Can Calling Someone a Hate Criminal Be a Hate Crime?

Hate crime complaint filed against gay activist by AFA leader

American Family Association-Michigan leader Gary Glenn opposes his state’s hate crime law, but that hasn’t stopped him from filing a hate-crime complaint against homosexual activist and Ferndale city councilman Craig Covey. After legislation Covey backed failed in an election last month, he said, “This vote shows that the Christian Right is down but not out yet. We might have to drive another dagger into that vampire.” No investigation is under way. (See a related opinion piece in the Detroit News.)

Canada’s National Post slams anti-Christian bigotry

“On Tuesday, more than a dozen protesters stormed into Mary Queen of the World Cathedral and trashed it, yelling anti-religious slurs to protest in favour of abortion and against ‘patriarchal’ doctrines preached by the Roman Catholic church,” reports The National Post in an unsigned editorial. “What is missing, however, is media and political outrage, the usual outcry from the human rights lobby, and any talk of bringing charges of ‘hate crimes.’ Anti-Christian hostility is one of the last acceptable bigotries in Canada. It is observable not only in the bigots and thugs who attacked the cathedral, but also in the federal bureaucrats who instructed mourners at the Swissair crash site to make no mention of Jesus Christ, and in the Ottawa tax department’s decertification of Christian charities while secular charities retained their tax-free status.”

Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans join in Ash Wednesday service

“The service was believed by participants to be the first time since the 16th century Protestant Reformation that bishops of the three churches had joined each other in an Ash Wednesday service,” reports The Los Angeles Times. The service was held at the University of Southern California (see also the Associated Press‘s report).

In a related story, Cincinnati Post religion writer Stephen Huba tries to look at Ash Wednesday and Lent through Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox eyes.

Harvard Crimson writer denounces Spong visit

Spong is hardly an appropriate choice to deliver a lecture founded to extend the ‘influence of Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life’,” writes J. Stuart Buck, one of the editors of the Harvard Law Review. “Though many people may disagree with the Noble Lectures’ purpose, we should not countenance such a misuse of funds that Harvard accepted without reservation.” Buck compares Spong’s invitation as akin to Harvard asking “David Duke to deliver a lecture on African-American history, or Fred Phelps lecturing on gay rights, or Khalid Mohammed delivering a Hillel-funded lecture on the virtues of Judaism.”

Pentecostal church under fire for “brainwashing”

An Alaskan family is suing their 15-year-old daughter’s church, saying it brainwashed her into thinking they and their church were demon-possessed and that she had to run away from home (Thanks to Charisma News Service for alerting ChristianityToday.com Weblog to the story).

Bob Jones University students must notify parents of all dating, not just interracial

Bob Jones University president Bob Jones III made headlines this week by announcing an end to the school’s ban on interracial dating. The media made much of Jones’s comment that students had to notify parents before they commenced dating. But, as the Associated Press reported yesterday, “Administrators ask students to notify their parents if they wish to get involved in any ‘serious dating relationship.'”