US Airways denied them passage on any of its other flights and refused to help them obtain tickets through another airline.

Six Muslim Leaders Removed in Handcuffs From US Airways Plane After Praying in Airport: Broadcast - 11/29/06 - Democracy Now!

After their release, US Airways denied them passage on any of its other flights and refused to help them obtain tickets through another airline. Two of the imams joins us in our firehouse studio

AMY GOODMAN: The president of the organization, Omar Shahin, was one of the six imams removed from the plane. He joins me here in the studio in New York, along with Ahmad Shqeirat, an imam at the Islamic Center of Tempe, Arizona, who was also removed from the plane. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!.
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IMAM OMAR SHAHIN: ... We left the conference hotel to the airport, six of us, ... So, we went and got our boarding pass, as usual. And they promoted me to first class, because I’m an elite member.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re an elite member at US Airways.

IMAM OMAR SHAHIN: With US Airways. Then we went through the security, as normal. Then we went to the waiting area, waiting for our flight. And by then, the sunset time, as Muslims, we pray five times a day, so we decided -- three of us decided to pray that time. Why not six of us? In order to avoid any more attention from people. We picked a very quiet area. We did not bother anybody. We did our prayer in a very quiet lower voice.
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We went to the airplane individually, not together. I sat in my place, first row, first class, which is suspicious also. After that, I found out that they are suspicious of this, too. We noticed that there was a delay in the flight. The airplane is not taking off for almost 45 to one hour.

During that time, I moved from my seat, and I went to Imam Marwan Sadeddin -- he’s a blind guy -- offering him my seat, because he’s a blind old guy. He was very tired. So, he said, “Thank you, Imam Shahin. I don't want -- you, being tired for the last three days, go back to your seat, relax and enjoy it.” I went back to my seat, and I wait. Even the passengers were asking, “What's going on? Why?” I said, “I have no clue.” I did not know that time that we were the problem.

Then, after that, we noticed that the policemen showed up, two of them, to the plane. And they left the plane. Then increasing numbers of policemen showed up and went to the end of the plane, and they start removing the imams one by one from their seats. We did not argue with the policemen. We just complied totally and fully. ...

R-Kan Senator stalled Michigan judge nomination over her appearance at a lesbian commitment ceremony says she attended as a friend

Same-Sex Marriage Questions Stall Judge | Oct 26, 9:43 PM (ET) | By SAM HANANEL

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Michigan judge whose nomination to the federal bench is stalled over her appearance at a lesbian commitment ceremony says she attended as a friend, not to give legal sanction.

The nomination of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet T. Neff to be a U.S. District Court judge is on hold because Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., is not satisfied with her response to questions about her views on same-sex marriage, a spokesman for the senator said Thursday.

Neff's status has been in limbo since last month, when Brownback placed his procedural hold - using a technique that allows a lone senator to stall a nomination. Brownback wanted to know whether there was anything illegal or improper about the 2002 ceremony in Massachusetts and how Neff's actions might shape her judicial philosophy.

In an Oct. 12 letter to Brownback that was released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Neff said a minister presided over the ceremony and she insisted her attendance would not affect her ability to act fairly as a federal judge.

"The ceremony, which was entirely private, took place in Massachusetts, where I had no authority to act in any official capacity and where, in any event, the ceremony had no legal effect," Neff wrote.

She said her family had lived next door to one of the women, Mary Curtin, for more than two decades and considers Curtin part of the extended family.

"When Mary and her partner, Karen Adelman, asked me to participate in their commitment ceremony by delivering a homily, it was not different from being asked by my own daughters to be part of an important event in their lives," Neff wrote.

Neff declined to answer Brownback's questions on whether the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage or civil unions, saying it would be improper to address questions that might come before her as a federal judge. ...

For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’

For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’ | By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK | Published: November 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — As Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon for a second week last July, the Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio arrived in Washington with 3,500 evangelicals for the first annual conference of his newly founded organization, Christians United For Israel.

At a dinner addressed by the Israeli ambassador, a handful of Republican senators and the chairman of the Republican Party, Mr. Hagee read greetings from President Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and dispatched the crowd with a message for their representatives in Congress. Tell them “to let Israel do their job” of destroying the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, Mr. Hagee said.

He called the conflict “a battle between good and evil” and said support for Israel was “God’s foreign policy.”

The next day he took the same message to the White House.

Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming. Many on the left, in turn, fear that such theology may influence decisions the administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East. ...

Baptist Convention told: Muslims 'are here to take over our country'

Baptist Convention told: Muslims 'are here to take over our country' | By Tim Townsend | ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH | 11/01/2006

CAPE GIRARDEAU — The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures are known for their warnings of doom and gloom, but even Jeremiah — arguably the gloomiest Old Testament sage — would have tipped his hat to the Rev. David Clippard at the Missouri Baptist Convention's annual meeting here this week.

In his opening address Monday night at Southeast Missouri State's Show Me Center, Clippard sounded off about a number of issues facing the state's 600,000 members, from a dwindling number of young churchgoers to the evils of embryonic stem cell research to falling contributions for international mission trips.

Clippard is the executive director of the state Convention, a fellowship of 2,000 congregations who cooperate with the 16-million member Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Baptist churches that are members of the Southern Baptist Convention operate autonomously, but cooperate on many issues. Sen. Jim Talent, R.-Mo., and Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, are scheduled to address the meeting today.

Clippard reserved his strongest words for what he said he considered paramount for all Americans: the threat of Islam. "Today, Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America," he told the 1,200-strong crowd of delegates (called "messengers"), pastors and lay people, many of whom cheered his words. ...
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Ibrahim Hooper, a national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he was not surprised about the content of Clippard's message, but he said he was worried about its effects.


"This kind of hate-filled, ignorant rhetoric shouldn't be coming from religious leaders in our country who should instead be repudiating this kind of bigotry," he said. "He may be comfortable saying these things behind closed doors, but the real impact is on everyday Muslims who have to live with the consequences of this kind of talk."

Gov Perry believes non-Christians doomed: "He doesn't think very differently from the Taliban, does he?"

Perry believes non-Christians doomed | Governor shares views following sermon; rivals pounce | 08:45 AM CST on Monday, November 6, 2006 | By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News

SAN ANTONIO – Gov. Rick Perry, after a God and country sermon attended by dozens of political candidates Sunday, said that he agreed with the minister that non-Christians will be condemned to hell.

"In my faith, that's what it says, and I'm a believer of that," the governor said.

Throughout much of the 90-minute service at Cornerstone Church, Mr. Perry sat on the red-carpeted stage next to the Rev. John Hagee. Mr. Perry was among about 60 mostly Republican candidates who accepted the invitation to be introduced to the megachurch's congregation of about 1,500, plus a radio and TV audience.

"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket," Mr. Hagee said during a service interspersed with religious and patriotic videos.

Asked afterward at a political rally whether he agreed with Mr. Hagee, the governor said he didn't hear anything that he would take exception to.

He said that he believes in the inerrancy of the Bible and that those who don't accept Jesus as their savior will go to hell.

A little later at another stop, the Republican incumbent clarified his beliefs.

"I don't know that there's any human being that has the ability to interpret what God and his final decision-making is going to be," Mr. Perry said. "That's what the faith says. I understand, and my caveat there is that an all-knowing God certainly transcends my personal ability to make that judgment black and white."

He added: "Before we get into Buddha and all the others, I get a little confused there. But the fact is that we live in a pluralistic world but our faith is real personal. And my Christian faith teaches that the way is through Jesus Christ."

His opponents in the race, campaigning across the state with just two days to go until Election Day, criticized the governor, saying his comments were unnecessarily divisive.

"He doesn't think very differently from the Taliban, does he?" independent Kinky Friedman said. ...

But a Wiccan symbol representing earth, air, fire, water and spirit isn't recognized by the federal government for veterans' grave markers

Soldiers' widows sue for pagan symbols on headstones | POSTED: 10:29 a.m. EST, November 14, 2006

MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) -- The Star of David is OK, as are more than a dozen variations of the Christian cross. Even the atomic whirl used by atheists gets the thumbs-up from the federal government.

But a Wiccan symbol representing earth, air, fire, water and spirit isn't recognized by the federal government for veterans' grave markers.

A federal lawsuit filed Monday accuses the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs of violating the constitutional rights of Wiccans because the government does not allow its symbol on headstones in national cemeteries.

"I honestly think there must be some people who don't want to acknowledge that the Wiccan religion should be entitled to the same rights as other religions," said Selena Fox, who is senior minister of the Wiccan Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wisconsin.

Roberta Stewart, a widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan last year, has waged her own personal war to see the Wiccan pentacle placed on the tombstone of her husband, Nevada National Guard Sgt. Patrick Stewart.

Stewart, whose husband was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, was rebuffed by federal veterans' officials when she sought approval to affix the pentacle to the Veterans' Memorial Wall in Nevada, but state officials said they would erect a plaque with the symbol. ...

Megachurch_leader_with_White_House_ties_1103.html">'Megachurch' leader with White House ties quits, ... amid allegations drugs and homosexual affair

'Megachurch' leader with White House ties quits, admits indiscretions
Mike Sheehan | Published: Friday November 3, 2006

The leader of an influential Christian 'megachurch' who has ties to the White House has resigned his authority amid allegations that he had used drugs and had a homosexual affair with a male prostitute.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, who until Thursday was President of the National Association of Evangelicals, has apparently admitted to some of the claims made by Mike Jones, a bodybuilder and personal trainer based in Denver, Colorado.

Jones claimed Wednesday on a Colorado radio talk show that he'd had a sexual affair with a prominent pastor, but did not give names at the time. Jones and Haggard were later identified by a Denver TV news station. ...

Creationist Dr. Dino goes to jail

Creationist Dr. Dino goes to jail
Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and the Dinosaur Adventure Land creationist theme park in Florida ("where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!"), and his wife face more than 200 years in jail for tax fraud. (Previous post with background here.) Yesterday, Dr. Dino was found guilty on 58 counts, including not paying an $845,000 employee-related tax bill. From the Pensacola News Journal ...