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Sun Jan 24 11:28:06 EST 2010
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Prop 8 Trial Witness: Being Gay Not a Choice -

The point is central to the plaintiffs' effort to show that gays deserve the same judicial protection as racial and ethnic minorities.

The trial, now in its ninth day, is the first in a federal court to consider whether state bans on gay marriages are unconstitutional.

The plaintiff's were expected to end their case later in the day, with the defense beginning next week.

Chief U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker said he would delay closing arguments for two weeks after the defense rests so he can have time to review the testimony.

Herek also said it's clear that gay men and lesbians are looked down upon and even regarded with disgust because of long-standing social stigmas.

"If two men were to walk down the street holding hands in many places, that would elicit a great deal of negative reaction, and that is an example of the stigma that everyone knows lesbians and gay men experience because they are gay," he said.

Proposition 8 was by definition an extension of embedded social stigmas, he contended.

Nielson cited some of Herek's writings stating that some people who regularly engage in sex with people of the same gender do not necessarily identify as gay, while others may have same-sex attractions they never act on.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WICHITA, Kan. - Jurors in the trial of the man charged with shooting Dr. George Tiller will hear from witnesses who saw the abortion provider gunned down at his church, listen to the 911 call made moments later and see evidence of his blood on the accused killer's shoes, a prosecutor said Friday.

Opening statements in the first-degree murder trial began on the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.

Scott Roeder, 51, is accused of shooting Tiller, who specialized in late-term abortions. The Kansas City, Mo., man told The Associated Press in November that he killed Tiller to protect unborn children. Roeder also faces two charges of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening two church ushers who tried to stop him from fleeing. He has pleaded not guilty.

Church members were gathering in the fellowship hall the morning of May 31, with Tiller was scheduled to serve as an usher, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston told the jury of eight men and six women.

"Then unexpectedly, a sound was heard, like a popping of a balloon," she said.

Foulston said a witness saw "a man standing next to George Tiller with his arm still raised and ... Dr. Tiller fell to the floor. ... And the assailant was running."

Jurors will hear several witness accounts of Tiller's shooting, she said, and other evidence will include Roeder's shoes with Tiller's blood on them and a police video of Roeder's arrest later that day.

Before opening statements began, District Judge Warren Wilbert denied a defense motion to move the trial out of Wichita and a motion from prosecutors to not allow an involuntary manslaughter defense.

Wilbert has repeatedly said the trial will not turn into a debate over abortion, warning Roeder's lawyers that he intends to keep the case as a "criminal, first-degree murder trial."

But the judge galvanized both sides of the abortion battle when he refused, on the eve of jury selection, to block the defense from trying to build a case for a conviction on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

They want to argue that Roeder believed Tiller's killing was necessary to save unborn children. In Kansas, voluntary manslaughter is defined as "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force."

If convicted of first-degree murder, Roeder faces a life sentence. Under state sentencing guidelines, a conviction for voluntary manslaughter for someone with as little criminal history as he has would bring a sentence closer to five years.

Jury selection in the case occurred for the most part behind closed doors. After six days of secret questioning of potential jurors, the court finally opened jury selection to the media on Thursday while turning away public spectators.

Wilbert had initially closed all of the jury process until four news outlets, including The Associated Press, appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court. Only the final hour and a half of jury questioning was open to the media, and then only to those four news outlets. The two alternate jurors will be designated later.

Tiller, whose Wichita clinic closed after his death, championed abortion rights even after being shot in both arms by an activist in 1993. The clinic, heavily fortified after a bombing in 1986, was the target of both peaceful and violent protests. In 1991, a 45-day "Summer of Mercy" campaign organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion protesters to Wichita for demonstrations and saw mass arrests.

In more recent years, anti-abortion activists had focused their attacks against Tiller within the legal system and political arena. Thousands of abortion opponents signed petitions forcing Sedgwick County to convene grand juries in 2006 and 2008 to investigate him, but both refused to indict him.

Two state attorneys general also tried in vain to prosecute him. Just two months before his death, a jury acquitted Tiller of misdemeanor charges accusing him of failing to get an independent second opinion for late abortions. The state's medical board was investigating similar allegations at the time of his killing.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

TONGI, Bangladesh - Tens of thousands of Muslims began streaming to the banks of the River Turag north of the Bangladesh capital Friday for the start of a three-day Islamic gathering that will likely attract three million devotees for a mass prayer.

Nearly 20,000 security personnel have been deployed to guard the World Congregation of Muslims, or Biswa Ijtema, said the area's police chief Mahfuzul Haq Nuruzzaman.

The gathering, held annually since 1966, is one of the largest Muslim gatherings in the world and shuns politics. It aims to revive the tenets of Islam and promote peace through prayer.

At the gathering participants discuss the Quran and listen to sermons by Islamic scholars from around the world.

Biswa Ijtema has no history of violence, but security is tight with watchtowers and security cameras installed around the190-acre (77-hectare) grounds on the sandy banks of the River Turag in the industrial town of Tongi, just north of the capital Dhaka.

Officials were using metal detectors to search people on Friday.

Thousands were walking to reach the site as authorities struggled to keep the flow of traffic moving in and around the Dhaka, which has a population exceeding 10 million, said Ajmat Ullah Khan, head of the area's municipality corporation.

Khan said they were expecting at least one million devotees to gather for weekly prayer on Friday on the river banks. Some 3 million are expected on Sunday.

Most devotees are Bangladeshis, but organizers say more than 10,000 participants have already arrived from 40 other countries, including the United States, Canada, Malaysia and the United Kingdom.

"I am here to seek Allah's blessings," said Mohammad Ali Sheikh, a 40-year-old school teacher from Bangladesh. "I pray for all, and wish the world will be peaceful, and we will learn true lessons of Islam."

In a message, President Zillur Rahman hoped the congregation would strengthen "the solidarity of the Muslim world."

Women are not allowed at the main venue, so instead gather at nearby villages and stand on rooftops during the prayers.

About 87 percent of Bangladesh's 150 million people are Muslim.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

(RNS) A Michigan military contractor said Thursday (Jan. 21) it will remove encoded scripture references on weapons it builds for U.S. military after a firestorm of complaints arose from both believers and atheists.

"Trijicon has proudly served the U.S. military for more than two decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent and appropriate," said Stephen Bindon, president and CEO of Trijicon Inc., which is based in Wixom, Mich.

"We want to thank the Department of Defense for the opportunity to work with them and will move as quickly as possible to provide the modification kits for deployment overseas."

ABC News' "Nightline" reported Monday (Jan. 18) on the biblical references on weapons used by soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq after learning about them from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group.

One rifle sight included the code "JN8:12," a reference to the Gospel of John in which Jesus says, "He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the watchdog group, hailed the decision by the Michigan company.

"Trijicon's outrageous practice of placing Bible verse citations on military-issued gunsights for weapons was an unconstitutional disgrace of the highest magnitude to our military and an action that clearly gave additional incentive and emboldenment to recruiters for our nation's enemies," he said.

The military contractor said it took action "in response to concerns raised by the Department of Defense."

The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, urged President Obama on Thursday (Jan. 21) to launch a thorough investigation "aimed at creating guidelines that ensure that religion no longer plays an inappropriate role in our armed forces."

Gaddy said the controversy affects soldiers regardless of their religious affiliation.

"Trijicon's actions should be of concern to people of all faiths including Christians, but it is particularly appalling that soldiers who do not practice Christianity have been unknowingly wielding weaponry ... that preaches the merits of a religion to which they do not adhere," Gaddy said.

Faith in America, an online interfaith community, has asked its supporters to sign an online petition to the Pentagon.

"As Americans of faith, we call on our military leaders to remove weapons with religious markings as soon as possible," the petition reads. "Putting religious messages on tools of war is an abuse of faith and threatens our security."

Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics said the weapons are another example of a "crusade mentality" espoused by some Americans, who had earlier preached about a war against Christianity or included Bible verses on intelligence reports for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Such twisted misuses of Christianity reflect badly on Christianity," he said.

Kathleen Johnson, vice president and military director for American Atheists, said the religious inscriptions violate the First Amendment as well as military regulations.

"These rifle sights should be phased out of use as quickly as possible," said Johnson. "The mission of the U.S. military cannot include proselytizing for Christianity or any other religion."

Muslim groups had also written to the Pentagon decrying the encoded weapons, with the Muslim Public Affairs Council saying they are "unacceptable" and the Council on American-Islamic Relations seeking their withdrawal "as soon as logistically possible."

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

(RNS) Close to half of Americans admit to harboring prejudice against Muslims and negative feelings about Islam, a new study from the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies shows.

The level of anti-Muslim prejudice -- 43 percent of Americans admitted feeling at least "a little" -- is more than twice as high as Americans' reported feelings toward Buddhists, Christians and Jews.

Fifty-three percent of respondents said their view of Islam was "not too favorable" or "not favorable at all," according to a 32-page "Religious Perceptions in America" report that was released Thursday (Jan. 21).

"It was interesting to note that Americans admit no more prejudice against Buddhists and Jews than they do against Christians," said Dalia Mogahed, director of the Washington-based center. "So this isn't just simply a problem against minority religions. There is a somewhat unique issue with Muslims in particular."

The report also seemed to debunk the conventional wisdom that greater exposure of individual Muslims can be an antidote to anti-Muslim prejudice. Researchers found that personally knowing a Muslim may "soften extreme prejudice," but can't eliminate bias altogether.

"It suggests that you can know a Muslim but if you have a negative opinion of the faith as a whole because of media exposure, you can perhaps explain that this one friend of yours is an exception," said Mogahed.

The study drew on media studies that have found that prominent television news coverage of Islam tends to be negative and focuses on extremism. That, in turn, fuels anti-Muslim prejudice, Mogahed said.

"The default state for Americans is not having prejudice," Mogahed said. "Americans really have to learn prejudice by being inundated by negative information."

Perhaps more concerning is that the 43 percent of self-professed prejudice is likely "an underestimation," Mogahed said, because people are hesitant to admit it. If the real number is actually higher, that's "even more alarming," she said.

Mogahed, who focuses on interfaith dialogue as a member of the White House's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, said she hopes the findings will influence future bridge-building efforts between people of different faiths.

One key finding is that people who are extremely prejudiced against Jews are very likely to hold the same views of Muslims.

"There are more and more parallels between the typical things that are said against Jews and those said against Muslims," she said, "including conspiracy theories that Muslims are trying to take over the nation and the world, that they're taking over Europe."

The report showed a disparity between Americans' perceived views of Muslims about gender equality and findings by Gallup researchers who studied populations in majority-Muslim countries.

While just 16 percent of Americans think Muslims around the world believe that men and women should have equal rights, majorities of respondents in predominantly Muslim countries -- including 85 percent of Saudi Arabians -- think so.

"By presenting more accurate, representative information ... some of the perceptions can be better informed," Mogahed said.

In general, researchers found Americans are quite ignorant of non-Christian faiths. While 63 percent had very little or no knowledge of Islam, 72 percent said they had very little or no knowledge of Buddhism and half of Americans said they had very little or no knowledge of Judaism.

The Gallup World Religion Survey, which was used as a base for most of the report's findings, was conducted in October and November 2009 by phone of a random national sample of 1,002 adults; it has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

By ADELLE M. BANKS
Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

(RNS) At the point where Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts come together, and about a mile from a forest called Satans Kingdom, Northfield, Mass., isn't exactly what you'd call a hotbed of either conservatives or evangelicals.

Yet when a new evangelical college opens there in 2012, founders hope to help end acrimonious culture wars and usher in a new era of cultural engagement marked by Christian charity.

Named for a celebrated Christian author who counted atheists and skeptics among his closest friends, C.S. Lewis College will intentionally seek to prepare believers to engage and understand those who see the world differently.

The school's location near five secular and famously liberal colleges will allow students to follow Lewis' example and learn from their non-Christian neighbors, according to C.S. Lewis Foundation President Stan Mattson, who unveiled plans for the school in December.

"The problem for so much of our relationship with the secular community is we set up these debates (where) neither side is listening to the opposition, and both are waiting to see who scores points," said Mattson, who will be the school's first president.

"We need to go in a very different direction. We will be much more inclined to set up forums where people can engage each other openly, out of genuine interest to discover more of what the other party is talking about."

The college, which expects to have 400 students and 40 faculty on opening day, plans to offer a different type of education than most other Christian colleges. Students will read only "great books," or classic texts of Western civilization, including works by non-Christian thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato and Euclid. The curriculum will also emphasize visual and performing arts. Textbooks and professors will be replaced by faculty "mentors" who will pose questions and facilitate discussions.

That approach diverges from other relatively young Christian colleges, such as Liberty University (1971) and Patrick Henry College (2000), which equip undergrads with biblical knowledge and political know-how to go out and fight for conservative Christian causes.

Mattson said the school's arts center and a C.S. Lewis studies center are both likely to be located well off campus -- in other words, closer to Smith College, Amherst College and other area schools -- for the purpose of transcending traditional boundaries and sparking new conversations.

The school will be housed on the former campus of the Northfield Mount Hermon School, a boarding school founded by evangelist D.L. Moody in 1879. The 630-student prep school will continue at its main campus in Mount Hermon, Mass.

On the surface, Lewis and Moody would seem to have little in common.

Moody was an American commoner who preached hope for the hopeless in New England and the Midwest. Lewis, a prolific writer who penned such classics as "Mere Christianity" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" trilogy, was an Oxford intellectual.

Yet both shared a charitable spirit and a penchant for making the gospel accessible, according to Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and author of the 2005 book, "Mr. Moody and the Evangelical Tradition." The time is ripe, George added, for just such a spirit to revive among Christians in an age marked by strife and sectarianism.

"We are squeezed into a polarized position, and that characterizes too much of the evangelical world today," George said. "That (polarization) is contrary to both the C.S. Lewis and the D.L. Moody models."

Some graduates of Northfield Mount Hermon, meanwhile, have expressed concern that the school sold a picturesque, 217-acre parcel and about 43 buildings for $100,000 to Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based Christian craft chain that most recently helped rescue Oral Roberts University with a $70 million gift.

In an online forum for discussing the campus' fate, alumna Beth Palubinsky of Philadelphia said she was "troubled by the sale of the campus to entities and individuals with ties to Oral Roberts."

"Roberts was notorious for deceitful, self-serving evangelism, for religious fear-mongering, and for building a personal fortune through his ultra-conservative values and sermonizing," Palubinsky wrote. "I think D.L. (Moody) is weeping, not smiling, in his grave, wondering how the NMH administration and trustees got so far off track."

Hobby Lobby has pledged to invest $5 million in renovations to the Northfield property. In 2007, Hobby Lobby bought the former campus of Bradford College in Haverhill, Mass., and later gave it to Zion Bible College, a training ground for the Assemblies of God.

Hobby Lobby isn't targeting Massachusetts or the Northeast, Hobby Lobby real estate analyst Les Miller said, but simply happened to find a couple of suitable opportunities in the region. Even with that disclaimer, he said the company would be pleased to see Christian faith spread across increasingly secular New England.

"Perhaps these opportunities came about for a reason and that reason is for God to do something to touch the area," Miller said. "I don't know. I would never presume upon God. But certainly if something like that were to occur, we would consider it an amazing thing and a real blessing."

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) As Neil Beagley lay dying on his
grandmother's bed, his parents did not take him to a hospital or call
9-1-1 or make any lifesaving efforts, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday
(Jan. 19).

"They did nothing because that was their belief," prosecutor Greg
Horner said in his opening statement at the trial of Jeffrey and Marci
Beagley, the second faith-healing trial in as many years in Oregon.

The Oregon City couple is charged with criminally negligent homicide
for failing to provide adequate medical care for their 16-year-old son,
Neil Beagley, who died June 17, 2008, from an untreated urinary tract
blockage.

The Beagleys were unaware that Neil's kidneys were failing and
believed he had the flu, their attorneys said. The Beagleys treated him
with faith-healing rituals practiced by their church, the Followers of
Christ, a nondenominational congregation with a long history of children
dying from treatable medical conditions.

Marci Beagley told police investigators "we did everything we knew
how to do" for Neil, Horner told the jury. "That's not good enough."

The parents' response to their son's plight was "an outrageous
deviation from the standard of care our community expects and demands,"
Horner said.

But their attorney, Wayne Mackeson, countered that the Beagleys did
not fail their duty as parents "in a criminal way." The Beagleys are
caring parents who raised three daughters and mourn the loss of Neil,
their only son and "the crown prince of the family," Mackeson said.

"There's no evidence to suggest that Neil was in any way compromised
physically," he said.

But Horner gave jurors a dire picture of a teenager in rapidly
failing health. Had Neil Beagley sought medical care, there was an
excellent chance he "would have led a full and fulfilling life," Horner
said.

A key point in the case is Neil Beagley's age. Oregon law allows
children 15 and older to independently obtain medical treatment.

"If someone gets sick at 16, they're old enough to make their own
choices," Marci Beagley told detectives. "Everyone knew Neil's wishes,"
she said. "He put his trust in God."

-- Steve Mayes


Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of
this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written
permission.

Associated Press - January 20, 2010

The point is central to their effort to show that gays deserve special protections from discrimination under the U.S. Constitution.

"I was just as gay as when I started," he said.

James Campbell, a lawyer for the ban's sponsors objected to Kendall being allowed to testify, saying it was irrelevant to the legal issues in the case.

Kendall said his parents discovered he was gay as they read his journal when he was 13. He was from a religious family and his mother and father "flipped out," he said.

"I remember my mother looking at me and telling me I was going to burn in hell," he testified.

"My mother would tell me she hated me," he said. "Once she told me she wished she had had an abortion instead of a gay son."

Campbell cross-examined Kendall gently, asking if he ever believed the therapy could help, since he had been forced to go by his parents.

"Your only goal for conversion therapy was to survive the experience, is that true?" Campbell asked.

"Very true," Kendall answered.

Campbell asked if Kendall knew anyone who had entered reparative therapy voluntarily. Kendall said he did not.

"You have testified your particular family experience was just as damaging to you as the therapy itself, was it not," Campbell asked.

"Yes, I have," he said.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Associated Press - January 20, 2010

NEW YORK - Two prominent Muslim scholars once accused of ties to terrorism are cleared to travel to the United States now that the State Department has concluded they pose no danger to the country, federal spokesmen said Wednesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders enabling the re-entry of professors Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University in England and Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa once they obtain required admittance documents, department spokesman Darby Holladay said.

Clinton "has chosen to exercise her exemption authority for the benefit of Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib," Holladay said. "We'll let that action speak for itself."

In a prepared statement, Holladay noted the change in U.S. posture since both professors, who are frequently invited to the United States to lecture, were denied admittance after making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy

"Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect," Holladay said. The decision was made after consultations with the departments of Homeland Security and Justice, he added.

"We want to encourage a global debate," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington. "As we look at it, we do not think that either one of them represents a threat to the United States."

The American Civil Liberties Union sued in recent years to challenge the exclusion of the professors. It said the State Department's action means the scholars will now get visas within weeks of requesting them.

The orders are "long overdue and tremendously important," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project.

Habib, a well-known South African scholar who has criticized the war in Iraq, was denied a visa by the U.S. government in a letter saying he "engaged in a terrorist activity," an accusation Habib has vigorously denied.

The ACLU of Massachusetts sued in 2007, challenging Habib's exclusion on behalf of the American Sociological Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights.

Ramadan, 47, had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004 as he was about to move to Indiana to take a tenured teaching job at the University of Notre Dame. He has spoken at Harvard and Stanford universities and elsewhere.

Later, his visa applications were denied on the grounds that he had donated $1,336 to a charity that gave money to Hamas, an Islamic militant group that has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Ramadan has said he has no connections to terrorism, opposes Islamic extremism and promotes peaceful solutions.

Ramadan said in a statement issued by PEN American Center, a human rights group, that he was "very pleased with the decision to end my exclusion from the United States after almost six years."

In a statement on "The American Muslim" Web site, Ramadan wrote that the allegations used to exclude him "were nothing more than a pretense to prohibit me from speaking critically about American government policy on American soil."

He added: "The decision brings to an end a dark period in American politics that saw security considerations invoked to block critical debate through a policy of exclusion and baseless allegation."

He said he was looking forward to visiting the United States soon, and PEN said it planned to organize a forum in New York where he could speak.

ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer said at a court hearing Wednesday that the ACLU planned to submit a new visa application on Ramadan's behalf by next Friday.

In an ACLU statement, Habib said he was thrilled, calling it a victory both personal and "for democracy around the world."

Habib, 44, lived in the United States from 1993-95 while earning a doctorate in political science from the City University of New York. He said he had been excluded since October 2006, when he was questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials about his political views and was asked whether he belonged to or supported any terrorist organizations.

In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, Habib called the U.S. approach to the Iraq war a disaster. He also said: "I'm confident that I can't be linked to things like terrorism. That is not what my politics is about."

Associated Press writer Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- In a place desperately in need of miracles, here's one: Scores of children about to enter the dining room of a church were spared when dinner was late.

Other kids were saved when Seker Dorval, 17, one of the oldest boys in the Reformation Hope orphanage, thought it his responsibility to chase the little ones away from Pastor Jean Jacob Paul's church. "Get away, dinner is not ready," he yelled in Creole.

Some of the younger children were cranky and hungry because dinner was late. They strayed away from the larger group playing outside in the grass-and-gravel courtyard. Inside the dining room, the tables were set, but the staff was still cooking.

"Stay outside with the others," the older boy said. Then the earth began to shake and, in seconds, with a crack and a roar and the screams of frightened children, the roof of the building housing the dining room and the church collapsed. Pancaked on what would have been more than 60 children and staff members if dinner were on time.

"We have lost everything and yet we have lost nothing," said Paul, a former New York City cab driver who also worked in New Jersey. "It can't be anything but a miracle."

Paul is a tough boss, demanding high standards from his staff of 17 and a sense of discipline from the children who learn English and arithmetic at his school. He is never happy to hear dinner is late at the orphanage, or to hear that Seker put himself in charge of disciplining younger children.

"But I will not reprimand anyone," he said. "I will not fire anyone. God wanted all of this to happen."

None of the 56 children, ages 4 to 17, who live at the orphanage was killed. Only one, 13-year-old Woody Dorry, was injured, but he said "I am OK," as he stood outside what looks like one long flat slab of concrete, the roof that crushed the church, the dining room and the school.

Woody was inside the orphanage residence when the building began to sway and knew he should leave quickly. He slipped and hit his head against the wall. The residence where the children sleep suffered only minor damage. "Everything was moving and swaying," he said.

In the dusty, broken streets surrounding the church, men, women and children put out their mattresses to sleep outside. Some because their homes were destroyed, others because they fear being trapped in a shaky house when an aftershock hits.

The church is located in La Plaine, just outside Port-au-Prince. The area is jammed with people who have come to escape the horror of the capital city.

Paul, 51, came here seven years ago after he was nagged by a recurring dream. In it, someone reminded him of a promise he had made years earlier as a child when a Presbyterian missionary brought him to Brooklyn after his father died.

"I said I would go back to Haiti to help the children, but I never did," Paul said. He studied theology but then he went to technical school and learned how to build homes. He worked as a cab driver and saved enough to start his own business after moving to Atlanta. He married his wife, Jocelyn, a nurse, and had four children.

"This man in the dream said I must go to Haiti, or he would send someone else," Paul said.

After a near-fatal car accident, Paul decided it was time. With help from the Presbyterian Church in America, Paul bought the residence and began building his church. He was trying to raise money to build a second floor when the earthquake struck.

It's not easy to raise money for an orphanage in Haiti. But it's not difficult to find children for it.

"People know we are there and just leave their children with us," Paul said.

The parents of some of the orphans were killed in the political violence that has plagued Haiti for decades. Others died of AIDS.

"Each child has a story," said Paul, who usually returns to Atlanta for a month after staying three months in Haiti.

Paul said he will try to rebuild but he's not sure how or whether he should even ask God to help him. He thought of that the night after the earthquake. He went outside his residence. Because there was no light anywhere, because there was no moon, the night was black and, above him, the sky shimmered with stars. He looked up and realized he received enough, the gift of his orphans' lives.

"You will decide," he told whatever was behind the stars.

(Bob Braun writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

CAIRO - Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old temple that may have been dedicated to the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said Tuesday. The ruins of the Ptolemaic-era temple were discovered by Egyptian archaeologists in the heart of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.

The city was the seat of the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled over Egypt for 300 years until the suicide of Queen Cleopatra.

The statement said the temple was thought to belong to Queen Berenice, wife of King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C.

Mohammed Abdel-Maqsood, the Egyptian archaeologist who led the excavation team, said the discovery may be the first trace of the long-sought location of Alexandria's royal quarter.

The large number of statues depicting Bastet found in the ruins, he said, suggested that this may be the first Ptolemaic-era temple dedicated to the cat goddess to be discovered in Alexandria.

This would indicate that the worship of the ancient Egyptian cat-goddess continued during the later, Greek-influenced, Ptolemaic period, he said.

Statues of other ancient Egyptian deities were also found in the ruins, he added.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist, said the temple may have been used in later times as a quarry as evidenced by the large number of missing stone blocks.

Modern Alexandria was built squarely on top of the ruins of the classical-era city and many of its great temples, palaces and libraries remain undiscovered.

The temple was found in the Kom el-Dekkah neighborhood near the city's main train station and home to a Roman-era amphitheater and well preserved mosaics.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

AUBURN, Ala. -- The Rev. Joseph Lowery, an icon of the 1960s civil rights movement, cautioned an Auburn University audience not to "sanitize" the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s achievements.

Speaking at an event to mark King's birthday on Friday (Jan. 15), Lowery said some have hijacked King's dream, using it and ensuing advancements in civil rights to try to derail affirmative action.

"I'm serious about the need to recapture the spirit of affirmative action," he said. "Affirmative action, in my mind, is not preferential treatment. It is intentional. It is being as intentional about closing the gap as we were about creating the gap."

And he said people today should not honor King as a missionary and ignore his mission.

"We must not let them put Martin on this rotunda of sentimental irrelevancy and declare him a glorified social worker," he said. "I have nothing against social workers, but he was a militant but nonviolent revolutionary."

Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King and others in 1957, said the median income of African-Americans is still about 67 percent of whites in America.

"That's no accident, but we cannot close that gap if we think we're going to close it by osmosis, incidentally or accidentally," he said.

Lowery, who referred to himself as a "Northerner" because he's originally from Huntsville, Ala., said it was never the purpose of the civil rights movement "to defeat white folks."

"It was to defeat policies put in place by white folks who held the reins of power, and in defeating that policy we found our way to freedom," he said.

Lowery touched briefly on gay rights, saying he favored civil unions, but would not support gay marriage.

"The problem is the word `marriage,"' he said. "The opposition would be less intense if you just stayed on the word `civil union.' The problem is when you say `marriage,' it sends us into cultural shock."

But Lowery said he wants to "come down, if I err, on the side of love, not hate, on the side of inclusion, not exclusion, on the side of tolerance, not intolerance."

Lowery gave the benediction at President Obama's inauguration. "I have one regret about the inauguration," he quipped. "There I stood with 2 million people in my congregation, and I couldn't figure out a way to take up a collection."

-- Bob Lowry

MIAMI - Haiti's limitless poverty and hardship have long drawn aid groups and charities from across the world. Now the same people who tried to do good before the earthquake find themselves trapped in the rubble, out of touch with their loved ones and struggling to carry on their missions.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Haiti was killed. Thirty-six United Nations workers were killed; almost 200 more were missing or trapped in their collapsed headquarters. Missionaries, students, doctors and others are missing or out of contact.

"This earthquake is really too much," the Rev. Duken Augustin, a Roman Catholic priest, wrote in an e-mail from his home in Cap Haitien, where he works for the U.S.-based Food For The Poor charity. "No (break). No chance. We will have to deal with new needs, new sufferings, new situation of hunger, new despair, new devastation."

Aid groups face a difficult balancing act: Trying to meet the unbelievable needs of the Haitian people while finding their own missing colleagues and assessing the damage to their own orphanages, clinics, shelters and kitchens.

HealingHaiti.org, a Christian aid group based outside St. Paul, Minn., has only gotten trickles of information from Haiti, but this much has surfaced: One of its orphanages is damaged, the fate of another and its occupants unknown. The director of its Haiti outreach lost his home; he and his family have been sleeping in the street. An American staffer survived the quake but was trying to find his daughter. Their home for disabled children was destroyed, but there was no word on the occupants' fates.

"It's unbelievable," said Jeff Gacek, HealingHaiti's director. "It's literally hell on earth."

Relatives of church group members from several New Jersey churches struggled to get in touch with loved ones who arrived in Port-au-Prince just hours before the quake. A couple from Wauwatosa, Wis., who helped set up a dental clinic in Haiti's capital has been unable to reach the dentist who runs it. Members of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas learned Thursday that their 12 missionaries had left Haiti, but several had been injured.

David Adams of the Christian relief agency Cross International was about 100 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck, and was trying to determine whether to ship some food from the orphanage he was in to the capital.

"We have two containers with dried food, but we have to be concerned about the kids here," Adams said. "We're in a village with over 600 children. We can just predict from past disasters that getting food in here from the outside world or even from Port-au-Prince is going to be very hard. So we're willing to give up some of it, but we have to be careful we keep some of it for the kids."

For most of the charities, helping Haitian victims was still the priority even with paralyzing fear about what happened to their colleagues. The International Committee of the Red Cross said a third of the country's 9 million people may need emergency aid, a burden that would test any nation, let alone Haiti.

"When something like this happens and you're on the ground you kind of know that there's going to be help on the way," said Chuck Malkus of Neighbors 4 Neighbors, another group working in Haiti. "But instead of thinking about that, your immediate concern is those that you're surrounded by everyday."

"Having personal ties makes people even more focused on launching a successful response," said Andrea Kaufmann of the Christian charity World Relief in Baltimore, which has been unable to account for about 12 of its 40 local staffers in Haiti.

The Florida Baptist Convention has heard from only two of its 21 workers since the quake, spokeswoman Barbara Denman said. A four-person team plans to fly to Haiti this weekend to check on both the convention's workers and a 50-bed guest house in Port-au-Prince that could become a center for relief teams in coming weeks.

"We do not know if it is still there. We have seen some pictures of the street our guest house is on, and there does not look to be a great deal of damage. But we will not know until we get there," she said.

Associated Press writers Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Joan Lowy in Washington; Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis; Beth DeFalco in Trenton, N.J.; Jamie Stengle in Dallas; Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee; and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI defended his plan to make it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, saying that it served the "ultimate purpose" of dialogue between the two denominations.

The pope spoke on Friday (Jan. 15), at a special plenary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic church's highest doctrinal authority.

Some Anglicans have criticized the Vatican's move as a blow to ecumenical relations.

On Friday, however, Benedict insisted that the plan "is not in any way contrary to the ecumenical movement, but shows, instead, its ultimate purpose which consists in reaching full and visible communion of the disciples of the Lord."

In the same speech, which reviewed the congregation's recent work on a number of matters, the pope also rejected charges that Catholic bioethical teachings, such as a ban on high-tech fertility treatments, pose an "obstacle to freedom and scientific research."

"In response to such attitudes, which tend to replace the truth with a fragile and easily manipulated consensus," Benedict said, Christianity offers "morally trustworthy perspectives within which human reason can seek and find valid solutions" to ethical problems.

-- Francis X. Rocca

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

(RNS) A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday (Jan. 14) that a Kentucky county courthouse can keep its Ten Commandments display, overturning a lower court ruling.

The "Foundations of American Law and Government Display," at a Grayson County, Ky., courthouse included the biblical laws along with eight other historical documents. It was challenged by two men who thought its placement violated the Constitution's prohibition against the government establishing a religion.

In a 2-1 decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying the display presented an educational, not religious message.

"There is nothing about the setting of the display that would be viewed as encouraging or lending itself to prayer, meditation or other religious activity," wrote Circuit Judge David W. McKeague for the majority.

He said the men challenging the display, who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, "failed to present evidence sufficient to demonstrate that an objective observer could have concluded that the county's asserted secular purpose was a sham."

In a dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore, disagreed with that conclusion: "The evidence ... clearly indicates that the predominant purpose was to post the Ten Commandments as a religious text and that the additional, `Historical Documents' were added merely to avoid violating the Constitution."

Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, who represented the county, hailed the decision. "It defies common sense to remove a recognized symbol of law from a court of law," he said.

-- Adelle M. Banks

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.