 April 21, 1999
National Notes
___ Court will decide student fee dispute. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court's ruling in favor of students who objected to university fees being used for political and ideological groups with which they disagree. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the University of Wisconsin-Madison places a burden on the free-speech rights of objecting students when it uses their mandatory activity fees to fund such groups. The Supreme Court accepted the case March 29.
___ Court won't hear abortion claim. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from an Illinois man who claimed a hospital should have obtained his permission before performing an abortion on a woman he impregnated. In refusing to hear the case March 29, the high court left standing lower-court rulings that rejected the claim of a man pseudonymously identified as John Coe. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a district court that granting the claim would "impede" the woman's constitutional right to have an abortion as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
___ Land opposes hate-crimes expansion. President Clinton's recently announced effort to include homosexuality in hate-crimes legislation and in tolerance training in public schools is an attack on biblical values and parental rights, according to Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Land called Clinton's proposal "part of a larger strategy by the radical homosexual and lesbian movement."
___ Methodist agency seeks change on gays. The United Methodist Church's ecumenical agency is asking the church's top legislative body to ease the denomination's stance on homosexuality. The Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns is sending a resolution to the General Conference, which meets in May 2000, asking that it change a sentence in the church's Social Principles that declares homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching" while affirming gays as people of "sacred worth." Instead, the agency wants the statement to read: "Although faithful Christians disagree on the compatibility of the practice of homosexuality with Christian teaching, we affirm that God's grace is available to all persons."
___ Books teach about American religion. A new book series that aims to provide materials for discussions about religion in the classroom is being published by Oxford University Press. "Religion in American Life" is a 17-volume series that looks at religion in American history. The books, written by historians, focus on religion's interaction with American culture more than theology. Among the volumes already released are "Church and State in America," "Mormons in America," "Jews in America" and "African American Religion."
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