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Efforts to "crack down" on other Christians violating their visa terms similarly damage India's democracy, the paper said. "While the need to put the activities of the missionaries and their source of funds through the scanner and the enforcement of immigration rules is justified in the abstract, the fact is that such a focus in the immediate aftermath of the attack … will not only be abused by sections within the bureaucracy, but will also lend a sense of legitimacy to the violent ways of the storm troopers of the various [militant Hindu] outfits."

Religious discrimination in the workplace complaints rising quickly
"Worker complaints of religious discrimination made to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission jumped more than 20 percent last year, driven primarily by claims of retaliation against Muslims," the Associated Press reports. "But in a much more gradual trend, complaints … involving a broad range of religions have slowly mounted—up 85 percent over the past decade. Such cases make up a very small percentage of overall workplace discrimination complaints, but they are rising at a much faster rate."

Likewise, the AP reports, 20 percent of personnel executives say their companies had seen worker requests for religious accommodations increase in the past five years.

• Honor guardsman is fired for blessings | Patrick Cubbage says he followed his training. A supervisor calls it a breach. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
  
  
• Pastor files claim over alleged city harassment | Minister says Ontario officials have singled her out for persecution; city denies treating church differently than other nonprofit organizations (Los Angeles Times)

Judge Roy Moore says  9/11 caused by nation's turn from God
"How many of you remember Americans running to get gas masks because (of) some bearded man in Afghanistan?" Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore asked yesterday as he accepted an honorary doctorate in divinity from the National Clergy Council and Methodist Episcopal Church U.S.A. "Fear struck this country. … You see, there are consequences when we turn away from our source of our strength."

Moore complained that the last 40 years of legal theory have led the country to believe that rights are granted by the government, not God. "The role of government is not to give us rights," he said. "The role of government is not to deny the God that does. The role of government is to secure the rights God gave you."

War:

• Peace patina … under glass | Does President Bush really expect the world to believe him when he says that he is not engaged in a war on Islam but is only engaged in a war on terrorism? (Ebrahim Moosa, The Washington Times)
  
  
• Give peace a chance, world religions say | Vatican-sponsored meeting was attended by representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and Sikhism (Reuters)
  
  
• The Catholic Church and Iraq | Recent history suggests that a note of caution is in order when it comes to listening to the Catholic Church's warnings regarding U.S. military action against Saddam (Editorial, The Washington Times)
  
  
• U.S. Christians debate notion of 'just war' in Iraq | Reflecting divisions in America generally, some said that if it were established that Iraq was building banned weapons then an attack would be "a righteous act," while others said an attack would be an act of aggression, not self-defense (Reuters)
  
  

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January (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47