Supreme Court rules against Cuomo

Yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that New York's "special" limits on religious gatherings violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution. In other words, Cuomo can't arbitrarily choose 10 or 25 people as an attendance limit for houses of worship while 100 are shopping at Costco at the same time. And it was our local Catholic diocese, along with Agudath Israel, that got this nonsense stopped. Happy Thanksgiving ya big turkey!

City violated religious groups' 1st Amendment rights

From the NY Times:

A federal judge ruled on Friday that religious groups cannot be prohibited from using public schools to hold services, rejecting the argument that such use violates the Constitution’s requirement to keep church and state strictly separate.

The ruling, by Judge Loretta A. Preska of United States District Court in Manhattan, was a major setback for New York City, which has fought for nearly two decades to expel religious groups from the schools.

Religious groups that use the schools hailed the decision, even though the city is likely to appeal.

Jordan W. Lorence, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, a group representing the churches, said, “The court’s order allows churches and other religious groups to meet for worship services in empty school buildings on weekends on the same terms as other groups.”

In her ruling, Judge Preska found that barring religious groups did not violate the free-speech clause of the First Amendment. Rather, the city’s regulations were problematic because they violated the establishment clause of that amendment, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Before the ruling on Friday, the city required that churches wanting to use a public school list all the activities that were going to take place before they were granted a permit. If the city found that those activities crossed a line — from discussion to worship — the permit could be denied and the group expelled.

Hindu Halloran

It's Friday. Dan's losing his religion and trying on a new one for size. Go ahead and caption this photo!

LPC making an exception this time

From the NY Observer:

Aspersions aside, the decision to designate the church is a rare one, garnering much attention in the preservation world given that it involves landmarking a notable religious institution over the objections of its owner. The LPC typically avoids landmark designations without the owner's consent, and churches and synagogues around the city loath the concept of submitting to eternal restrictions on their properties, lest they be unable to sell off or change their buildings when finances tighten.

But West-Park has topped the wish list of preservationists for at least two decades, as they've sought to block any possible changes or demolition of the handsome, historic Romanesque Revival structure.

That's interesting. I can think of about a dozen structures in outer borough neighborhoods off the top of my head that have been on preservationists' wish lists for decades. Yet this one, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, they designated.

So what are the criteria used by LPC to designate a building and why do they seem to keep changing?

A U.S. Congressman. A Local Election. Religious Intolerance! (and Whore Ads!)

Original article by Alan Gross:

A U.S. Congressman. A Local Election. Religious Intolerance!

A Queens Crap exclusive!

Walls of separation

From the Queens Chronicle:

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of the “wall of separation” he said should exist between religion and politics in the fledgling America, and the idea has been one of the nation’s guiding principles ever since.

In journalism we have another wall of separation, the one between news and advertising, or a media company’s other revenue sources. Like the one between religion and government, that wall is at times stronger than others, but it’s always there if you’re serious about fair news coverage.

One of our competitors, the Queens Tribune, recently obliterated both walls at once with an unfair front-page story about Dan Halloran, the GOP candidate for the 19th City Council District. Halloran is a former Catholic who converted to a pagan religion, and the story focused on his beliefs. It made no mention of the beliefs of his opponent, Kevin Kim. Instead, the front page labeled Kim the “Democratic victor” and Halloran a “Pagan lord.”

To make matters worse, Kim is a client of the Tribune’s affiliate, Multi-Media Corp., which does political consulting and other services for candidates. The story was silent on the $80,000 Kim has paid the firm this year.

The Tribune story was a hit piece, journalism at its worst, and the financial tie between Kim and the paper makes it all the more unseemly. Many readers were rightly disgusted. We hope the Tribune takes a lesson from their anger and takes a more fair approach next time, and discloses in its articles any financial connection to the people it’s writing about. Queens deserves no less.

Trib managed to piss off people of all faiths

Letter to the editor (Queens Courier):

As a Jewish-American, I was extremely offended by a recent story in the Queens Tribune unfairly targeting City Council candidate Dan Halloran’ religion. My Catholic friends are also offended that his religion is being made into a campaign issue.

Queens is the most diverse county in the country, home of the Flushing Remonstrance, a 1657 document proclaiming religious freedom for Flushing residents, one of America’s earliest provisions for religious freedom. Indeed, the Remonstrance protects the right “to have and enjoy the liberty of conscience without molestation or disturbance.”

A person’s religion is a personal, private matter and should not be used to score political points in a campaign. Diversity of belief and freedom of conscience are at the heart of the American spirit, as millions have come to our shores to escape religious persecution and freely exercise their religion, enshrined in our Constitution’s First Amendment.

In view of the above, I respectfully call upon Halloran’s opponent Kevin Kim and Congressmember Gary Ackerman, who founded the Tribune, to condemn this unfair assault on Halloran’s religious beliefs.

Daniel Egers
Whitestone

The Trib: serious journal or intolerant political rag?

From the Times Ledger:

Despite the sensational headlines the story was rather anemic. What it all boiled down to was the fact that Halloran was a believer in the tenets of an ancient and little-known religion here in the Northeast. It is Theodism and is called a pagan religion because it existed long before the birth of Jesus Christ and Christianity. I Googled Theodism. It provided me with much information on the topic. It seems its practitioners believe in pretty much the same principles as all other religions. To wit, be the best you can be, do no harm to your fellow man and leave the world a better place. There doesn’t seem to be anything sensational in that credo.

Curiosity is one of my strong suits, so I called Halloran for an exclusive interview...I questioned Halloran about how and why a nice Irish Roman Catholic young man educated by Jesuits ended up embracing a little-known religion. His reply was he deeply loved and respected and was devoted to his father. He could not understand why God would take away from him his beloved father who was only 52. He was so despondent that one of his mother’s Danish relatives suggested he might find solace in the religion of his mothers ancestors. It was as simple as that and that was more than 20 years ago. There has never been the whisper of a scandal connected with his choice of a religion.

What Halloran did say was he found it rather ironic his involvement with his religion was an issue, especially here in the Flushing area, the cradle of religious freedom, reaching back to the Flushing Remonstrance, which outlined our First Amendment.

In his conversation he said he found it repugnant to think in the 19th District, which is ethnically and religiously rich, that anyone could and would use someone’s faith to attack them.

Vibrant! Diverse! Enough!

Actually, it's not only in New York or only in Queens. These type of events are celebrated throughout the world wherever people of the Hindu faith build shrines. This screenshot from YourNabe.com.

Instead of hyping "vibrancy" and "diversity" all the time, maybe the Queens weeklies should talk about how none of this would be possible if it wasn't for the freedom of religion this country's constitution provides. Freedom of religion that was first demanded by Flushing Quakers. (The celebration of that happened in 2007, wasn't exactly front page news and has long since been forgotten until the 400th anniversary.) But that would require actually caring about the history of Queens instead of reducing it to running an old photo of the borough once a week on one of the back pages. Queens has been "diverse" for centuries so why do we act like it just started within the past few years? Why do newspapers act surprised that people actually take advantage of the opportunity and freedoms our country provides?

Why do reporters flock to events such as Hindu festivals and condo openings yet ignore many issues of vital importance to their readers? Like how we are supposed to absorb 1 million more people when we can't meet the needs of the ones we have now? How long before our sewers and electrical systems give out completely? How about asking why we are inviting 1 million more people here and how will it benefit the people already here? The latest building boom certainly hasn't benefited the natives as promised. Remember the mantra of more jobs! increased tax base! more money for services! Well, where is it? Why did we give giant tax breaks to developers? Why are we pushing ahead with massive development projects when we lost 3 hospitals within the past year?