The Furious Flight Attendant

What do the travails of Mr. Slater, the flight attendant who found instant celebrity with his dramatic exit from his job have to do with the Interfaith Alliance? Well, a lot actually. Because Mr. Slater's temper tantrum and the response to it by so many people is one more indicator of one of our nation's most pressing problems: the loss of civility (and maturity) in our public discourse. Lauded as some kind of folks hero, what this man did was throw a public hissy fit for reasons that remain unclear, curse out the people he had contracted to serve, then endanger public safety as he released an emergency slide, slid down it and ran away. Far from being heroic behavior, his was a selfish and hostile act. The fact that he has been applauded reminds us of the sad reality that we have lost the ability or even the understanding of why we need to exercise self-control and restraint in our public discourse. We see that reflected in the mud-slinging and hate speech that has come to dominate cable TV "news" shows, and, ultimately in the polarization of our society. As we seek to live together in this increasingly complex and multi-cultural society, it becomes more and more important that we be able to disagree civilly, that we are sensitive to one another and that we learn restraint and self-control. Mr. Slater's behavior was the opposite of that. It was infantile and inappropriate, that it is seen as otherwise is not only a shame for all of us, it bodes ill for our society.

Religious Liberty at stake in plans for Downtown Mosque

The recent controversy over plans to develop a Mosque and community center in the "ground zero" area of Manhattan is very poignant reminder of just how far we have yet to go in terms of the protection of religious liberties in this country, but also a proclamation in some ways of how far we have come. On the one hand, we see angry and outraged protesters being egged on by opportunistic politicians seeking to fan the fires of bigotry and fear for their own political gain. The ADL, in a decision that is disappointing to say the least, has unfortunately joined this effort in a move that puts a lie to its own history of defending religious tolerance.

On the other hand, Mayor Bloomberg is standing tall for the principles of liberty and equality before the law for all Americans by standing with the supporters of the project, which include not only the Community Board representing the area in which it is proposed, but responsible religious leaders of every faith and the majority of the people who live in the downtown area.

Religious liberty and the right to worship where and how one wishes is one of the foundational liberties on which this nation is built. The unspeakable acts of September 11, 2001 were an attack on those foundational liberties by a group of terrorists who would deny those rights to anyone who does not think or worship as they do. In addition to the many other of their fellow Americans, about 200 Muslim-Americans died in the World Trade Center attacks. What more fitting tribute to what this nation stands for than a Mosque to be built alongside of the churches and synagogues already in the area. Those who oppose this effort are fighting against those very liberties that the heroes of 911 died to protect. They have missed the point and their actions are un-patriotic, inconsistent with the faith traditions of Christianity and Judaism among others, and misguided and simply wrong. The peace center at the new Mosque will hopefully become another place of dialogue, understanding and hope. It deserves the kind of courageous support that the Mayor and the people of downtown Manhattan are giving it. We all need to support it as well.

AZ Hits a New Low

It's hard to believe that the state of Arizona could sink any lower than the recent legislation making it the "show me your papers" state, but the legislature and governor have managed to find a way with the new legislation outlawing ethnic studies programs in public schools and specifically targeting Latino studies programs in the Tucson public schools, programs that teach students about their heritage and highlight the contributions of their ethnic groups and leaders to the American story. 30% of the people of Arizona are of Hispanic heritage, many of those people having resided here long before Arizona was a part of the United States and long before the influx of European-Americans who now seem so hell bent on wiping out their ethnic heritage using the excuse that by knowing who they are and where they come from, non-European individuals will somehow be less interested in being constructive members of the society they live in.

Not only does such an idea violate everything we know about human beings, it is as thinly-veiled an attempt to educationally disenfranchise a whole group of people as the new laws regarding proof of citizenship or residency are an attempt to politically disenfranchise them. Adding further hyperbole to this situation is not helpful, but it is hard not to see this as an attempt at a kind of ethnic cleansing as Arizona is attempting to deprive 30% of its people first their legal rights and now their history. As Americans, we need to see this as what it is, an attack on the constitutional rights of some of us that could just as easily be an attack on the constitutional rights of any or all of us. As people of faith, we cannot help but be outraged by this attempt to deny the equality and value, even the humanity of our fellow human beings because of their ethnic heritage and the first couple of steps on a road that in so many places in the world has led to atrocity. No less than the Jim Crow laws of the past, our fellow human beings are being deprived of their humanity as they are deprived of their rights and their history and we cannot stand by and let it happen. Join me now in letting Governor Brewer know how we feel about this abomination, and in boycotting all things Arizona until sanity and decency are restored.

Scapegoating Immigrants in AZ

The tide of anti-immigrant bias and discrimination has reached a new low with the new law in Arizona which criminalizes illegal immigration and provides for police and other law enforcement officials to profile, stop and demand proof of citizenship or legal residency from those they suspect of being in this country illegally. Although the Arizona governor denies that this law will lead to racial profiling, no rational human being can possibly believe that Arizona police will be stopping Celtic looking men and women looking for illegal immigrants from Ireland or any other individuals other than those of obvious Hispanic origin. In short, what this law has done is to create and apartheid system where people of Latino origins will have to carry their "papers" with them at all times to satisfy the demand of police officers who in turn are now expected to add to their duties, acting as immigration agents.In this blatant pandering to the hysteria surrounding the issue of illegal immigration, Arizona has undermined the most basic tenets of our constitution: the right to equality before the law as it quite obviously singles out Latino-Americans for special scrutiny and government harassment.

That is not the only problem with this Jim Crow law for Latino Americans. Besides usurping duties constitutionally assigned to the federal government, it will make Arizonans less safe as those who are hired to protect and serve are burdened with enforcing this policy in a state with a huge Hispanic population, composed at least in part by people who have lived in Arizona long before it became a part of the United States. It will serve to effectively disenfranchise Americans because of their ethnicity and it could blow a serious blow to the economy of a state which is dependent on agricultural workers, many of whom are in this country without documents. But perhaps most importantly, it is blatant persecution of people because of their heritage-an insult to everything this nations stands for. It is an outrage to people of faith as it sets apart a group of human beings as less equal and less worthy than other human beings and it puts bigotry before compassion. The Rev. Al Sharpton is right when he reminds all who will listen that just as too much of our history has been marred by racist laws and customs against African-Americans, the same is true with laws like this for Latino-Americans. It is time for patriotic people of faith and good will to stand up and condemn this racist and anti-American legislation. Shame on you Arizona, like the states of the deep south during the years of Jim Crow, you will not easily live down your bigotry!

The Separation of Church and State: Why it's so important today

"It's the economy, stupid." President Clinton's campaign slogan seems even more applicable today than it did when it helped him win the white house 18 years ago. Even as President Obama struggles to reform our broken health care system, as the war in Afghanistan heats up and all the other problems that beset our society continue to plague us, the economy is number one in the concerns of most people. Issues like civil liberties, and particularly religious liberty somehow seem less important when you are worried about your job or about keeping your home. The fact that our current president is much more moderate in his rhetoric and seemingly less determined to push a particular partisan religio-political agenda puts these issues even further on to the back burner for many people. President Obama doesn't subscribe, after all, to the same triumphalist ideology that his predecessor did. We don't worry about his Office of Faith Based Initiatives pushing an "evangelical Christian only agenda," and his more respectful, more inclusive rhetoric raises hope for an America that truly does embrace freedom and respect for all of its people.

Unfortunately, that rhetoric has not been matched with action when it comes to actual policies. Although the Office of Faith Based Initiatives may be less targeted toward one particular group under this adminstration, it is still in operation and it still can operate essentially as the adminstration wills and so the executive is still in a position to support some religious groups and programs over others. In other words, we have a good king perhaps, rather than a bad king, when what our constitution requires is no king at all. The danger of churches and other religious groups functioning as arms of the government has not been mitigated and that is a problem not just for the state, but more importantly for we people of faith who worry about the abridgement of our religious freedom and the stifling of the prophetic moral voice of faith when our purse strings are held by government. Religious minorities in particular, have much to be concerned about. Presidents come and go, popular sentiments can favor one group one year and another the next, the that is why we have legal and constitutional protections for the rights of minorities and that is why we need to fight until they are restored.

The Patriot Act, perhaps the most grevious assault on our constitution in modern history remains largely intact. Though we applaud the President's efforts to close the torture chambers and the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay, we maintain the immoral and illegal fiction that there are human beings who can be classified as outside the rule of law, as well as the threat than Americans as well as others can have their civil and constitutional rights taken from them merely by being classified as "terrorists" or "enemy combatants." When government can take away the liberty and rights to due process of any of us, none of us is safe. That is why we need to continue to fight until the Patriot Act is repealed.

Just as importantly, as people of faith, we need to struggle against the trivialization of our faith by those who claim to be defending it. When a justice of the Supreme Court justifies the placement of a cross on federal land by calling it merely a "marker" of a place of the dead, the most important religious symbol for a fifth of the world's population is being disrespected in a signficant way. The Cross is not just a grave marker, it is a symbol of hope and new life for millions of Americans. When another federal judge justifies the placement of the Ten Commandments in a public place by saying it is a historical symbol he or she is trivializing a core doctrine of the faith of three great relgions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Anytime our religious symbols or language is used in the service of a political or cultural agenda, those symbols and faiths are being diminished and misused. The Interfaith Alliance understands that and it fights to protect the religious and civil liberties that caused so many of our ancestors to come to these shores in search of, if not a promised land, than certainly a land of promise. Join us and help us keep that promise!

Saying Goodbye to an Authentic Hero

This week marked a tragedy, not only for those of us who were privileged enough to know her and work with her, but for all of us and any of us who are truly intrested in creating a more just and compassionate society. Norma Cohen, who passed away this past week was the heart and soul of the Long Island Chapter of The Interfaith Alliance inspiring us all with her keen intellect, her insights, her absolute integrity and her willingness, even as her seemingly boundless energy finally began to fail her, to get down and do whatever it took to defend the religious and civil liberties of her fellows, and to promote peace. Even in the last few months, when it became harder for her to get to our meetings, her spirit loomed large in everything we did as it always will. One of the proudest moments of my life was watching her receive the honor she deserved at the national Interfaith Alliance banquet this past Fall and to be privileged enough to sit with her and her remarkable husband and family at their table.

Norma Cohen was a remarkable woman of many gifts, who understood that we are put on this earth to share what we have for the benefit of all. She was always on the side of right, but she was never self-righteous. She had little patience for hypocrisy or oppression, but she had a lot of patience for people. She and Harvey were an inspiration both in the work that they did and in the way they lived their lives together, in the family they raised, in the big and the small things they did. Like all of us at TIA and in all the various capacities that she served her fellow human beings, I will miss Norma more than I can express. But I will always be proud, very proud to remember that she called me "friend." Hers was a life well lived, a life that mattered.

End the War in Afghanistan

President Obama, the latest Noble Peace Prize honoree, has sorely disapointed many of his most fervent supporters with the decision to send 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan, a war which we were told 8 years ago was initiated for the purpose of routing the terrorist group Al-Queda. Despite his eloquent and no doubt heart-felt rhetoric delivered at the US Military Academy at West Point, those of us who are old to enough to remember the Vietnam War could not help but have a terrible sense of deja-vu. Now,as then, an otherwise progressive, ground-breaking president with an agenda of social change long overdue allowed himself to be sucked into a quagmire of death and destruction by listening too much and too hard to those whose business it is to make war. Now, as then, an American president's vision seems to have forgotten that democracy is not, nor can it ever be imposed at gun point by a foreighn power, no matter how well-intentioned. Having inherited a war without direction by a president who was too busy pursuing hiw own dreams of global empire to actually complete the mission he had originally claimed, President Obama seems destined to head down that same road as he tries to build a nation in Afghanistan, a country that can boast of having defeated every imperial power in history that has tried to do that very same thing. Long divided into tribes and factions, Afghanistan has a long history of very little central government and an antipathy toward foreignors; an antipathy that has not subsided with the installation of the corrupt regime of Hamid Karzai in Kabul by the US and it's allies. For eight years our troops have been stretched to the breaking point by the two wars begun under the Bush administration and it is time to bring them home to the honor they deserve not to waste more lives in a fruitless attempt to build a western style nation in a country and culture we neither understand nor appreciate, trying to build a nation that no one seems to want or care about other than those whose feeble grasp on power in the area around Kabul is bought with the blood of coalition troops and the lives of countless innocent Afghan civilians.

If our purpose remains to root out the terrorists, that has been accomplished, if not totally by our direct effort, then also by the fact that Al-Queda has simply moved on to other safe havens in failed states and tribal areas in Somolia, Yemen and Pakistan. We can declare victory and go home. If we are seeking to build a nation in Afghanistan, we must be prepared for decades of bloodshed in an attempt to do what this small place has successfully resisted since the beginning of history. Afghanistan has been at war for 30 years this time around. We have to ask what we can possibly expect to gain by throwing 30,000 more of our young men and women into that killing field. Perhaps we should look more closely at our own history, at the principles of our own democracy and the circumstances of our own founding and recognize that Afghanistan deserves what we all deserve, a chance to forge their own destiny, whatever it will be, according to their own lights, without a gun to their head. We need to be ready to help, not with predator drones, and human fodder for their killing fields, but with genuine aide, contingent on their adherence to the principles of self-determination, liberty and the right of peoples to make their own history. If Vietnam taught us nothing else, it should have taught us that.


Al-Queda, now thought to have less than 100 members in-country, is no longer based there