November 27, 2015 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on November 27, 2015July 26, 2016 by Christina Vlahos

Around the Web This Week

Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:

The Digital Cinema Media (DCM) agency, which handles British film advertising for major cinema chains, has refused to show an advertisement featuring a Christian prayer being recited by a variety of people, because it believed it would risk upsetting or offending audiences.
NY Times: After the Nov. 7 general elections in Myanmar, there are few signs of a better life for Muslims, who face discrimination and have been subjected to murderous campaigns by radical Buddhists.
In Nigeria, the government will begin monitoring churches and mosques to fight hate preaching.
Church World Services said this week that U.S. governors’ statements that Syrian refugees are unwelcome in their states after the Paris attacks have fueled death threats against agency workers and the immigrants themselves, and have contributed to a climate of fear.
Indiana’s proposed new religions freedom plan extends civil rights protection to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, but exempts religions or religious-affiliated groups.
An Indonesian Muslim group has launched a campaign to challenge and repudiate the ideology of Islamic State.
National Geographic: Most Salafists see politics as a distraction from religion.
In Montana, controversy over a proposal to prevent state funds from a new tax credit scholarship program being used to pay for schools affiliated with religious institutions.
Numerous faith groups that settle international refugees in Texas are upset about a recent directive from Texas officials to no longer help Syrians in the wake of the Paris attacks, and assert that their religious freedom is being stifled by Texas’ instructions that they withhold help from certain people in need.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favor of a hospital in France, which had enforced a ban on headscarves at work. The court said the ban did not affect religious freedom.
USA Today: A Turkish religious movement accused of illegally financing congressional travel abroad may have also provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of improper campaign donations to congressional and presidential candidates during the past several years.

Posted on November 27, 2015July 26, 2016 by Christina Vlahos

Keck, “British Burma in the New Century, 1895-1918”

In October, Palgrave Macmillan released “British Burma in the New Century, 1895-1918” by Stephen L. Keck (Emirates Diplomatic Academy). The publisher’s description follows:

British Burma in the New Century, 1895 – 1918 draws upon neglected but very talented colonial authors to portray Burma between 1895 and 51pbustr2wl-_sx316_bo1204203200_ 1918, which was the apogee of British governance. These writers, most of them ‘Burmaphiles’, wrote against widespread misperceptions about Burma. They sought to separate Burma from India, recover the country’s recent and ancient past, understand Buddhism and revere the land, all while supporting the imperial mission. Between 1895 and 1918, Burma experienced a period of profound social and economic transformation. Burma would be challenged by bubonic plague, the persistence of crime, multiple forms of corruption and rising ethnic tensions. The Burmaphiles wrote during a dynamic period in which the foundations for much of modern Myanmar were established. New Century Burma proved to be a formative moment in the subsequent development of the country.

Posted on November 27, 2015July 26, 2016 by Christina Vlahos

McAndrews, “Refuge in the Lord”

This month, the Catholic University of America Press released “Refuge in the Lord: Catholics, Presidents, and the Politics of Immigration, 1981-2013,” by Lawrence J. McAndrews (St. Norbert College). The publisher’s description follows:

When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, immigration and refugee policy was among the unresolved matters that he inherited from his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. Over three decades later, it remains largely unresolved, due not only to the men who would inhabit the White House, but to interest groups and members of Congress, many of them Catholic, on all sides of the issue.

Carter appointed a Catholic priest, University of Notre Dame President Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, to chair the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. The commission’s report, released in the early days of the Reagan Administration, helped produce the Immigration Reform and Control Act, signed by Reagan in 1986. Since it offered amnesty to those who were in the country illegally, Catholic immigration advocates, led by the American bishops, applauded the law as consistent with the church’s sacred mission and proud history of compassion toward strangers.

These Catholics were also on the same side as the White House when George H. W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which raised the ceiling for legal immigration; when George W. Bush in 2006 and Barack Obama in 2013 supported comprehensive immigration bills which passed the Senate; and when Obama granted temporary residence to the foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants in 2012. But they challenged the restrictive 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act signed by Bill Clinton; the interior enforcement efforts of George W. Bush and Barack Obama; and the border control and refugee policies undertaken by all presidents from Reagan to Obama.

Rather than helping to overcome the growing political divide over immigration in the country and the church, Catholics on the outer edges of the issue contributed to it. By eschewing compromise in favor of confrontation, Catholic legislators from both parties too often helped prevent Congress from giving the presidents, and the public, most of what they wanted on immigration reform. By forsaking political reality in the name of religious purity, Catholic immigration advocates frequently antagonized the presidents whose goals they largely shared, and ultimately disappointed the immigrants they so badly wanted to help.