June 5, 2011 | 7:53 pm

Westboro Baptist Church protested by ... Ku Klux Klan

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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What’s that about politics and strange bedfellows? Bet you didn’t see the KKK joining the protests against Westboro Baptist Church.

The Washington Post has the story:

As President Obama honored fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, three members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested the ceremony, holding signs that read “Pray for more dead soldiers” and “God hates your prayers,” as the controversial group has become known to do. They were met by about 70 counterprotesters, including members from a group just as contentious as the church: the Ku Klux Klan.

Dennis LaBonte, who told CNN he was a military veteran and the “imperial wizard” of a KKK chapter, said the approximately 10 members of the group came in “support of the troops.” LaBonte, who said he’s not a “hate-monger,” said he “thinks that it’s an absolute shame that [the WBC] show up and disrupt people’s funerals.” The group was cordoned off in a separate area and reportedly “drew little attention.”

WBC member Abigail Phelps said the KKK “have no moral authority on anything.”

I have to wonder if this is a bit of misdirection. I mean, the Ku Klux Klan certainly agrees with Westboro that God hates Jews, but they knew they couldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with Westboro because of the added backlash against Westboro. So maybe it’s a faux protest.

June 5, 2011 | 4:45 pm

House Majority Leader Cantor at AIPAC

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I was out of the country when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor delivered this address at the AIPAC conference. Watch it above, starting at the 2:45 mark.

Thanks to Rick Richman for pointing it out. The transcript follows:

The following story illustrates Israel’s dilemma. A Palestinian woman from Gaza arrives at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba for lifesaving skin treatment for burns over half her body. After the conclusion of her extensive treatment, the woman is invited back for follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic. One day she is caught at the border crossing wearing a suicide belt. Her intention? To blow herself up at the same clinic that saved her life.

Now what kind of culture leads one to do that? Sadly, it is a culture infused with resentment and hatred. But it is this culture that underlies the Palestinians’ and the broader Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. And this - this—is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not about the ‘67 lines.

Until Israel’s enemies come to terms with this reality, a true peace will be impossible.

And the reality is, as we say in Hebrew, “Ahm Yisrael Chai”: The people of Israel live—and what they want is to live in peace. If the Palestinians want to live in peace in a state of their own, they must demonstrate that they are worthy of a state.

So to Mr. Abbas, I say: Stop the incitement in your media and your schools. Stop naming public squares and athletic teams after suicide bombers. And come to the negotiating table when you have prepared your people to forego hatred and renounce terrorism—and then Israel will embrace you.

Until that day, there can be no peace with Hamas. Peace at any price isn’t peace—it’s surrender.

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June 5, 2011 | 2:15 pm

Twin Friars, 92, die on same day

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve heard many a stories about identical twins who were separated at birth and yet grew up to live astonishingly similar lives. This is a version of that story, via the AP:

Identical twins Julian and Adrian Riester were born seconds apart 92 years ago. They died hours apart this week. The Buffalo-born brothers were also brothers in the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor. Professed friars for 65 years, they spent much of that time working together at St. Bonaventure University, doing carpentry work, gardening and driving visitors to and from the airport and around town.

Check out the above audio from NPR that tells a little more about the Riesters:

Their cousin told the Buffalo News, if ever there’s confirmation that God favored them, this is it. They were never really apart.

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June 4, 2011 | 9:01 pm

‘Foreskin Man’s’ anti-Semitic slam dunk in circumcision wars?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Foreskinman.com

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published my op-ed about “The Circumcision Wars.” It was an interesting, if slightly awkward piece to report out, but it’s stirred up some interesting comments over at the WSJ cite.

The long and short of it is there is an movement of anti-circumcisers, “intactivists” who claim that foreskin has gotten a bad rap. They want to ban male circumcision everywhere, starting in San Francisco, and they claim the act is no different than female genital mutilation.

I know. It’s bonkers.

My op-ed focused more on the cultural and religious implications of prohibiting a covenantal act that Jews and Muslims are religiously commanded to perform. (The First Amendment issue is it’s own animal, and I largely left that alone.) Here’s a snippet:

From a Jewish religious perspective, the medical evidence is largely beside the point: Circumcision was ordered by God, so it requires no independent justification. Likewise for Muslims, who also circumcise per religious tradition.

The San Francisco measure would only prevent the circumcision of minors within city limits, and the practice would likely endure even there. “Circumcision is not going to go away because of this small, determined, angry group,” said Dr. Samuel Kunin, a Los Angeles-based urologist who promised that if the ballot measure passes, he’ll travel north to perform the first San Francisco circumcision.

The law also wouldn’t prevent a Jew from being circumcised as an adult, though that’s a much tougher procedure. To be sure, that didn’t stop thousands of Soviet Jews who were circumcised after they escaped persecution and arrived in Israel, the United States and elsewhere.

Still, circumcision doesn’t make a Jew a Jew. Family lineage or conversion (for which only the Orthodox widely require circumcision) do that. But, like baptism for those Christians who believe it is essential, circumcision is a declaration of a man’s covenant with God—a physical seal on that part of the body that passes traits to the next generation. No law, constitutional or not, can change that.

I also mention that some critics of the anti-circumcisers have claimed this movement is at least potentially anti-Semitic. I spoke with Matthew Hess, the guy running the MGM Bill organization, which is leading the legislative fight, and I didn’t get that impression. Instead it just seemed that Hess and others were anti-religious—or at least that they didn’t respect a religious impetus for male circumcision:

“Jewish people are not the only ones who practice circumcision,” Hess said. “In fact, they are a tiny minority. It is also practiced by Muslims; it is practiced culturally in the United States by people of any religion. It is not targeted toward Jewish circumcision, and I am always puzzled to hear the first thing to come out be: Oh, this is anti-Semitic.”

Well, I wish I had seen the Foreskin Man comic before we went to press Thursday. That’s it in the above image; it turns out that Hess wrote and created the comic book. Kind of undercuts his I-can’t-believe-people-think-we-hate-Jews spiel.

I’ll let Debra J. Saunders of the SF Chronicle describe what is going on:

Hmmmmm. Blonde superhero. An evil rabbi before a baby, a glass and a bottle of wine. And there’s a character named “warrior” of the “intactivist underground” who doesn’t care about rules or law and has one goal: “to stop child circumcisers dead in their tracks.”

I spoke with Matthew Hess of Foreskinman.com this morning. I asked him if the comic is anti-Semitic. He answered, “A lot of people have said that, but we’re not trying to be anti-Semitic. We’re trying to be pro-human rights.”

Jonah Lowenfeld has more on Foreskin Man here.

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June 4, 2011 | 4:31 pm

Activist to Rep. Ryan: ‘Focus on the Gospel of Luke’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Funny exchange here between an activist from Faithful America and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Ryan chairs the House Budget Committee, and liberal Christians have criticized the 2012 GOP budget as more inspired by Ayn Rand than the Bible.

Daniel Burke from RNS had that story:

in a petition drive, video, ads, and websites, liberal Christians counter that Rand’s dog-eat-dog philosophy is the real inspiration for the GOP budget and its author, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

“You’ve got a guy who is a rising Republican star, and who wrote the budget, saying he’s read her books and Washington needs more of her values,” said Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values Network, which produced the video. “If you’re a Christian, you’ve got to ask some serious questions about what’s going on here.”

In other words, Sapp argues, you can follow Ayn Rand or Jesus, but not both.

Read the rest here.

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June 2, 2011 | 11:06 pm

New NYT editor: NYT is Valhalla, a substitute for religion

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The big religion and media news today came from The New York Times. To be more specific, it came from inside the NYT newsroom. Jill Abramson has ascended to the top spot at the Gray Lady, causing The Jewish Journal to ask whether Abramson is now the world’s most powerful Jewish woman.

But the bigger religion story concerned what Abramson told readers in the pages of her paper:

Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.”

“In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.”

A bad sign for the future of the Godbeat at The New York Times? I don’t think so. But enlightening comments from the paper’s new major domo.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey has more about Abramson’s comments at GetReligion.

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June 2, 2011 | 10:24 pm

Sarah Palin doesn’t know Paul Revere

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This post is not about religion, but Sarah Palin is all about religion and politics. And definitely not about constitutional scholarship or American history.

Seems Palin thinks that Paul Revere’s midnight ride was about our future right to bear arms. Palin’s remarks, from the above video, via PoliticusUSA:

“He who warned uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”

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June 1, 2011 | 11:09 pm

Lawsuits settled, Bishop Long returns to pulpit

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Here’s a bit of news I missed over the weekend: Bishop Eddie Long, the leading candidate for worst pastor of 2010, has settled the sexual abuse lawsuits against him and in his first sermon back said he is moving forward in his ministry.

The AP reports:

The crowd still cheered for Bishop Eddie Long as he took the pulpit Sunday, but gone was the air of defiance that defined his appearance eight months ago when he rallied his congregation to battle amid lawsuits accusing the megachurch pastor of sexual misconduct.

Just days after settling the lawsuits filed by four young men who used to attend New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, the message was one of progress and prosperity to the several hundred gathered. The choir opened the two-hour 8 a.m. service with the gospel hymn “Moving Forward,” which began: “I’m not going back, I’m moving ahead. Here to declare to you my past is over.”

Long addressed a far smaller group than the one gathered back in September, when he compared himself to the Bible’s ultimate underdog and vowed to fight like David versus Goliath against accusations that he abused his spiritual authority and coerced four young men into sexual relationships with gifts including cars, cash and travel. Then, thousands of supporters and observers packed the 10,000-seat sanctuary, which took on the atmosphere of an arena.

Long’s ministry definitely suffered from the allegations. For one thing, “several hundred gathered” doesn’t really sound like a megachurch, certainly not one of the order that New Birth previously belonged. The church also lost one of its most famous congregants, Martin Luther King Jr’s daughter Bernice King.

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