about his Christian beliefs at the National Prayer Breakfast. And you wouldn’t simply be a cynic to point out that it’s campaign season and Obama needs to grab some of those moderate Christian voters, particularly evangelicals, who don’t know what to do with the GOP candidates.

But there seems to me a good deal of sincerity here. Much as questions about his faith have haunted Obama, this is not the first time he’s spoken openly about how Christian values have influenced his politics. In doing so, he comes off as a pretty run-of-the-mill liberal Christian. Which probably isn’t far off.

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February 1, 2012 | 6:22 pm

Shabbat dinner from the Davos World Economic Forum

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Liz Claman (courtesy photo)

In recent years, Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman has made it a priority to observe Shabbat at the Davos economic forum. Her thoughts from the 2010 dinner appeared on wowowow and were excerpted on this blog.

Before she left for Davos last week, Liz offered to write The God Blog from become an annual Shabbat dinner. My questions are in bold:

Why do a Shabbat in Davos? Is this about breaking bread with those attending or about observing the Sabbath?

It’s a little of both.  The World Economic Forum is like a gigantic magnet that pulls in world leaders and business people from around the globe to this tiny Swiss Alpine ski village. At some point, someone must have looked around and said, “My goodness, an important number of people here are Jewish. Let’s give them a place not only to mark Shabbat but to meet and schmooze.”

Who is at this year’s Davos Shabbat dinner?

Everywhere you turned, there was someone who’s got an important and pivotal role in either business, politics or both.

Israel’s president Shimon Peres and Minister of Finance Ehud Barak were the star guests. Israel’s Central Bank Governor Stanley Fischer, JP Morgan Chase International Chairman Jacob Frankel, U.S. Undersecretary of State Bob Hormats, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Bank Hapoalim Chairman Yair Seroussi, Warren Buffett’s grandson Howard Buffett Jr., Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, Nobel Prize winners Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter and Biologist Bob Horvitz,  billionaire investor Jeff Greene, Henry Schein CEO Stan Bergman, the list goes on.

Who took a surprising role in dinner?

Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg. She’s an amazing singer and led us all in “Shalom Alechem.” It was very emotional. There we all were at the Hotel Seehof singing at the top of our lungs in a country that hadn’t exactly extended real help to the Jews during World War II. Definitely an important moment and real affirmation of our resilience.

Davos this year has not been without Occupy protestors. How has that affected the tone of the conference? The dinner?

One of the first things my crew and I did upon arrival was to head over to the Occupy Davos location. The protestors were building igloos and I felt we as journalists should take a look. The mandate of the World Economic Forum is to “solve the world’s problems.”

One issue on a lot of participants’ plates was fixing the income inequality gap, a big Occupy complaint. We got there and found 3 guys slicing ice blocks. We talked to them. They are still angry at the banks. As one protestor put it, “They got bailed out when they got into trouble. So many of us lost our jobs because of their mistakes. Where’s our bailout?”.  They told me they were hoping for more people to amass but Davos is a 2 and a half hour winding drive from Zurich. Even with only 3 people there, it was a topic of conversation at dinner.

Ehud Barak brought up Israeli’s complaints about high inflation and unemployment, saying this was equally if not more important than Occupy Wall Street to discuss. Israel, he asserted, needs to be stronger than ever to face the always present threat Arab nations and Iran pose. “Let me remind you of a Jewish saying,” he said with a smile. “Be healthy because troubles will never be in short supply.”

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