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Sunday, June 13, 2004Racial Paradox of Reagan PresidencyEarl Ofari HutchinsonThe great myth is that former President Ronald Reagan did more damage tocivil rights and social programs than any other modern day president. Reagan’soccasional digs at civil rights leaders, and his unabashed tout of states rights,and the conservative social agenda, fueled expectations among manyconservatives that Reagan would scrap welfare, dismantle Great Society social programs,and most importantly torpedo affirmative action. At his first press conferencethe week after his inauguration, Reagan told reporters, “I’m old enough toremember when quotas existed in the United States for purposes ofdiscrimination and I don’t want to see that again.” Reagan’s Justice Department promptly filed dozens of lawsuits to overturn affirmative action plans negotiated with police and fire departments. Some of the court challenges succeeded, some didn’t. But the Reagan administration didnot mount a vigorous, and sustained legal challenge to affirmative actionprograms, or whittle away regulations mandating diversity in government hiring,promotions, and contracting programs that conservatives demanded. PresidentClinton, a centrist Democrat did. He pared away many government affirmative actionprograms, and the successful court overhaul of anti-affirmative actionadmission programs came on his presidential watch. Reagan’s ambivalence on civil rights especially enraged conservatives in the Bob Jones University case in 1982. At first he backed the decision by the Justice Department to overturn an IRS decision denying a tax exemption to BobJones which banned interracial student dating. When civil rights leaders denouncedthe decision, Reagan quickly reversed gears, and dropped the issue. Ultimately the Supreme Court upheld the IRS. At the end of Reagan’s first term in 1984, his Justice Department broughtfewer civil rights suits in housing, education and voter discrimination casesthan during President Jimmy Carter’s first term. Yet, at a press conference, a defensive Reagan declared that “he felt no higher duty than to defend the civilrights of all Americans.” Though civil rights leaders mocked him and ridiculedhis claim, Reagan’s Justice Department was far more aggressive in prosecuting, and getting convictions, in high profile police abuse and racially motivated murder cases than the Carter administration. Reagan continued to be especially sensitive, and on occasion speak out, on the issue of racially motivated violence. In his last message to Congress before departing the White House in 1988, Reagan claimed that his Justice Department had prosecuted more criminal civilrights cases than any other administration in American history. Though civilrights leaders continued to assail Reagan’s record on civil rights enforcement,Reagan’s Justice Department had taken a genuine activist role in criminal civilrights enforcement. That exemplary record was due in part to the diligence offederal prosecutors, and, despite popular belief, to the weak history ofcriminal civil rights enforcement during the administrations of moderate andliberal Democrats, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter. Civil rights leaders also worried that Reagan would dump the 1965 Voting Rights Act enacted During Johnson’s administration. Reagan gave every appearance that he would do just that. During the 1980 presidential campaign, he publiclybranded the voting rights act “humiliating to the South.” This delightedwhite Southerners. But once in office Reagan promptly did a volt face. In 1982, heapproved a 25-year extension of the Act. This insured that black voting rollswould continue to rise, the number of black elected officials would continueto surge, and that the Democratic Party would remain competitive in localraces in the South. Then there was the King holiday. The instant that King was gunned down inMemphis in 1968, civil rights and black congressional Democrats demanded theCongress make King’s birthday a federal holiday. For a decade and a half, thebill languished in Congress, and the attacks on King’s character and radicalpolitics grew more intense. Eventually, mass black pressure, and the relentlesslobbying efforts of liberal Democrats, and moderate Republicans paid off.Congress passed the King holiday bill in October 1983. Despite massive pressure fromNorth Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, and King critics, and Reagan’s deeppersonal misgivings about the King bill and King, he signed the bill a month later.This made him the first and likely the last American history to sign a billcommemorating an African-American with a national holiday. At a Kingobservance, the year after the holiday officially was celebrated in 1986, Reagandenounced racial bigotry and discrimination. Reagan, in effect, wrapped himself inKing’s mantle. Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush junior have followed that precedentand on every King holiday evoke his name and speak out against racialdiscrimination. Civil rights leaders still tag the Reagan presidency the single worst periodfor racial progress in recent U.S. history. But despite black fears, and tothe bitter disappointment of many conservatives, Reagan did not end affirmativeaction, dismantle welfare or totally gut social programs. Reagan’s White Houseyears were marked by ambivalence, hesitancy, and conciliation, not the allout assault on civil rights that blacks feared and Reagan boosters expected. Andthat perhaps is one of the greatest paradoxes of the Reagan presidency.Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. Visit his news andopinion website: www.thehutchinsonreport.com He is the author of The Crisis inBlack and Black (Middle Passage Press).4:27 PM - 113 views - 8 eprops - 8 comments - email itThursday, June 10, 2004Euphemisms Tempt Christians to Conveniently Shed Guilt of Sin'Intelligent, educated, religious people embrace illogical absurdities, set aside God's truth, and the well-being of others,' when immoral actions are not defined as sin.By JOHN W. KENNEDYCertainly the notion of sin isn't discussed much in society anymore. But now the very terms for sinful activities, much of them involving sexual immorality, are disappearing from common language.Pornography? That's "adult" entertainment.Abortion? It's really about "choice."Adultery? "Affair" sounds more exotic.Fornication has long been treated as an outdated term in modern language, but for many people the very concept of premarital sex is somewhat vague. If there's a news story on teenagers and sex, usually the qualifying word mentioned is "unprotected."How do such euphemisms affect Christians? Gary R. Allen, Ministerial Enrichment national coordinator for the Assemblies of God, says wider acceptance is the result when Christians don't define immorality as sinful."When cultures and fads change, we mislabel the core of deadly sin," says Allen, 58. "If you take the barbs off barbed wire, eventually it doesn't hurt to go through the fence."At the same time as biblical notions of sin have been altered, God is being removed from the public square, both legally and metaphorically. Recently, numerous Ten Commandments displays have been dismantled from in front of county courthouses and crèches removed from city parks.Christmas vacation at public schools is now referred to as winter break. During the Christmas shopping season last year, a growing list of retailers -- including Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Home Depot -- advised employees to offer customers a happy holiday rather than a merry Christmas.Charlie Self of Bethel Church of San Jose, California, sees a danger of such amended language causing a society to forget God and to lapse into moral degeneracy as described in Romans 1:18-32. "By the end of the process, people actually are advocating what they know is contrary to the original version of truth," says Self, 45, education pastor at the Assemblies of God church.Self cites Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as a ringleader in transforming the nation's thought processes. Half a century ago, Hefner found a new name, sexual liberation, for an old sin pattern -- lust. While initially denounced as a degenerate rebel, Hefner in many quarters now is revered as a visionary pioneer. In fact, those who hold to the traditional sanctity of marriage are often berated for being intolerant.The same pattern is evident this year with the homosexual marriage trend. Those standing up for moral absolutes are criticized as repressive, as if a union between a man and woman is somehow outdated.While Christians should avoid language that whitewashes sinful behavior, Allen and Self say believers need to avoid inflammatory statements as well when debating non-Christians. "Christians shouldn't go out of their way to be hostile," Self says. "If you call two homosexuals who are living together 'sodomites,' it builds a barrier." Likewise, rather than "baby killer," some advise Christians to use the neutral term: abortionist.Perhaps more than any other behavior, the rhetoric of abortion since its legalization 31 years ago has been an agent for changing perceptions.Some Christians have been convinced that a compassionate position is to say they wouldn't have an abortion personally, but they support the right of others to choose for themselves."This generation of Christians is the first to find something good in what God has condemned," says author-lecturer Jean Staker Garton of Benton, Arkansas. "Scripture is clear. Church history is clear. The taking of innocent, unborn life is an abomination to God."Intelligent, educated, religious people embrace illogical absurdities that set aside not only God's truth, but also our responsibility for the well-being of others," Garton, 75, said. "When you shine the light of common sense on deceptive language couched in medical, philosophical or intellectual terms, the logic evaporates. Moral choices require that we use language to describe reality."Garton fell into believing the false messages in 1969, when, pregnant with her fourth child, she decided to obtain an abortion. She accepted such feminist concepts as every child should be a wanted child and every woman should have a right to choose. But back then, before Roe v. Wade, she couldn't find an abortionist. Garton had the baby, but also joined an abortion-rights group. There she learned doublespeak, to never give any humanity to the baby in the womb.Concerned, Garton -- who at the time taught college students the power of political and advertising rhetoric -- did a systematic search to see what Scripture says about unborn life. She repeatedly found in the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Paul's epistles that God's personal call happened before birth."When words are warped and twisted perversely, they're eventually emptied of their true meaning," Garton says. She asked the Lord's forgiveness, and became an outspoken critic of Roe v. Wade in an era when few Protestant churches paid much attention to the issue.Garton co-founded Lutherans for Life and in 1979 wrote "Who Broke the Baby?," which describes the deceptive language used in the abortion movement. A 1998 update of the book discussed new catchphrases such as "Abortion is a private matter" or "Abortion is between a woman and her God.""The euphemisms haven't changed that much," Garton says. "We think we're tolerant by not imposing our morality on others. But by believing it's a woman's choice we're abdicating any personal responsibility."Euphemisms do affect how Christians react to sin. Long before "wardrobe malfunction" entered the American lexicon at this year's Super Bowl, groups began replacing terms for what the Bible denounces as sexual perversion.Particularly while trying to legitimize sexual sin, businesses go overboard in obscuring reality. Strippers are now called exotic dancers. The seedy connotation of strip joints has been replaced with the upwardly mobile gentleman's clubs.Taken to a ludicrous extreme, pedophiles, in an effort to decriminalize their behavior, now substitute the phrase intergenerational intimacy.Advocacy groups choose acronyms that belie their meaning. For instance, GLAD stands for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders while NORML represents the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws."Such euphemisms lead us to a form of intellectual suicide about which the Scriptures speak," Garton says. "Paul admonishes us to guard the truth and hold fast to words which are sound" (2 Timothy 1:13,14).Watering down language has a tremendous impact on the attitudes of the next generation, according to Allen. "As Christians, do we still flinch at foul language, or has it become familiar and acceptable?"Self agrees. "The fastest way to clean up the public square is to have people who profess moral and religious values actually live that way," Self says. "We have to again become powerful persuasion evangelists of the truth."Source: Today's Pentecostal Evangel7:27 AM - 99 views - add eprops - add comments - email it'Saved!' Brings Down Wrath of Some Christians
By William BoothWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, June 10, 2004; Page C01
LOS ANGELES -- Jesus is back at the multiplex. Following the 50-foot wave left behind by Mel Gibson's dark and somber "The Passion of the Christ" comes "Saved!," a frothy teen comedy set at an evangelical high school. The film is stirring up Christian audiences and commentators, who seem torn.
Jerry Falwell, saying he had not seen the film, predicted on CNN that the movie would "crash and burn" at the box office -- as he clearly hoped it would. Falwell told Dannelly that the movie sounded like a broadside from Hollywood liberals at born-again Christians, the kind of satire that would not be socially acceptable, Falwell says, if directed at Jews, blacks or Muslims.
Dannelly says that "Saved!" is actually doing quite well, thank you very much, for a small $5 million film; it opened last week on 20 screens and, based on generally positive reviews in the mainstream media and audience interest, is now heading into wider release in 500 theaters.
"So the Reverend Falwell is wrong -- again," Dannelly says. This evening he is dressed in a crisp pink shirt and a rumpled khaki suit. He's 40 years old, lives with his dog in a self-described "crummy apartment" and drives a Mazda compact, "which is basically a Ford Fiesta."
As he struggled to get his film made, Dannelly says, he painted houses and toiled in telemarketing. He grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. Raised Catholic, he attended parochial school in the first grade but was expelled for "hitting a nun. But it wasn't as bad as it sounds," he says.
For two years he went to a Christian high school, Arlington Baptist, where he says he was personally "saved" by publicly accepting Jesus Christ as his lord and savior. But again he was bounced from school, this time for excessive demerits -- "though you could get a demerit for not bringing a red pen to math class."
To round it out, Dannelly also did Jewish summer camp, returning as a camp counselor to ride herd over his charges in "Bunk Hertzel." "I learned all the Hebrew songs," he remembers. He describes his current religion as "an ongoing journey."
As a first-time director, who also wrote the screenplay with Michael Urban, Dannelly confesses that he goes onto the Internet obsessively to monitor the buzz about his film. He also sneaks into screenings to listen to the audience.
"I think I made a balanced movie," he says. "It could have gone in a lot of different ways. I don't really see it as a satire. It's more subversive. But it's still a teen comedy -- the teens just happen to be fundamentalists."
The movie is set in Blandsville, USA, at the American Eagle Christian High School, senior year. It stars Mandy Moore as Hilary Faye, the Little Miss Popular who rules over a girl-clique and pop band known as the "Christian Jewels," and who punctuates her sentences with "praise Jesus" the way Valley Girls used to say "like totally." Hilary Faye is a zealot and a comedic stereotype. Interestingly, Moore was previously embraced by Christian audiences for her role in 2002's "A Walk to Remember," when she played a serious daughter of a town minister who helps steer a wayward boy toward good.
Her gal pal is Mary (played by Jena Malone), a much more nuanced role. She learns that her boyfriend, Dean, is gay and so she sleeps with him to save him -- after having a vision of the pool boy as Jesus Christ. Mary gets pregnant.
Supporting characters include an older Macaulay Culkin as a paraplegic cynic; Eva Amurri (Susan Sarandon's daughter) as the school's lone Jew and wiseacre who interrupts a pep rally by pretending to speak in tongues; and Martin Donovan as the flippy-dippy "Pastor Skip," who asks the students, "Are you ready to get your Jesus on?"
There has been plenty of negative reaction. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Film and Broadcasting rated the movie "L" -- the rating given to films "whose problematic content many adults would find troubling." The Catholic film office said "Saved!" included "religious stereotypes, an implied teen sexual encounter, homosexual references, recurring rough and crude language, profanity and several blasphemous jokes."
Ted Baehr, founder of the Christian Film & Television Commission, called it "a sad, bigoted, anti-Christian movie that mocks the Christian faith."
Dannelly says he expected a strong reaction. Just before filming began, the popular Christian rock group the Elms, who were going to perform in the movie, backed out.
Dannelly defends his work as "ultimately a very loving film, not against Christianity, but against extremism, which is very different." He says what is most gratifying to him are the religious viewers "who get it." And there have been many expressions of support.
A typical positive posting on ChristianAnswers.net came from Kelly, age 19, who wrote: "I thought Saved! was fantastic. Yes, it is a satirical look at a group of popular teenagers at a Christian high school struggling with some major choices, and that will freak some people out. And most of the characters call into question their faith, but by the end EVERY character is strengthened by their experiences and renews their commitment to Christ."
Todd Hertz, a reviewer for Christianity Today's Web site, writes, "The movie is ultimately pro-faith and does make some perceptive criticisms of evangelicals." Hertz points out the movie seeks to explore and satirize "the sometimes hateful and hypocritical ways some Christians treat homosexuals and anyone with apparent sin. In addition, Saved! pokes fun at the Christian bubble evangelicals can live in -- presenting their own awards like 'Best Christian Interior Decorator.' These criticisms are valid and could make some of us think about our behaviors -- and that 'bubble.' "
Dannelly says that was his point. He says he assumes he may spend the rest of the summer sitting on panels discussing the controversy over his movie. "And that's okay. I'm really happy to have it out there in the world. The fact that people are seeing it, that's a nice thing."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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