wfn.org | Commission seeks action on sports symbols, profiling

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 20, 2003	News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202) 546-87227Washington 
   10-21-31-32-34-71B{158}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - The United Methodist agency for monitoring racial
concerns within the denomination and society will be sending at least six
pieces of legislation to the church's highest legislative assembly next year.

The churchwide Commission on Religion and Race is again raising its concern
about the use of Native American names and symbols for sports teams. When the
2000 General Conference met in Cleveland, the commission and the church's
Native American caucus voiced strong opposition to the Cleveland Indians'
name and Chief Wahoo symbol. In 1996, the General Conference termed such
names and symbols "demeaning."

In a recent semi-annual meeting, the commission finalized a resolution that
it will send to the 2004 General Conference, asking the assembly to call upon
the denomination's general agencies, annual (regional) conferences and other
church bodies to hold meetings and events in cities that do not sponsor sport
teams with Native American names and symbols. 

If approved by the 2004 General Conference as written, the church would also
be committed to publicizing this policy.

In another General Conference resolution, the commission asks that the
church's Council of Bishops send official communications to President George
Bush, Congress and Attorney General John Ashcroft calling for the elimination
of racial profiling. The resolution proposes educating United Methodists
about the problem through annual conferences and local churches, and
encourages them to work with law enforcement officials to eliminate
profiling.

In addition, the commission has outlined a program for affirming the United
Methodist Church's position on the rights of refugees, immigrants and
undocumented people. It seeks to remind government officials of the church's
position on this issue, to promote and distribute statements of these
positions, to encourage the use of "To Love the Sojourner: A United Methodist
Response to the United States Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986,"
and to call on local churches to seek ways to welcome and assist such people
and to denounce their persecution.

A resolution titled "Economic Justice - The Imperative for the Church: the
Minority Group Self-Determination Fund" seeks to increase the amount of this
fund to $3 million a year for the 2005-2008 quadrennium. Established in 1970,
the fund currently is budgeted at $862,500 a year. The fund supports church
programs to help ethnic minority families and communities. The Commission on
Religion and Race administers the fund, processing grant applications twice a
year.

In another resolution, the commission expresses support for continuing the
national plans for ministry with ethnic minority constituencies. 

The commission is forwarding a resolution that asks the United Methodist
Church to expand its racial identification language with regard to local
congregation reports. Specifically, the resolution would include designations
for biracial/multiracial people in such documents as annual conference or
charge conference reports. Currently, churches that choose to report their
congregations' composition have a more limited number of categories to work
with: African American and black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, Pacific
Islander and white.

The commission has also endorsed a resolution created by MARCHA (Methodists
Associated to Represent the Cause of Hispanic Americans) on behalf of
children struggling to survive in the midst of violence and poverty in Latin
America and the Caribbean.

Two resolutions already on the books should be revised, according to the
commission. The group is suggesting minor editorial changes and updating to
Resolution 68, "Inclusiveness in All Dimensions of the Church." It is also
proposing strengthening the language in Resolution 69, "Prejudice Against
Muslims and Arabs in the U.S.A.," in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

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United Methodist News Service
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