Christian News

15 May 2004
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Southern Africa

• Aids leaves Durban short of burial space
• Sangomas to join formal medical fraternity
• Highveld stereo guilty of hate speech
• Pro-lifers oppose new push to legalize abortion in Kenya

* AIDS LEAVES DURBAN SHORT OF BURIAL SPACE - Durban's cemeteries department is running out of land for burials and is seeking alternative solutions, the eThekwini metropolitan municipality said on Friday. The only available land suitable for burial was also needed for housing, industrial development and agriculture, said Thembinkosi Ngcobo, eThekwini's head of parks, recreation, cemeteries and culture. Ngcobo said it was estimated that more than 12ha land were needed in the eThekwini region every year to accommodate the increased death rate from HIV/Aids.
There were alternatives to traditional burials, but these were not always culturally accepted. Cremations cost as little as R350 plus R120 for a lightweight "shell" coffin.
Another possibility is recycling family graves. Recycled graves are used for the burial of more than one family member. The council discourages the pouring of concrete on graves since that makes recycling difficult.
Ngcobo said regular maintenance of such graves would be carried out, and "acceptable standards" would be adhered to.
(iafrica.com, 14 May 2004) (to index)

* SANGOMAS TO JOIN FORMAL MEDICAL FRATERNITY - A POUCH of bones and shells is worlds apart from a stethoscope, but sangomas are set to become part of the formal healthcare industry.
With at least 10 times as many traditional healers as registered medical doctors in South Africa ( between 250 000 and 400 000 traditional practitioners compared with 23 000 registered doctors), the Traditional Health Practitioners Bill could have a major impact on the costs and running of medical aid schemes.
The Bill, which requires traditional health practitioners to register with a regulatory council, is expected to come before Parliament this session.
(Sunday Times, 9 May 2004) (to index)

* HIGHVELD STEREO GUILTY OF HATE SPEECH - Johannesburg radio station 94.7 Highveld Stereo has been found guilty of advocating hate speech. This judgment by the Broadcasting Complaints Authority was arrived at when the BCA dealt with two broadcasts on the station and imposed two fines of R7500 for each case. The first was a mocking reference to Reverend Jannie Pelser’s trip to Hollywood in an effort to influence producers of films to stop using dialogue with the profane use of the words "Jesus Christ" in them. The second was the broadcast of phone calls to a Jewish man during Yom Kippur. "The presenters were reckless, if not malicious, in their mockery of religion," tribunal chairperson Professor Kobus van Rooyen said in his judgment.(The Star, 7 May 2004) (to index)

* PRO-LIFERS OPPOSE NEW PUSH TO LEGALIZE ABORTION IN KENYA - Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - Pro-life activists in Kenya have rejected suggestions that Kenya should legalize abortion, following the release of new figures on the number of women who die as a result of "unsafe" abortions.
International Projects Assistance Services (IPAS), an organization working to promote "sexual and reproductive rights" around the world, has released a new report saying that 300,000 abortions are performed every year in Kenya, resulting in the deaths of about 2,600 women.
"Legal reforms on abortion are important to help save lives," said IPAS representative Enice Amissah, adding that her organization would urge the government to change the law to "save thousands of young lives being wasted every year."
The report, released jointly by IPAS and Kenyan medical and legal groups, said half of the abortions in Kenya are performed on women under 24, and in some cases as young as 10.
But Esther Chege of a group called Family Life Promotions said that based on its experience, abortion in Kenya -- particularly in the case of young unmarried women -- was a socioeconomic matter. The solution to curbing the number of deaths was to enable the young women to care for their babies.
"Young, single mothers and even married women who come to us seeking abortion services usually cite the burden of bringing up the newborn as their main reason for doing it," said Chege.
Since abortion was banned and would remain so, she said, the only option for the government and Kenyan society was to find ways to "economically empower" women.
Kenyan law bans abortion except in cases where a doctor confirms that the life of the mother is in jeopardy.
The law is based on the Offences Against the Person Act, passed back in 1861 when Kenya was a British colony.
The Catholic Church in Kenya maintains that the whole concept of a "safe abortion" is misconceived.
Like the mother, "the baby in her womb has human rights too," according to the church's teaching. (CNSNews, 12 May 2004) (to index)

International

• Mother angry at secret abortion
• Anti-abortion rally confronts huge march
• Suit filed to stop same-sex marriage
• Witness recalls compassion, care by American Gis in Iraq

* ANTI-ABORTION RALLY CONFRONTS HUGE MARCH - With a Bible in his left hand and a bullhorn in his right, Jeff Schneider, a salesman from Ohio, directed his scorn toward the sea of abortion rights activists marching past the spot he had staked out along Pennsylvania Avenue.
"You're murdering innocent babies," he shouted, pointing at a huge placard showing a bloody fetus. "Look at the picture -- they have fingers and toes."
Pennsylvania Avenue became the vitriolic front line of two warring factions kept apart by a flimsy police barricade yesterday. Antiabortion activists obtained a permit to demonstrate along the sidewalks between 15th and Seventh streets NW. More than 200 people, many of them carrying rosaries and pictures of Jesus, spread out along the eight blocks, forming a phalanx armed with graphic placards of fetuses as well as newborn infants over the words "celebrate life."
"It's not your business," one marcher said angrily to a man holding an antiabortion placard. "It's my body. My rights. My freedom."
The anti-abortion demonstration, organized by the group Operation Witness, began with a mass in Freedom Plaza led by priests from the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, which they described as an evangelical order. In a brief show of civil disobedience, about 60 anti-abortion demonstrators blocked the intersection of 15th Street and Constitution Avenue, lying in a fetal position and drawing chalk outlines of themselves on the pavement before police ordered them to leave.
Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue and an antiabortion group called the Society for Truth and Justice, dismissed the significance of the lopsided turnout, with about 1,000 antiabortion demonstrators outweighed by hundreds of thousands of abortion rights marchers.
"The fact they have a large crowd means nothing," he said. "There were big crowds for Hitler in 1935. That didn't help him in 1945."
The counter-protesters deployed themselves so that every block had a theme. Marchers passed a block lined by protesters holding pictures of first-trimester fetuses. After that came a block containing families with young children, a block with teenagers, a block with priests and one lined with women dressed in black to mourn the children they had aborted.
"Not a day goes past that I don't wish I had walked out of that abortion clinic," said Antoinette Carr, 42, of Manassas, who has since attended a post-abortion "counseling" center where she imagines the sex of her child and assigns a name to it. Carr plans to start a baby clothing business and name it after the daughter she imagines she had, Anylah.
Randall Terry, a veteran anti-abortion activist, since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, has vowed, "I will come every year until that terrible decision is overturned."
Terry predicted that abortion will be outlawed in another quarter-century.
"Young people are rejecting the pro-choice ethics of their parents," said Terry, 45. "In my lifetime, we will extend the protection of the law to unborn children."
(Operation Witness, http://www.societyfortruthandjustice.com/wash_post.htm , 26 April 2004) (to index)

* SUIT FILED TO STOP SAME-SEX MARRIAGE - Several constitutional-law organizations filed a lawsuit on 10 May against the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in hopes of preventing the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state scheduled to occur May 17.
Saying marriage is an issue for the legislative and executive branches in Massachusetts to define, the Liberty Counsel, Thomas More Law Center and other groups claim in their suit the court overstepped its bounds by establishing same-sex marriage in its landmark decision. The suit asks a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the enforcement of the ruling and to stop the issuance and recording of marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples.
The first-in-the-nation legal marriage licenses are scheduled to be issued next Monday unless there is judicial intervention.
In its November ruling in the case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court noted: "We are mindful that our decision marks a change in the history of our marriage law."
The court stayed its decision for 180 days to allow the Massachusetts Legislature time to respond to the decision. The Legislature then passed an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman only. Under Massachusetts law, however, the earliest the voters can vote to approve the amendment is 2006.
Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, commented, "Judicial activism is destroying our culture. The Goodridge decision, if left unchecked, will have far reaching implications on the institution of traditional marriage that will go well beyond the borders of Massachusetts. This is a national problem that must be addressed now." (WorldNetDaily, 10 May 2004) (to index)

* WITNESS RECALLS COMPASSION, CARE BY AMERICAN GIs IN IRAQ - Families and friends of the American GIs being court-martialed for their mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners are saying that kind of action is contrary to the character of these soldiers. One observer -- Col. Oliver North -- says that while the national media continues to pound out stories about the indecent treatment of some of those prisoners, the truth about the majority of American troops is being obscured.
What are U.S. troops really like? Oliver North recently returned from Baghdad where he spent three weeks with American troops. The retired Marine officer says the true picture of the character of those troops can be seen in what he witnessed as he sat in a medivac helicopter and watched a corpsman carrying an Iraqi on his back.
"And then he staggers aboard the helicopter and places the wounded Iraqi gently next to the wounded Marines, all of them tended with the same battle dressings by that same corpsman," North recalls.
"As he staggered back off the helicopter, a reporter shouted out to him: 'What did you do that for? Didn't you notice it was an Iraqi?' And the young corpsman looked over at [the reporter] with disgust and said: 'Didn't you notice he was wounded?'"
Addressing a Washington audience during National Day of Prayer events, North said that U.S. troops in Iraq are courageous and honorable -- and that all Americans should be proud of the soldiers those young people have turned into.

Cultural Deviance

Still, Americans are reacting with disbelief and anger regarding the mistreatment and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Pro-family consultant Pat Trueman with the Family Research Council says the public should not be surprised that Americans are capable of such dehumanizing treatment. He says those involved in the abuses grew up in a culture that embraces such behavior.
"I would guess that everyone who is involved in this sexual deviance ... is not new to this genre of material," Trueman laments. "They've viewed it on the Internet, they've probably purchased it, they've probably participated in this kind of activity."
This kind of treatment is nothing new, says the long-time defender of family values. "I think there's a common thread in the kind of humiliation and sexual deviance that we saw in this prison in Iraq that you see among pornographers, among consumers of pornographic material, among sexual traffickers worldwide," he says.
According to Trueman, this kind of treatment of human beings can even be found in music videos and video games available through the American media. (Crosswalk.com, 13 May 2004) (to index)