Current Issues in Religious Tolerance

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Sanity Prevails

A federal judge has ruled that officials in Florida may not prevent a
local church from participating in an annual holiday light display,
reports the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

Officials in Broward County violated church members’ First
Amendment rights when they forbade the Calvary Chapel from putting up
a display for the popular Holiday Festival of Lights.

The judge took made the novel argument that it is unconstitutional to
discriminate on the basis of viewpoint.

The display will feature a cross and the words: "Calvary Chapel Says
Jesus is the Reason for the Season" to minimize the possibility that
anyone would mistake it for a government-sponsored message.


Truth Hurts

The European Union shelved a report it commissioned on anti-Semitism
in member states because it pointed out that Muslims were behind many
of the attacks, reports the Financial Times.

The Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia
(EUMC) decided opted not to publish the 112-page study after clashing
with its authors over their conclusions.

The focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators was deemed too
inflammatory by EU officials.



Nonviolence is "Disgraceful?"

A British minister’s demand that Muslims embrace rationalism and
renounce violence and terrorism was denounced in the U.K. as
inflammatory by the usual suspects, reports London’s Guardian.

Europe minister Denis MacShane had planned to tell his constituents in
a speech that it was "time for the elected and community leaders of
British Muslims to make a choice: the British way, based on political
dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists
against which the whole democratic world is uniting."

But MacShane was forced to soften the language after it was called
"outrageous" and "disgraceful" by British Muslim groups.