Stifling Religion at the Expense of Disaster Victims

If you want a good idea as to the priorities of some Americans look no further than what took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The need for relief was of course great and one of the organizations willing to alleviate suffering was the Calvary Baton Rouge Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The church did so by providing free food through a barbeque to residents of a housing project managed by FEMA. In addition to food, the church also shared the message of the gospel with residents.

Some officials of what is known as the Keta group decided that speaking about the gospel could not be tolerated even if this meant foregoing the food benefits. Keta managed the FEMA project.

Fortunately a letter, authored by attorney Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund, explained the First Amendment rights of church members to the Keta group and caused FEMA to reverse gears. The troubling aspect of this is the extent to which some will go to inhibit the free expression of religion. The suffering of disaster victims is not too high a price to pay, in the minds of some officials, if that's what it takes to silence church members.

Religious Bigotry Disguised as Inclusiveness

A Prison Fellowship essay by Mark Earley titled and subtitled respectively, Selective History; The Cross and William and Mary, cites an instance of intolerance masquerading as inclusiveness. From the essay:

"Founded in 1693, the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia—my alma mater—is the second-oldest college in the United States after Harvard. Like Harvard, William and Mary was founded for explicitly Christian purposes: The Royal Charter listed the training of “ministers of the gospel” and the propagation of the Christian faith among the “western Indians” among the school’s founding purposes.

Not surprisingly, given the school’s history, one of the oldest buildings on campus is the chapel, designed by Sir Christopher Wren who also designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. On the altar stood a gold cross that was donated to the school by the nearby historic Bruton Parish church in the 1930s.

I say “stood” because in October, William and Mary President Gene R. Nichol ordered that the cross be removed from the altar. His goal was to “make the Wren Chapel less of a faith-specific” place and to “make it more welcoming” to people of “all faiths.”

As you probably guessed, Nichol could not cite a specific instance of non-Christians being made to feel unwelcome by the presence of the cross."

But he was in a position that enabled him to act on his own subjective feelings toward Christianity. Too bad he had to cover this as an attempt to safeguard the feelings of others. The fact that Muslims, Jews, Hindus and members of other groups did not complain is telling but not surprising. There is good reason to think they would have been wary of attempts to remove religious symbols from a chapel. After all it might be a synagogue or a mosque next time.

Student Employment

The article On-Campus Employment by Paula Singer, Esq., contains useful information about authorized employment for students with F-1 status and exchange students with J-1 status. The law allows employment for both categories of students but with restrictions. While attending classes, on campus employment is authorized for a maximum of 20 hours per week at the institution the student is authorized to attend. In time periods during which there are no classes (summer vacation for example) full-time on campus employment is permitted as long as the student has the intent to enroll at the institution during the coming academic year. On campus employment is limited to nothing prior to 30 days before classes commence.

Further details are available in the linked article which was informative. These nuggets may be helpful. The author wrote:

"Foreign students may work off-campus only if they have obtained the proper authorization for the employment as follows:

F-1 students may be employed off-campus for “economic hardship” provided they have first obtained an employment authorization document (EAD) from the immigration service.
F-1 students may engage in off-campus optional practical training (OPT) after first obtaining an EAD.
J-1 students may only work off-campus if the employment they have received prior written authorization from their Responsible Officer (RO). Eligible J-1 Exchange Visitors may also engage in off-campus “academic training” with prior written authorization from their RO."