wfn.org | Opposition to Istook Amendment

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (115
notes).

Note 115 by UMNS on May 22, 1997 at 17:10 Eastern (3032 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                          303(10-71B){115}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           May, 22, 1997

Religious leaders launch drive
to defeat Istook amendment

     WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- Members of a three-year-old interfaith
group -- including a United Methodist clergyman -- expressed
strong opposition here May 22 to a proposed constitutional
amendment that purports to further religious freedom.
     The Rev. Philip Wogaman, senior pastor of Foundry United
Methodist Church here, labeled the amendment introduced May 8 by
Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) the latest effort to promote a
dangerous agenda of religious political extremism.
     Wogaman shared the speakers platform with a Jewish rabbi, a
Muslim imam and two other members of the Interfaith Alliance, a
grassroots organization committed to the positive role of religion
as a healing and constructive force in public life. Their
presentation followed a legislative briefing, elsewhere on Capitol
Hill, by Istook and others supporting his proposed amendment.
     That amendment, Wogaman said, "would tinker with the U.S.
Constitution in ambiguous, unnecessary and potentially dangerous
ways."
     He said that the First Amendment already protects freedom of
religious expression, including the rights of students in public
schools to pray silently or to read Scriptures to themselves
during free time.
     Wogaman said that although the supporters of the Istook
proposal say it is an answer to religious intolerance, they "use
some of the most divisive and intolerant language heard in our
national dialogue."
     Ambereen Khan, director of the Washington office of the
Muslim Public Affairs Council, observed that many of the incidents
reported at the Istook briefing as pointing up the need for the
amendments were more than six years old. They do not reflect what
has been happening through education, she said.
     "We are an interfaith America," Khan declared.
     Rabbi Jack Moline and Imam Ghayth Nur Kashif emphatically
agreed that the language of the proposed amendment would
discriminate against their faiths, which do not have a tradition
of public prayer. Moline said the amendment offered Jews and
Muslims the opportunity to imitate Christian prayer practices --
not to practice their own religions.
     The imam said that Jews, Christians and Muslims are
descendants of Abraham and therefore are "from the same root and
believe in the same prophets." The law in the Koran dictates
protection of all synagogues and churches, he said and urged
dialogue to dispel ignorance about other religions.
     The Interfaith Alliance announced that it is launching a
petition supporting the First Amendment and asking Congress to
leave it alone.
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