Somali appeal for foreign troops

Militants have been battling pro-government forces for three years

The speaker of Somalia’s parliament has called for neighbouring states to send troops to the country within 24 hours.

Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur made the appeal as fierce fighting that has spread to the north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, continued for a second day.

Islamist forces battling the country’s transitional government briefly took over a police station and other key buildings in Karan district.

Thousands are fleeing the area, previously a refuge for the displaced.

“The government is weakened by the rebel forces,” AFP news agency quoted Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur as saying.

“We ask neighbouring countries – including Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Yemen – to send troops to Somalia within 24 hours.”

Somalia has been without a effective government since 1991. Its UN-backed, transitional government controls only parts of Mogadishu, and little of the rest of the country.

High-profile killings

Several thousand Ethiopian troops left Somalia in January after a two-year intervention in support of the transitional government.

There are some 4,300 African Union troops are deployed in Mogadishu, but they lack any mandate to pursue the insurgents.

Reuters news agency quoted a spokesman for militant Islamist group al-Shabab as warning Kenya not to intervene.

“If it tries to, we will attack Kenya and destroy the tall buildings of Nairobi,” Sheik Hasan Yacqub told reporters in southern Somalia.

Kenya had said it would not stand by and let the situation in Somalia deteriorate further because it would destabilise the region, Reuters reported.

Pro-government forces have been fighting radical Islamist guerrillas in the capital since 7 May.

On Friday, gunmen killed Mohamed Hussein Addow, a politician who represented Karan.

It was the third killing of a high-profile public figure in as many days.

Somalia’s security minister – an outspoken critic of the militant Islamist group al-Shabab – was killed in a suicide attack in the northern town of Beledweyne, and Mogadishu’s police commander was also killed this week.

Militant groups including al-Shabab, which is accused of links to al-Qaeda, have been trying to topple Somalia’s government for three years.

A moderate Islamist president took office in Somalia in January but even his introduction of Sharia law to the strongly Muslim country has not appeased the guerrillas.

Some four million people in Somalia – or about one-third of the population – need food aid, according to aid agencies.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8110685.stm

Gay marriage could soon become the law of the land across New England — except in the heavily Roman Catholic state of Rhode Island.

A string of sudden successes for gay marriage advocates has left Rhode Island a political outlier. Maine became the fourth state in New England to legalize same-sex unions on Wednesday, while New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is now deciding whether to sign similar legislation.

Vermont lawmakers established gay marriage last month, following a path already set by courts in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Yet the movement has stalled in Rhode Island, perhaps even lost ground, after a stalemate at the Statehouse, a loss in the state’s top court and continued opposition from religious leaders.

“I do not hear voices raised, voices stating absolutely that this just cannot do,” said Cassandra Ormiston, 62, a lesbian who could not get divorced in Rhode Island after she and her partner married in Massachusetts. “It is not enough to be patient.”

Religion remains among the biggest hurdles. A recent survey by Trinity College in Connecticut showed 46 percent of Rhode Islanders identify themselves as Roman Catholic, a larger percentage than any other state.

Given its size, the church carries political clout. On the last Inauguration Day, every statewide elected official began the morning with a special Mass at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, celebrated by Bishop Thomas Tobin.

Tobin does not hesitate to tussle with politicians, especially on gay marriage. He calls gay unions a perversion of natural law and a violation of an institution that Catholics believe was created by God.

Two years ago, he harshly criticized Attorney General Patrick Lynch, a Catholic, for advising state agencies to recognize the marriages of gay couples wed outside Rhode Island.

“We don’t see it as a civil rights issue,” Tobin said in a recent interview, “because there’s never a right to do something that’s morally wrong.”

Bills legalizing gay marriage have been introduced in the Statehouse every year since 1997. None has ever been approved by a legislative committee, required before those bills could be aired on the full floor.

House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva-Weed, both Democrats and Catholics, oppose gay marriage.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rhoda Perry, a Democrat from Providence, does not expect to get a vote this year. She believes legislative leaders are trying to shield fellow lawmakers from a fractious debate.

“You know your numbers,” Perry said. “So why make anyone even have to vote on something that at least some of their constituents will be upset about if you already know the votes aren’t there.”

Even if a simple majority of lawmakers backed Perry’s bill, Republican Gov. Don Carcieri — another Catholic — would almost certainly veto it. Overriding a veto requires the support of 60 percent of lawmakers in each chamber.

Courts legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but that avenue seems unlikely in Rhode Island.

In 2007, Rhode Island’s Supreme Court refused to let Ormiston divorce her wife, Margaret Chambers. The couple lived in Rhode Island but married across the border in Massachusetts.

In its ruling, the court said it could not grant a divorce because Rhode Island lawmakers have never recognized marriage as anything but a union between a man and a woman.

Frustrated with the slow pace in Rhode Island, Ormiston is parting ways with Marriage Equality Rhode Island, which has locally advocated for gay marriage, and starting a new organization, called Equality Rising, to push harder.

“It is not enough to wait until we no longer have opposition,” she said.

It might become slightly easier for those looking to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island when Carcieri finishes his second and final term as governor in January 2011. Potential candidates including former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, an independent, and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts and Attorney General Patrick Lynch, both Democrats, support gay marriage.

General Treasurer Frank Caprio, also a Democrat, said he would not veto a gay marriage bill if he were elected governor.

Original URL: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/08/gay-marriage-momentum-new-england-stalls-rhode-island/

In a lawsuit filed during the Bush Administration, the Freedom From Religion Foundation claims the day violates the separation of church and state. It asks the judge to declare the law unconstitutional and to order presidents and governors to stop issuing prayer proclamations such as the one expected from Obama today.

But the lawsuit also claims federal and state governments work too closely with the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a conservative Christian group led by Shirley Dobson, the wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. The task force calls for the prayer proclamations, the suit says, and suggests specific Scripture to quote in them.

That accusation does not apply to the Obama administratio. In fact, Obama has taken it on the chin from Dobson’s group for not hosting a White House ceremony to mark the National Day of Prayer.

“We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration,” said Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, who for the past eight years has attended a White House ceremony with her husband. “At this time in our country’s history, we would hope our president would recognize more fully the importance of prayer.”

To imply that Obama does not recognize the power of prayer is ridiculous, one White House official said. Supporters say his battle to dismiss the Wisconsin suit should demonstrate that.

“President Obama is a committed Christian and believes that we should be engaging Americans of faith in efforts to renew our country,” the official said. “He is following the tradition of Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and others by signing a proclamation honoring the National Day of Prayer, while continuing to work with communities of faith to improve our country.”

The National Day of Prayer became law in 1952 under President Harry Truman following a six-week crusade in the nation’s capital led by Rev. Billy Graham. Members of the House and Senate introduced a joint resolution for an annual National Day of Prayer, “on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.”

One senator called the resolution a measure against “the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

But the idea was not new. It had been proposed and rejected several times. In an 1808 letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the time for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and right can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.”

James Madison expressed doubts about National Days of Prayer in 1817 when he wrote “they seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion.”

After Truman signed it into law, President Ronald Reagan amended it in 1988 to state that the observances would be held the first Thursday in May.

Ron Millar, acting director for the Secular Coalition of America, commended the decision to discontinue Bush’s traditional ceremony.

He said the ceremony championed the Religious Right more than it promoted prayer. Either way, it’s not something the federal government should encourage, he said.

“It’s a nice first step,” Millar said. “Generally, we don’t want the federal government to endorse prayer because it’s endorsing a specific religion. We’d rather them not be in that business. It would be difficult to be all inclusive on this.”

Last month, the Interfaith Alliance joined others in urging Obama to support a National Day of Prayer and Reflection, “that restores and respects our nation’s best values by explicitly inviting clergy from diverse faith traditions to participate equally and fully-especially in events held on government property.”

Clarenda Jordan, a member of an online Obama Prayer Team, doesn’t need a proclamation to mark the day and pray. She offered the following prayer to guide Obama’s work this morning.

Dear God,

We have so much to be thankful for! Finally someone is willing to do the hard job of cutting out waste in government. Lord we know that for every program there is a stronghold. Each cut is a battle against those who profit from waste and war against the greater good of our nation. Please strengthen President Obama as he stands up to these forces. Lord please move the mountains and roadblocks out of the way. Let us come out of this valley stronger, wiser, more  efficient and productive as a nation. Please help those who get caught in the crossfire and lose their jobs in the restructuring of our nation. Help them get on their feet and restore them to productive work. Thank you for being a great big God! We look at our circumstances and they  overwhelm us! Our peace and comfort in the midst of it all is in You.

Bless us this day Lord, Amen.

So what do you think? Should Obama publicly celebrate the National Day of Prayer or simply mark it with a proclamation and leave the prayers private and the reflection up to us? Do you have a prayer for the day?

Originally posted: May 7, 2009 on http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2009/05/obama-national-day-of-prayer-.html